The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars

I love depressing books. Give me characters that make the wrong decisions and slowly crumble ever after because of it. Give me gross injustice. But I want it to be fiction; I like suffering as a concept, as an art, not as something that happens to real people.

I just finished a book that has plenty of injustice and suffering in it; unfortunately, it wasn’t fiction. It made me sad and frustrated. I knew it would. It was “The hockey stick and the climate wars - dispatches from the front lines”; the account of Michael Mann of the creating of the famous hockey stick graph, and the subsequent barrage of the denialist lobby on him, his colleagues, and his work.

The book describes the changing times; it starts with Mann’s early career, when climate science was still just another science. It describes the research that lead him and co-authors to publish the hockey stick in the late nineties, and its incorporation in the IPCC’s third assessment report in 2001. And that was when the excrements hit the fan. As the hockey stick makes the problem of anthropogenic warming readily understandable to all, and featured prominently in something as influential as the IPCC report, it was a target the petroleum lobby could hardly ignore. Mann describes his utter unreadiness  for the attacks that came; he was just a scientist, trained in scientific discourse, and not in mud-throwing with lay people. Very, very recognisable, I suppose, to any scientist.

The cycle of attack and counter-attack followed the political diary; attacks intensified in 2003, as the Climate Stewardship Act would be voted on; if it would pass, emissions of greenhouse gases would legally have to be curtailed. Denialists tried everything to discredit the evidence; none of it stood up to scrutiny, but they did create doubt. And the bill didn’t pass. Because of the denialist lobby? Hard to say, but the fact that that possibility can’t be excluded is chilling.

In 2004, Mann and colleagues realised you can’t fight this battle in scientific literature, as their opponents would generally not venture there. Neither does the general public. If you want your voice to be heard, you have to find other outlets; the RealClimate blog was founded. 

 The RealClimate blog

Then the battle got harder. The year 2005 saw the attack of republican senator Joe Barton, who either thinks, or wants others to think, that any science suggesting the existence of anthropogenic warming is fraud. He demanded from Mann and several others all the information their work was based upon, all correspondence about it, the dates of any relevant meeting, and more of such absurdities. Is there anyone in the world who can give such a detailed account of their work? Luckily Barton had no legal ground to stand on, and the climate scientists could ignore him, but it was clear that the deniers were stepping up their game. If they could enforce such demands, work would be impossible for climate scientists. Exactly the desired effect. And just the threat of this lingering in the air might put people off from letting their voice be heard.

I remember this attack happening; I was doing my PhD in Amsterdam at the time. We were all upset and worried. And one of us was courageous: Gerald Ganssen, our colleague, and then president-elect of the EGU (European geosciences Union), was the first to stand up and condemn this attack. I was proud when I read this event narrated in the book. After the EGU many other scientific organisations spoke out.

In 2007 things were looking up; Al Gore drew global attention to global warming with his Inconvenient Truth lectures, film and book. Together with IPCC, he received the Nobel Peace prize. It looked like the deniers had lost, and science prevailed. But it was not to be. The worst was yet to come.

Then ClimateGate hit the global headlines. Private emails were stolen, and taken out of context. As Mann phrases it: "imagine how unpleasant it might be to have your private emails, text messages, or phone conversations mined by your worst enemy for anything that, taken out of context, could be used to make you look bad". That’s exactly what happened. And the right-wing media lapped it up. And it worked: a lot of doubt was cast, again, and the timing was pristine; the e-mails were published just before the Copenhagen Summit, and everybody knows what a success that was. And if that publicity stunt wasn’t enough, Mann also describes attempts to bribe his colleagues into accusing him of fraud. It didn’t work. And he quotes from some of the hate mail he received. Did I mention already this book is not a happy read?

At the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference (Copenhagen Summit)

Several official investigations were performed to check if anything untoward was uncovered by the hacking of the emails. All investigations concluded it hadn’t: all scientists were cleared of any wrongdoing. Unfortunately, that fact was conveniently ignored by most mainstream media. The scientific community noticed, of course, and was relieved, but the damage done to public perception of climate change hasn’t been undone.

The clearing of the scientists didn’t stop the attacks, either; in 2010, attorney general Cuccinelli tried the Joe Barton strategy once again, demanding impossible amounts of documentation on Mann’s work. Again it didn’t work; a legal base for any investigation was (again) found lacking. But it did clearly convey the message that when you were a climate scientist, you were still considered fair game.

Mann ends the book on a positive note; he says awareness of global climate change is growing, as is insight into the machinations and funding of the denialist lobby, and thereby their credibility. Public indignation on how bona fide scientists are treated is increasingly voiced. Would this time the tide really be changing? Let’s just hope so. And Mann himself? He has clearly not lost any of his fighting spirit. He concludes with “I am determined to do whatever I can to make sure it will be possible for us to return (to the Florida Keys, MHS) decades from now – my wife and me, our daughter, her children, and perhaps theirs – to again marvel at these natural wonders. While slowly slipping away, that future is still within the realm of possibility. It is a matter of what path we choose to follow. I hope that my fellow scientists – and concerned individuals everywhere – will join me in the effort to make sure we follow the right one”.

Florida Keys

I hope countless many people read this book. It provides an unprecedented insight into the war between science and oil industry. And it’s hard to read about an author of such ground-breaking work being bullied and threatened, but it’s uplifting to see it hasn’t broken him. And the book is both well-written and incredibly well-documented; it has over a hundred pages of notes.

While reading it, I did hear the voice of the devil’s advocate in the back of my head. “Of course he would say that! Of course the denialists can’t get their criticisms published in scientific literature – it’s a conspiracy!” And all that. And of course the book is subjective, by its very nature. But if you adopt the assumption climate science really IS a hoax and/or a conspiracy, you have to accept that it has the legal systems all over the world in its pocket. Otherwise all the investigations into the conduct of the conspirators would have yielded something. And if it has such power, than how come it can’t seem to force emission reduction legislation into being? Wasn’t it a conspiracy to bring the leading economic nations to their knees? Not a very effective conspiracy, then. Or is all that power then used to maintain the status quo, where climate science wrongly claims that global warming is occurring, the powers that be are allowed to ignore that and keep emitting greenhouse gases, and though climate change doesn’t happen, the scientists will still get funded to study it? That sounds a bit ineffective too. The only logical explanation of all of this is still, I’m afraid, that climate scientists simply are bona fide. And if nobody listens to Cassandra in a white lab coat, reality will catch up all too soon…

I know most people considering reading this book will already be at the side of science, and it is therefore unlikely to change many people’s minds on climate change. But it does provide a compelling read. Do judge for yourself!

...and some shameless self-promotion to end with...

Conversion of a skeptic. Really?

The New York times let him write an op-ed. The Guardian blogged about him. The BBC had a piece about him on their news website. The Carbon Brief interviewed him. Twitter was buzzing with his name. Richard Muller was the talk of the day. Why; had he discovered something exceptional? Had he found the cure for cancer? Had he solved the hunger problem? No. He had found something out that had already been known for decades. So why all the excitement? I’m not so sure!

So what was the issue? Muller suspected there was something wrong with the current global average land temperature records. So he set out to investigate. Land temperatures are, of course, only a small part of the climate story, but he does have a point that most humans reside on land, and are therefore much more interested in land temperatures. And these are hardly independent of the ocean temperatures; the oceans have a much higher volume and heat capacity than the land (or rather; the atmosphere at a little bit above the surface, where land temperature is traditionally measured). But one can only do so much at any given time. And measuring temperatures is hampered by urbanisation and uneven distribution of measuring stations. So far no problem: it's always good if someone keeps a critical eye.

It took him and his co-workers a few years to trawl through the data. They’re done now; the accompanying manuscript has been submitted to JGR. His conclusions: actually, the records are fine. Temperatures are rising. And he goes further: humans are too blame. So far still so good. It had long been established, but there’s nothing wrong with corroboration.

Muller in action

Was that what all the buzz was about? No, it was about his conversion from climate skeptic to climate, well, scientist. Does it matter? Maybe! People like senator Inhofe have one person less to point at, saying that scientists have no consensus (like these people) and climate change is a hoax. And that’s good.

But does it mean Muller is a lighting example for climate science? No. His article is not yet published; it will be up to the editors of JGR whether he did a thorough enough job for his work to be published. If he does then we have another interesting article. But with Muller it seems not be about what he publishes, but what he says outside science. And that makes my hair stand up. Listen yourself to what he says here. My problems with these things are (in more or less chronological order):

1)    He sees a distinction between global warming and climate change. He only acknowledges the first. He acts as if these things are not related. But every rational person will see that atmospheric temperature is an aspect of climate, and that, for instance, temperature and ice volume are not independent. If you only look at land temperatures you’re missing most of the story. If you think climate change goes away when you disprove a rise in land temperature you’re not a very believable scientist. Just pointing out that some people attribute Hurricane Katrina to global warming, which indeed can’t be done, does not mean global warming is not part of the much wider process of (anthropogenic) climate change.

2)    He claims the US CO2 output is dropping. That’s not in the paper, that’s not a statement backed up by data. I struggled to find recent data on this. This blog gives a graph, and it indeed shows a decline, but the figures are provided by BP, and the report they came from  has a disclaimer that says "BP regrets it is unable to deal with enquiries about the data" so I won't take their word for it. I do hope Muller is right, but I would like him to point out where he got the data from. 

3)    His thoughts on the solution boil down to: change China! I’m not saying China does not pollute, or that it pollutes a lot, but it’s not helping if non-Chinese get all patronising and want to “help” China to develop clean technologies, while proclaiming that they themselves are not the problem and don’t have to cut down on their own pollution.

4)    He dismisses 90% of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth without getting into detail on what exactly is wrong with it. In the scientific community, this film/book is accepted as largely correct.

5)    He attributes global warming to humans, simply by fitting the temperature curve and the CO2 curve. And many of us have done such fitting exercises, but it's not the pinnacle of science. Muller, however, claims he has done a better job than anybody had before. That is blatantly untrue: lots of proper research (like this for instance) has been done on attributing climate change to various causes.

6)    He lashes out at Michael Mann, using false arguments. He for instance says Mann denies the existence of the Medieval Warm Period, while in reality, Mann is one of the main authors to discuss this feature (e.g. here). Do read Mike Mann’s Facebook page, by the way (it’s public); he has gone through the effort of dismissing all the false statements, with links to proof.

So what is my conclusion? I think Muller just likes the limelight. I would pay attention to what he manages to get published, as that will have withstood a critical eye. But I don’t believe a thing of what he says which is not backed up by solid evidence. A man like this might be more a Trojan Horse than anything else: pretend to be a bona fide scientist, and as soon as people believe that, fill their minds with rubbish. Watch out for Muller! And do to him what he did to the temperature records: first evaluate it properly, and only then decide if you believe it or not…

The Greenland story

It was all over the news, all over the world: 97% of the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet melting! Quite a lot of sources, including 350.org,  de Volkskrant and het NOS journal got carried away, and announced, either on twitter or on national TV, that 97% of all Greenland ice was gone. They should have spent a second to ponder this: for instance, the offices of de Volkskrant would be flooded if that had indeed been the case. But 97% of the surface experiencing melt is spectacular enough in itself. Generally, no more than 50% undergoes melting in summer. 97% is really rare.

Some twitter sources also mentioned this event had been predicted. In an article, that attracted quite some attention, Jason Box of Ohio State University, and co-workers, stated they expected melt over 100% of the surface to occur in the near future. So what did they base that on, and were they really that precise?

The map showing decreased reflectivity over almost the whole of the ice cap, which gets the bulk of the attention.

Box et al. studied the reflectivity of the Greenland ice. Reflectivity, or albedo, is one of these things that stabilises ice sheets; it reflects sunlight back so effectively that the radiation can hardly make a start at melting any ice before it finds itself reflected back into space. But if high temperatures manage to get the melting process going, this lowers the reflectivity, and then your ice and snow are in peril. This self-reinforcing process, also known as positive feedback, might well herald your ice cap’s decline. What’s even worse is dirt blown on top of the snow; this may start melt at lower temperatures.

So what did Box and his fellow scholars do? They basically measured reflectivity and melt from a satellite, calibrated these results with observations from weather stations on the surface, and ran a climate model in order to get an idea of the sensitivity of the reflectivity to temperature. And what is so new about this research? Satellites have been measuring the albedo of Greenland for many years, and ground-truthing with weather stations has been done since early days too. But the results of Box et al. go all the way to the year 2011, bringing this research up to date. And their combination of observations and modelling could potentially give new insights in how the process works.

Observations of reflectivity

So what did Box and colleagues find? The reflectivity of the Greenland Ice Sheet is at a low point; 8% lower in 2011 than it was in 2000. And this is not an incident; they have observed a significant trend, though admittedly a short-term one. They further found a 26% increase in melt between 2000 and 2011. And to give you an idea of how much that is: if that rate would remain constant at 2011 level, the ice cap would be lost in roughly 6000 years. And the sensitivity of the reflectivity to temperature? That’s where it gets confusing. Over large areas of the ice sheet, reflectivity only goes up with higher temperatures. This can be explained by warm air bringing in more snowfall. But strangely enough, snowfall doesn’t always correlate with higher reflectivity in their data. And when you look at the sensitivity of the reflectivity to temperature, or in other words; by how much the albedo goes up or down with every degree temperature change, it becomes clear that their data is only statistically robust in the regions that are melting already.

The authors warn that they think summer melting will occur over the entire ice sheet in another decade, if the coming years will be like 2010 and 2011. But that is a big “if”. Box emphasizes only the decreased reflectivity in his own blog post, without being too specific about the lack of straightforward relation with actual melting. The big take home message of this paper might be that the processes governing ice melt are not yet sufficiently understood. And we want to understand it, if only to get an idea what we should do with our coastal defences. The amount of melt in 2011 measured already translates to more than a millimetre of globally averaged sea level rise. And that does not sound like much in itself, but it does when you realise it was only 1.7 mm/year on average for the 20^th Century in total; that includes for instance Antarctica, mountain glaciers, and thermal expansion.

So did they predict the ~100% melt?

Well. In a way they did. But what they really predicted was a shift to net melt over the area that nowadays experiences net snow accumulation, averaged over the whole summer. They did not mention short periods of 100% surface melt. However, you can’t get to net summer melt without, well, melting large areas of the surface once in a while. So people who say “they predicted this!” are exaggerating. But Box and colleagues are right in saying that this event greatly supports their conclusions. Given the uncertainties in their data, this was more a lucky guess than rock-hard data, yet I hope it will attract attention to the danger of Greenland melt. It’s not as if we who are alive today will ever see an ice-free Greenland, but we may well see a Greenland Ice Cap that raises average sea level by 2mm per year or more, and that is something we need to prepare for. Those who love Amsterdam, London, New York or one of these other iconic cities near sea level might wish Box luck in keeping up the good work…

Standing up for Science

“We try to get it right, and we are generally nice people!” If people feel the need to confirm this something is probably wrong. So who was saying this to whom? It was a science journalist in front of a room full of scientists. They should be the best of friends; science journalists wouldn’t have a job without scientists, and scientists would struggle to get their work noticed by society without the science journalists. But a lot of mistrust hangs over this collaboration.

Where did this attempt to bridge the abyss take place? At a course on science communication “Standing up for Science”, organised by “Sense About Science”. The latter is a charity aimed at helping scientists to get their message across, and helping the community to find the scientific support it needs. They were approached, for example, by an organisation of fire fighters, who were worried about clambering around on roofs just next to phone antennas. Would the radiation pose a threat? If one asks internet one can get all sorts of loudly proclaimed opinions, but who to trust? Sense About Science will show you the way!

The glamorous venue at Belgrave Square, kindly provided by the Society of Chemical Industry

Another of their actions has been to write a flyer on the peer review process. For those unfamiliar with it; it is the selection process scientific manuscripts go through. If you send one to a journal, the editor will ask a few fellow experts in the field to review your manuscript. They can recommend publication as is, revision, or rejection. The editor has the final say. As scientists have something to lose by letting standards slip, this process tends to be very thorough. Sense About Science has explained it a bit better than I just have. They point out the merits, but also the weaknesses of this process. And explain the relative merit of peer-reviewed sources compared to other sources. And they have sent 1/2 million copies out in all directions, making it a part of civil service training and a school resource. One could assume many lay people would not be aware of this phenomenon, and might make the mistake of equating proper scientific literature with, say, any polemic in a blog. They also sent a flyer about statistics and how to make sense of them to it to all MP's and lords in the houses of parliament! And I don't know how many of these flyers have gone linea recta into the waste paper bins, but every single one that is read and taken heed of is a major triumph.

At this occasion they had organised a workshop for early career scientists to give them some advice of getting their message across. In order to do that they had invited three panels of experts: one with researchers who had lots of experience with the media, one with science journalists, and one with people such as media officers.

One of the researchers, Steve Keevil of (among others) King’s College in London, had a fascinating story to tell. He was involved in MRI science; something evidently very societally relevant. His field was shaken up when an EU directive would become effective which would seriously limit the use of MRI. All with the best intentions, but in effect severely limiting the diagnostic methods available to the medical profession. He had alerted some powers that be, but these had just said he had to live with it. EU directives are irreversible!

The panel of researchers. With Steve Keevil talking

He had then contacted Sense About Science. They had advised him to send out a press release and hold a press conference. He thought they had gone mad! But he did it. And it caught the attention of the public. And through that, it caught the attention of politicians. Before he knew it he was on a panel that advised parliament. That EU directive has been postponed more than once. And is likely not to be passed at all. Victory!

The journalists, after reassuring us they’re not trying to stitch us up, also had interesting stories. One lady working for science programmes on the radio (Michelle Martin) said she often phones scientists to see if they are willing and able to collaborate on a programme. And that phone conversation is the dress rehearsal. So scientists; don’t save your brilliance for the actual interview; if you do that it may not come!

The last panel included a lady from SAS itself. She encouraged us to become a member of their network “Voice of Young Science” (VoYS); the people they call on if they get a request from the public. They always have use for more people! And it is a great chance to now and then really make a difference. I was glad to hear that you don’t actually have to be below any specific age to join...

A selection of publications SAS has produced

With all these panels the room had lots of discussions, and between these sessions there were group discussions of only the scientists. It was great to hear all these things, get all sorts of new ideas (I’ll start tweeting! And join VoYS! ) and make contacts with all these other people out there who are interested in science communication.

My last question was if someone had a tip on how to deal with aggressive comments. One quite regularly bumps into climate sceptics who think all scientists are part of some nasty conspiracy, and they are not particularly keen on listening to a balanced scientific argument. It’s all part of the conspiracy, right? A Danish girl stepped in there, and said she had witnessed an astronomer being interrupted by someone saying “but the moon landing, that was all fake, wasn’t it?” The astronomer then didn’t open a register of scientific publications based on the moon landing; he just said “if it was fake, don’t you think the Soviets would have found out, and loudly exposed this scam?” I should keep that answer in mind...