The good news comes from data gathered by NASA satellites, which have evaluated the release of heat by the Earth’s atmosphere into space.  The data, from 2000 through 2011, indicates that far more energy was released — and therefore far less heat was trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere — than the dire predictions of United Nations computer models.  One of the principal U.S. scientists on the project said the satellite observations “suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” and that “[t]here is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.”  If science works as it should, the real-world data should lead to revisions in the computer models and consequent reductions in predictions for temperature change.

The world as we know occasionally seems like it is going to hell, but it is at least reassuring to learn that predictions that we are going to reach Hades-like temperatures in the near future apparently are misplaced.

Consider the proposal to engage in “cloud whitening.”  Humans would spray fine droplets of sea water into the air.  The theory is that water vapor would condense around the salt crystals, producing new clouds or making existing clouds thicker and therefore “whiter.”  Whiter clouds reflect more solar energy back into space than does cloudless sky, so creating more, larger, and whiter clouds should reflect even more solar energy back into space, cooling the Earth.  The theory hasn’t been tested.  Nevertheless, many scientists apparently have seized on “cloud whitening” as a quick way to make a dent in global warming trends.

Now a scientist has announced results of a study that raises some significant cautionary issues about the concept of “cloud whitening.” Her study concludes that lots more salt would need to be sprayed than first thought, and that if we don’t get the size of the particles precisely right we could reduce cloud cover rather than increase it — and thereby increase the warming effect of solar energy.

I don’t know who will ultimately decide whether humanity should engage in some of the large-scale environmental engineering projects that periodically are proposed by scientists — but I hope it is someone with a healthy skepticism about the certainty of science and some humility about the ability of humans to confidently predict the results of their efforts on something as complex as the Earth’s weather systems.  We get all kinds of assurances from scientists and engineers, and sometimes they are wrong.  It’s one thing when they screw up a machine or a theory about how gravity works.  It’s quite another if their tinkering wrecks weather patterns and unintentionally turns Iowa into the Midwestern version of the Sahara Desert.

The crucial point, I think, is to return scientists to their role as objective evaluators who develop theories and then carefully test their hypotheses.  When scientists pursue a political agenda, rather than simply trying to uncover the truth, the science obviously suffers.

Why, you ask, would Russell be listed as an “oil person”?  So far as we know, he has no interest in petroleum products, has never set foot on Southfork Ranch, and doesn’t speak with a Texas twang.  If you look at the source article cited in Russell’s “oil person” biography, however, you see that it is a review of his recent show with three other art students, called “This The Range and Recent.”  One sentence in the review says:  “Two paintings by Webner that were on display use oils to portray digital media and computers in their valiant attempt to simulate war.”  And so, by virtue of that phrase and through the likely use of some automatic Boolean search tool that looks for names associated with “oil,” a comment about Russell’s use of oils in his artwork has made him an “oil person” in the “Carbon Capture Report.”

It doesn’t say much about the accuracy of the “biographies” in the “Carbon Capture Report” that a Vassar art student could be depicted as an oil man.  Given some of the recent revelations about the slipshod science and scholarship in the field of “global warming,” however, we probably shouldn’t be surprised.

Of course, the fact that the recorded temperatures may not, in fact, be accurate does not mean that “global warming” is not occurring — it just means that the temperature data may not be a reliable basis for reaching that conclusion.  It also suggests that policymakers should approach global warming issues with a healthy skepticism, and that scientists need to take a fresh look at reports, like the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that now seem more like political arguments than objective scientific evaluations.

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Again, I don’t know what the actual objective scientific method — gathering confirmed data, testing and disproving hypotheses, and so forth — would reveal about global warming, and news stories like the one linked above just add to the quandary.  It is hard to escape the conclusion that the whole area has been tremendously politicized and that the science has suffered as a result.  If a leading report from a scientific body makes the sensational claim that the Himalayan glaciers will disappear in 25 years and that statement is not even vetted, and indeed the underlying data about the glaciers stated in the report is demonstrably wrong, what does that tell us about the credibility and rigor of global warming science?

Edited to Add:  A story published today quotes one of the authors of the IPCC report as admitting that the information about the melting Himalayan glaciers was added solely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Although Andrew and I come at the global warming issue from different perspectives, I think there is some common ground.  We both recognize that we aren’t scientists, and we both are disappointed that we are now at the point where we question what is the true state of the science surrounding global warming.  I think any fair-minded person who has read about the hacked e-mails and data taken from the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University realizes that, at minimum, it raises questions about whether the science that has been portrayed as reflecting an overwhelming consensus view based on undisputed evidence may be, instead, result-oriented and politicized.

I recently heard Al Gore interviewed in connection with the Copenhagen conference.  He dismissed the e-mails as old and meaningless, and then returned to the mantra that global warming due to human activity is the near-unanimous consensus of the knowledgeable scientific community.  And then I read a piece like this — written by a geologist who is an IPCC expert reviewer — and I wonder how Al Gore can say what he says.  Clearly, someone is not being truthful in their depiction of the data.

Obviously, no rational human being would want the environment to be irreparably damaged by human activity, causing sea levels to rise and turning temperate zones into jungle.   Equally obviously, however, no one should want to saddle our economy with crushing and enormously disruptive regulations, costs and taxes if doing so is not a scientific imperative.  The decision on how to proceed could have huge consequences, and making that decision therefore should be based on actual data and real science.  For that reason, I am relieved that the Copenhagen conference did not produce any binding agreement.  My sense is that allowing time to pass, observing the fallout from the East Anglia University incident, and seeing whether there are fractures in the claimed scientific consensus may help to clarify things and put our eventual decision on sounder scientific footing.

Being a lawyer, my answer to that question is (of course!) it depends.  Glaciers advance and retreat as weather conditions change.  We in Ohio should be acutely aware of that fact because the impact of glaciers can be seen all around us.  During the last Ice Age, advancing glaciers gouged out the Great Lakes, covered most of the State, and shoved enormous boulders hundreds of miles to the Terminal Moraine, which geologists place a few miles to the south of Columbus.  If glaciers were immutable, the location where I am typing these words would still be covered by a sheet of ice hundreds of feet thick and would be a likely playground for the woolly Mammoth and his Ice Age animal companions. 

The question is not whether it is good or bad that glaciers grow or shrink, but why that process occurs.  Is it part of the same natural processes — whatever they may be — that has produced the variable weather conditions, like the Ice Age, that have been found throughout the geological record?  Or, is it the result of human activity and greenhouse gas emissions?  The mere fact that temperatures have increased does not mean that a hypothesis about why temperatures have increased is correct.

This is why, in my view, it is so important to have a legitimate, vigorous scientific debate about climate change, complete with testing and experimentation that challenges the currently prevailing global warming hypothesis.  After all, scientists have been known to be wrong.  When was the last time anyone went to a doctor and asked if they had an imbalance of bodily humours?

I encourage any layman who is interested in trying to piece together the science of global warming and the impact of the data breach to read the attached article.  It raises serious questions about the truth of the claimed “consensus” of scientists with respect to global warming and the validity of the “scientific findings” that are being used to justify the need for massive and crushingly expensive changes to our energy policies and economic structure.  At minimum, the data breach should cause the Obama Administration to hesitate, and revisit the science in a thoughtful, apolitical way, before rushing headlong into agreements and lifestyle changing decisions that are based solely on what may be nothing more than fearmongering and bullying masquerading as legitimate science.

This decision seems extraordinarily unscientific to me.  One of the hallmarks of the scientific method, as I understand it, is to collect data based on tests, experiments, or other procedures, publish the data, and then let scientists elsewhere see whether they can recreate those results by following the identified procedures.  If other scientists can’t recreate the results reportedly obtained by a claimed procedure to achieve “cold fusion,” for example, they can legitimately question the legitimacy of the underlying study that claimed those results.  By discarding the raw data and keeping only data that has been modified in some way — whatever “quality controlled and homogenised” might mean — the CRU scientists have made it impossible to verify, or disprove, their claims.  If storage space was really that scarce, why would you discard the original data rather than the modified data?

I think scientists generally have credibility with the public not just because they are viewed as smarter than the average citizens, but also because they are viewed as neutral, objective observers who are engaged in an abstract quest for truth.   The CRU episode shows just how far that perception is from the reality of modern science — at least as it is practiced by some “scientists.”  When scientists discard raw data, refuse to share other data, and attempt to quash dissenting views, they are not acting as scientists but as proponents of a particular position.  They don’t deserve the credibility that we normally assign to scientific views — and others are coming to that same conclusion.

I hope that our government at least recognizes that this incident raises fundamental credibility issues that cannot be ignored.  Before we spend hundreds of billions of dollars to reshape our economy and our energy infrastructure in an effort to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are the supposed cause of climate change under the global warming hypothesis, which should at least insist that the scientific basis for that decision be the product of true science — where data is openly and completely published, opposing views are fully and fairly heard, and hypotheses are tested and verified.  Until that happens, we are building our policies on faith, not science.

Hacking into a computer is a criminal act which should not be condoned.  However, if this particular criminal act results in greater access to raw global warming data, and increased scientific debate about that data and its true meaning, then it has had some positive effect.  Science should not be a black box.  If global warming is to be used as a basis for arguing that western countries like the United States should make enormous and costly changes to their economies and activities, it obviously should be the subject of robust and skeptical discussion.  If climate change scientists aren’t willing to engage in such debate, that says something about their methods, practices, and status as scientists.  To paraphrase Harry Truman, if climate change scientists can’t stand the heat, they should get out of the kitchen.

I cannot pretend to add anything to the scientific debate on the reality of global warming, or its causes if it exists.  What I find interesting is that so much of the response to the global warming debate is based upon computer programs that purport to forecast the future based upon past data.  The first article linked above demonstrates that the computer models, with their straight-line projection of temperature increases, have in fact been proven wrong by the actual data of the past 10 years.  In any rational scientific world, scientists would scrap the models, reexamine the data, consider other causal factors, identify reasons why the models have been shown to be inaccurate, and engage in a vigorous debate, complete with alternative hypotheses and testing of those hypotheses, to determine new theories.  Some scientists appear to be doing this, but others seem to be trying to defend the computer models by arguing that it is the damning actual data, and not the models, that are wrong.  Such a response does not seem to be consistent with the “scientific method” and instead suggests a political or social agenda.

In any system as complex as the Earth, there obviously can be many potential causes of temperature trends.  Human activity and CO2 emissions could be one causal factor, but as the first article linked above notes, so could sunspots and other solar activity, ocean currents, and the impact of volcano eruptions, among others.  A computer model is only as good as its data and assumptions — every computer model is subject to challenge on “garbage in, garbage out” grounds.

We can all agree to leave the science to the scientists.  In terms of American policy, however, shouldn’t we be more certain of the accuracy of the now at least partially discredited computer models before we undertake massive taxing programs, like the “cap and trade” proposal now before Congress, that would saddle our already burdened economy with additional job-killing costs?

And speaking of boondoggle fact-finding missions, this Wall Street Journal article about rapidly growing congressional travel expenses is an eye-opener. One nice thing about global warming — it is such an elastic “issue” that virtually any trip to any location on Earth may be explained away as giving lawmakers first-hand information about climate change in that part of the world.

It is not surprising that both Republicans and Democrats are willing to spend tax dollars to take fine trips without apparently experiencing an ounce of embarrassment that they are taking advantage of their positions. It’s just another example of The D.C. Effect, where politicians who initially are elected as reformers or watchdogs or representatives of the common man end up being fundamentally corrupted by the money and perks thrown at Members of Congress.