The
Independent Institute
The
Anatomy of Climate Science Hype
By S. Fred Singer
Wed. March 6, 2013
A
NY Times science story (by Justin Gillis, March 1) illustrates
some interesting points about science journalism–especially in the
contentious
and politically charged issue of climate change. A scientific journal,
in this
case the renowned Science magazine, wants to gain publicity for its
journal
among the non-scientific readers of the NY Times. So it sends out a
press
release about a scientific paper it plans to publish. Of course, it has
been
“peer-reviewed” to the satisfaction of the Science editor, but it has
not yet
been vetted by the scientific community.
Journalists
who receive the press release think it will make an
interesting story. It appears to involve some new features that
contradict what
has been discussed up till now. And Science has a generally good
reputation.
Specifically, the story claims that the deglaciation of 12,000 years
ago, the
major temperature increase marking the end of the most recent ice age
and the
beginning of the current warm Interglacial (termed The Holocene),
involves also
a striking increase in the greenhouse (GH) gas carbon dioxide.
Investigators
who wrote the paper seem to believe that the rise in carbon dioxide is
coincident with the rise in temperature, as shown by their refined
studies of
ice cores from Antarctica.
This
result has an important history. It starts with Al Gore
announcing a correlation of several sudden temperature rises and
carbon-dioxide
increases during the recent ice age, as judged from analysis of
Antarctic ice
cores. He of course declares that this proves that CO2 has caused
20th-century
warming. To his great embarrassment it was then later discovered that
the
increase in carbon dioxide actually follows the temperature increase by
about
600-800 years. And even a non-scientist must realize that the cause
must always
precede the effect: so the temperature increase must be the cause of
the
carbon-dioxide increase—and not the other way round. The mechanism is
really
quite simple: When the ocean warms, it releases much of its dissolved
carbon
dioxide—similar to warming soda pop or champagne releasing CO2 bubbles.
So
suddenly, the “smoking gun” that Al Gore has relied on collapses in a
heap.
This
makes the new result interesting. The authors actually
suggest that the carbon dioxide increase played a large role in the
temperature
increase terminating the last ice age. All of this sounds very good to
the
journalist who thinks he has a scoop—and to Science magazine that can
get its
name before the public.
Of
course, the NYT editor also plays an important role. He
realizes the political implications: If the scientific paper is
correct, then
perhaps Al Gore’s claim is vindicated and Congressman Joe Barton
(R-TX), who
had criticized Al Gore, is wrong. So the story is published before
anyone has a
chance to see the actual scientific paper and to know what the authors
have
discovered.
Please
note that I’m not suggesting that any of the actual
measurements are wrong. As reported, the work was done by a very
competent
group (in Grenoble, France), which has an excellent reputation on
ice-core
measurements. It is the interpretation of their findings that can be
questioned. And beyond this, it illustrates how science can be used or
misused
in subtle ways to influence public opinion in directions governed by
editorial
policy.
Note
also that the paper has certainly been “peer reviewed” by
Science before being accepted for publication. But all this means is
that the
journal editor sent it to someone he chose and who will remain
anonymous; and
that this “someone” gave him a favorable report. If the editor had
wanted to,
he could have sent the paper to another reviewer, perhaps to someone
who would
have been critical about the paper’s conclusions. The public seems not
to
realize this discretionary power of a journal editor, and how little
the label
“peer review” really means.
It
is customary in stories like this one for reporters to get the
views of other experts, especially those who might disagree. There is
no
indication that this happened in this particular case. If Justin Gillis
had
phoned me for my reaction, I would have asked first of all to see the
paper
before giving an opinion. But even without seeing the paper, I would
ask: Do
the authors list the work of the Norwegian geologist Tom Segalstad, who
described some problems in dating carbon dioxide found in ice cores. He
and his
co-author, the late Polish scientist Zbigniew Jaworowski, showed that
the
errors can be quite large. I would also have asked whether the authors
list the
relevant work of another Norwegian, Gunnar Myhre, who showed the
“logarithmic”
greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide: i.e., rather than proportional,
the
incremental effect diminishes as the amount of CO2 increases. This may
mean
that even if CO2 was responsible to some extent in aiding the ancient
warming,
the rapid deglaciation at the end of the last ice age, its effect may
not be
relevant to today’s situation, where the level of CO2 in the atmosphere
is more
than double the level during the last ice age.
Finally,
I would ask the journalist whether he shouldn’t have
mentioned the very pertinent fact that there hasn’t been any global
warming for
at least a decade, while carbon dioxide has been increasing rapidly—in
large
part because of the construction of so many coal-fired power plants in
China.
What
I’m suggesting therefore is that the story is unbalanced,
one-sided, and should have been edited more severely. By the time the
ice-core
paper appears in Science magazine, all these concerns will have been
forgotten—although as the scientific community studies the published
work in
detail, other problems may pop up.
Just
to give one example: Could the Arctic have commenced the
process of deglaciation a little ahead of the Antarctic? Might that
account for
a slightly earlier release of CO2 from a warming ocean? It’s a
“chicken-and-egg” situation that needs to be looked at more carefully
before
jumping to facile conclusions. But for the NYT, politics trumps science.
Read
this and other articles at The Independent
Institute
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