Guest commentary by Mauri Pelto

For global temperature time series we have GISTEMP, NCDC and HadCRUT. Each has worked hard to assimilate global temperature data into reliable and accurate indices of global temperature. The equivalent for alpine glaciers is the World Glacier Monitoring Service’s (WGMS) record of mass balance and terminus behavior. Beginning in 1986, WGMS began to maintain and publish the collection of information on ongoing glacier changes that had begun in 1960 with the Permanent Service on Fluctuations of glaciers. This program in the last 10 years has striven to acquire, publish and verify glacier terminus and mass balance measurement data from alpine glaciers the world over on a timely basis. Spearheaded by Wlfried Haeberli with assistance from Isabelle Roer, Michael Zemp, Martin Hoelzle, at the University of Zurich, their efforts have resulted in the recent publication, “Global Glacier Changes: facts and figures” published jointly with UNEP. This publication summarizes the information collected and submitted by the national correspondents of WGMS portraying the global response of glaciers to climate change, as well as the regional response.

The health of an alpine glacier is typically determined by monitoring the behavior of the terminus and/or its mass balance. Glacier mass balance is the difference between accumulation and ablation (melting and sublimation) and can be altered by climate change caused variations in temperature and snowfall. A glacier with a sustained negative balance is out of equilibrium and will retreat. A glacier with sustained positive balance is out of equilibrium, and will advance to reestablish equilibrium. Glacier advance increases the area of a glacier at lower elevations where ablation is highest, offsetting the increase in accumulation. Glacier retreat results in the loss of the low-elevation region of the glacier. Since higher elevations are cooler, the disappearance of the lowest portion of the glacier reduces total ablation, increasing mass balance and potentially reestablishing equilibrium. If a glacier lacks a consistent accumulation it is in disequilibrium (non-steady state) with climate and will retreat away without a climate change toward cooler wetter conditions (Pelto, 2006; Paul
et al., 2007).

In terms of mass balance two charts indicate the mean annual balance of the WGMS reporting glaciers and the mean cumulative balance of reporting glaciers with more than 30-years of record and of all reporting glaciers. The trends demonstrates why alpine glaciers are currently retreating, mass balances have been significantly and consistently negative. Mass balance is reported in water equivalent thickness changes. A loss of 0.9 m of water equivalent is the same as the loss of 1.0 m of glacier thickness, since ice is less dense than water. The cumulative loss of the last 30 years is the equivalent of cutting a thick slice off of the average glacier. The trend is remarkably consistent from region to region. The figure on the right is the annual glacier mass balance index from the WGMS (if this was business it would be bankrupt by now). The cumulative mass balance index, based on 30 glaciers with 30 years of record and for all glaciers is not appreciably different (the dashed line for subset of 30 reference glaciers, is because not all 30 glaciers have submitted final data for the last few years):

Nor is the graph much different for North America Glaciers individually or collectively. The next figure shows the cumulative annual balance of North American Glaciers reporting to the WGMS with at least 15 years of recor:

The second parameter reported by WGMS is terminus behavior. The values are generally for glaciers examined annually (many additional glaciers are examined periodically). The population has an over-emphasis on glaciers from the European Alps, but the overall global and regional records are very similar, with the exception of New Zealand. The number of advancing versus retreating glaciers in the diagram below from the WGMS shows a 2005 minimum in the percentage of advancing glaciers in Europe, Asia and North America and Europe. In Asia and Alaska, there have been extensive terminus surveys illustrating long term retreat using satellite image and aerial photographic comparison over longer time spans. Those results indicate that 95% of the glaciers are retreating, but are not fully reflected in the annual terminus retreat data base of the WGMS. In 2005 there were 442 glaciers examined, 26 advancing, 18 stationary and 398 retreating - implying that "only" 90% are retreating. In 2005, for the first time ever, no observed Swiss glaciers advanced. Of the 26 advancing glaciers, 15 were in New Zealand. Overall there has been a substantial volume loss of 11% of New Zealand glaciers from 1975-2005 Salinger et al. ,but the number of advancing glacier is still significant.

That glaciers are shrinking in terms of volume (mass balance) and length (terminus behavior) is not news. What is news is the development of a robust global index of glacier behavior. As a submitter of data to WGMS, I can report that the scrutiny and level of detail requested of the submitted of data is increasing. The degree of participation by glaciologic programs is also increasing. Both are important and will lead to an even better glacier index in the future, with more even representation from around the globe.

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What determines how much coverage a climate study gets?

It probably goes without saying that it isn't strongly related to the quality of the actual science, nor to the clarity of the writing. Appearing in one of the top journals does help (Nature, Science, PNAS and occasionally GRL), though that in itself is no guarantee. Instead, it most often depends on the 'news' value of the bottom line. Journalists and editors like stories that surprise, that give something 'new' to the subject and are therefore likely to be interesting enough to readers to make them read past the headline. It particularly helps if a new study runs counter to some generally perceived notion (whether that is rooted in fact or not). In such cases, the 'news peg' is clear.

And so it was for the Steig et al "Antarctic warming" study that appeared last week. Mainstream media coverage was widespread and generally did a good job of covering the essentials. The most prevalent peg was the fact that the study appeared to reverse the "Antarctic cooling" meme that has been a staple of disinformation efforts for a while now.

It's worth remembering where that idea actually came from. Back in 2001, Peter Doran and colleagues wrote a paper about the Dry Valleys long term ecosystem responses to climate change, in which they had a section discussing temperature trends over the previous couple of decades (not the 50 years time scale being discussed this week). The "Antarctic cooling" was in their title and (unsurprisingly) dominated the media coverage of their paper as a counterpoint to "global warming". (By the way, this is a great example to indicate that the biggest bias in the media is towards news, not any particular side of a story). Subsequent work indicated that the polar ozone hole (starting in the early 80s) was having an effect on polar winds and temperature patterns (Thompson and Solomon, 2002; Shindell and Schmidt, 2004), showing clearly that regional climate changes can sometimes be decoupled from the global picture. However, even then both the extent of any cooling and the longer term picture were more difficult to discern due to the sparse nature of the observations in the continental interior. In fact we discussed this way back in one of the first posts on RealClimate back in 2004.

This ambiguity was of course a gift to the propagandists. Thus for years the Doran et al study was trotted out whenever global warming was being questioned. It was of course a classic 'cherry pick' - find a region or time period when there is a cooling trend and imply that this contradicts warming trends on global scales over longer time periods. Given a complex dynamic system, such periods and regions will always be found, and so as a tactic it can always be relied on. However, judging from the take-no-prisoners response to the Steig et al paper from the contrarians, this important fact seems to have been forgotten (hey guys, don't worry you'll come up with something new soon!).

Actually, some of the pushback has been hilarious. It's been a great example for showing how incoherent and opportunistic the 'antis' really are. Exhibit A is an email (and blog post) sent out by Senator Inhofe's press staff (i.e. Marc Morano). Within this single email there are misrepresentations, untruths, unashamedly contradictory claims and a couple of absolutely classic quotes. Some highlights:

Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville slams new Antarctic study for using [the] “best estimate of the continent's temperature”

Perhaps he'd prefer it if they used the worst estimate?
[Update: It should go without saying that this is simply Morano making up stuff and doesn't reflect Christy's actual quotes or thinking. No-one is safe from Morano's misrepresentations!]
[Further update: They've now clarified it. Sigh….]

Morano has his ear to the ground of course, and in his blog piece dramatically highlights the words "estimated" and "deduced" as if that was some sign of nefarious purpose, rather than a fundamental component of scientific investigation.

Internal contradictions are par for the course. Morano has previously been convinced that "… the vast majority of Antarctica has cooled over the past 50 years.", yet he now approvingly quotes Kevin Trenberth who says "It is hard to make data where none exist.” (It is indeed, which is why you need to combine as much data as you can find in order to produce a synthesis like this study). So which is it? If you think the data are clear enough to demonstrate strong cooling, you can't also believe there is no data (on this side of the looking glass anyway).

It's even more humourous, since even the more limited analysis available before this paper showed pretty much the same amount of Antarctic warming. Compare the IPCC report, with the same values from the new analysis (under various assumptions about the methodology).

(The different versions are the full reconstruction, a version that uses detrended satellite data for the co-variance, a version that uses AWS data instead of satelltes and one that use PCA instead of RegEM. All show positive trends over the last 50 years).

Further contradictions abound: Morano, who clearly wants it to have been cooling, hedges his bets with a "Volcano, Not Global Warming Effects, May be Melting an Antarctic Glacier" Hail Mary pass. Good luck with that!

It always helps if you haven't actually read the study in question. That way you can just make up conclusions:

Scientist adjusts data — presto, Antarctic cooling disappears

Nope. It's still there (as anyone reading the paper will see) - it's just put into a larger scale and longer term context (see figure 3b).

Inappropriate personalisation is always good fodder. Many contrarians seemed disappointed that Mike was only the fourth author (the study would have been much easier to demonise if he'd been the lead). Some pretended he was anyway, and just for good measure accused him of being a 'modeller' as well (heaven forbid!).

Others also got in on the fun. A chap called Ross Hays posted a letter to Eric on multiple websites and on many comment threads. On Joe D'Aleo's site, this letter was accompanied with this little bit of snark:

Icecap Note: Ross shown here with Antarctica’s Mount Erebus volcano in the background was a CNN forecast Meteorologist (a student of mine when I was a professor) who has spent numerous years with boots on the ground working for NASA in Antarctica, not sitting at a computer in an ivory tower in Pennsylvania or Washington State

This is meant as a slur against academics of course, but is particularly ironic, since the authors of the paper have collectively spent over 8 seasons on the ice in Antarctica, 6 seasons in Greenland and one on Baffin Island in support of multiple ice coring and climate measurement projects. Hays' one or two summers there, his personal anecdotes and misreadings of the temperature record, don't really cut it.

Neither do rather lame attempts to link these results with the evils of "computer modelling". According to Booker (for it is he!) because a data analysis uses a computer, it must be a computer model - and probably the same one that the "hockey stick" was based on. Bad computer, bad!

The proprietor of the recently named "Best Science Blog", also had a couple of choice comments:

In my opinion, this press release and subsequent media interviews were done for media attention.

This remarkable conclusion is followed by some conspiratorial gossip implying that a paper that was submitted over a year ago was deliberately timed to coincide with a speech in Congress from Al Gore that was announced last week. Gosh these scientists are good.

All in all, the critical commentary about this paper has been remarkably weak. Time will tell of course - confirming studies from ice cores and independent analyses are already published, with more rumoured to be on their way. In the meantime, floating ice shelves in the region continue to collapse (the Wilkins will be the tenth in the last decade or so) - each of them with their own unique volcano no doubt - and gravity measurements continue to show net ice loss over the Western part of the ice sheet.

Nonetheless, the loss of the Antarctic cooling meme is clearly bothering the contrarians much more than the loss of 10,000 year old ice. The poor level of their response is not surprising, but it does exemplify the tactics of the whole 'bury ones head in the sand" movement - they'd much rather make noise than actually work out what is happening. It would be nice if this demonstration of intellectual bankruptcy got some media attention itself.

That's unlikely though. It's just not news.

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The British tabloid Daily Mirror recently headlined that “Sea will rise 'to levels of last Ice Age'”. No doubt many of our readers will appreciate just how scary this prospect is: sea level during the last Ice Age was up to 120 meters lower than today. Our favourite swimming beaches – be it Coogee in Sydney or the Darß on the German Baltic coast – would then all be high and dry, and ports like Rotterdam or Tokyo would be far from the sea. Imagine it.

But looking beyond the silly headline (another routine case of careless science reporting), what was the real story behind it? The Mirror article (like many others) was referring to a new paper by Grinsted, Moore and Jevrejeva published in Climate Dynamics (see paper and media materials). The authors conclude there that by 2100, global sea level could rise between 0.7 and 1.1 meters for the B1 emission scenario, or 1.1 to 1.6 meters for the A1FI scenario.

The method by which they derive these estimates is based on a semi-empirical formula connecting global sea level to global temperature, fitted to observed data. It assumes that after a change in global temperature, sea level will exponentially approach a new equilibrium level with a time scale τ. This extends the semi-empirical method I proposed in Science in 2007. I assumed that past data will tell us the initial rate of rise (and this initial rate is useful for projections if the time scale τ is long compared to the time horizon one is interested in). The new paper tries to obtain both the time scale τ and the final equilibrium sea level change by fitting to past data.

Therefore, my approach is a special case of Grinsted's more general model, as you can see by inserting their Eq. (1) into (2): namely the special case for long response times (τ >> 100 years or so). Hence it is reassuring and a nice confirmation that they get the same result as me for their "Historical" case (where they get τ=1200 years) as well as their τ=infinite calculations, despite using a different sea level data set (going back to 1850, where I used the Church&White 2006 data that start in 1880) and a more elaborate statistical analysis.

However, I find their determination of τ is on rather shaky ground since the data sets used are too short to determine such a long time scale with any confidence. That their statistics suggest otherwise cannot be right - you can tell by the fact that they get contradictory results for different data sets (e.g., 1200 +/- 500 years for the "Historical" case and 210 +/- 70 years for the "Moberg" case). Both can’t be correct, so the narrow uncertainty ranges are likely an underestimate of the uncertainty.

The problem gets even more apparent when looking at the equilibrium sea level resulting from their data fit. From paleoclimatic data (see Figure) we expect that per degree of temperature change, the final equilibrium sea level change is somewhere between 10 and 30 meters (as I argue in my Science paper – this was my basis for assuming τ must be very long). Grinsted et al. find from their data fit that this is only 1.3 +/- 0.4 meters (for the Moberg case, which they call the most likely) - see Figure. This means that getting the sea level lowering of ~120 meters that is well-established for the Last Glacial Maximum would have required a global cooling of about 90 ºC according to their model. And for the future, the model would predict that melting all ice in Greenland and Antarctica (resulting in 65 meters of sea level rise) would require about 50 ºC of global warming. This lack of realism matters, since it is directly linked to the short τ: the observed sea level rise of the past century or so can either be fitted by a short τ and a small equilibrium rise, or by a long τ and a large equlibrium rise (per degree). I consider the latter case the realistic one.

Global mean temperature and sea level (relative to today’s) at different times in Earth’s history, together with the projection for the year 2100 (which is not an equilibrium change!). The red line shows the "most likely" equilibrium response according to Grinsted et al. [Modified after Archer (2006) and WBGU 2006; see p. 33 there for references and discussion.]

Grinsted et al. did apply some paleoclimatic data constraints, but they are based on a misunderstanding of these data. They assume (their constraint 3) that the last interglacial was globally 3-5 ºC warmer than present – however the reference cited in support (the IPCC paleoclimate chapter, of which I am a co-author) explains that these are Arctic summer temperatures. This Arctic summer warming is due to orbital changes which cause cooling elsewhere on the planet, resulting in global mean changes that are very small (see e.g. Kubatzki et al. 2000). Grinsted et al make the same mistake for glacial climate (their constraint 4), where they assume glacial maximum temperatures were globally 17 ºC below present – the reference cited states already in the abstract that this only applies to the latitude band 40-80ºN. Glacial cooling was highly non-uniform, with global mean cooling estimated as 4-7ºC (see Schneider et al. 2006, “How cold was the Last Glacial Maximum?”) These misguided paleo-constraints lead Grinsted et al. to limit equilibrium sea level rise to a fraction of what the data points show in the Figure above, and this rules out a good data fit for long time scales τ.

For these reasons I am unconvinced by the short τ found (or assumed) by Grinsted et al. which is the key difference to my earlier study, and I would still maintain that assuming the equilibration time to be very long is a more robust assumption. Note that (unlike Grinsted et al.) this does not assume that the approach to equilibrium is exponential with a single time scale, which in itself is doubtful given the different processes involved. It only assumes that the initial rate of rise scales with temperature and is relevant on time scales of interest. On the positive side, Grinsted et al. have shown that the data fit and projected sea level rise for the case of large τ is robust with respect to the chosen statistical method and data set.

Refinements of the semi-empirical approach are welcome - I had hoped that my paper would stimulate further work in this direction. While empirical approaches will not give us definitive answers about future sea level since the past can never be a perfect analogue of the future, these analyses can still be useful to give us a better feeling for how the sea level responded in the past and what that might imply for what lies ahead. But one thing is certain: I'm not too worried that sea level might drop to glacial levels during this century.

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The Sámi are keenly aware about climate change, and are thus concerned about their future. Hence, the existence of the International Polar Year (IPY) project called EALÁT involving scientists, Sámi from Norway/Sweden/Finland, as well as Nenets from Russia. The indigenous people in the Arctic are closely tuned to the weather and the climate. I was told that the Sámi have about 300 words for snow, each with a very precise meaning.

It is important get a fusion of traditional knowledge and modern science and adopt a holistic approach. The indigenous people often have a different world view, in addition to having invaluable knowledge and experience about nature. Furthermore, if the end results are to be of any value beyond academic, then the stakeholders must be involved on equal terms. For instance, remote sensing data from NASA - for better understanding of land-vegetation - can be combined with traditional knowledge through the use of geographical information system (GIS).

The big challenge facing reindeer herding peoples in the Arctic is the ability to adapt to a climate change, according to a recent EALÁT workshop that was held in Guovdageaidnu (Kautokeino), with representatives from the US, Russia, Sweden, Finland as well as Norway.

In Russia, however, climate change was not perceived as the major concern, according to the reports from the work shop, but rather industrial development constraining their use of land. Climate change should nevertheless be a concern.

The traditional adaption strategy amongst the nomadic indigenous people have involved a migration and moving the reindeer herd from one pasture to another, when exposed to climatic fluctuations. In addition, they aim to keep a well-balanced and robust herd structure. But today there are more severe land constraints, such as obstructing infrastructure, fences, and national borders, limiting the ability to move to regions where the grazing is good. Furthermore, projections for the Arctic suggest changes well beyond the range of observed variability.

The reindeer herds are affected by climatic swings, particularly when hard icy layers are formed on snow (or within the snow layer) making the food underneath unreachable. Warm summers may also cause problems, and insects (pests), forest fires, and the melting of permafrost can be additional stress factors.

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"It is difficult to underestimate the impact this single decision will have not only on the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, but also in undermining the UK’s hard-earned credibility as a nation at the vanguard of the international climate change agenda. If aviation emissions in 2050 will be no more than they were 2005 (as announced today by the Transport Secretary) then by 2050 the aviation sector will consume all of the UK’s permitted carbon budget" says Professor Kevin Anderson

A couple of us (Eric and Mike) are co-authors on a paper coming out in Nature this week (Jan. 22, 09). We have already seen misleading interpretations of our results in the popular press and the blogosphere, and so we thought we would nip such speculation in the bud.

The paper shows that Antarctica has been warming for the last 50 years, and that it has been warming especially in West Antarctica (see the figure). The results are based on a statistical blending of satellite data and temperature data from weather stations. The results don't depend on the statistics alone. They are backed up by independent data from automatic weather stations, as shown in our paper as well as in updated work by Bromwich, Monaghan and others (see their AGU abstract, here), whose earlier work in JGR was taken as contradicting ours. There is also a paper in press in Climate Dynamics (Goosse et al.) that uses a GCM with data assimilation (and without the satellite data we use) and gets the same result. Furthermore, speculation that our results somehow simply reflect changes in the near-surface inversion is ruled out by completely independent results showing that significant warming in West Antarctica extends well into the troposphere. And finally, our results have already been validated by borehole thermometery — a completely independent method — at at least one site in West Antarctica (Barrett et al. report the same rate of warming as we do, but going back to 1930 rather than 1957; see the paper in press in GRL).

Here are some important things the paper does NOT show:

1) Our results do not contradict earlier studies suggesting that some regions of Antarctica have cooled. Why? Because those studies were based on shorter records (20-30 years, not 50 years) and because the cooling is limited to the East Antarctic. Our results show this too, as is readily apparent by comparing our results for the full 50 years (1957-2006) with those for 1969-2000 (the dates used in various previous studies), below.

2) Our results do not necessarily contradict the generally-accepted interpretation of recent East Antarctic cooling put forth by David Thompson (Colorado State) and Susan Solomon (NOAA Aeronomy Lab). In an important paper in Science, they presented evidence that this cooling trend is linked to an increasing trend in the strength of the circumpolar westerlies, and that this can be traced to changes in the stratosphere, mostly due to photochemical ozone losses. Substantial ozone losses did not occur until the late 1970s, and it is only after this period that significant cooling begins in East Antarctica.

3) Our paper — by itself — does not address whether Antarctica's recent warming is part of a longer term trend. There is separate evidence from ice cores that Antarctica has been warming for most of the 20th century, but this is complicated by the strong influence of El Niño events in West Antarctica. In our own published work to date (Schneider and Steig, PNAS), we find that the 1940s [edit for clarity: the 1935-1945 decade] were the warmest decade of the 20th century in West Antarctica, due to an exceptionally large warming of the tropical Pacific at that time.

So what do our results show? Essentially, that the big picture of Antarctic climate change in the latter part of the 20th century has been largely overlooked. It is well known that it has been warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, probably for the last 100 years (measurements begin at the sub-Antarctic Island of Orcadas in 1901 and show a nearly monotonic warming trend). And yes, East Antarctica cooled over the 1980s and 1990s (though not, in our results, at a statistically significant rate). But West Antarctica, which no one really has paid much attention to (as far as temperature changes are concerned), has been warming rapidly for at least the last 50 years.

Why West Antarctica is warming is just beginning to be explored, but in our paper we argue that it basically has to do enhanced meridional flow — there is more warm air reaching West Antarctica from farther north (that is, from warmer, lower latitudes). In the parlance of statistical climatology, the "zonal wave 3 pattern" has increased (see Raphael, GRL 2004). Something that goes along with this change in atmospheric circulation is reduced sea ice in the region (while sea ice in Antarctica has been increasing on average, there have been significant declines off the West Antarctic coast for the last 25 years, and probably longer). And in fact this is self reinforcing (less sea ice, warmer water, rising air, lower pressure, enhanced storminess).

The obvious question, of course, is whether those changes in circulation are themselves simply "natural variability" or whether they are forced — that is, resulting from changes in greenhouse gases. There will no doubt be a flurry of papers that follow ours, to address that very question. A recent paper in Nature Geosciences by Gillet et al. examined trends in temperatures in the both Antarctic and the Arctic, and concluded that "temperature changes in both … regions can be attributed to human activity." Unfortunately our results weren't available in time to be made use of in that paper. But we suspect it will be straightforward to do an update of that work that does incorporate our results, and we look forward to seeing that happen.

---

Postscript
Some comment is warranted on whether our results have bearing on the various model projections of future climate change. As we discuss in the paper, fully-coupled ocean-atmosphere models don't tend to agree with one another very well in the Antarctic. They all show an overall warming trend, but they differ significantly in the spatial structure. As nicely summarized in a paper by Connolley and Bracegirdle in GRL, the models also vary greatly in their sea ice distributions, and this is clearly related to the temperature distributions. These differences aren't necessarily because there is anything wrong with the model physics (though schemes for handling sea ice do vary quite a bit model to model, and certainly are better in some models than in others), but rather because small differences in the wind fields between models results in quite large differences in the sea ice and air temperature patterns. That means that a sensible projection of future Antarctic temperature change — at anything smaller than the continental scale — can only be based on looking at the mean and variation of ensemble runs, and/or the averages of many models. As it happens, the average of the 19 models in AR4 is similar to our results — showing significant warming in West Antarctica over the last several decades (see Connolley and Bracegirdle's Figure 1).

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A

With the axing of the CNN Science News team, most science stories at CNN are now being given to general assignment reporters who don't necessarily have the background to know when they are being taken for a ride. On the Lou Dobbs show (an evening news program on cable for those of you not in the US), the last few weeks have brought a series of embarrassing non-stories on 'global cooling' based it seems on a few cold snaps this winter, the fact that we are at a solar minimum and a regurgitation of 1970s vintage interpretations of Milankovitch theory (via Pravda of all places!). Combine that with a few hysterical (in both senses) non-scientists as talking heads and you end up with a repeat of the nonsensical 'Cooling world' media stories that were misleading in the 1970s and are just as misleading now.

Exhibit A. Last night's (13 Jan 2009) transcript (annotations in italics).

Note that this is a rush transcript and the typos aren't attributable to the participants.

DOBBS: Welcome back. Global warming is a complex, controversial issue and on this broadcast we have been critical of both sides in this debate. We've challenged the orthodoxy surrounding global warming theories and questioned more evidence on the side of the Ice Age and prospect in the minds of some. In point of fact, research, some of it, shows that we could be heading toward cooler temperatures, and it's a story you will only see here on LOU DOBBS TONIGHT. Ines Ferre has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

INES FERRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Will the day after tomorrow bring a deep freeze like that shown in the movie? Research more than 50 years ago by astrophysicist Milanchovich (ph) shows that ice ages run in predictable cycles and the earth could go into one. How soon? In science terms it could be thousands of years. But what happens in the next decade is still up in the air. Part of the science community believes that global warming is a man-maid threat. But Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute predicts the next 20 to 30 years will actually bring cooling temperatures.

Dennis Avery is part of the 'science community'? Who knew? And, while amusing, the threat of 'man-maids' causing global warming is just a typo. Nice thought though. Oh, and if you want to know what the actual role of Milankovitch in forcing climate is, look at the IPCC FAQ Q6.1. Its role in current climate change? Zero.

DENNIS AVERY, HUDSON INSTITUTE: The earth's temperatures have dropped an average of .6 Celsius in the last two years. The Pacific Ocean is telling us, as it has told us 10 times in the past 400 years, you're going to get cooler.

For those unfamiliar with Dennis Avery, he is a rather recent convert to the bandwagon idea of global cooling, having very recently been an advocate of "unstoppable" global warming. As for his great cherry pick (0.6º C in two years - we're doomed!), this appears to simply be made up. Even putting aside the nonsense of concluding anything from a two year trend, if you take monthly values and start at the peak value at the height of the last El Niño event of January 2007 and do no actual trend analysis, I can find no data set that gives a drop of 0.6ºC. Even UAH MSU-LT gives only 0.4ºC. The issue being not that it hasn't been cooler this year than last, but why make up numbers? This is purely rhetorical of course, they make up numbers because they don't care about whether what they say is true or not.

FERRE: Avery points to a lack of sunspots as a predictor for lower temperatures, saying the affects of greenhouse gas warming have a small impact on climate change. Believers in global warming, like NASA researcher, Dr. Gavin Schmidt disagree.

I was interviewed on tape in the afternoon, without seeing any of the other interviews. Oh, and what does a 'believer in global warming' even mean?

DR. GAVIN SCHMIDT, NASA: The long term trend is clearly toward warming, and those trends are completely dwarf any changes due to the solar cycle.

FERRE: In a speech last week, President-elect Obama called for the creation of a green energy economy. Still, others warn that no matter what you think about climate change, new policies would essentially have no effect.

FRED SINGER, SCIENCE & ENV. POLICY PROJECT: There's very little we can do about it. Any effort to restrict the use of carbon dioxide will hurt us economically and have zero effect on the Chicago mate.

Surely another typo, but maybe the Chicago mate is something to do with the man-maids? See here for more background on Singer.

FERRE: As Singer says, a lot of pain, for no gain.

Huh? Try looking at the actual numbers from a recent McKinsey report. How is saving money through efficiency a 'pain'?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FERRE: And three independent research groups concluded that the average global temperature in 2008 was the ninth or tenth warmest since 1850, but also since the coldest since the turn of the 21st century.

DOBBS: It's fascinating and nothing — nothing — stirs up the left, the right, and extremes in this debate, the orthodoxy that exists on both sides of the debate than to even say global warming. It's amazing.

This is an appeal to the 'middle muddle' and an attempt to seem like a reasonable arbitrator between two opposing sides. But as many people have previously noted, there is no possible compromise between sense and nonsense. 2+2 will always equal 4, no matter how much the Hudson Institute says otherwise.

FERRE: When I spoke to experts and scientists today from one side and the other, you could feel the kind of anger about –

That was probably me. Though it's not anger, it's simple frustration that reporters are being taken in and treating seriously the nonsense that comes out of these think-tanks.

DOBBS: Cannot we just all get along? Ines, thank you very much.

Joining me now three leading experts in Manchester, New Hampshire, we're joined by Joseph D'Aleo of the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project. Good to have with you us.

JOSEPH D'ALEO, CO-FOUNDER WEATHER CHANNEL: Thank you, Lou.

DOBBS: He's also the cofounder of The Weather Channel. In Washington, D.C., as you see there, Jay Lehr, he's the science director of the Heartland Institute. And in Boston, Alex Gross, he's the cofounder of co2stats.com. Good to have you with us.

Well that's balanced!

Let's put a few numbers out here, the empirical discussion and see what we can make of it. First is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has very good records on temperatures, average temperatures in the United States, dating back to 1880. And here's what these numbers look like. You've all seen those. But help us all — the audience and most of all me to get through this, they show the warmest years on record, 1998, 2006, and 1934. 2008 was cooler, in fact the coolest since 1997. It's intriguing to see that graph there. The graph we're looking at showing some question that the warming trend may be just a snapshot in time. The global temperatures by NOAA are seven of the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 2001. The ten warmest years have all occurred since 1995.

So let me start, if I may, Joseph, your reaction to those numbers. Do you quibble with what they represent?

D'ALEO: Yes, I do. In fact, if you look at the satellite data, which is the most reliable data, the best coverage of the globe, 2008 was the 14th coldest in 30 years. That doesn't jive with the tenth warmest in 159 years in the Hadley data set or 113 or 114 years in the NOAA data set. Those global data sets are contaminated by the fact that two-thirds of the globe's stations dropped out in 1990. Most of them rural and they performed no urban adjustment. And, Lou, you know, and the people in your studio know that if they live in the suburbs of New York City, it's a lot colder in rural areas than in the city. Now we have more urban effect in those numbers reflecting — that show up in that enhanced or exaggerated warming in the global data set.

D'Aleo is misdirecting through his teeth here. He knows that the satellite analyses have more variability over ENSO cycles than the surface records, he also knows that urban heat island effects are corrected for in the surface records, and he also knows that this doesn't effect ocean temperatures, and that the station dropping out doesn't affect the trends at all (you can do the same analysis with only stations that remained and it makes no difference). Pure disinformation.

DOBBS: Your thoughts on these numbers. Because they are intriguing. They are a brief snapshot admittedly, in comparison to total extended time. I guess we could go back 4.6 billion years. Let's keep it in the range of something like 500,000 years. What's your reaction to those numbers and your interpretation?

JAY LEHR, HEARTLAND INSTITUTE: Well, Lou –

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry.

DOBBS: Go ahead, Jay.

LEHR: Lou, I'm in the camp with Joe and Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, and I think more importantly, it is to look at the sun's output, and in recent years, we've seen very, very low sunspot activity, and we are definitely, in my mind, not only in a cooling period, we're going to be staying in it for a couple decades, and I see it as a major advantage, although I think we will be able to adapt to it. I'm hopeful that this change in the sun's output will put some common sense into the legislature, not to pass any dramatic cap in trade or carbon tax legislation that will set us in a far deeper economic hole. I believe Mr. Obama and his economic team are well placed to dig us out of this recession in the next 18 months to 2 years, but I think if we pass any dramatic legislation to reduce greenhouse gases, the recession will last quite a few more years and we'll come out of it with a lower standard of living on very tenuous scientific grounds.

DOBBS: Alex, the carbon footprint, generation of greenhouse gases, specifically co2, the concern focusing primarily on the carbon footprint, and of course generated by fossil fuels primarily, what is your thinking as you look at that survey of 130 — almost 130 years and the impact on the environment?

ALEX WISSNER-GROSS, CO2STATS.COM: Well, Lou, I think regardless of whatever the long-term trend in the climate data is, there a long- term technological trend which is that as time goes on our technology tends toward smaller and smaller physical footprint. That means in part that in the long term we like technology to have a smaller environmental footprint, burning fewer greenhouse gases and becoming as small and environmentally neutral and noninvasive as possible. So I think regardless of the climate trend, I think we'll see less and less environmentally impactful technologies.

Wissner-Gross is on because of the media attention given to misleading reports about the carbon emissions related to Google searches. Shame he doesn't get to talk about any of that.

DOBBS: To be straight forward about this, that's where I come down. I don't know it matters to me whether there is global warming or we're moving toward an ice age it seems really that we should be reasonable stewards of the planet and the debate over whether it's global warming or whether it's moving toward perhaps another ice age or business as usual is almost moot here in my mind. I know that will infuriate the advocates of global warming as well as the folks that believe we are headed toward another ice age. What's your thought?

Curious train of logic there…

D'ALEO: I agree with you, Lou. We need conservation. An all of the above solution for energy, regardless of whether we're right and it cools over the next few decades or continues to warm, a far less dangerous scenario. And that means nuclear. It means coal, oil, natural gas. Geothermal, all of the above.

DOBBS: Jay, you made the comment about the impact of solar sunspot activity. Sunspot activity the 11-year cycle that we're all familiar with. There are much larger cycles, 12,000 to 13,000 years as well. We also heard a report disregard, if you will, for the strength and significance of solar activity on the earth's environment. How do you respond to that?

Is he talking about me? Please see some of my publications on the subject from 2006, 2004 and 2001. My point above was that relative to current greenhouse gas increases, solar is small - not that it is unimportant or uninteresting. This of course is part of the false dilemma 'single cause' argument that the pseudo-skeptics like to use - that change must be caused by either solar or greenhouse gases and that any evidence for one is evidence against the other. This is logically incoherent.

FEHR: It just seems silly to not recognize that the earth's climate is driven by the sun.

Ah yes.

Your Chad Myers pointed out it's really arrogant to think that man controls the climate.

This is a misquoted reference to a previous segment a few weeks ago where Myers was discussing the impact of climate on individual weather patterns. But man's activities do affect the climate and are increasingly controlling its trends.

90 percent of the climate is water vapor which we have no impact over and if we were to try to reduce greenhouse gases with China and India controlling way more than we do and they have boldly said they are not going to cripple their economy by following suit, our impact would have no — no change in temperature at all in Europe they started carbon — capping trade in 2005. They've had no reduction in groan house gases, but a 5 percent to 10 percent increase in the standard of living. We don't want to go that route.

What? Accounting for the garbled nature of this response, he was probably trying to say that 90% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water vapour. This is both wrong and, even were it true, irrelevant.

DOBBS: Alex, you get the last word here. Are you as dismissive of the carbon footprint as measured by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

GROSS: No, not really. But I think in the long term, efficiency is where the gains come from. I think efficiency should come first, carbon footprint second.

DOBBS: Thank you very much. Alex, Jay, and Joe. Folks, appreciate you being with us.

FEHR: Thank you.

In summary, this is not the old 'balance as bias' or 'false balance' story. On the contrary, there was no balance at all! Almost the entire broadcast was given over to policy advocates whose use of erroneous-but-scientific-sounding sound bites is just a cover for their unchangable opinions that nothing should ever be done about anything. This may make for good TV (I wouldn't know), but it certainly isn't journalism.

There are pressures on journalists that conspire against fully researching a story - deadlines, the tyranny of the news peg etc. - but that means they have to be all the more careful in these kinds of cases. Given that Lou Dobbs has been better on this story in the past, seeing him and his team being spun like this is a real disappointment. They could really do much better.

Update: Marc Roberts sends in this appropriate cartoon:

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It is perhaps self-evident that those of us here at RealClimate have a keen interest in the topic of science communication. A number of us have written books aimed at communicating the science to the lay public, and have participated in forums devoted to the topic of science communication (see e.g. here, here, and here). We have often written here about the challenges of communicating science to the public in the modern media environment (see e.g. here, here, and here).

It is naturally our pleasure, in this vein, to bring to the attention of our readers a masterful new book on this topic by veteran environmental journalist and journalism educator Bud Ward. The book, entitled Communicating on Climate Change: An Essential Resource for Journalists, Scientists, and Educators, details the lessons learned in a series of Metcalf Institute workshops held over the past few years, funded by the National Science Foundation, and co-organized by Ward and AMS senior science and communications fellow Tony Socci. These workshops have collectively brought together numerous leading members of the environmental journalism and climate science communities in an effort to develop recommendations that might help bridge the cultural divide between these two communities that sometimes impedes accurate and effective science communication.

I had the privilege of participating in a couple of the workshops, including the inaugural workshop in Rhode Island in November 2003. The discussions emerging from these workshops were, at least in part, the inspiration behind "RealClimate". The workshops formed the foundation for this new book, which is an appropriate resource for scientists, journalists, editors, and others interested in science communication and popularization. In addition to instructive chapters such as "Science for Journalism", "Journalism for Scientists" and "What Institutions Can Do", the book is interspersed with a number of insightful essays by leading scientists (e.g. "Mediarology–The Role of Climate Scientists in Debunking Climate Change Myths" by Stephen Schneider) and environmental journalists (e.g. "Hot Words" by Andy Revkin). We hope this book will serve as a standard reference for how to effectively communicate the science of climate change.

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Do you agree?

It’s most clearly true for some of the efficiency savings we’re going to make. For example, insulating your loft and your cavity walls saves you money in a very straightforward way.

Things are a bit more mixed for electricity generation. The Royal Academy of Engineering priced nuclear at 2.26 pence per kWh, compared to 3.64 pence for gas and 3.33 pence for coal (see Nuclear power’s cost conundrum).

However, the price of fossil fuels is a rapidly moving target, fluctuating up and down by orders of magnitude in the space of months. And you can easily increase the cost of nuclear, if you disagree with the cost of cleanup that the RAE have factored in.

The key message though, is that the costs are very comparable, it isn’t clear whether the old or the new technology will be cheaper.

The same applies to concentrating solar power. Rapid advances are still being made in these “mirrors in deserts” power stations. This post on the Climate Progress blog gives some details of the economics compared to coal.

Again, the take home message is - they are so similar in price, nobody is sure which is or will be cheaper.

On balance, my view is that with efficiency savings and with improvements as the new technologies mature, the new energy system will be cheaper than the old fossil based one. And that’s before the extra costs of energy insecurity and climate change are factored in.

What’s your view?