Steele saga - Repost 1/5 - Open let to San Francisco State University

This is a reposting of the first of five responses I made regarding various aspects of Jim Steele's 1/7/15 WattsUpWithThat 'essay' - in light of Steele's recent comment, I think it's only fair to bring it up again.  I'm tempted to run though it, polish, up date, but even considering this was written while still in a bit of shock over Jim's ruthlessness, I believe it's best to leave it alone.

My letter to San Francisco State University may seem a bit extreme, but we do the best we can, with what we have - and considering Mr. Steele's extremism and previous interactions with him, I wanted to be sure he knows, they know.

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Sunday, January 25, 2015

Dear Mr. Steele, regarding your 1/7/15 WUWT post - an open letter...

Yesterday I became aware of a shocking, misinformation laced "Watts Up With That" blog post written about me January 7th by our good Mr. Steele.  Considering Anthony Watts won't allow me to comment at WUWT it seems appropriate to share this email I've just sent to Mr. Steele (among others).  I won't be responding to the specifics in that contorted dishonest WUWT blog post.  Although I'll be happy to answer any questions submitted to the comments sections after this open letter.

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To whom it may concern,

Ms. Mendoza, Assistant to the Dean, San Francisco State University 

Ms. Griffin, Public Affairs, San Francisco State University 

Ms. Kelly, Academic Affairs, San Francisco State University 

Mother Jones

Four Corners Free Press

Climate Science Defense Fund

I am copying you on this email to Mr. Jim Steele because I feel seriously threatened by your emeritus instructor (http://www.sfsu.edu/~sierra/Instructor_JimSteele.html) and I'm hoping for an objective moderating arbiter.  I do appreciate Mr. Steele has a bone to pick with me, for reasons best understood by reviewing: 

INDEX - Jim Steele's climate science horror collection, Landscapesandcycles, 2014 

http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2015/01/steeles-horror-collection-2014.html

But, I believe I've written nothing to justify the viciousness and misleading prose of his recent WUWT article - over a matter that would best be handed with dispassionate dialogue.

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Mr. Steele, 

regarding your 1/7/2015 WUWT blog post.  I can see we are quite different, you fight your intellectual battles within the confines of an echo-chamber of like-minded who have convinced themselves that scientists are manipulative and untrustworthy - unless they share your "sceptical" storyline that modern climatology is a farce.  Along with that you seem to believe that anyone defending those scientists and their work is an enemy in your no-holds-barred grudge match.

I myself would rather objective, educated, informed individuals judge the validity of our respective opinions, claims and assertions.  I remain prepared to digest new evidence and recognize my mistakes.  Like scientists, I love learning and expanding my understanding, even when new evidence shows that my assumptions were wrong.  Also, just like serious scientists, I willingly allow the strongest evidence to drive my "beliefs".  

I do take heed of Mark Twain's observation, the one you closed your attack piece with:

¶22  Mark Twain astutely recognized, “In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other.”

That's why I've gone through the time and trouble to objectively itemize the various claims you're so strenuously broadcasting to all who will listen… precisely because I choose to go to first-hand sources.  Which I've done, contacting a number of scientists singled out by you these past months.  Many have responded and shared information and studies, sometimes many studies.  I've spent hours, days, seriously looking through it all and digesting the information to the best of my abilities.

This is what a scientist sounds like - Dr.Dessler's video shorts

Here are five short videos by Atmospheric scientist Dr. Andrew Dessler explaining various aspects of climate sensitivity including a look at Lindzen and Spencer's failed cloud feedback study.  I think these videos are fine examples of a real scientist in action explaining the facts.  Tell me you don't notice a huge difference between Dr. Dessler's approach to his topic and the weird handwaving and innuendo laced approach of folks like Dr. Singer or my man Steele.  
(I put together the notes so any mistakes in them are mine alone.)

Summary of Dessler GRL 2011

Is the climate sensitivity less than 2°C?

Stratospheric water vapor feedback

Climate sensitivity calculations, Kummer and Dessler, GRL, 2014

Decision making under uncertainty

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Summary of Dessler GRL 2011

Uploaded on Sep 5, 2011 | dessler2 | 3:45 minutes

"Cloud variations and the Earth's energy budget"

published in Geophysical Review Letters

Dessler examines Lindzen and Spencer's suggestioin that it's clouds causing warming and that human influence warming.

This is what a scientist sounds like - Dr. Dessler

On my way back to Mr. Steele's 'Climate Science Horror Series' I came across a YouTube video of Dr. Singer talking to Dr. Dessler's class about Merchants of Doubt.  I tell you, talk about another perfect vehicle for continuing my investigation into the mechanics of their fraud, so I made a U-turn, returning Jim to the back-burner.  

Starting on that, I spent some time viewing another Dr. Dessler YT video, then another, and another. Particularly his short series explaining the basics of climate science.  

They were such a pleasant break from the cynical,  infuriatingly dishonest spiel of Mr. Steele or Dr. Singer, that superstar of the Republican/libertarian PR campaign, that I decided to take a break and focus a couple posts on a genuine climate scientist explaining real climate science.  The contrast in substance and style is astounding.

Dr. Dessler is an example of how to enable constructive learning, as opposed to dog-chasing-tail debates. With Dr. Dessler's blessing I'm posting this informative climate science lecture - as an example of how serious scientists approach their subject.  

For the interested student I have included time-signature notes of highlights.

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The Human Influence of Climate

A.E. Dessler, Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences

Texas A & M University

Jan. 2011 seminar given to the TAMU Petroleum Engineering Department.

Published on Sep 19, 2014 | dessler2

https://www.youtube.com/embed/7ImRv58XJO8

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notes:  

Dr. Dessler shares his intention early on: 

"What I'm going to try to convince you of is that it's really a much simpler problem than you may be led to believe.  You can use freshman physics to convince yourself there's good chance that if we keep emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere we're really going to see very large warming over the next century, and that's my goal…"

0:41 I like to start off with this iconic plot (NASA GISS Global-Avg. Surface Temp Record 1880-2009), it's the global surface temperature record measured by thermometers that are all across the globe…

Dr. Dessler: Alternative Reality of Climate Skepticism

I stumbled onto a recent talk given by Dr. Andrew Dessler that does an excellent job of describing the alternate reality that climate science denialists have so successfully fabricated.  It was sad seeing that it's only had 174 views in the three and half months it's been out.

And since I do get tired of the depressing grind of cataloging, researching and trying to wrap my head around Mr. Steele's malicious nonsense, I decided to listen to the fresh air of a serious scientist discussing the world, even if in this case it's the alternate reality of the manmade global warming denial community.  As is my habit I took some notes and figure I may as well post it over here and perhaps encourage a few more folks to view it... and think about it.  

Dessler's basic message is that we are dealing with an ideological problem and not a scientific one.  Successfully confronting the challenges will take something other than getting more and better scientific information out there.

It makes sense to me.  Consider my pal Mr. Steele's basic MO is to find flaws in wildlife population counts and uses that to deny the physics of global warming and its impacts - it's insane.  But because he's feeding an ideologically entrenched audience, they buy it since they aren't interested in learning, all they want is reassurance.

As for my ideology, I love this planet and it's many wonders and have been attuned to it since early childhood, which is what led me to my love of science, which is the only vehicle to truly appreciating our Earth's wondrous magnificence.

I also love my, now grown, children and am heart broken by the diminished world be are leaving behind for them.  Watching us consume and destroy it's marvels one by one has been a profound tragedy to me.  Thus I engage in this effort to add my feather weight towards counter-balancing the dishonest politically motivated nonsense being produced by the likes of Mr. Steele, Anthony Watts and the rest of the Climate Science Denial Industry.

Andrew Dessler's The Alternative Reality of Climate Skepticism

BakerInstitute

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSvhCzaZKcc

Published on Oct 1, 2014

Oct. 01, 2014