Examining John Nielsen-Gammon's Trap

When I first came across the Climate Change National Forum I didn't get further than reading John Nielsen-Gammon articles.  First there was the dog-chasing-tail review of a study by John Cook et al. that concluded "97% of (active) climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming."  The absurdity of the echo-chamber's hair splitting over that study astounds me and having JNG take us on a tour of that denialist's hall of mirrors was a disappointment.

Then I read "The Basics of Extreme Weather and Global Warming."   It was another disappointment, having nothing to do with the title's promise.  Instead it was a rhetorical musing about all the ways we can't absolutely positively without fail know when, where, and exactly how much climate change is making weather crazier.  As if that meant we could put the issue on a back burner for another couple decades until we could be absolutely positively certain of every detail.

Incidentally,  for an  example of a serious on-topic attempt to explain the basics of the "global warming" "extreme weather" connection go visit: 
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence.

Then after reading "The Weather Trap," which was another rhetorical exercise rather than any serious effort to explain our contemporary situation, I promised myself to do a detailed review of the last two essays (the first one is here) since they serve as such good vehicles to demonstrate examples of  'the anatomy of misdirection'.  

I'm no scholar and there's a bit of repetition, but than JNG was rather repetitive himself, still I have some observations I'd like to share, hoping someone better equipped might find something useful in here.  JNG's words are complete and unaltered except for a few highlights and appear in Courier font.

I've written it as an open review directed at Professor Nielsen-Gammon personally, and included many links to help support my claims.  I look forward to his response. 

The Weather Trap 

http://climatechangenationalforum.org/the-weather-trap-by-john-nielsen-gammon/ 

by John Nielsen-Gammon  |  January 12, 2014 

Response to Prof John Nielsen-Gammon - 2/17/2014

Professor John Nielsen-Gammon left a comment at my post titled "Dear Dr. Nielsen-Gammon, re. statistical certainty vs geophysical realities" he sent it before I finished my review of his "Extreme Weather" article and I didn't see it until after I posted it.

His note provides me with an excellent vehicle to define my issues with JNG's, and many others, approach.  It gives me a chance to point out some glaring omissions and to ask a couple questions.  I have not changed or deleted any of Professor Nielsen-Gammon's words, I have underlined key ideas.

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John N-G (February 16, 2014 at 12:30 PM) said...

Cross-posted in comments at ClimateChangeNationalForum: 

JNG:  "It’s as though I’ve carried on quite a conversation with you without actually participating in it! 

I want you to realize the trap you are setting for yourself.

J.Nielsen-Gammon's CCNF "Extreme Weather" essay examined

Recently I became familiar with a website and project called "Climate Change National Forum" which is intended to be a platform "by leading climate climate scientists to educate the American public about climate change."  

In phase one their intention is to "... serve as an objective source for journalists, policy experts, scientists, and interested citizens. The site will first be used by scientists to discuss the latest research on climate change and share and debate ideas on aspects of climate change relevant to policy making. These scientists will also fact check a continuous stream of outside articles and news clips ..."

I'll admit I haven't made it past a few essays written by John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas State Climatologists and Regents Professor.  On the one hand he is certainly no denialist regarding Manmade Global Warming, but on the other, if this essay is intended to help a lay-audience learn about the issue, then it's a perfect example of how to confuse rather than clarify.

Dear Dr. Nielsen-Gammon, re. statistical certainty vs geophysical realities

Dr. Nielsen-Gammon,

I want to start by apologizing, I got carried away and didn't mean to imply that you are part of the climate science denial community - I know that you are not and that I was sloppy, it was an unfair untrue grouping.  However, I also want you to understand the issue I'm trying to define.  

The feeling I get is that your, and the scientific community in general, approach is that it's a dialogue with no sense of urgency, no interest in reaching resolution, the joy of the discovery and all that.  

Instead of gathering information in order to act, it seems like gathering information for the sake of gathering yet more information. 

Seems to me, one of the two strangest parts of our society's entire AGW public dialogue is how it has gotten mutated into this demand for ever greater levels of details - while ignoring the monster in the room we all know about.

What has changed about our basic understanding of Anthropogenic Global Warming over the past two decades?  

Has there been anything of significance - besides ever greater coverage and higher resolution and increasing certainty that we are taking our planet out of the bounds its experienced for millions of years?

To me it seems all you're doing is hand wringing: "man oh man, we gotta get the DPI cranked up another few hundred PDI before the picture comes in HD sharp."

Works great for Evolution - but this "subject" is the health of the biosphere and weather system that we depend on.  It's not just another interesting problem, it's a real future filled with hard consequences.

We are destroying the planet as we knew it not too long ago - you know, the biosphere that we depend on for everything.  What good is spending all our time and energy defining the crisis to exquisite certainty and forgetting to act to avert the crisis?

Sincerely, CC

I am including an article I wrote last autumn, it's another attempt to define this issue.

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Friday, October 25, 2013

Colorado Floods - statistical certainty vs geophysical realities

Colorado experienced its most extreme weather event in memory between September 9th to the 15th. Golden, Boulder and Larimer counties received the worst of it with rain accumulations of sixteen/seventeen inches and more, some areas receiving nine inches on Thursday alone, resulting in massive flooding compounded by destructive run-off from mountainsides of burned-out forests that could no longer hold water.

Predictably folks are asking: Is this related to manmade Global Warming? It's an easy and tough question to answer.

Consider please, our climate system is a global heat distribution engine and our land, atmosphere, and the oceans have indisputably warmed, not only that, our atmosphere's moisture content has been measurably increasing. Given such geophysical realities, it is self-evident that all extreme weather events contain elements of this newly energized climate system.  And that much more of the same must be expected.

On the other hand,

Open letter to Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon

The last couple days I've been catching up on some of Dr. Nielsen-Gammon's articles and comments over at the Climate Change National Forum (more on them later) and I find myself struggling with the way he manages to frame all of his evidence and arguments.  And although it's pretty much the same spiel I've listen to and struggled with understanding for the past couple decades, this time I think I've finally stumbled onto something important. 
[I should be clear Nielsen-Gammon is not a denialist, he is a respected scientist familiar with climatology - but what grabbed my attention was how his arguments were framed… and that led to this] 

Here's my open letter to John Nielsen-Gammon, 

Dear JNG,

Climate Change National Forum… case in point

I stumbled on this website slash project this morning.  

Climate Change National Forum (CCNF) is a national platform, founded and led by scientists, to educate the American public on the science of climate change and its policy implications.  

I want to share the comment I posted over there.

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John Nielsen-Gammon  writes:  "Here’s the question you asked: “How many climate experts agree that the global warming we are witnessing is a direct consequence of the burning of fossil fuels by humans?”“Direct consequence” is very strong phrasing. To me, it means that the global warming has to be entirely caused by the burning of fossil fuels by humans. The IPCC doesn’t even believe that! Their best guess for the anthropogenic contribution is 100% plus or minus about 40%."

When I think about the implication of what John Nielsen-Gammon has written, it seems to imply that we can use weaknesses in measuring capability to imagine it might not be happening, or that perhaps society produced greenhouse gases don't behave like "naturally" produced greenhouse gases.   Further implying perhaps even the radiative physics of greenhouse gases is up for debate. 

In contrast to Pielke, let me introduce John Nielsen-Gammon

After my complaint about how someone like Dr. Pielke uses the contrarian-playbook to manipulating data intent on obscuring scientifically gained understanding, it was quite refreshing to read a Houston Chronicle article written by Texas State Climatologist and a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University, John Nielsen-Gammon, titled: "About the Lack of Warming…"

As I point out in the previous post, Climatologist are aware of reasons for global surface temperatures appearing to level off.  But, that appearance is an illusion, as this interesting article explains.

In this case I have left long gaps in this meaty article, but provide the link to the complete article.

About the Lack of Warming… 

by John Nielsen-Gammon