It's been on my mind for a few days now, and since Eli raises the subject of Pielkination, I decided to throw my pennyworth into the fray. Strictly not about Jr., who I don't know, though with whom have occasionally exchanged comments, but Sr., who is a chap I am rather fond of.
Of course this runs the risk that I'll be condemned as an RPSr apologist but so what? I don't agree with everything he has said, I'm not even sure if I agree with his politics (insofar as he espouses such), but I'd like to raise a couple of small points which struck.
The AR5 seems unexpectedly full of Ocean Heat Content. To my mind, this was one of the metrics which had been underutilized previously and which was in part a reason why Roger left the IPCC many years ago. He kept banging on about it during the discussions of the AR4 but nobody wanted to rise to the challenge - not least because it was a little understood phenomenon with very little scientific observation to back any discussion at all. I can't pretend that I understood why he made such a fuss of it, but I did undertand why, at the time, it couldn't be factored in.
Now that OHC is at the forefront - a cynic might say that it has become useful now it helps explain recent short-term temperature change - is it not time to recognise that Roger was right? I'm not convinced about the other side of his argument - an overemphasis on CO2 in the policy guides - but, irrespective of your opinion of his political inclinations, it is important to give due respect to someone who argues outside the box, dares to challenge convention and has the courage to be unfashionable.
I also happen to think that his strongly-held views on deforestation are also highly commendable. This has ceased to be a political issue at the forefront for some time, but it is as big a sustainability and environment issue as ever, and should be further up the political agenda.
Since I don't have to have a political affiliation to have an opinion, I feel I can honestly say that the time has come for some people to admit that, after all, and in spite of some other peculiarities and peccadilloes, Pielke (Sr) has a point...
Indeed, welcome back and please hang around this time, your insights are always welcome.
ReplyDeleteAs to heat content and RPSr, at the time that he was going on about it, Eli noted two things, first that whenever something was published that said that heat content was increasing, RPSr. had some elaborate reason why not. Suffice it to say that RP was no friend of Levitus. The second, more personal point is back in the good old days when RPs blog took comments, in a discussion of the first Argo results (showing a negative trend), Eli mentioned that it would be best to wait a bit, as first results are not always best results (see MSU/Christy, Spencer). This too was not met with resounding applause.
Now some, not Eli to be sure, might think that RPSr is rather fond of ocean heat content as a metric, as long as it agrees with his conclusions. Runs in the family.
Thanks for coming, Eli. Perhaps there is an irony here in that the metric of choice (for whatever reason) turns out to confirm the other metrics after all, once there is sufficient evidence to use. RPSr may or may not want OHC to show what it does, but it does seem that very few people at the time were willing to accept that it could be a useful thing to understand. The main reason was legitimate at the time - the existing metric (surface temperature) was argued to be good enough measure of the global heat balance (sic). Now, though, the AR5 (in its role as a synthesiser of others' work) appears to have had a bit of a volte-face. Now the surface temperature metric needs to be explained, the changing OHC has a significance, since it allows a (valid) reassessment of the impact of CO2 on Global temperature over time.
DeleteSo he was right...ironically.
"it does seem that very few people at the time were willing to accept that it could be a useful thing to understand."
ReplyDeleteAs a close follower of those discussions as well as of the relevant science going back 10+ years, I cannot imagine how you could have acquired such an impression.
This business is similar to RP Sr.'s having launched into complaints about U.S. surface temp quality only *after* implementation of the CRN was well under way.
In both cases, more clever scientists thought of this stuff first and were already doing something about it.
Maybe you should spend some time inquiring into the sources of RP Sr.'s obvious bitterness about the climate science establishment It might be enlightening as to his subsequent behavior.
Hi Steve, nice to hear from you.
DeleteYou've definitely caught me in my sloppy language. Of course there were people doing important work, going back before the time frame I refer to. My bad. I already knew this, but have been lazy. Memory being what it is I was focusing on a particular series of exchanges which to my (untrained) eye were unsatisfactory, and the reappearance of the metric got me thinking. cf James' comment below.
Your replies have got me thinking about something - I may write about it later. Fortunately, being on the periphery of the climate science community rather than embedded in it, I don't have the baggage that goes with long experience and familiarity. for better or worse.
Hi Fergus, good to see you back (h/t Eli).
ReplyDeleteRather against my principles, but this time I actually agree with both Steve and Eli :-)
Of course, the real reason the AR5 has an increased focus on OHC is that the surface isn't warming (much)....
HI James, and thank you. Good to hear from you too.
DeleteYou have all managed to answer my title question quite effectively - apparently I have been Rogered! Which raises a point I may comment on later.
You have also read my gentle English irony and simplified the object of the post succinctly.
Then it's a pity the 'hiatus' in surface warming didn't happen much earlier -- imagine, we could have had an operational ARGO system for thirty years now...
DeleteHi Martin,
ReplyDeleteperhaps I'm being obtuse, but I don't understand what you are getting at..
You know, I was just thinking a couple of days ago pretty much along these lines - ocean heat content was the metric Pielke Sr was arguing for all over the place a few years ago, and here it is front and center in AR5! So - I'm curious - has Pielke himself actually reacted at all - perhaps taken some credit? I haven't seen it yet, somebody really should ask him!
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's a matter of claiming credit - as Steve points out above, work was already under way on the Argo program (Woods et al?) as well as study of the AMOC (Curry?) - it was a while ago...
DeleteAs Steve also observes, Roger's has been a voice from another side of the mainstream for a long time. This is not to suggest he is in a 'camp' politically. I have long thought that the tendency to label someone who disagrees with you as belonging to part of a collective group of your 'opponents', whether that person is accused of being a 'pro' or 'con', isn't good for science.
But the politicization of the GW debate is a reality we have to deal with these days, along with the baggage of adversarial polemics.
I merely wanted to point out that you can disagree with another person on many things but that does not necessarily mean that you must disagree with them on everything - especially when they are right.
The general point - eyes open, observe, judge the work (it is necessary in science) but not the person...