Climate Change Denial and the Appeal to Authority
February 13th, 2007 by Stephen
Over on the MInTheGap blog, there is a post which links to this article about how global warming is nothing to worry about.
I wrote a couple of replies on the MInTheGap blog which you can take a look at, but to summarise, I noted that the article was largely an appeal to authority. The writer – one Timothy F Ball – claims:
I was one of the first Canadian Ph.Ds. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition
I am not sure what evidence he has for being one of the first doctors in Climatology in Canada. I suspect there may be some hair splitting going on there, as there were many Canadians prior to this who researched climate.
As to his extensive background in climatology, I cannot find much evidence for this – but he is right to draw attention to the fact that reconstruction of past climates is his area of expertise. His thesis from the University of London was:
“Climate Change in Central Canada, A Preliminary Analysis of Weather Information from the Hudson’s Bay Company Forts at York Factory and Churchill Factory, 1714-1850.”
I couldn’t immediately find any published papers by him on climate, so a web search revealed these titles that someone else turned up after an exhaustive search of web of science and worldcat:
1. “Historical Evidence and Climatic Implications of a Shift in the Boreal Forest Tundra Transition in Central Canada†Climatic Change 1986
2. “Instrumental Temperature Records at two Sites in Central Canada, 1768 TO 1910″ Climatic Change 1984
3. “The migration of Geese as an indicator of climate change in the southern Hudson-Bay region between 1715 and 1851,†Climatic Change 5, 85-93 (1983).
4. “Climate of 2 locations of the southwestern corner of Hudson-Bay -AD 1720-1729.†International Journal of Climatology 14, 1151-1168 (1994).
So Dr Ball’s expertise lie in understanding how Canadian climate has changed between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This, of course, ties in with the little ice age which followed the medieval warm period, and is an interesting period because of the anomalous conditions in Europe (and the Hudson Bay area) at this time. But in his piece quoted above, Ball gives the impression that the little ice age was a world wide phenomenon. he wrote:
The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA)
Notice that all Dr Ball’s research is over 12 years old. Increasingly we have come to understand that the little ice age was a localised phenomenon. Some have suggested this was because of melt water from retreat of the Greenland ice sheet in the medieval warm period causing a failure of the North atlantic drift to warm Europe (because the melt water had lower salinity, causing the cold water to sink and drive the North Atlantic drift down).
Whatever the reason though, recent research is clear that the little ice age was not a global phenomenon, but a localised one. See for instance:
“Climate Change 2001: Working Group I: The Scientific Basis 2.3.3 Was there a “Little Ice Age†and a “Medieval Warm Periodâ€?â€. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2002)
Now this is the sum of Dr Ball’s research. Despite his great claims to be a leading climatologist, he has published just 4 peer reviewed papers on the subject – all on Canadian climate change prior to the industrial period.
To put that in context, a researcher in the UK who does not produce at least four peer reviewed papers over three years would not be even entered in the research assessment exercise as a current researcher.
He disagrees with a global consensus on climate change, but he does not carry out research on the subject. He has not published *any* research on the subject for well over a decade. We would do well not to be taken in by such people.
Love the MEDIA without an ounce of science background jump on this ‘religious’ bandwagon. Dion is dead because of his dogmatic beliefs — Harper will get his majority because Canadians will not support sending billions abroad to corrupt regions like Russia to pay our emission share. Best journalists to read on subject are Mark Steyn and Michael Crichton.
When I was doing my MSc in population ecology c. 1979, prior to my PHD, my climatologist committee advisor was more concerned about global cooling, the consensus a few years earlier. Yes, there are normal cycles of warming and cooling, and yes, ice ages ended when regional or global warming took place, long, long before the emergence of modern man.
For the non-science types out there not capable of going to atmospheric climate literature, stick with Steyn or Crichton.
Dave, there was not a consensus on global cooling, despite certain media hype in the 1970s. What was demonstrated was that there was an observable cooling from the post war period to the 1970s, and the scientific community argued that this needed to be investigated further to determine whether this was a precursor to an ice age or somesuch.
No consensus was ever reached, because at this time there was also a great deal of concern about acid rain. Consequently sulpher dioxide emissions were reduced through a series of international treaties and technological change. The result was that sulpher dioxide rapidly declined as an atmospheric aerosol. This had been very effectively masking the effects of carbon dioxide since the the second world war, and as sulpher dioxide emissions were reduced the temperatures started to rapidly climb.
This is all well known, and there has even been a half baked suggestion that we deliberately pump sulpher based aerosols into the atmosphere to keep global temperatures down!
You say:
This is a confirmation behaviour. You rate the quality of the writing by how much the journalist agrees with your point of view. As they presumably disagree with my point of view, I would indeed do well to read what they have to say, and evaluate their arguments (as I read Calder’s argument and evaluated it above).
On the other hand, if you are only reading articles by these people then you will learn nothing. Confirmation behaviours confirm our prejudices, but they do not challenge our thinking. Rather you should be reading up on the science of climate change, and evaluating the arguments you find.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Stephen
1) Natural volcanic erruptions contribute (e.g. Mt Helens) significant amounts of ash into the atmosphere leading to far more cooling, than man-made carbon dioxide emmissions due heating 2) Human life could not be sustained without carbon dioxide, as grade-schoolers know it is a key element in life e.g. carbon fixation in photosynthesis and respiration. 3) natural periods of warm and cold occur throughout geological history, e.g. many parts of the world were much warmer 1300AD — when exploring vikings named ‘Greenland’ Greenland, they did so for a reason: they cultivated the land for two centuries — before they couldn’t grow any more (it wasn’t human greenhouse gas that interrupted their cultivation LOL 4) ice ages have been coming and going long before the the emergence of man 5) solar activity (‘sunspots’) and cosmic background radiation are much better correlated with increases in temperature than temperature with increases in carbon dioxide 6) day-to-day weather forecasting is 50:50, what gives you confidence that scientific long-term forecasting is much credible when it is so much more complex 7) many younger climatologists are not getting government grants for alternative research because of monoply power & tenured positions of older climatologists who resist contesting status quo
despite my previous use of the word ‘consensus’, it is not a good scientific word. It is used by policy or political types (e.g. UN or Al Gore), much more rarely by scientists. Scientific propositions are either true, false or uncertain 9) probably way before your time: read about the consensus of scientists and economists and policy types c. 1969 called the ‘Club of Rome’. All (or most) of their alleged predictions about the world have turned out to be nonsense 10) Read Mark Steyn and Dr. Michael Crichton (‘State of Fear’) as an antidote to the politically correct nonsense espoused by Gore 11) all computer models are based on assumptions, which, when changed can dranatically affect results: the current models exclude effects of cloud cover (too difficult), and solar and background cosmic radiation. Read the nonsense from modelling predictions from ‘Club of Rome’ 12) Kyoto protocol says trading emission credits a viable option. Absurd. e.g. so Canada will give billions of dollars to currupt regimes (no accountability how money spent) like Russia to invest in energy-conserving technology, I don’t think so 13) China, India, and Russia (to a degree) are exempt from Kyoto 14) ethanol is a bio-fuel raved about by Gore-ites. Absurd. a) costs more to produce than benefits (e.g. cost of fertilizer) b) will destroy international markets for corn products by largely raising price (hungry people won’t be able to afford corn in poor countries) 15) climate change is a hugely complex topic, most non-scientists are in no position to dispute claims, even among scientists large variability in understanding e.g. compare atmospheric physical scientist to biochemist to health policy/population ecology types (like me). Just try reading relevant physical chemistry, physics, or atmospheric articles 16) under the best of times, there is a huge gap in science between theory and policy approaches: e.g. try connecting randomized clinical trial results to appropriate policy position in government (very, very difficult — and we’re not good at it). Extend this from basic science in climatology to policy prescription: huge dissconnect. 17) Media should be concentrating of real problems — CCFs, synthetics, SMOG, etc, etc 18) Only good thing coming out of this will be turning to safe, nuclear sources of energy — no greenhouse emissions — great value for money, 19) and allows us to get away from islamic blackmail Arab-based oil e.g. US has provided over trillion dollars to ME since 1970s…which has been recycled into Swiss bank accounts, terrorism, maddresses, etc, certainly not increasing the standard of living for average Saudi.
Dave, you introduce 19 points, some of which deserve longer answers than I can give here, so I shall answer briefly but as fully as possible, and then write some posts on this blog looking at other issues more fully in the future.
1) Yes, volcano eruptions can throw significant amounts of sulpher dioxide into the atmosphere. As for the industrial sulpher dioxide aerosol described in my last reply, this can cause global cooling. It is widely thought that the summer of 1816 was affected by one such eruption, and the year became known as the year without summer. However, the sulpher dioxide drops out of the atmosphere after a year or two. Atmospheric carbon dioxide, on the other hand, does not. There are carbon sinks, of course, but as these are overwhelmed there are measurable increases in carbon dioxide in our atmosphere that wil be with us for a long time to come.
2) Obviously we need carbon dioxide. The issue is the quantity in the atmosphere.
3) Take a look at southern and eastern Greenland on google earth. Notice its colour. Even in the medieval warm period, it is unlikely that Greenland is as warm as it is now.
4) Ice ages are related to Milankovitch cycles which trail orbital perturbations of the earth. Timescales for the changes are far longer than the sudden and dangerously rapid warming we are seeing.
5) See my recent post as refutation to that point
6) Day to day weather forecasting is much better than you say. Furthermore, climate is what you expect – weather is what you get. We know a great deal about climate and its causes. Even though models are not perfect, they are considerably better than you seem to think.
7) Science thrives on people attempting to disprove the theories and results of one another. This line is spurious.
9) Economists – pah!
10) I have explained in my last post why your suggestion is an example of confirmation behaviours. We need to challenge our cognitive bias. I have every intention of reading stuff from people who disagree with me. Will you do the same?
11) Solar and cosmic radiation has neither an increasing or decreasing trend. Cloud cover is problematic, because it is not clear whether it is a positive or negative feedback. Height of the cloud, for instance, affects this. The climate models thus parameterise this variable, and it is an acknowledged area of uncertainty.
12) Not absurd, it is working in Europe (although the scheme needs some tweaking).
13) It is a just principle that those nations that have contributed most to the problem be the first to clean up their act. Furthermore, there can be no progress on bringing emissions targets onto China and India until the World’s largest emitter (25% of world CO2 emissions with just 4% of the world population) comes on board.
14) Ethanol is indeed not the answer, although I am unconvinced by the arguments made by some that fuel inputs to grow the crop exceed fuel gains. It is indeed very inefficient though.
15) I do read these articles.
16) Yes, that is why the US government are so out of touch on this issue.
17) These are not the most pressing issues. In Bjorn Lomberg’s “The Skeptical Environmentalist”, he argues that there are more pressing issues into which we should invest our resources, and he names some of them. For instance, Malaria. (Things that kill people in the third world). I disagree with Lomberg’s argument that we should not invest resources in climate change, because:
a) The Stern report demonstrates that it is cheaper to do something about the problem now rather than later
b) Economics is blind to many of the losses we will suffer if we allow climate change unchecked
c) Lomberg does not like the idea that we simply slow down the rate of climate change, but he neglects the issue that long journies require small steps, and that we may *need* the extra time to develop solutions.
18) True, but a legacy of nuclear waste for millennia after.
19) Oil dependency is a whole bigger issue, and the effects you describe are simply the US reaping what it sows. We should not be spending unreplaceable energy capital as though it were revenue. That is economic mismanagement.
Thanks for your comments
Stephen
Will not deal with all of your points — time limits all, but recent articles by Steyn below are interesting, even if somewhat tongue-in-cheek:
New points:
1) Understanding climate is tremendously complicated, maybe more difficult than cancer — I think we are generations away from understanding abnormal cell growth or other questions about biological life (e.g. what is life? how did it evolve (if evolution is model)? what is mind? the questions are enless are mind boggling) — do we really understand / appreciate tornadoes, hurricanes, effect of sunspots, background (cosmic) radiation effects, cloud cover, impact of land cultivation on climate, impact of fires on climate, direct & indirect e.g. carbon in atmosphere, impact of wars (man-made on climate), interaction of oceans with atmosphere, uncertainity of historical climate records, variable measurement of temperature changes around urban centres, etc, etc….
NO. The science is not there, and probably won’t be for generations. Garbage, in-garbage out computer models based on incomplete science (we don’t even have a way of knowing if it is incomplete — perhaps prediction — again, my day-to-day experience for the past 45 years is weather forecasting is more an art than a science: better than a flip of a coin, but hardly good as I define: how confident are you in 1 week, 2 week, 3 week projections of weather…not very…add complexities of above, I have virtually no confidence in climate forecasting…..I’m still waiting for physics / physical chemistry nobel prize winners to provide some innovative breakthroughs, but I don’t see them from where I am sitting….do you, really?
2) I have a distrust of all so-called ‘consensus’ staments, I prefer ‘central dogma’. Man is so limited. For example, I believe a) evolutionary theory is a crock (mostly), and I used it in an population insect article (still cited) 20 years ago b) AIDS/HIV theory is bunk (in Duesberg camp) c) understanding of psychosis, impact of anti-psychotics (I’m anti-psychiatry) d) basic problem in DNA ‘central dogma’ (illustrated by human genome, greater 90% of DNA so-called junk) related to my views on evolution
3) We have moved to a post-scientific age, people are not interested in the grind of science, only in mass simplifications, “mass hysteria”: where is the Einstein for climate change, the series of nobel prize winners who will demonstrate, the equivalent of quantuum mechanics, relativity, string theory, for climate, how it can be understood, described, modelled, and connects to disparate relationships. Without strong coherent theories, without testing of these theories, climate predictions are not much better — in fact, far worse — than day to day weather forecasting.
4) The search for truth, the goal of science, keeps getting interrupted by other values, power politics, money, greed, egos — pharmaco-miltary-industrial complexes — yes, grants and tenure do matter — paper publication for the sake of paper publication, not real scientific illimination or contribution. The current ‘central dogma’ : carbon dioxide, a green house emission, man-made, is leading to disproportionate global warming, and that matters, will be discredited, as other ‘consensus’ models have been, and will be.
5) I will deal with your other counters later (I see lot’s of holes — basically stop ‘believing’ that much of climate is really known — it isn’t), but wanted to get the context right.
6) I note you are a christian — great — I am as well.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/steyn/251601,CST-EDT-steyn11.article
http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20070204-101532-9340r.htm
http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2006/10/25/climate-change-considerations/
Stephen;
I don’t usually respond to diatribe like yours, but it is so narrow and incorrect it demands correction. Ad hominem attacks such as yours are a sure sign that an argument is being lost.
While you belittle my doctoral thesis you should know that in England at that time a thesis defence required an oral exam by several examiners, in my case there were six, chaired by Dr Smith of Oxford. The defence included questions about the thesis, but also inluded a challenge to a candidates entire knowledge of the subject at hand. My thesis defence lasted almost five hours. I would like to subject so many of today’s so-called ‘experts’, including you, to such an interrogation. (I am prepared to send a copy of my PhD diploma showing that it was in the Faculty of Science and specifically in Climatology.)
Your comment about the claim of “one of the first” shows lack of understanding about the subject and how it has evolved. There were a few Canadian PhDs sepcifically in climate such as Kenneth Hare, who I had the privilege of knowing and consulting on occasion. However, most people even today have come to climatology via other discplines. In my opinion, the worst of these are those who come through computer modeling, a subject that is beginning to be exposed for what it is and what it has done to climate science.
Since completion of the doctorate I have published far more extensively than you have discovered and in most of the available climate journals of the time. You must also realize that many of the climate journals now in existence were not around during most of my career. I recall my excitement when Geophysical Research Letters began focus as a cross discipline journal on climate, which it requires as a generalist subject in this age of specialization. Journals such as Science and Nature, now so heavily involved in climate, were not concerned with it as subject. Articles to the latter were consistently rejected without even review. Of course, billions of government research dollars and politicization of the entire subject have changed that dramatically and disturbingly.
I was on the Canadian Committee on Climate Fluctuations organized by Dick Harington of the Museum of Natural Sciences, which did pioneering work in reconstructing the climate of Canada for the last 20,000 years. We met every year in Ottawa at the Museum and it brought together people from diverse areas for valuable interaction and exchange of ideas. I was voted as Chair and then Environment Canada pulled the funding and the entire valuable world leading project died. I suggest you visit the publications issued under the title of Syllogeus to give you an idea of how far ahead we were. I also worked with Dick to organize the first conference on the eruptions of Tambora in 1815. A copy of those proceedings is available through the Museum under the title “The Year Without a Summer. World climate in 1816.”
I was lead author on the climate half of a university textbook for which I still receive some royalties. More recently I co-authored a book titled “Eighteenth Century Naturalists of Hudson Bay” with Dr Stuart Houston of Sakatoon. There is a large separate section on climate in the book. In December 2006 an article co-authored with Dr Willie Soon of Harvard and others was in Press with the journal Ecologial Complexity. I also write a monthly column for farmers (15 years and counting) who are struggling to understand and deal with the weather and climate and what is actually being said. It affects their lives and livelihood unlike the situation for all the armchair experts. Writing this column also requires that I keep up with the literature across the entire subect of climatology. It is a subject that few people understand, especially most who use it as a political vehicle to push their own agenda.
I would suggest my activity level in the subject is at least equal to many so called active researchers and certainly equal, in my experience, to most in the academic community. I would also suggest I have as wide a knowledge of the entire subject as most.
Elsewhere you (I assume it was you, but no matter because the point is still important) make the argument that there was no consensus on global cooling in the 1970s. First of all, as with global warming today, consensus is not a scientific fact. Second, as an active climatologist during that period I can attest there was a general consensus, but as with warming today there were those who disagreed that the trend would continue. I was one of those who disagreed with the consensus then as i do today, because one value of reconstructing past climates, despite your attempts to underplay its value, is to learn the degree and rate of climate change. I am amused and bemused by the recent shift from a focus on global warming to a focus on climate change. Why? The scientific evidence is obvious, but the shift and your attacks are not about the issues of climate science.
Don’t respond and demean yourself further by trying to claim I have received ‘oil money. It is as scurrilous and false as the other ad hominem attacks. Do me and others a favor and spend your time and efforts examining and trying to understand climate science.
Dear Tim,
Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to respond even though we clearly disagree.
You state that my attack is ad hominem, and that this is a sign of a lost argument. Ordinarily I would agree with you, but you will note that I began my posting by pointing to your recent article entitled “Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?” of February 5th this year. I made the point that the article is largely an appeal to authority. You begin by stating that no one is listening to you, despite your credentials, and make similar statements later in the article. If your argument is that people should be listening to you because of your expertise, then it is legitimate to query exactly where your expertise lies, and whether you, as an authority, should carry more weight than those authorities who disagree with you.
Indeed, I wrote an article on this blog about appeals to authorty and suggested the following guidelines for evaluating such an appeal:
On point 3, it is entirely relevant whether your expertise is in the field on which you are speaking. You are claiming in this article on your own authority that global warming is not due to human contribution of carbon dioxide. Now the article is an opinion piece, and not a scientific treatise, but if your expertise is in the historical climate of eastern Canada, and if you have never contributed any peer reviewed research on the effects of increased levels of atmospheric CO2 on global warming, then you are making a claim for which you are not an authority.
On point 4, I did not mention that you had “received oil money”, because I was unaware of this allegation. Nor did I intend to make any such point. However, when there is an appeal to authority, it is proper to ask whether the authority is biased. However, I have no means to evaluate whether you are biased on the issue, so I will say no more on that.
On point 5, I notice that your article is making the exact point that you are indeed out of sync with the consensus expert opinion in climatology, as witnessed by the draft executive summary of the forthcoming IPCC report.
So this article was not a diatribe – it was an evaluation of an article that is being presented widely on the net as proof that there is a conspiracy to silence the fact that global warming is not happening. My evaluation revolves particularly around test 3 above: are you actually an expert on the matter at hand.

You said: “While you belittle my doctoral thesis”.
I did not belittle your doctoral thesis. I acknowledged your expertise in *historical* *climate*. I specifically said “he is right to draw attention to the fact that reconstruction of past climates is his area of expertise”.
Kenneth Hare, of course, having obtained his doctorate from a Canadian university at least 20 years before you, and he was by no means the only one.
But my exact comment was:
“I suspect there may be some hair splitting going on there, as there were many Canadians prior to this who researched climate.”
Because, of course, climate is researched by atmospheric phycisist, meteorologists, geographers and earth scientists, statisticians and so forth. There were many researchers making research contributions in climatology prior to yours.
Consider another field, for example. Donald Knuth is perhaps one of the most important Computer Scientists in the field of programming. No-one would really doubt his credentials as a computer scientist – and yet his doctorate (like many computer scientists) is in mathematics.
Now if some upstart said that he was one of the world\’s first Lutheran computer scientist, and his evidence was that only a handful of Lutherans had degrees specifically in Computer Science before him (albeit at least 20 years before him), it would be fair to point out that there are indeed many Lutheran computer scientists, including Donald Knuth. That this person was splitting hairs by excluding those whose degrees were in fact in mathematics, despite the fact that their research (including their theses) was in the field of Computer Science.
Thus my comment.
I have turned up two more that I had missed:
Ball, Timothy F. (1995), “Historical and instrumental evidence of climate: Western Hudson Bay, Canada, 1714–1850″, in Bradley, Raymond S. & Philip D. Jones, Climate Since A.D. 1500, Routledge, ISBN 0415075939
Catchpole, A.J.W. & Timothy F. Ball (1981), “Analysis of historical evidence of climate change in western and northern Canada”, Syllogeus (no. 33): 48-96
Still all on historical climate in Canada (although the second one is western and northern Canada). I have not done an exhaustive search yet, but as you are responding here – have you published in any peer reviewed publication, research that supports the claims you made in your article, that human contribution of CO2 is not causing global warming? I would be happy to link to it if you have done so, and would certainly read it.
This was not reflected in the scientific literature.
There was hype about this issue in the popular press, but no consensus in the scientific community.
I don\’t underplay its value. I find the field fascinating, and have enjoyed many conversations with friends researching and reconstructing neolithic climate. However, I note again that there was no consensus for you to disagree with.
I presume you actually know why people now prefer the term “climate change” to “global warming”.
Which, of course, is exactly what I am doing.
Thanks again for your comments. I trust that you now see that my posting is an evaluation of the appeal to authority in your opinion piece, and the lack of peer reviewed research to back up your claims. Might I suggest that when you write your next article, that you make it a little less subjective, and actually reference some research material.
Dave,
Yes, understanding climate is complicated – but do not mistake it with weather forecasting. The most basic understanding of climate tells me the weather here will get gradually warmer for the next five months or so, and then gradually get colder.
I can tell you that we have a better than evens chance of sunshine on 21st June, but I certainly cannot tell you whether it will be sunny on this day.
So don’t get these fields confused (nor what they are telling you).
You also mention Einstein – whose theories explained observed data after following a direction that the scientific community had ignored. I note, however, that Einstein’s theory was quickly accepted as explaining e.g. Michelson-Morley’s result, and was widely accepted before experimental proof demonstrated that he was indeed correct.
Why doesn’t the scientific community afford the same respect to (for instance) views about cosmic rays influencing cloud formation? Because the evidence opposes these theories (cosmic rays show no trend over the half century we have monitored them).
Thanks for your comments.
Stephen
[...] After I wrote my piece in this blog about Dr Timothy Ball’s opinion piece, where he claims that no one is listening to him, even though he was one of Canada’s first climatology PhDs, and a researcher in the field – Dr Ball wrote me a reply in the comments section arguing that the piece was ad hominem. [...]
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