“Test all things.” Even the Cornwall Alliance? Yes!

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“Bombshell Claim: Scientists Find ‘Man-made Climate Change Doesn’t Exist in Practice’.” That was the headline on an article at ZeroHedge.com sent to me a few days ago by a friend.

Naturally I was intrigued. I read the article, then clicked through to the paper on which it reported: “No Experimental Evidence for the Significant Anthropogenic Climate Change,” by Finnish authors J. Kauippinen and P. Malmi, both of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Turku.

Its abstract read:

In this paper we will prove that GCM-models used in IPCC report AR5 fail to calculate the influences of the low cloud cover changes on the global temperature. That is why those models give a very small natural temperature change leaving a very large change for the contribution of the green house gases in the observed temperature. This is the reason why IPCC has to use a very large sensitivity to compensate a too small natural component. Further they have to leave out the strong negative feedback due to the clouds in order to magnify the sensitivity. In addition, this paper proves that the changes in the low cloud cover fraction practically control the global temperature.

Sounds like a serious challenge to the (alleged but not real) “consensus” view that human emissions of carbon dioxide have been the primary driver of global warming for about the last 60 years, and that catastrophe awaits around the corner if we don’t curb them. The gist: low cloud cover, driven by cosmic rays modulated by solar magnetic wind, determine global temperature anomalies.

But I’m not a physicist, or a climate scientist. I couldn’t evaluate the argument to my satisfaction. And the last thing I want to do is put Cornwall Alliance’s credibility in jeopardy by embracing a study that makes some fundamental errors that I fail to detect.

So I did what I often do: I asked one of the world’s leading climate scientists, Dr. Roy W. Spencer, a Cornwall Alliance Senior Fellow and a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, what he thought of it.

His response:

… basically they assumed that the decrease in global cloud cover from the ISCCP dataset was the cause of recent warming. This is the cause-and-effect issue I’ve been harping on for years, with a few papers published and the main theme of by book The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists.
 
They would have never gotten it published in a peer-reviewed journal because they didn’t even entertain the possibility that the change in clouds was even partly feedback (in this case, positive feedback), that is, the result of the temperature change.
 
The IPCC assumes cloud changes are ALL (or nearly all) feedback. This paper does a fairly crude job of assuming the change is all forcing.  I say it’s some combination of both, and it takes a modeling study that replicates the time-lagged behavior of temperature and cloud changes to determine how much of each (and even then the result is uncertain).

So now, as I’ve done many times, I say a big “Thank you!” to Roy for helping me avoid a pitfall.

And, if I may toot our own horn for just a moment, this is one reason why you can trust the Cornwall Alliance. We don’t embrace some new claim just because it supports our own view. We try to be equally skeptical of information that supports and opposes our view, applying the Apostle Paul’s instruction to “test all things, hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21)—which has about as good a claim as any to being my “life verse.”

Featured image by Łukasz Łada on Unsplash

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3 thoughts on ““Test all things.” Even the Cornwall Alliance? Yes!”

    1. E. Calvin Beisner

      How is your question relevant to the factual premises or the logical inferences of the article?

      I ask that not because I don’t wish to reveal the sources of our money (the vast majority of our donations come from private individuals, and a very few from private nonprofit foundation grants, none from large for-profit corporations), but to call attention to the irrelevance of your question to the content and persuasiveness of the article. Your question is an example of the fallacy of argumentum ad hominem circumstantial. Irving M. Copi, in his Introduction to Logic (1914 edition), writes:

      Argument Against the Person (Argumentum ad Hominem)

      Of all the fallacies of irrelevance, the argument against the person, or ad hominem, is among the most pernicious. Such arguments are common, as many fallacies are. These, in addition to being unfair to the adversary (as straw man arguments are also), are hurtful, often inflicting serious personal damage without any opportunity for the fallacy to be exposed or its author chastised.
      The phrase ad hominem translates as “against the person.” An ad hominem argument is one in which the thrust is directed, not at a conclusion, but at some person who defends the conclusion in dispute. This personalized attack might be conducted in either of two different ways, for which reason we distinguish two major forms of the argument ad hominem: the abusive and the circumstantial.

      Argumentum ad hominem, Abusive

      One is tempted, in heated argument, to disparage the character of one’s opponents, to deny their intelligence or reasonableness, to question their understanding, or their seriousness, or even their integrity. However, the character of an adversary is logically irrelevant to the truth or falsity of what that person asserts, or to the correctness of the reasoning employed. A proposal may be attacked as unworthy because it is supported by “radicals,” or by “reactionaries,” but such allegations, even when plausible, are not relevant to the merit of the proposal itself.
      …
      The accusation of guilt by association is a common form of ad hominem abuse.

      Argumentum ad hominem, Circumstantial

      The circumstances of one who makes (or rejects) some claim have no more bearing on the truth of what is claimed than does his character. The mistake made in the circumstantial form of the ad hominem fallacy is to treat those personal circumstances as the premise of an opposing argument. Thus it may be argued fallaciously that an opponent should accept (or reject) some conclusion merely because of that person’s employment, or nationality, or political affiliation, or other circumstances.
      …
      The circumstances of an opponent are not properly the issue in serious argument. It is the substance of what is claimed, or denied, that must be addressed. It is true that highlighting one’s opponent’s circumstances may prove rhetorically effective in winning assent, or in persuading others, but the effectiveness of this device does not make up for its error. Arguments of this kind are fallacious.
      …
      Between the abusive and the circumstantial varieties of argument ad hominem there is a clear connection: The circumstantial may be regarded as a special case of the abusive. When a circumstantial ad hominem argument explicitly or implicitly charges the opponents with inconsistency (among their beliefs, or between what they profess and what they practice, not logical inconsistency), that is clearly one kind of abuse. When a circumstantial ad hominem argument charges the opponents with a lack of trustworthiness in virtue of membership in a group, that is an accusation of prejudice in defense of self-interest and is clearly also an abuse.
      …
      Even in these special circumstances, an attack on the person of the witness does not establish the falsehood of what had been asserted. Revealing a pattern of past dishonesty or duplicity, or showing an inconsistency with testimony earlier given, may cast justifiable doubt on the reliability of the speaker, but the truth or falsity of the factual claim made can be established only with evidence that bears directly on that claim, and not merely on some person who denies or asserts it. In each case we must ask: Is the attack on the person relevant to the truth of what is at issue? When, as commonly occurs, the attack is not relevant to the merits of the claim, the ad hominem argument is indeed fallacious (118-121).

      You can learn more about argumentum ad hominem circumstantial at https://www.sciencechatforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=264118.

      Reply

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