The illogical, the bizarre and the downright confused...

It has been rather a disspiriting week. Firstly we've had the unedifying spectacle of the Copenhagen talks making limited progress because of arguments about money and jockeying for position instead of the urgency that is needed to tackle climate change. However, the story that has been setting the blogosphere alight is not the conference itself, but the hacking of e-mails at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, which has had climate sceptics bouncing off the walls all claiming that the whole theory of man-made global warming is a "hoax".

There has already been a great deal written on the internet about the subject of the CRU e-mails (this site is a good "clearing house" for information that rebuts some of the more sensational claims), but whilst they may show some scientists in a bad light, they have almost no relevance to the scientific basis of our understanding of climate. However, the whole thing has been a PR coup for the sceptics; in fact, the response by the UEA in the media was so dilatory that one lecturer in communication studies said he would use it as an example in future courses of what not to do in the event of a revelation like this. Whilst sceptics were furiously spinning for a fortnight, the university sat in complete silence as if it hoped the whole story would just fade away. In fact, the whole "scandal" is a typical diversionary tactic used by sceptics - instead of bringing forward scientific arguments that challenge the basis of the current consensus and publishing it in scientific journals, they instead take some small factoid, such as some remarks in a personal e-mail, then blow it up to the point where it somehow proves that the work of hundreds of scientists across many different specialist fields is a fraud.

So in the face of this severe threat to humanity's future, instead of working out what action to take we are instead sitting around arguing with people who believe that the threat does not exist. Great.

So just to put the tin hat on things, I noticed that a couple of newspapers yesterday picked up on a report from the European Foundation about global warming, entitled "100-reasons why global warming is natural". This fairly obscure organization has hitherto confined itself to worriting about European integration, though a fair balance of its contributors seem to be right-wing Tories. However, it has obviously decided to branch out into new fields, and take on the orthodoxy of climate science. Now, the report was apparently authored by "political analyst" Jim McConalogue, who is presumably not an climatology expert, but neither am I. So one should never dismiss something without reading it.
So, what of these 100 points that knock the scientific orthodoxy into a cocked hat? They contain such devastating critiques as:

"55) The argument that climate change is a of result of global warming caused by human activity is the argument of flat Earthers."

Really. And my dad's bigger than your dad as well! I assume this is some kind of response to the fact that global warming sceptics are sometimes referred to as "flat earthers," but at least I think that people who use that phrase realize that's rhetoric, not an argument in itself.

"79) Since the cause of global warming is mostly natural, then there is in actual fact very little we can do about it. (We are still not able to control the sun)."

OK, I must be missing something here. I thought this was supposed to be 100 reasons why global warming was natural - simply asserting that global warming is natural and then describing the consequences isn't evidence that it's natural.

"74) To date “cap and trade” carbon markets have done almost nothing to reduce emissions."

Well, arguably the author has a point, but our inability to act effectively in the face of the threat is hardly evidence that the threat does not exist. I'm beginning to wonder whether Mr McConalogue would have been better off sticking to a smaller number of slightly more substantive points.

So I'll ignore the tangential and irrelevant statements, question begging and just plain abuse and instead look at a couple of the "serious" arguments.

"12) Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London says climate change is too complicated to be caused by just one factor, whether CO2 or clouds."

Exactly right. No serious climate scientist has ever suggested that CO2 is the only driver of climate change, but there is very strong evidence that (along with other greenhouse gases) it is responsible for much of the late 20th Century warming. A classic straw man argument.

"24) It is a falsehood that the earth’s poles are warming because that is natural variation and while the western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer we also see that the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder."

Well, warming is warming whether it's caused by natural variation or not. It's also false that Greenland and the Eastern Arctic aren't warming, though it's possible (given the standard of the other arguments) that Mr McConalogue is confusing the Arctic with the Antartic (it is true that the Eastern Antarctic may have cooled a little, or at least not warmed much). I just hope this guy never has to lead an expedition...

There are, however, more sophisticated attempts to mislead, such as:

"35) It is a myth that computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming because computer models can be made to “verify” anything."

The inputs into computer models are not simply a "think of a number" exercise to mix together various different factors like a recipe until the magic formula that explains warming is found. The warming caused by CO2 must be related to the known physical properties of the gas, as it must be with sunlight and other factors.

"54) The UN’s IPCC computer models of human-caused global warming predict the emergence of a “hotspot” in the upper troposphere over the tropics. Former researcher in the Australian Department of Climate Change, David Evans, said there is no evidence of such a hotspot."

In fact warming caused by any other factor should produce the same "hot spot", which is in fact a feedback effect of water vapour. It is true that the "hot spot" has not been seen as clearly as expected from weather balloon records, but that may be party due to the fact that weather balloon coverage in the tropics is very poor. However, the disctinctive "signature" of greenhouse warming is simultaneous warming in the troposphere and cooling in the stratosphere (as more of the incoming radiation is retained) which has been clearly observed and in fact is not even controversial.

What is a mystery is not so much why most of these points are inaccurate, badly researched and simply absurd, but why even right-wing newspapers such as the Torygraph and the Express should imagine that they are worthy of a single column inch. It was heartening that several of the internet commenters on the column posted the following link to the excellent New Scientist magazine, which demolishes the first fifty of the arguments:

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/50-reasons-why-global-warming.html

This link exposes some of the tactics used by climate change sceptics to obfuscate the science.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18279

Let's hope that the negotiators at Copenhagen can ignore the background noise of the sceptics and get on with delivering us a strong deal to address the problem of climate change.