In response to this climate-science "exchange" on pages 61-62
of the January/February 2018 issue of Skeptical Inquirer . . .
. . . in which I was maliciously branded a "climate change denier," I promptly
submitted the following letter, which the editor rejected for publication,
leading shortly thereafter to my resignation*, after 26 years, as a scientific consultant
to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), which publishes Skeptical Inquirer:

Editor:

The handling of my letter as fodder for an "exchange" on climate-science criticism (January/February 2018, pages 61-62) lacked crucial context. Your introduction neglected to mention that as a CSI* scientific consultant but climate non-expert, I have repeatedly urged Skeptical Inquirer to engage with a politically independent climatologist like Judith Curry, former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who eschews bandwagoning in favor of keeping a critical eye on her own field. But rather than inviting Curry to submit an article, speak at CSICon*, or (as I have most strongly advocated) sit for a hard-hitting interview with peers such as the exchange's "two noted scientists and climate experts," they instead were fed one of my other letters like shark bait.

Michael Mann accuses me of the classic logical fallacy of "special pleading" as if my uncontested meteorological points about Sandy and Harvey justify the moniker of "denier." Rather, they were offered because those who mistakenly ascribe the catastrophic destructiveness of those storms to climate change ignore their "special" circumstances. He then asserts that record-high global oceanic temperatures are fostering additional exceptionally strong hurricanes "[as] now, with Irma, [which formed and strengthened over] the open Atlantic. . . . Perhaps Mr. (he knows I'm a medical doctor) Posner wants to explain that away as a freak chance occurrence too." Well, shark vs. bait isn't exactly a fair fight, so here is what Dr. Curry would tell him (from tinyurl.com/curry-irma): "[Irma] developed over relatively cool waters in the Atlantic—26.5 C—the rule of thumb is 28.5 C for a major hurricane. . . . So why did Irma develop into a major hurricane? We can't blame 26.5 C temperatures in the mid Atlantic on global warming. The dynamical situation for Irma was unusually favorable. In particular, the wind shear was very weak. Further, the circulation field (e.g., stretching deformation) was very favorable for spinning up this hurricane." And the same page links to the NOAA GFDL (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory) "Global Warming and Hurricanes" page, which states that despite such projections for later in the century, "It is premature to conclude that human activities—and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming—have already had a detectable [i.e., clearly distinguishable from natural variability] impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity."

In lieu of occupying further valuable space dissecting Mark Boslough's ruminations, I will simply opine that participation in a moral crusade, even one as noble as saving the planet, should not require enucleation of one's critical eye. My essay in the Summer 2013 "Skeptical Briefs" (gpposner.com/skep-view-warming.pdf), as well as the other "Climate Change" entries on the Topic Index page of tampabayskeptics.org, account for everything (to my recollection) that I have had published regarding the issues at hand. Readers can judge for themselves whether my efforts represent close-minded "denial" or open-minded "skepticism."

Gary P. Posner, M.D.
Tampa, Florida

*Notes: CSI (Committee for Skeptical Inquiry), formerly known as CSICOP, publishes the bimonthly Skeptical Inquirer magazine. Skeptical Briefs (now discontinued) was its quarterly companion newsletter. CSICon is its annual national conference. Additionally, two links in my 2013 Skeptical Briefs essay no longer function as originally. The Scientific American article on Judith Curry (warts and all) can be found here. The article quoting the IPCC chairman can be found on this archived page.

My letter of resignation from CSI/Skeptical Inquirer can be found here.

 
Reasons for applying critical thinking toward the "scientific consensus" on climate change abound in the writings of Judith Curry, former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The following selections from her "Climate Etc." website may be of particular interest (these introductory page descriptions/links might not be visible in "mobile friendly" view mode):

• Podcast interview (January 30, 2021)

  Excerpts: "The real issue is the magnitude of man-made warming relative to the whole host of other things that go on in the natural climate system. And then the bigger issue is really whether this warming is dangerous. You know, a certain amount of warming is generally regarded by people as a good thing. But a whole lot of warming isn't . . . especially if it's melting ice sheets and causing sea level rise. . . . And even if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide today, the sea level . . . would keep rising. So, the climate system is way more complex than just something that you can tune with a CO2 control knob. That just isn't how it works. . . . There's crazy people on both sides of the debate. There's a range of credible perspectives that I try to consider. It's a very complex problem and we don't have the answers yet. . . . The climate is going to change independent of what we do with emissions. . . . Thinking that we can control the climate is misguided hubris."

• On who Judith Curry is (in her own words)

  Excerpts: "Politically, I'm an independent. . . . I was a strong [Obama term #1] supporter and am on public record as having made campaign contributions (I was much less enthusiastic about Obama #2). . . . I am a social liberal but fiscal conservative. . . . I don't subscribe to any political ideology or anything with an '-ism.' . . . The problem for science is with ideologues. . . . In the climate communication world, it has become very trendy to wear your political ideology on your sleeve. . . . I value being exposed to a range of perspectives — this broadens and sharpens my own thinking. . . . I don't watch cable or network TV [except CNN for election returns]. . . . I am assumed by some to be an acolyte of Fox News, since I have been interviewed twice by Tucker Carlson. When I lived in Atlanta, I was very frequently interviewed by CNN. . . . I'm all about opening up the dialogue on climate science and the policy options. I think that the discussion on both has been too narrow, to the detriment of both science and policy."

• Curry's take on the extreme rhetoric regarding climate change

  Excerpts: "In the years since the [IPCC's] 5th Assessment Report, the uncertainty has grown. The latest climate model results — prepared for the forthcoming IPCC 6th Assessment Report — shows that a majority of the climate models are producing values of ECS [equilibrium climate sensitivity] exceeding 5℃. The addition of poorly understood additional processes into the models has increased confusion and uncertainty. At the same time, refined efforts to determine values of the equilibrium climate sensitivity from the historical data record obtain values of ECS about 1.6℃, with a range from 1.05 to 2.7. . . . With this massive range of uncertainty in the values of equilibrium climate sensitivity, the lowest value among the climate models is 2.3℃, with few models having values below 3℃. Hence the lower end of the range of ECS is not covered by the climate models, resulting in temperature projections for the 21st century that are biased high, with a smaller range relative to the range of uncertainty in ECS. . . . The most extreme scenarios of 21st century sea level rise are based on speculative and poorly understood physical processes that are hypothesized to accelerate the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. However, recent research indicates that these processes are very unlikely to influence sea level rise in the 21st century. To date, in most of the locations that are most vulnerable to sea level rise, local sinking from geological processes and land use has dominated over sea level rise from global warming. . . . To further complicate climate model projections for the 21st century, the climate models focus only on manmade climate change — they make no attempt to predict natural climate variations from the sun's output, volcanic eruptions and long-term variations in ocean circulation patterns. We have no idea how natural climate variability will play out in the 21st century, and whether or not natural variability will dominate over manmade warming. . . . We still don't have a realistic assessment of how a warmer climate will impact us and whether it is 'dangerous.' . . . We have been told that the science of climate change is 'settled'. However, in climate science there has been a tension between the drive towards a scientific 'consensus' to support policy making, versus exploratory research that pushes forward the knowledge frontier. Climate science is characterized by a rapidly evolving knowledge base and disagreement among experts. Predictions of 21st century climate change are characterized by deep uncertainty. . . . We have been told that climate change is an 'existential crisis.' However, based upon our current assessment of the science, the climate threat is not an existential one, even in its most alarming hypothetical incarnations. However, the perception of manmade climate change as a near-term apocalypse has narrowed the policy options that we're willing to consider. The perceived 'urgency' of drastically reducing fossil fuel emissions is forcing us to make near term decisions that may be suboptimal for the longer term. . . . The extreme rhetoric of [extremist] activists is making political agreement on climate change policies more difficult. Exaggerating the dangers beyond credibility makes it difficult to take climate change seriously. On the other hand, the extremely alarmist rhetoric has frightened the bejesus out of children and young adults [and is] triggering a global backlash against doing anything sensible about protecting our environment or reducing our vulnerability to extreme weather."

• On the "settled science" stoking climate alarmism

  Excerpt: "The mantra of 'settled science' is belied by the inherent complexity of climate change as a scientific problem, the plethora of agents and processes that influence the global climate, and disagreements among scientists. Manufacture and enforcement of a "consensus" on the topic of human-caused climate change acts to the detriment of the scientific process, our understanding of climate change, and the policy responses. Indeed, it becomes a fundamentally anti-scientific process when debate, disagreement, and uncertainty are suppressed."

• On the origins of the IPCC and "manufacturing" of the "scientific consensus"

  Excerpts: "Scientists sought political relevance and allowed policy makers to put a big thumb on the scale of the scientific assessment of the attribution of climate change. . . . Scientific scepticism about AGW was alive and well prior to 1995; took a nose-dive following publication of the [IPCC] Second Assessment Report, and then was was dealt what was hoped to be a fatal blow by the Third Assessment Report and the promotion of the Hockey Stick. A rather flimsy edifice for a convincing, highly-confident attribution of recent warming to humans. . . . One might forgive the IPCC leaders for dealing with new science and a very challenging political situation in 1995 during which they overplayed their hand. However, it is the 3rd Assessment Report where [John] Houghton's shenanigans with the Hockey Stick really reveal what was going on (including selection of recent Ph.D. recipient Michael Mann as lead author when he was not nominated by the U.S. delegation). The Hockey Stick got rid of that 'pesky' detection problem. . . . Imagine how all this would have played out if Pierre Morel or John Zillman had been Chair of WG1, or if Tom Wigley or Tim Barnett or John Christy had been Coordinating Lead Author of Chapter 8. And what climate science would look like today."

• On Curry's 2017 Congressional testimony

  Excerpts: "[P]reparing this testimony . . . provided me an opportunity to reflect on my writings over the past 7 years and synthesize them into an essay on the philosophy of climate science, including what went wrong and why, and some suggestions for fixing these problems. . . . Prior to 2010, I felt that supporting the IPCC consensus on human-caused climate change was the responsible thing to do. . . . I [then] began making an independent assessment of topics in climate science that had the most relevance to policy. I concluded that the high confidence of the IPCC's conclusions was not justified, and that there were substantial uncertainties in our understanding of how the climate system works. I realized that the premature consensus on human-caused climate change was harming scientific progress because of the questions that don't get asked and the investigations that aren't made. . . . As a result of my analyses that challenge the IPCC consensus, I have been publicly called a serial climate disinformer, anti-science, and a denier by a prominent climate scientist*. I've been publicly called a denier by a U.S. Senator. My motives have been questioned by a U.S. Congressman in a letter sent to the President of Georgia Tech. . . . There is enormous pressure for climate scientists to conform to the so-called consensus. This pressure comes from federal funding agencies, universities and professional societies, and scientists themselves. Reinforcing this consensus are strong monetary, reputational, and authority interests. . . . The complexity of the climate change problem provides much scope for disagreement among reasonable and intelligent people. Why do scientists disagree about the causes of climate change? The historical data is sparse and inadequate. There's disagreement about the value of different classes of evidence, notably the value of global climate models and paleoclimate reconstructions. There's disagreement about the appropriate logical framework for linking and assessing the evidence. And scientists disagree over assessments of areas of ambiguity and ignorance. . . . There are much better ways to assess science for policy makers than a consensus-seeking process that serves to stifle disagreement and debate."

  *She does not mention his name (Michael Mann) here, but follow link near top of that page to "'Deniers,' lies and politics," where she discusses this matter in detail.

• On Mark Steyn's book critical of Michael Mann 

  Curry's conclusion (in part): "I have written many posts about Michael Mann — apart from my own concerns* about the hockey stick. . . . I am greatly concerned about Mann's bullying behavior inserting itself into the scientific process (collaboration, peer review, public communication). My concerns go beyond the general strategies of adversarial science to what I regard as unethical behavior. . . . Steyn's book reminds everyone of . . . why the public doesn't trust climate scientists and aren't buying their 'consensus.' . . . I hope that everyone will learn that adversarial science as practiced in its pathological form by Michael Mann doesn't 'pay' in the long run."

  *See "Hiding the Decline" (and note that the link to "Hiding the Decline: Part II" is near top of page, and so on as you view its additional parts/pages)

  Note: My own unique review of Steyn's book was rejected for publication by both Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptic magazine: