Inaccuracies in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth

[Fandango 1,440]

Well that settles it...real climate said so!

[no name 1]

From Real Climate...

by Eric Steig

Al Gore's movie

Along with various Seattle business and community leaders, city planners and politicians, a large group of scientists from the University of Washington got a chance to preview the new film, An Inconvenient Truth, last week. The film is about Al Gore's efforts to educate the public about global warming, with the goal of creating the political will necessary for the United States to take the lead in efforts to lower global carbon emissions. It is an inspiring film, and is decidedly non-partisan in its outlook (though there are a few subtle references to the Bush administration's lack of leadership on this and other environmental issues).

Since Gore is rumored to be a fan of RealClimate, we thought it appropriate to give our first impressions.

Much of the footage in Inconvenient Truth is of Al Gore giving a slideshow on the science of global warming. Sound boring? Well, yes, a little. But it is a very good slide show, in the vein of Carl Sagan (lots of beautiful imagery, and some very slick graphics and digital animation). And it is interspersed with personal reflections from Gore that add a very nice human element. Gore in the classroom in 1968, listening to the great geochemist Roger Revelle describe the first few years of data on carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere. Gore on the family farm, talking about his father's tobacco business, and how he shut it down when his daughter (Al Gore's sister) got lung cancer. Gore on the campaign trail, and his disappointment at the Supreme Court decision. This isn't the "wooden" Gore of the 2000 campgain; he is clearly in his element here, talking about something he has cared deeply about for over 30 years.

How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought. It is remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research. Discussion of recent changes in Antarctica and Greenland are expertly laid out. He also does a very good job in talking about the relationship between sea surface temperature and hurricane intensity. As one might expect, he uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may have serious impacts on society, but he doesn't highlight the connection any more than is appropriate (see our post on this, here).

There are a few scientific errors that are important in the film. At one point Gore claims that you can see the aerosol concentrations in Antarctic ice cores change "in just two years", due to the U.S. Clean Air Act. You can't see dust and aerosols at all in Antarctic cores — not with the naked eye — and I'm skeptical you can definitively point to the influence of the Clean Air Act. I was left wondering whether Gore got this notion, and I hope he'll correct it in future versions of his slideshow. Another complaint is the juxtaposition of an image relating to CO2 emissions and an image illustrating invasive plant species. This is misleading; the problem of invasive species is predominantly due to land use change and importation, not to "global warming". Still, these are rather minor errors. It is true that the effect of reduced leaded gasoline use in the U.S. does clearly show up in Greenland ice cores; and it is also certainly true that climate change could exacerbate the problem of invasive species.

...about Real Climate:

RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.

This isn't about whether the movie was partisan or not. It's about whether the information is scientific or just hysteria. A lot of what was in that movie was meant to scare people without regard as to whether it was accurate or not. A lot of what was presented as fact has since be discredited. The movie was nothing more than just a GW scare tactic. It certainly didn't rise to the level of being worthy of a Oscar or a Nobel Prize. Thats the part that is partisan.

Ah, so now you are a climate expert? Wow, and you are now discrediting the Nobel & Oscar committees. There is no way as you put it, A lot of what was presented as fact has since be discredited & now it's apparently not scientific, only hysteria. He's a Dem & well-liked, something you just cannot deal with it, so you resort to yet more name calling.

Edited October 12, 2007 by devilette

[Ban Hammer 13,643]

From Real Climate...

by Eric Steig

Al Gore's movie

Along with various Seattle business and community leaders, city planners and politicians, a large group of scientists from the University of Washington got a chance to preview the new film, An Inconvenient Truth, last week. The film is about Al Gore's efforts to educate the public about global warming, with the goal of creating the political will necessary for the United States to take the lead in efforts to lower global carbon emissions. It is an inspiring film, and is decidedly non-partisan in its outlook (though there are a few subtle references to the Bush administration's lack of leadership on this and other environmental issues).

Since Gore is rumored to be a fan of RealClimate, we thought it appropriate to give our first impressions.

Much of the footage in Inconvenient Truth is of Al Gore giving a slideshow on the science of global warming. Sound boring? Well, yes, a little. But it is a very good slide show, in the vein of Carl Sagan (lots of beautiful imagery, and some very slick graphics and digital animation). And it is interspersed with personal reflections from Gore that add a very nice human element. Gore in the classroom in 1968, listening to the great geochemist Roger Revelle describe the first few years of data on carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere. Gore on the family farm, talking about his father's tobacco business, and how he shut it down when his daughter (Al Gore's sister) got lung cancer. Gore on the campaign trail, and his disappointment at the Supreme Court decision. This isn't the "wooden" Gore of the 2000 campgain; he is clearly in his element here, talking about something he has cared deeply about for over 30 years.

How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought. It is remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research. Discussion of recent changes in Antarctica and Greenland are expertly laid out. He also does a very good job in talking about the relationship between sea surface temperature and hurricane intensity. As one might expect, he uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may have serious impacts on society, but he doesn't highlight the connection any more than is appropriate (see our post on this, here).

There are a few scientific errors that are important in the film. At one point Gore claims that you can see the aerosol concentrations in Antarctic ice cores change "in just two years", due to the U.S. Clean Air Act. You can't see dust and aerosols at all in Antarctic cores — not with the naked eye — and I'm skeptical you can definitively point to the influence of the Clean Air Act. I was left wondering whether Gore got this notion, and I hope he'll correct it in future versions of his slideshow. Another complaint is the juxtaposition of an image relating to CO2 emissions and an image illustrating invasive plant species. This is misleading; the problem of invasive species is predominantly due to land use change and importation, not to "global warming". Still, these are rather minor errors. It is true that the effect of reduced leaded gasoline use in the U.S. does clearly show up in Greenland ice cores; and it is also certainly true that climate change could exacerbate the problem of invasive species.

...about Real Climate:

RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.

This isn't about whether the movie was partisan or not. It's about whether the information is scientific or just hysteria. A lot of what was in that movie was meant to scare people without regard as to whether it was accurate or not. A lot of what was presented as fact has since be discredited. The movie was nothing more than just a GW scare tactic. It certainly didn't rise to the level of being worthy of a Oscar or a Nobel Prize. Thats the part that is partisan.

Ah, so now you are a climate expert? Wow, and you are now discrediting the Nobel & Oscar committees. There is no way as you put it, A lot of what was presented as fact has since be discredited & now it's apparently not scientific, only hysteria. He's a Dem & well-liked, something you just cannot deal with it, so you resort to yet more name calling.

are you a climate expert then? if not, why are you disputing what gary is posting?

and btw dem or well liked has no bearing on the topic

[Fandango 1,440]

October 12, 2007, 11:27 am

An Inconvenient Question: Should Al Gore Fly to Oslo For His Nobel Prize?

By John Tierney

Tags: climate change, doomsayers, global warming

I don’t want to dampen the celebration over Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize, but I wonder if this is, as they say, a “teachable moment.” Should he skip the trip to Oslo, Norway, on a fuel-burning jet and instead accept the award by teleconference?

I realize two plane flights would make little difference to Mr. Gore’s carbon footprint (certainly by comparison with the much-publicized utility bills for his home). But as he pointed out in “An Inconvenient Truth”:

Flying is another form of transportation that produces large amounts of carbon dioxide. Reducing air travel even by one or two flights per year can significantly reduce emissions. . . . If your airplane travel is for business, consider whether you can telecommute instead.

Should Mr. Gore follow his own advice here? You could argue that the publicity generated by his presence in Oslo would do more to combat global warming than the reduced emissions from trip. But you could also argue that the symbolism of staying home would send an even more powerful message about the need for everyone to conserve energy. He could generate plenty of publicity by delivering the Nobel lecture through a video link and letting the prize be sent to him on an energy-efficient ship.

For extra credit, how much carbon dioxide would be generated by his round-trip flight across the Atlantic, depending on whether he flies coach, business class, first class, or in a Gulfstream?

http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/1...y-to-stockholm/

He flew there to accept & give a speech already, no? And the award ceremony isn't til Dec, right?

[no name 1]

National Geographic, NPR & (maybe) Roger Ebert are reputable sources...

-

Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" Movie: Fact or Hype?

Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News

Updated May 25, 2006

The message in An Inconvenient Truth, the new movie starring former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, is clear: Humans are causing global warming, and the effects are devastating.

Most scientists agree that the Earth is heating up, due primarily to an atmospheric increase in carbon dioxide caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum.

In an attempt to clear the air, National Geographic News checked in with Eric Steig, an earth scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, who saw An Inconvenient Truth at a preview screening.

He says the documentary handles the science well.

"I was looking for errors," he said.

"But nothing much struck me as overblown or wrong."

Claim: According to the film, the number of Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last year.

"This is true," Steig said. "There is no theoretical basis for the notion that this is a [natural] cycle."

A study published in the journal Nature in August found that hurricanes and typhoons have become more powerful over the past 30 years.

The study also found that these upswings in hurricane strength correlate with a rise in sea-surface temperatures. Ocean heat is the key ingredient for hurricane formation.

Experts emphasize that neither Hurricane Katrina nor any other single event can be linked to global warming.

"But," Steig said, "the statistics [show] that such events are more likely now than they used to be and will become more likely in the future."

Some scientists, however, believe that we are in the high-intensity stage of a decades-long natural hurricance cycle, which they say is primarily responsible for any uptick in storm activity.

Still others aren't even sure hurricanes are gaining strength.

"I've got real concerns about whether this is a real change or whether it's an artifact of the data," Christopher Landsea told National Geographic News in a story published in September ("Hurricanes Are Getting Stronger, Study Says"). Landsea is a researcher with the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.

He noted that scientists now generally use satellite data to gauge hurricane stregth. This technique has greatly improved over the past 30 years, so earlier measurements may depict older hurricanes as weaker than they actually were, he said.

Claim: Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense as temperatures rise.

"There's no question about this," the University of Washington's Steig said. "If the average is going up, the extremes have to go up as well."

2005 was the hottest year on Earth since the late 19th century, when scientists began collecting temperature data. The past decade featured five of the warmest years ever recorded, with the second hottest year being 1998.

Claim: Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years to 300,000 people a year.

"The exact numbers are, at best, an extrapolation from [a heat wave that] was experienced in Europe in 2003," Steig said.

"However, there is no question that that heat wave was a major event and statistically very unlikely to have happened unless the statistics are changing.

"Since it did happen, the statistics are changing—that is, the globe really is warming up."

Claim: More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction in just half a century as a result of global warming.

Steig is "skeptical that climate change itself will cause this [extinction] … so much as direct human impacts such as land-clearing." But he noted that he hadn't read the latest studies, some of which do make such a claim.

For example, a study published in Nature in 2004 predicted that climate change could drive more than a million species towards extinction by 2050. (Read "By 2050 Warming to Doom Million Species, Study Says.")

"Climate change now represents at least as great a threat to the number of species surviving on Earth as habitat destruction and modification," said the lead author of that study, Chris Thomas, a conservation biologist at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.

Claim: Global warming will also cause the introduction of new, invasive species.

"I take issue with the invasive-species linkage, because the human influence—directly, by transporting species around—I suspect is much more important than climate change," Steig said.

Claim: Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet (6 meters) with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.

There is little doubt that sea levels would rise by that much if Greenland melted.

But scientists disagree on when it could happen.

A recent Nature study suggested that Greenland's ice sheet will begin to melt if the temperature there rises by 3ºC (5.4ºF) within the next hundred years, which is quite possible, according to leading temperature-change estimates.

"It's uncertain how much warmer Greenland would get, [given] a certain carbon dioxide level, because different climate models give different amounts of warming," said Jonathan Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

But many experts agree that even a partial melting would cause a one-meter (three-foot) rise in sea levels, which would entirely submerge low-lying island countries, such as the Indian Ocean's Maldives (see Maldives map).

Claim: The Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer by 2050.

Some climate models are more conservative, suggesting that there will be no summer ice in the Arctic by the year 2100.

But new research shows it could take as little as 20 years for the sea ice to disappear.

"Since the advent of remote satellite imaging, we've lost about 20 percent of sea-ice cover," said Mark Serreze, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

"We're setting ourselves up for very big losses this year."

"We think of the Arctic as the heat sink to the climate system," Serreze said.

"We're fundamentally changing this heat sink, and we don't know how the rest of the climate system is going to respond."

There is no doubt that as sea ice continues to melt, habitat for animals like polar bears will continue to shrink.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/060524-global-warming_2.html

------------------

Assessing the Art, Science of 'Inconvenient Truth'

Full NPR Coverage

May 9, 2006

Global Warming: An Uncontrolled Experiment

The 'Other' Al Gore

All Things Considered, May 24, 2006

The new documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, is about global warming -- and former Vice President Al Gore's long quest to raise awareness about the issue.

Bob Mondello, NPR film critic, and Richard Harris, NPR science correspondent, talk to Michele Norris about their evaluation of the art and science of An Inconvenient Truth.

Film critic Mondello says he was "skeptical" before seeing the movie. Instead, he discovered an "elaborate, gorgeous" movie filled with impressive digital effects. He also found that the Al Gore of the film is a "different" Al Gore than the public is accustomed to hearing: pensive, funny and thoughtful about an issue that he calls a "planetary emergency."

Science correspondent Harris agrees that the movie is effective, particularly in conveying the complexity of the issue.

"It really does take an hour and a half to start to really understand global warming," Harris says.

He says Gore -- and the film -- get the "big picture" on climate change right. On some of the finer points, though, Harris says there is still scientific debate. And that sometimes isn't reflected as clearly in An Inconvenient Truth.

The reason behind the melting of Mount Kilimanjaro's snows is an example of this. As Harris notes, the snows have been melting since the turn of the last century. This may possibly be because of decreased rainfall, not increased temperatures, as Gore argues.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5428154

------------------

An Inconvenient Truth

BY ROGER EBERT / June 2, 2006

I want to write this review so every reader will begin it and finish it. I am a liberal, but I do not intend this as a review reflecting any kind of politics. It reflects the truth as I understand it, and it represents, I believe, agreement among the world's experts.

Global warming is real.

It is caused by human activity.

Mankind and its governments must begin immediate action to halt and reverse it.

If we do nothing, in about 10 years the planet may reach a "tipping point" and begin a slide toward destruction of our civilization and most of the other species on this planet.

After that point is reached, it would be too late for any action.

These facts are stated by Al Gore in the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Forget he ever ran for office. Consider him a concerned man speaking out on the approaching crisis. "There is no controversy about these facts," he says in the film. "Out of 925 recent articles in peer-review scientific journals about global warming, there was no disagreement. Zero."

He stands on a stage before a vast screen, in front of an audience. The documentary is based on a speech he has been developing for six years, and is supported by dramatic visuals. He shows the famous photograph "Earthrise," taken from space by the first American astronauts. Then he shows a series of later space photographs, clearly indicating that glaciers and lakes are shrinking, snows are melting, shorelines are retreating.

He provides statistics: The 10 warmest years in history were in the last 14 years. Last year South America experienced its first hurricane. Japan and the Pacific are setting records for typhoons. Hurricane Katrina passed over Florida, doubled back over the Gulf, picked up strength from unusually warm Gulf waters, and went from Category 3 to Category 5. There are changes in the Gulf Stream and the jet stream. Cores of polar ice show that carbon dioxide is much, much higher than ever before in a quarter of a million years. It was once thought that such things went in cycles. Gore stands in front of a graph showing the ups and downs of carbon dioxide over the centuries. Yes, there is a cyclical pattern. Then, in recent years, the graph turns up and keeps going up, higher and higher, off the chart.

The primary man-made cause of global warming is the burning of fossil fuels. We are taking energy stored over hundreds of millions of years in the form of coal, gas and oil, and releasing it suddenly. This causes global warming, and there is a pass-along effect. Since glaciers and snow reflect sunlight but sea water absorbs it, the more the ice melts, the more of the sun's energy is retained by the sea.

Gore says that although there is "100 percent agreement" among scientists, a database search of newspaper and magazine articles shows that 57 percent question the fact of global warming, while 43 percent support it. These figures are the result, he says, of a disinformation campaign started in the 1990s by the energy industries to "reposition global warming as a debate." It is the same strategy used for years by the defenders of tobacco. My father was a Luckys smoker who died of lung cancer in 1960, and 20 years later it was still "debatable" that there was a link between smoking and lung cancer. Now we are talking about the death of the future, starting in the lives of those now living.

"The world won't 'end' overnight in 10 years," Gore says. "But a point will have been passed, and there will be an irreversible slide into destruction."

In England, Sir James Lovelock, the scientist who proposed the Gaia hypothesis (that the planet functions like a living organism), has published a new book saying that in 100 years mankind will be reduced to "a few breeding couples at the Poles." Gore thinks "that's too pessimistic. We can turn this around just as we reversed the hole in the ozone layer. But it takes action right now, and politicians in every nation must have the courage to do what is necessary. It is not a political issue. It is a moral issue."

When I said I was going to a press screening of "An Inconvenient Truth," a friend said, "Al Gore talking about the environment! Bor...ing!" This is not a boring film. The director, Davis Guggenheim, uses words, images and Gore's concise litany of facts to build a film that is fascinating and relentless. In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.

Am I acting as an advocate in this review? Yes, I am. I believe that to be "impartial" and "balanced" on global warming means one must take a position like Gore's. There is no other view that can be defended. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment Committee, has said, "Global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." I hope he takes his job seriously enough to see this film. I think he has a responsibility to do that.

What can we do? Switch to and encourage the development of alternative energy sources: Solar, wind, tidal, and, yes, nuclear. Move quickly toward hybrid and electric cars. Pour money into public transit, and subsidize the fares. Save energy in our houses. I did a funny thing when I came home after seeing "An Inconvenient Truth." I went around the house turning off the lights.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060601/REVIEWS/60517002

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Well that settles it...real climate said so!

Imagine that...LOL...real climate scientists...

Gavin Schmidt is a climate modeller at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and is interested in modeling past, present and future climate.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi.../gavin-schmidt/

Dr. Michael E. Mann is a member of the Penn State University faculty, holding joint positions in the Departments of Meteorology and Geosciences, and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (ESSI). He is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC).

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi...2/michael-mann/

Caspar Ammann is a climate scientist working at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi.../caspar-ammann/

Rasmus E. Benestad

...a physicist by training and work with climate analysis on a Norwegian project called RegClim, and have affiliations with the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (met.no) and the Oslo Climate Group (OCG)

Raymond S. Bradley

Ray Bradley is Director of the Climate System Research Center (www.paleoclimate.org) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi...mond-s-bradley/

William M. Connolley

...climate modeller with the British Antarctic Survey

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi...am-m-connolley/

...

There's a whole list of these 'hack' scientists who contribute to Real Climate, which is dedicated to science without any political or economic influences.

The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.

[Fandango 1,440]

Roger Ebert being cited? Really now.

[no name 1]

Well that settles it...real climate said so!

Imagine that...LOL...real climate scientists...

Gavin Schmidt is a climate modeller at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and is interested in modeling past, present and future climate.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi.../gavin-schmidt/

Dr. Michael E. Mann is a member of the Penn State University faculty, holding joint positions in the Departments of Meteorology and Geosciences, and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (ESSI). He is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC).

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi...2/michael-mann/

Caspar Ammann is a climate scientist working at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi.../caspar-ammann/

Rasmus E. Benestad

...a physicist by training and work with climate analysis on a Norwegian project called RegClim, and have affiliations with the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (met.no) and the Oslo Climate Group (OCG)

Raymond S. Bradley

Ray Bradley is Director of the Climate System Research Center (www.paleoclimate.org) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi...mond-s-bradley/

William M. Connolley

...climate modeller with the British Antarctic Survey

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi...am-m-connolley/

...

There's a whole list of these 'hack' scientists who contribute to Real Climate, which is dedicated to science without any political or economic influences.

The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.

Geez Steven, how could you dare to provide a legit source?

God forbid one takes time to actually read a source before replying.

PS: PWNED

Edited October 12, 2007 by devilette

[GaryC 7]

Scientists have inconvenient news for Gore

THE environmental campaigner Al Gore may have won over Hollywood with his documentary An Inconvenient Truth. But the scientific world is proving a much tougher audience for his relentless campaign to raise public awareness of climate change.

There is a rising chorus of concern, extending even to "moderate" scientists with no political axe to grind, over the former US vice-president's tactics and advocacy.

The nub of their concern is a belief that he has over-egged his case. That, in trying to sell to the public the dangers of complacency in combating global warming, he is guilty of a number of convenient untruths or distortions.

The main charges are that he has skated over the Earth's history of climate change and that his talk of impending doom ignores that change is a slow-motion process.

Even a top adviser to Mr Gore, the environmental scientist James Hansen, admits the former vice-president's work may hold "imperfections" and "technical flaws".

The creeping unease among scientists has emerged in talks, articles and blog entries over the past few months. Among the critics is Robert Carter, a marine geologist at James Cook University, Queensland. In a blog late last year, Dr Carter joined other geologists in ticking off Mr Gore over his perceived failure to acknowledge the globe's long history of climate change.

"Nowhere does Mr Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet," Dr Carter wrote. "Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change."

An emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, Don Easterbrook, told the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America that he did not want to "pick on Al Gore".

"But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data."

Professor Easterbrook disputed Mr Gore's claim that "our civilisation has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this". Nonsense, Professor Easterbrook said. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts were up to "20 times greater than the warming in the past century".

Getting personal, he mocked Mr Gore's assertion that scientists agreed on global warming except those industry had corrupted. "I've never been paid a nickel by an oil company," Professor Easterbrook said.

"And I'm not a Republican."

A report last June by the National Academies seemed to contradict Mr Gore's portrayal of recent temperatures as the highest in the past millennium. Instead, it said current highs appeared unrivalled since only 1600, the tail end of a temperature rise known as the medieval warm period.

Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, said on a blog that Mr Gore's film did "indeed do a pretty good job of presenting the most dire scenarios". But the June report, he added, shows "that all we really know is that we are warmer now than we were during the last 400 years".

Some of Mr Gore's centrist detractors point to the report last month by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel said humans were the main cause of the globe's warming, part of Mr Gore's message that few scientists dispute. But it also portrayed climate change as a slow-motion process. It estimated that the world's seas would rise a maximum of 58 centimetres this century. Mr Gore envisions rises of up to six metres and depicts heavily populated areas as sinking beneath the waves.

Mr Gore, in an email exchange about the critics, said his work made "the most important and salient points" about climate change, if not "some nuances and distinctions" scientists might want. "The degree of scientific consensus on global warming has never been stronger," he said, adding, "I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand."

Although Mr Gore is not a scientist, he does rely heavily on the authority of science in An Inconvenient Truth. Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Centre for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr Gore for "getting the message out", Dr Vranes questioned whether his presentations were "overselling our certainty about knowing the future".

"He's a very polarising figure in the science community," said Dr Roger Pielke, an environmental scientist and a colleague of Dr Vranes at the University of Colorado. "Very quickly, these discussions turn from the issue to the person, and become a referendum on Mr Gore."

An Inconvenient Truth won the Oscar for best documentary and has taken more than $US46 million ($58.6 million) worldwide. Mr Gore depicted a future in which temperatures soar, ice sheets melt, seas rise, hurricanes batter the coasts and people die en masse. "Unless we act boldly," he wrote, "our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes."

Some backers concede minor inaccuracies but see them as reasonable for a politician. James Hansen, Mr Gore's adviser, and director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said: "Al does an exceptionally good job of seeing the forest for the trees."

Still, Dr Hansen notes the imperfections. He points to hurricanes. Mr Gore highlights the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and cites research suggesting that global warming will increase storm frequency and deadliness. Yet the past Atlantic season produced fewer hurricanes than forecasters predicted (five versus nine), and none that hit the US.

"We need to be more careful in describing the hurricane story than he is," Dr Hansen said of Mr Gore. "On the other hand," he said, "he has the bottom line right: most storms, at least those driven by the latent heat of vaporisation, will tend to be stronger, or have the potential to be stronger, in a warmer climate."

In his email message, Mr Gore defends his work as fundamentally accurate. "Of course," he said, "there will always be questions around the edges of the science, and we have to rely upon the scientific community to continue to ask and to challenge and to answer those questions."

He said "not every single adviser" agreed on every point, "but we do agree on the fundamentals" - that warming is real and caused by humans.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/sci...l?s_cid=rss_smh

[SteveLaura 0]

Well that settles it...real climate said so!

Imagine that...LOL...real climate scientists...

Steven, are you seriously suggesting that scientists that study climate change for a living are better informed than the good people here on VJ? Surely you jest?

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

If global warming is a fact, then why are people arguing over it Why dont we ship ol Al up to the north pole and let him watch the ice melt.

Edited October 12, 2007 by CarolsMarc

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Well that settles it...real climate said so!

Imagine that...LOL...real climate scientists...

Steven, are you seriously suggesting that scientists that study climate change for a living are better informed than the good people here on VJ? Surely you jest?

For real entertainment I like to bust into my local auto shop and start arguing with the mechanics...or when I'm feeling really daring and full of smartness, I go find a neurosurgeon and give him a piece of my mind.

[Empress of Groovy 373]

The stuff that he put in there to get attention is what is being disputed. Such as the drastic rise in ocean levels. The idea that the polar ice caps are melting. The idea that the gulf stream will stop and plunge GB into an ice age. The list goes on and on. It was presented as something that will happen if we don't change our ways and it turns out most of it is very unlikely to happen regardless of our activities.

I'm not sure that your statement corresponds to scientific consensus, Gary. The presence of a handful of scientists (even reputable ones) who question the imminence of, say, drastically rising sea levels does not discredit the much more common scientific position that this is a likely eventuality and that the results would be devastating. Many more scientific organizations (including NASA), across disciplines, have released statements regarding their acknowledgment of human-caused climate change and their devotion to continuing research and proposing solutions. The number of scientists who actively question these conclusions is small. There is significant debate about timelines and what can be done at this point, but there is far less debate about whether the whole thing is bogus.

I'm also not under the impression that whether ice caps are melting is being debated by roughly equal numbers of scientists. If that were the case, Al Gore would have much more of a PR crisis on his hands.

I think that most environmental and climate change experts would argue with your assertion that "most of it [the devastation discussed in the film] is very unlikely to happen regardless of our activities."

[no name 1]

Scientists have inconvenient news for Gore

THE environmental campaigner Al Gore may have won over Hollywood with his documentary An Inconvenient Truth. But the scientific world is proving a much tougher audience for his relentless campaign to raise public awareness of climate change.

There is a rising chorus of concern, extending even to "moderate" scientists with no political axe to grind, over the former US vice-president's tactics and advocacy.

The nub of their concern is a belief that he has over-egged his case. That, in trying to sell to the public the dangers of complacency in combating global warming, he is guilty of a number of convenient untruths or distortions.

The main charges are that he has skated over the Earth's history of climate change and that his talk of impending doom ignores that change is a slow-motion process.

Even a top adviser to Mr Gore, the environmental scientist James Hansen, admits the former vice-president's work may hold "imperfections" and "technical flaws".

The creeping unease among scientists has emerged in talks, articles and blog entries over the past few months. Among the critics is Robert Carter, a marine geologist at James Cook University, Queensland. In a blog late last year, Dr Carter joined other geologists in ticking off Mr Gore over his perceived failure to acknowledge the globe's long history of climate change.

"Nowhere does Mr Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet," Dr Carter wrote. "Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change."

An emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, Don Easterbrook, told the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America that he did not want to "pick on Al Gore".

"But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data."

Professor Easterbrook disputed Mr Gore's claim that "our civilisation has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this". Nonsense, Professor Easterbrook said. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts were up to "20 times greater than the warming in the past century".

Getting personal, he mocked Mr Gore's assertion that scientists agreed on global warming except those industry had corrupted. "I've never been paid a nickel by an oil company," Professor Easterbrook said.

"And I'm not a Republican."

A report last June by the National Academies seemed to contradict Mr Gore's portrayal of recent temperatures as the highest in the past millennium. Instead, it said current highs appeared unrivalled since only 1600, the tail end of a temperature rise known as the medieval warm period.

Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, said on a blog that Mr Gore's film did "indeed do a pretty good job of presenting the most dire scenarios". But the June report, he added, shows "that all we really know is that we are warmer now than we were during the last 400 years".

Some of Mr Gore's centrist detractors point to the report last month by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel said humans were the main cause of the globe's warming, part of Mr Gore's message that few scientists dispute. But it also portrayed climate change as a slow-motion process. It estimated that the world's seas would rise a maximum of 58 centimetres this century. Mr Gore envisions rises of up to six metres and depicts heavily populated areas as sinking beneath the waves.

Mr Gore, in an email exchange about the critics, said his work made "the most important and salient points" about climate change, if not "some nuances and distinctions" scientists might want. "The degree of scientific consensus on global warming has never been stronger," he said, adding, "I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand."

Although Mr Gore is not a scientist, he does rely heavily on the authority of science in An Inconvenient Truth. Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Centre for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr Gore for "getting the message out", Dr Vranes questioned whether his presentations were "overselling our certainty about knowing the future".

"He's a very polarising figure in the science community," said Dr Roger Pielke, an environmental scientist and a colleague of Dr Vranes at the University of Colorado. "Very quickly, these discussions turn from the issue to the person, and become a referendum on Mr Gore."

An Inconvenient Truth won the Oscar for best documentary and has taken more than $US46 million ($58.6 million) worldwide. Mr Gore depicted a future in which temperatures soar, ice sheets melt, seas rise, hurricanes batter the coasts and people die en masse. "Unless we act boldly," he wrote, "our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes."

Some backers concede minor inaccuracies but see them as reasonable for a politician. James Hansen, Mr Gore's adviser, and director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said: "Al does an exceptionally good job of seeing the forest for the trees."

Still, Dr Hansen notes the imperfections. He points to hurricanes. Mr Gore highlights the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and cites research suggesting that global warming will increase storm frequency and deadliness. Yet the past Atlantic season produced fewer hurricanes than forecasters predicted (five versus nine), and none that hit the US.

"We need to be more careful in describing the hurricane story than he is," Dr Hansen said of Mr Gore. "On the other hand," he said, "he has the bottom line right: most storms, at least those driven by the latent heat of vaporisation, will tend to be stronger, or have the potential to be stronger, in a warmer climate."

In his email message, Mr Gore defends his work as fundamentally accurate. "Of course," he said, "there will always be questions around the edges of the science, and we have to rely upon the scientific community to continue to ask and to challenge and to answer those questions."

He said "not every single adviser" agreed on every point, "but we do agree on the fundamentals" - that warming is real and caused by humans.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/sci...l?s_cid=rss_smh

Professor Robert (Bob) Carter, is "a researcher at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University", Australia. In a byline with an op-ed published in the Sydney Morning Herald in September 2005 he was described as an "experienced environmental scientist", but a March 2007 article in the Sydney Morning Herald noted that "Professor Carter, whose background is in marine geology, appears to have little, if any, standing in the Australian climate science community." He is a well known climate change skeptic.

Carter could well be described as 'a prominent research geologist with a personal interest in the issue of climate change', from his list of research papers. He has extensive experience of paleoclimatic research, including participation in Ocean Drilling Program Leg 181 in the southwest Pacific which described the benchmark 4 million year-long, mid-latitude climate record from Site 1119. In 2005 Carter was appointed by the Australian Minister for Environment, Ian Campbell, as a judge for the Australian Government Peter Hunt Eureka Prize for Environmental Journalism.

In January 2006 Carter told the Australian newspaper that "atmospheric CO2 is not a primary forcing agent for temperature change," arguing instead that "any cumulative human signal is so far undetectable at a global level and, if present, is buried deeply in the noise of natural variation".

In March 2007 the Sydney Morning Herald reported that "Professor Carter told the Herald yesterday [March 14th 2007] the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had uncovered no evidence the warming of the planet was caused by human activity. He said the role of peer review in scientific literature was overstressed, and whether or not a scientist had been funded by the fossil fuel industry was irrelevant to the validity of research. "I don't think it is the point whether or not you are paid by the coal or petroleum industry," said Professor Carter. "I will address the evidence."

Carter is a member of the right-wing think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, and a founding member of the Australian Environment Foundation, a front group set up by the Institute of Public Affairs.

source

Edited October 12, 2007 by devilette

[Caladan 19]

Well that settles it...real climate said so!

Imagine that...LOL...real climate scientists...

Steven, are you seriously suggesting that scientists that study climate change for a living are better informed than the good people here on VJ? Surely you jest?

For real entertainment I like to bust into my local auto shop and start arguing with the mechanics...or when I'm feeling really daring and full of smartness, I go find a neurosurgeon and give him a piece of my mind.

Be careful; that neurosurgeon just might keep that piece.