Watts et al Show Some Warming is Man-Made

Subtitle: Man-made Warming by Selecting Bad Temperature Sites

In this post, a new study (2015) by Anthony Watts, Evan Jones, John Nielsen-Gammon, and Dr. John Christy is discussed.  The Watts 2015 study showed that the USA's temperature trend over 30 years (1979 - 2008) as measured by the US Historic Climate Network stations was too high due to inclusion of temperature measuring sites that had and have artificial heating.  Watts 2015 showed that when only properly sited measurement stations are included in the data, the warming trend decreased substantially (2.0 degrees C per century without the "bad" stations, and 3.2 degrees C per century with.)    see link to Watts' article announcing the study, which was presented this week at the 2015 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California. 

Other blogs have articles that discuss the Watts 2015 paper, some with thoughtful comments and of course the usual jibber-jabber.  Dr. Judith Curry's blog article is here, see link.  JoAnne Nova's blog article is here, see link.  Bishop Hill's blog article is here, see link.   The Chiefio (E.M. Smith) is away from keyboard (AFK) performing new grandpa duties, but his take is sure to be interesting, perhaps fascinating.  See link to Chiefio's blog.   This will update to link to his article (If) when it is published.    OK.  So, that is what some of the others are writing or have written.   Why should I write anything on this?

This is a good time and place to set out why I write on climate, and my qualifications.  I have written much of this before, and said this in various public speeches.   I am a chemical engineer and an attorney practicing in Science and Technology Law.  As a chemical engineer, especially one that deals with petroleum refineries, petrochemical plants, toxic chemical plants such as chlorine-caustic, and chemicals such as hydrofluoric acid, hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, liquid anhydrous ammonia, and highly explosive trade-secret reaction initiators (to name a few), I am acutely aware of the need to use only good, valid data and to screen and exclude invalid data.   In short, if chemical engineers fail to find and exclude invalid data, our chemical processes will leak, spew toxic chemicals, catch fire, explode, and create serious harm and death.   We take the data analysis aspect of engineering very seriously, because we must.  

As an attorney, I watch the climate science, and some scientists in that arena, with great dismay.  There have been many regulations established already (e.g. California AB 32, the "Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006"), multi-lateral treaties (Kyoto Protocol 1997), and non-binding climate agreements (Paris 2015).  This is merely a partial list of government acts concerned with climate science.   It is instructive that governments require science-based regulations to be based on good science, or best available science.  What, exactly, qualifies as best available science is a substantial part of the problem.  

The pedigree of the scientists and the scientific organization matters.  In the USA, NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is the federal agency that is supposed to not only know what it is doing, but doing their function at the highest level of expertise and accuracy.  In pertinent part, NOAA's mission statement reads: "(NOAA's Mission is) To understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts, To share that knowledge and information with others, . . ."   NOAA's home page on the website goes on to state: 

 "NOAA’s dedicated scientists use cutting-edge research and high-tech instrumentation to provide citizens, planners, emergency managers and other decision makers with reliable information they need when they need it.

NOAA's roots date back to 1807, when the Nation’s first scientific agency, the Survey of the Coast, was established. Since then, NOAA has evolved to meet the needs of a changing country. NOAA maintains a presence in every state and has emerged as an international leader on scientific and environmental matters."   (bold, underline added - RES)

NOAA, then, is the expert, the professional, the go-to agency that not only monitors the climate, but makes sense out of the data and presents trends and conclusions for decision-makers.   One would expect, then, that their results can be trusted.   Yet, they cannot. 

In a nutshell, what Watts 2015 did was attempt to analyze 30 years of temperature data from NOAA's measuring stations located across the USA, with the express purpose of identifying bad stations and excluding them from the data.   The measuring stations comprise 1218 weather stations in the USHCN, the Historical Climate Network, which were critically examined by Watts and others for allocation into 5 categories of Excellent to Incredibly Bad (my terminology, not theirs).  Actually, Category 1 is best, and 5 is worst.   Watts 2015 focused their attention on the two top categories, 1 and 2.     Examples of the differences between a 1 and a 5 are: a 1 is in an open grass field a safe distance from any artificial heat source, while a 5 can be on an asphalt parking lot adjacent to a dark brick building and in the path of an air conditioner condenser exhaust. 

Watts 2015 apparently included both Category 1 and 2 as producing acceptable temperatures, excluding all Category 3, 4, and 5.  Note, however, that NOAA includes all the stations, with various corrections applied as they see as appropriate.  But, Watts 2015 went further, they excluded many stations in Category 1 and 2 due to issues such as non-continuous location (somebody physically moved the station over the years, as happened here in Los Angeles a few years ago).  Watts 2015 also excluded stations that had corrections for Time of Observation, and any stations that had an equipment change over the years.   Watts 2015 was left with 410 stations that met their criteria, or approximately one-third of the 1,218 total stations. 

(Note:  a concern arises at this point.  Referring to the Fall et al 2011 paper that also was co-authored by Watts, Jones, Nielsen-Gammon, and Christy, the USHCN is purported to have 1221 stations, not 1218.  Also, from Figure 1 of Fall 2011, the Category 1 and 2 stations combined are 7.9 percent of 1007 stations that were surveyed for critical assessment and placement into the 5 categories.  Some simple math shows that something does not add up.    It appears that 80 stations out of the 1007 represents 7.9 percent.   Even allowing for all of the remaining, un-surveyed stations to wind up in Category 1 or 2, (highly unlikely), that yields 1221 minus 1007, or 214 stations that can be added to the 80 from above.   That provides only 294 stations at most.  Where, then, did Watts 2015 obtain 410 stations in Category 1 and 2?   I hope to find an answer to this simple math question.   It appears that Watts 2015 excluded some of the Category 1 and 2 stations based on this statement from Watts on WUWT: "It should be noted that many of the USHCN stations we excluded that had station moves, equipment changes, TOBs changes, etc that were not suitable  had lower trends that would have bolstered our conclusions."  Therefore, if 294 were available at most, but some were excluded, how did Watts 2015 end up with 410 valid, Category 1 or 2 stations? )

Now to the second point: end-point influences.    Watts 2015 chose the time period for analysis to be 1979 to and including 2008.  The reason given for this time period is that this paper is designed to challenge and rebut the conclusions produced in two other papers, Menne et al 2009, and 2010.  The Menne papers were written purportedly to defend NOAA's methodology for including badly-sited stations, correcting the measured temperatures, and including those temperatures in the database and analysis.   As Watts wrote on his blog (see link above):  

"Some might wonder why we have a 1979-2008 comparison when this is 2015. The reason is so that this speaks to Menne et al. 2009 and 2010, papers launched by NOAA/NCDC to defend their adjustment methods for the USCHN (should be USHCN - RES) from criticisms I had launched about the quality of the surface temperature record, such as this book in 2009: Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable? This sent NOAA/NCDC into a tizzy, and they responded with a hasty and ghost written flyer they circulated. In our paper, we extend the comparisons to the current USHCN dataset as well as the 1979-2008 comparison."

As written several times on SLB, there is a problem with any study that uses the late 1970s as a starting point for a time-series trend of air temperatures, and extending that trend to claim the climate is warming.   I wrote on this back in February 2010, and spoke on this in a public speech to chemical engineers in 2012.   The USA had severe winters in the period 1977, 78, and 79 as documented in many articles at the time  (see link for one such article), and shown in temperature graphs from many US cities (see link).    One such temperature graph is shown below to illustrate, this is from Abilene, Texas and the Hadley Climate Research Center HadCRUT3 dataset:

The significant portion of this Abilene graph is the cluster of low temperatures around 1977, 78, and 79.   When any data set starts with a very low value, and the remaining data oscillates around with very little trend, the resulting trend will be upward.

(A side note on severity of the winter of 1978-1979 in Illinois, excerpted from the linked article above:

"For the first time since modern weather records began in the 1880s, a third consecutive
severe winter occurred in Illinois in 1978-1979. Seventeen major winter storms, the state's
record coldest January-February, and record snow depths on the ground gave the winter
of 1978-1979 a rank as the second worst statewide for Illinois, exceeded only by the prior
winter of 1977-1978 (18 storms, coldest statewide December-March, record longest lasting
snow cover). In the northern fourth of Illinois, 1978-1979 was the worst winter on
record.

Severe storms began in late November and extended into March; the seven major storms
in January set a new record high for the month, the four in February tied the previous
record, and the four in December fell one short of the record. Fourteen storms also had
freezing rain, but ice was moderately severe in only two cases. High wind and blizzard
conditions occurred in only three storms (compared with eight in prior winter), suggesting
a lack of extremely deep low pressure centers. Most storms occurred with Texas lows,
Colorado (north track) lows, and miscellaneous synoptic conditions. The super storm of
11-14 January set a point snow record of 24 inches, left snow cover of more than 3 inches
over 77% of the state, and lasted 56 hours.

Snowfall for the 1978-1979 winter averaged 68 inches (38 inches above normal) in
northern Illinois, 40 inches (20 above) in the north central part, 32 inches (12 above) in
south central Illinois, and 31 inches (22 above) in southern Illinois. Record totals of 60 to
100 inches occurred in northern Illinois. The winter temperatures averaged 7.8 F below
normal in northern Illinois and about 7 below in the rest of the state. January-February
temperatures averaged a record low of 15.9 F, 14 degrees below normal, and prevented
melting between storms so that record snow depths of more than 40 inches occurred in

northern Illinois." )


The Watts 2015 study should not, in my opinion, be judged as conclusive on the issue of warming occurred at the rate of 2 degrees C per century.   The starting point of 1979 is low due to severe winters in that time. 

Therefore, it can be concluded that Watts 2015 can be commended for showing the NOAA methodology overstates the warming by 60 percent (3.2 degrees versus 2.0 degrees per century.)   A necessary next step is to do what I have recommended for years (not only I, as others have also noted this and stated the obvious): find temperature records from the pristine areas across the USA, in national parks and other undisturbed areas.   Use those records.   It may be that such records do not exist, and that may be why so much effort is expended as Watts 2015 did, also Fall 2011.    However, it would seem to be a trivial task to obtain small-town newspaper archives and collect the published temperatures from across America back 100 years.   

Finally, it is certainly misleading, and quite possibly fraudulent, to make claims of global warming by analyzing data that begins with the late 1970s.   One could do worse, however, by starting the data in 1977 (that gives 3 years of low temperatures to start), and end the data on a high-temperature year such as 2000 (that gives 2 years of high temperatures to end on.)    Note that fraud in the legal context has many elements that must be proven, one of which is intent to obtain property from another.  No assertion of fraud is made, nor to be implied, against any of the authors nor organizations mentioned in this article.   Instead, Watts and co-authors, and Menne and co-authors were probably doing the best they know how, given the motivations and constraints at the time.    It is also noteworthy that the entire Watts 2015 paper has not been published yet, and all comments above are based on my best understanding of what is published on WattsUpWithThat.  

We must, however, do better.  There must be no data adjustments, no room for bias, and no end-point issues as described above.   Watts 2015 apparently tried to find unadjusted data, even though it is unclear how 410 stations exist in 2015 while only 80 or so existed in 2011. 

Next, we must have a study that shows what warming, or cooling, if any, occurs in pristine locations without any starting and ending data issues.   Such data is slowly being produced via the USCRN stations, (Climate Reference Network) see link. 

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

copyright (c) 2015 by Roger Sowell all rights reserved

Are Climate Skeptics Legally Liable for Criminal Negligence

In the past month, several articles appeared calling for the jailing of those who provide financial support for research into climate science with an objective of proving that man-made climate change does not exist.  An overview is provided at WattsUpWithThat (see link).  Responses to the call for jailing are numerous.  The background on this is that three sides exist in the climate change argument: one, the warmists, those who fervently believe that man’s activities by

Attorney arguing his case

burning fossil fuels will drive up the Earth’s temperature and cause all manner of horrible happenings; two, the skeptics, those who understand that the science simply does not support the warmists’ view, that any increase in global temperature is related to natural cycles but not to man’s fossil fuel consumption; and three, lukewarmers, those whose views fall in between the warmists and the skeptics.   Disclosure: my own view after long and careful study and based on engineering, science, and mathematics, is that of a confirmed skeptic with a full understanding that carbon dioxide, CO2, does indeed absorb and emit thermal radiant energy.   My previous articles on SLB outline my views.  (see My Journey, Warmists are Wrong, Chemical Engineer Takes on Warming, Cold Winters, Climate Science is Not Settled, and others). The leading climate scientists whose views most close approximate my own include Dr. S. Fred Singer of University of Virginia, and Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT, who stated that “The claims that the earth has been warming, that there is a greenhouse effect, and that man’s activities have contributed to warming, are trivially true and essentially meaningless in terms of alarm.”

The basis for the jailing of skeptics is that many, perhaps millions, of human deaths will occur inevitably if drastic action is not taken immediately to prevent additional fossil fuel use.  By fossil fuel use, what is meant is the burning of coal and natural gas in power plants and process plants, plus burning petroleum products as transportation and heating fuel.   The supposed legal theory is that a person can be found criminally negligent if his (or her) actions cause serious harm or death to another.  In this particular case, the assertion is that those who promote research into climate change to show that no alarm is justified will cause the death of millions of people due to events such as ice caps melting, subsequent sealevel rise and coastal inundation, droughts, and heat waves.   It is criminal negligence, they assert, to try to prevent the alarm from being sounded when the consequences are so dire.

With that as background, it is necessary to examine the legal requirements of a criminal negligence case.   There are two possible crimes, first is Involuntary Manslaughter with criminal negligence as an element, the second is Voluntary Manslaughter.   Under existing California law, the following must be proven.

Involuntary Manslaughter

To prove that the defendant is guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter, the State must prove that:

1. The defendant committed a lawful act in an unlawful manner;

2. The defendant committed the act with criminal negligence; and

3. The defendant’s acts caused the death of another person.

Criminal negligence involves more than ordinary carelessness, inattention, or mistake in judgment. A person acts with criminal negligence when:

1. He or she acts in a reckless way that creates a high risk of death or great bodily injury; and

2. A reasonable person would have known that acting in that way would create such a risk.

In other words, a person acts with criminal negligence when the way he or she acts is so different from the way an ordinarily careful person would act in the same situation that his or her act amounts to disregard for human life or indifference to the consequences of that act.

With the legal rules for Involuntary Manslaughter set forth, it is possible to examine the claim that it is criminal negligence to support research into climate change to show no reason for alarm exists.

First, was there a lawful act?  The answer must be yes, conducting research into climate change is lawful.

Next, was the research done in an unlawful manner, meaning with criminal negligence?  To prove criminal negligence, two things must be proven: the acts were performed in a reckless way that creates a high risk of death or great bodily injury; and those acts caused the death of another person.

The act of conducting climate research from a skeptic view might be held to be performed recklessly and to create a risk of death or great bodily injury, but only if the research chose only data that confirmed the pre-conceived conclusion, or improper analyses were performed, or unwarranted conclusions were drawn from the data and analysis, or some combination of all the above.   It is notable that the peer-review process exists to eliminate, or at least minimize, such research techniques because they lead to bad science and poor policy decisions when those policy decisions are informed by the bad science.  The trial attorneys would identify and present evidence to show what the skeptic climate research used as data, the analysis techniques, and the conclusions.  It seems more likely that the skeptics have an excellent claim to performing good science, with the many hundreds of peer-reviewed publications that support the claim of no alarm is justified.   Indeed, the NIPCC reports show exactly such skeptical publications. 

Third and finally, the research must have caused the death of another person, but in this case, as discussed below in Voluntary Manslaughter, linking any human deaths to research into climate change is extremely unlikely.  Even though the concentration of carbon dioxide continues to increase in the atmosphere, severe weather events are declining in number and intensity.  

The crime of Involuntary Manslaughter, by criminal negligence, would very likely not be provable beyond a reasonable doubt.  First, there are no deaths that can be causally linked to such research, and second, the research has not been conducted in a reckless manner designed to create a risk of serious bodily harm or death.

Voluntary Manslaughter

In California, Voluntary Manslaughter has the following elements that must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, for a conviction to be had.

1. The defendant intentionally committed an act that caused the death of another person;

2. The natural consequences of the act were dangerous to human life;

3. At the time he acted, he knew the act was dangerous to human life; and

4. He deliberately acted with conscious disregard for human life.

Causation

In California, an act or omission causes injury or death if the injury or death is the direct, natural, and probable consequence of the act or omission, and the injury or death would not have happened without the act or omission.  A natural and probable consequence is one that a reasonable person would know is likely to happen if nothing unusual intervenes.   In deciding whether a consequence is natural and probable, the jury is to consider all the circumstances established by the evidence.   There may be more than one cause of injury or death.   An act or omission causes injury or death only if it is a substantial factor in causing the injury or death.   A substantial factor is more than a trivial or remote factor.  However, it does not have to be the only factor that causes the injury or death.

See: California Pen. Code § 192(a); People v. Rios (2000) 23 Cal.4th 450, 463, 469 [97 Cal.Rptr.2d 512, 2 P.3d 1066].

 With the legal rules above set forth, it is possible to examine the claim that it is criminal negligence to support research into climate change to show no reason for alarm exists.

First, did defendant, who supported climate research to show no reason for alarm exists, intentionally commit an act that caused injury or death to another person?

It must be determined if there were any deaths.  If no deaths exist, then there is no need to examine any of the additional elements.  At this writing, first quarter of 2014, there appear to be no human deaths that are attributable to man-made climate change.   However, a World Health Organization study from 2009 concluded that 140,000 human deaths per year are attributable to increased warming since the 1970s.  The events that caused the deaths are rather vague, but it appears the WHO claims events such as floods, severe storms, and a 2003 heat wave in Europe. Yet, the same organization admits that measuring the health effects of climate change can only be very approximate.   WHO also states that there are benefits to human life from warming, as fewer deaths occur that can be attributed to cold weather. see link

Allowing for the WHO estimate to be true, that is, 140,000 deaths occurred each year from various weather events, the question to be answered is then, is there a causal link between the severe weather events and the almost trivial increase in global temperatures?   A jury would be presented with expert testimony on the subject, most likely that no credible scientist holds the view that there is any link between the trivial amount of warming and weather events.  In fact, almost every form of weather event can be shown to be either decreasing, such as tropical storms or hurricanes, or to be no worse today than those that occurred in the past.  Droughts, floods, heat waves, all have been much worse in the past compared to today. 

From the definition of Causation above, “an act or omission causes injury or death if the injury or death is the direct, natural, and probable consequence of the act or omission, and the injury or death would not have happened without the act or omission.”

Two questions then must be asked, first, were the 140,000 weather-related deaths the direct, natural, and probable consequence of research into climate change to show that no cause for alarm exists?  And, second, would the 140,000 weather-related deaths have happened without research into climate change to show that no cause for alarm exists?    

To answer the first question, on deaths being the direct, natural, and probable consequence of climate research, it must be established whether those who died did so because they had no idea that the weather events would be more severe, more intense, and more deadly.  If the only word issuing from the climate researchers was that there is no cause for alarm, that proposition might be true.  However, the alarmists from above have for many years clogged the media, the airways, and the internet blogs, with dire predictions of doom.   The fact is, and this would be introduced in a trial, that warmists claim almost a consensus exists that global warming is not only real, but man’s fossil fuel consumption is the cause.  That alleged consensus is found in print, in broadcasts, and electronically on the internet.  It is unlikely that a jury would concluded that any weather-related deaths were the result of skeptical climate research.   The fact that, for example, hurricanes have decreased in intensity and number over the past 40 years is not debatable, it is a fact.  Similarly for tornadoes, droughts, and heat waves.  see link and "Global Hurricane Frequency"

From the causation definition, the jury is to consider all the circumstances established by the evidence.   This means that the conclusions by the leading warmists, the IPCC, must be considered.  The IPCC admits that there is no conclusive evidence to link severe weather events with global warming.  Indeed, it would be hard to conclude otherwise, with the hard evidence that hurricanes are less frequent and less intense, and all the other severe weather simply not matching known events from earlier years.  The key evidence on this is the warmists’ admission that events that occurred before 1970 were not related at all to man’s fossil fuel consumption; instead, they were entirely of natural causes.  Thus, all heat waves such as the long and strong heat wave of the 1930s, all droughts including the severe drought of the 1950s, and the many strong hurricanes pre-1970 all were natural occurrences. 

It must be concluded, then, that element 1 from above is not true; it cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.  Even if defendant intentionally performed skeptical climate science research, that research could not have caused the death of another person. 

In a criminal trial, the accused is acquitted if any element is not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.  However, the defense attorney cannot know which, if any, of the elements will be found not proven to that standard, so he continues on to the other elements.  One never knows what a jury will decide until the verdict is read.

Moving then to the second element, the State must prove that the natural consequences of the act were dangerous to human life.  As above, the act is skeptical climate research.    What are the natural consequences of skeptical climate research?  As time has shown, skeptical climate research has produced many hundreds of peer-reviewed and published scholarly papers that show there is no cause for alarm due to man’s fossil fuel consumption.   Also, since there is no causal link between such research and human deaths, there can be no danger to human life.  The element, too, must fail in the State’s case.  (see link)  (and this link to hundreds of peer-reviewed skeptical papers)

The third element of Voluntary Manslaughter is: at the time he acted, he knew the act was dangerous to human life.  Again, the act is performing skeptical climate research.  The jury would be told that the results of the skeptical climate research is that there is no danger.  The reasons for that conclusion would be explained in great detail, with large and colorful graphs and visual displays to emphasize each point.  The defendant, who performed the skeptical climate research, would know quite the opposite: he would know that there was no danger to human life.  Element three then would also fail in the State’s case.

Finally, the fourth element is: he deliberately acted with conscious disregard for human life.  On this point, the State must prove that defendant performed his skeptical climate research knowing that human life would be at stake, and consciously disregarded that threat to life.  Quite the contrary exists, however.  Skeptical research has shown that there is no cause for alarm, for the reasons outlined above. 

The inevitable conclusion, then, would be a verdict of Not Guilty on a charge of voluntary manslaughter for those who perform skeptical climate research.  Each of the four required elements is found in the negative, that is, the State cannot prove the element exists beyond a reasonable doubt.

It is interesting, however, that those who seek an arrest and conviction for criminal negligence, or voluntary manslaughter, want the crime to be charged before the victims are dead.  The usual cry from the alarmists uses the future tense, as polar ice caps WILL melt, and sea levels WILL rise.  Or, more often, the conditional form is used, saying sea levels COULD rise by 20 feet in 100 years. 

There are some crimes where a conviction may be obtained without a death, such as attempted murder, but there is no crime in California of conspiracy to commit murder ( People v. Iniguez (2002) 96 Cal.App.4th 75).  There is also a crime of attempted voluntary manslaughter, but it requires the fact of heat of passion that does not arise in the climate research context (People v. Van Ronk (1985) 171 Cal.App.3d 818). 

Conclusion:

The facts related to the conduct of climate research that results in a conclusion of no alarm is warranted do not yield a conviction on a charge of voluntary manslaughter, or criminal negligence as described above.   The facts show that, even if some people have died from violent weather events, those weather events are in no way connected with man-made global warming that results from the consumption of fossil fuels.  The clear evidence shows that hundreds of peer-reviewed scholarly papers have been published that show there is no reason for concern, indeed, the leading body of warmist scientists also conclude there is no link between global warming and severe weather.   For a criminal conviction, each element of a crime must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.  Here, each element of the charge would be shown to be discredited, not proven at all.   The exception is that a lawful act, climate research, was committed, however, that act was performed in a lawful manner. 

Update 4/21/2014:  A companion piece on criminal and civil liability related to Free Speech may be found at this link.  -- end update

The above is written to provide an overview of a general area of the law, and is not intended, nor is it to be relied on, as legal advice for a particular set of facts.  Specific legal advice is available from Mr. Sowell and anyone who seeks such advice is encouraged to contact Mr. Sowell.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq. 

Marina del Rey, California