今天有人“搞了个大新闻”: Hurricane expert reconsiders global warming’s impact, 里面提到的论文是Hurricanes and Global Warming: Results from Downscaling IPCC AR4 Simulations。
新闻摘要：“The results surprised me,” Emanuel said of his work, adding that global warming may still play a role in raising the intensity of hurricanes but what that role is remains far from certain.
一篇文章，值得一读，链接。
我其实一直没搞懂，Bjørn Lomborg是 同意AGW的，只是表达了他认为当前有更迫切需要钱的地方，为什么会成为众矢之的，甚至被IPCC的头比喻为是希特勒。当年 Scientific American 发表狠批 Lomborg 观点的文章，当 Lomborg 在自己网站予以反驳时， SciAm 又以侵犯版权为由威胁要关掉 Lomborg 的网站，因为 Lomborg 的反驳中转贴了 SciAm 的文章。
此文中还写到， Al Gore 同学一直避免和 Lomborg 见面，比如一次推掉了丹麦报纸 Jyllands-Posten 的采访，因为发现该报也邀请了 Lomborg。而 Gore 在伦敦给 BBC 的同学们演讲时，被邀请的 Lomborg 不得进入，只能在休息室等待。
新闻组里面常常看见有人在发怀疑 AGW理论的帖子的同时要自嘲一句：我正在等着xx（石油）公司的支票呢。现在在先进的大陆网站，您可以看见与之一脉相承的观点：怀疑AGW理论的是一小 撮和石油企业有关系的人、怀有不可告人的目的。我几乎每天都看一些AGW的争论，结果是庆幸自己没有立志进入学院，否则要折寿。
暴忙，有两句话还得说说。牛博网上一位同学翻译Gavin Schmidt的一个帖子，涉及的是他和Roger Pielke Jr.最近的争论，这位同学说这不涉及专业知识，更好的说法是，这没有什么专业知识可以涉及（R. Pielke Jr.不是气象学家，研究的是科学政策），而主要是对统计数据的interpretation。更有趣的是，这位“专家”翻译的争论中一方的观点，并指点观众看不懂也可以只看简单的结论。
数据的interpretation哪种合理，必然和诠释的过程关联，这位“专家”要求观众丢掉大脑，直接去相信辩论中一方的结论。
Roger Pielke Jr.的blog地址是： http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/
相关文章后又Gavin Schmidt的跟贴——我记得最后一帖是用“都不晓得你在搞什么”之类的话收尾。
Roger Pielke Jr.的父亲Roger Pielke Sr.是气象学家，而且还是不错的学者，也是一对AGW理论持怀疑态度的人。政治正确的罗永浩同学有一次评论他人评论环保的帖子中询问哪里有反对AGW理论的科学家，要“让我们一起去干他”，我建议罗永浩写信给R. Pielke Sr.去“干”，不知道是不是只能用口的。
我记得是Steve McIntyre说过一段话，大概的意思是如果信息不完全确定，作为政策决策人又必须做出决策，应该去听科学家中的大多数观点，但是希望了解事情本身的则应该更全面地了解信息。我很同意这种看法。
Science and soothsaying
By Daniel B. Botkin
Friday, December 28, 2007NEW YORK:Now that the Bali conference is over and climate scientists have warned us again about the dire predictions of their climate models, a question remains: Will their forecasts come true? Given the current international focus on global warming, you would think that, in 10, 15 or 20 years, many people will want to know whether today’s predictions proved accurate.
But, in fact, people rarely look back to see if their old forecasts were on the mark. Foretelling the future has always been difficult and almost always wrong. Charles Mackay, in his wonderful 1841 book “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” observes that the so-called necromancers of earlier centuries who purported to divine the future were grouped with the worst alchemists. Today, however, computers seem to have undermined our natural skepticism. Many of us put our faith in complex software that most of us cannot understand.
My own experience makes me skeptical of how environmental forecasting is being used. In 1991, several colleagues and I drew national and international attention when we used a computer model to forecast possible effects of global warming on an endangered species. Our computer program forecast that the Kirtland’s warbler, the first songbird in America ever subjected to a complete census, would likely face extinction by 2010. Its habitat, jack pine trees, would be unable to thrive in conditions that climate computer programs forecast for southern Michigan, the only place and only trees where the bird nested.
The computer told us these declines should be measurable even in the year we made the forecast. We suggested that measurements of jack pine growth be started to verify the forecasts and to see whether the potential effects of global warming on the diversity of life were actually occurring. People could have started going to southern Michigan to check out our forecasts 16 years ago. Nobody did. I tried to get funding to do this, but no government agency or private foundation was interested.
Even today, amid the furor over global warming, no one is rushing out to verify that it does indeed threaten the Michigan jack pine. (But, happily, independent action by the government, the Audubon Society and private individuals has brought the Kirtland’s warbler back from the brink of extinction.)
What could explain the lack of interest in verifying a dated computer forecast? After all, computer forecasts are the basis for the current alarm. Did people perhaps decide that a 16-year-old forecast had to have been based on inferior methods?
But wait a minute. Given the usual progress of science, won’t forecasting methods in the future always be better than in the past? What this suggests is that today the primary uses of, and interest in, such forecasts are political, not scientific – that scientists as well as politicians are using forecasts for political and ideological purposes to influence public behavior here and now.
The question is not really whether the forecasts are scientifically valid, but how much impetus they can provide to influence society.
It wasn’t always this way. In the 1960s, when research into global warming was just beginning, it seemed impossible that people could change the global environment; the Earth was just too big. Charles Lyell, the father of modern geology, considered the possibility in detail in the mid-19th century and decided it was impossible because the mass of living things amounted to less than a drop in the bucket compared to the weight of all the materials in the oceans, atmosphere, soil and rocks.
In the 1970s, however, scientists began to realize that life had in fact greatly changed the Earth’s environment, starting more than a billion years ago. At the same time, evidence was building that burning fossil fuels was increasing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. In 1957, Charles Keeling began the first continuous measurements to study carbon-dioxide change over time at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. By 1973, he reported at a landmark conference at Brookhaven National Laboratory on “Carbon and the Biosphere” that carbon dioxide showed a definite increase in 15 years, consistent with releases from burning fossil fuels. For those of us working on these issues, the scientific and environmental implications were vast.
Global environmental change began to become a political issue in the 1980s. Climatologists and astrophysicists showed that a nuclear war could put so much dust in the air that disastrous cooling would occur, the infamous nuclear winter. With the end of the Cold War, the focus shifted to global warming. At that time, climatologists explained that their computer models were crude approximations of the real atmosphere and pushed the limit of computer technology, requiring months of computing for a single simulation. You could accept either the results of these crude models or the less-formal projections by the most experienced meteorologists. The primary focus continued to be on the implications of what we knew.
In 1988, in a move that marked a shift to the politicization of forecasts, Congress asked the Environmental Protection Agency to report on the potential effects of global warming. Computer forecasting became much more complex; output from the huge climate models became input into ecological models. My projection for the little warbler was part of that work. The attempt was to be more realistic, but the result was that forecasts became more difficult to verify and also more alarming, thus drawing more and more public attention.
Thinking over this history, I see three primary uses of environmental computer forecasts: to understand the implications of what we know (Can living things change the global environment?); to know the future; and to influence public behavior. Only the first can be strictly scientific. The third is wandering farther and farther away from science.
Since proving the validity of long-term forecasts is difficult and the ultimate tests would take years, and since many scientists are alarmed at the dire scenarios, my colleagues are beginning to talk about whether it is O.K. to exaggerate and push forecasts that are not currently provable if the only way to get societies to act is to frighten people. I think it is not O.K. It is a short-term view, and even if it works, it will inevitably debase science and scientists.
Soothsayers have always tried to persuade people that they could predict the future. What is new today is that the incredibly powerful tools of science – nuclear weapons, flights to the moon, computers, iPods – have such huge implications for civilization that they may contain the seeds of their own destruction.
Thirty years from now, we will probably not be interested in today’s specific computer forecasts, but we may have lost our faith in science, a deeper and, to me, a more important problem.
Daniel B. Botkin, professor emeritus at University of California, Santa Barbara, and president of the Center for the Study of the Environment, is author of “Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the 21st Century.”
刚才看见牛博网的一篇文章中提到充满争议的片子《The Great Global Warming Swindle》，该文写到：“结果电影一出来，被采访过的著名科学家都纷纷指责制作人歪曲自己的原意，表示自己没有说过那些话，而且全都是认为气候变化是人为造成的。”
文章提到了科学家对Gore的批评，比之前牛博一位女士的环保专栏有了进步，不过上述论断则是胡扯(该同学对于Gore的错误则是带着理解去分析)。我可以在几秒钟内找到依据：
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
作 者Timothy Ball就是《The Great Global Warming Swindle》中采访的一位气候学者。另外在下面的地址是一个计划的Dr Timothy Ball和 Dr Andrew Dessler关于全球暖化的辩论，由于电话故障没成功，作者表示可能会再来一次。
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2007/12/post_18.html
我并不认为Channel4的片子没有问题，但是该作者认为那是类似中国的华南虎照片事件一样的忽悠，大约是自我先进感作祟。
p.s.: 据可靠消息，Channel4的片子在德国播放时还增加了德国学者的部分。
转贴两个吵架贴，属质量较高的：
real climate是什么，关心AGW理论的人不会不知道。上次“异教徒” Freeman Dyson 对气候研究模型发表不同看法时，real climate上一位物理学家的回应是先批判了一番Dyson的猎户星座计划如何荒谬，他的书又如何不值得买……，优越感四溢、跑题力极强。上面的帖子中也略有展露。
感受着巴厘岛气候会议的春风（或者冬风），我倒是想写点什么，但是要过节了，惰性愈发顽强——小时候最快活的日子就是快过春节前的一两周，现在贼性不改，只是把春节置换作圣诞节了。
还有一个原因就是虽然全球暖化的题材宣传起来很轻松，但是要去跟进宣传背后的论文，却是不那么容易——数量太多了，即使是觉得Al Gore的小电影“引用了很多科学论文”的人士，也未必知道芒松年轮研究对全球变暖研究的意义，或者为什么Al Gore在他那部著名的小电影中如何用张三的论文循环论证张三的论文。
我有空时候也热衷追寻争论背后的原因，特别是我提过几次的climate audit网站，受益很多。今天简述一下里面几篇关于芒松年轮研究的帖子，不属专业内容，属于学术圈子里面的游戏。
芒松寿命奇长，有的可达5000年，在Al Gore小电影所倚重的Mann的论文中（为什么倚重，请参考Hockey stick controversy以及Gore的小电影中是如何（循环）“论证” 的），对芒松年轮的研究是重要证据之一（因为气温对树木增长的影响）。climate audit的站长McIntyre最近参加了AGU，亚利桑那大学的Malcolm Hughes在AGU作了相关的报告。McIntyre发现Hughes教授对亚利桑那大学的一篇和Hughes观点相反的博士论文只字不提，而Hughes本人就是该论文评审小组的成员。相反，另外一个学生作的倾向Hughes观点的研究得到了他的公开赞扬。
更有意思的事情罗列一下：该博士论文的作者Ababneh在文章中表示所有数据将在2006年12月后存档，但是至今没有存档；McIntyre的IP地址被屏蔽，无法访问亚利桑那大学相关网站；在试图联系Ababneh无任何回音后，有其他网友转达了McIntyre要研究数据的要求，Ababneh表示，她得到 “legal advice”，不得将数据提供给McIntyre。
论文的数据应该是2002年做的，但是论文上线是06年，论文第三部分07年在经同行评议的期刊发表，IPCC只考虑05年或之前的论文，所以对于IPCC来说，Ababneh的新数据等于不存在，有意思的是，为什么对于Hughes教授也不存在呢？为什么数据始终不存档？为什么禁止Ababneh提供数据供别人重复？（经费当然是米国纳税人负担的，McIntyre是加拿大人，根据他的说法，无研究数据提供的远远不止本例，Hughes不算大鱼）
Hughes自己的研究不能反映中世纪的暖期，但是似乎他坚信自己是对的。Ababneh的新研究被Hughes冷藏的原因，也许是她的研究显示近几十年中，芒松年轮没有Hughes认为的“不正常的变宽”（可解释为由于暖化）。
关于AGW的争论，并不是设计论和进化论这样的争论，我本人目前是认同部分断言，对另外一部分不置可否。另外，对于引用了一些科学论文，然后自己加上一个恐怖片结尾的Al Gore先生，我始终是非常怀疑的，他自己是用电大王只是插曲，关键是他回应持不同声音的科学家时，理由仅仅是该科学家不是属于IPCC的，并放屁说什么不能给认为地球是平的人同等的机会。现在的确是有一些学者有不同看法，但是谁能得到有Gore先生那么多的发言机会呢？Gore先生，您还嫌不够？
（以上内容根据记忆写的，根据跨度几个月的若干帖子，没有一一检查，详情请在climate audit检索”Ababneh”等。）
说个题外话，我本人的生活是很绿的，至少比普通城市人都绿，我住在农村，出门就是田地，微风常常送来阵阵牛粪味，每年大约有一半时间购买邻家农人自己种的菜，出门徒步、自行车或者公交，供电部分来自风力，即使如此，我的“生态足迹”也在两个地球左右。那些在网上、或者媒体吹嘘绿色生活的同学同志们，生态足迹应该远远超过我的。生态足迹这个玩艺以前我还挺当真的，后来我搬家到了农村，七算八算还是迫害地球的一分子，其实分析一下它的题目，一个工作的人要达到要求几乎不可能。我建议网上的义士们尝试一下：不接触工业化产品、搜集自己的粪便当能源，把自己变为真正的绿色威力加强版。
Steve McIntyre是加拿大退休商人，获得过纯数学学位，最近他发现NASA GISS的美国气温历史记录有问题，引发了一定程度的“喧嚣”——“一定程度”的意思是在网络上很热烈，传统媒体很少见。
GISS悄然修正了数据——说明McIntyre的发现是正确的。但是随即GISS的Hansen博士——支持人为因素导致全球变暖的重量级人物——连发了两封信，目的一是强调这次修正对于全球的数据分析而言无足轻重，同时也表达了自己拯救人类的迫切心情：
The real deal is this: the `royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children.
Hansen 博士的道德高尚么？至少在字面上看是的，高尚得是地方么？不敢恭维——理论A是因为提出者道德崇高而正确，还是因为支持正确的理论A而显得道德崇高？如果 是前者，那么不用比赛理论的解释能力，直接比赛道德就可以了。而且，实际上McIntyre本人并没有声称过推翻了人为全球变暖的理论，仅仅是对数据中出 现的问题提出疑问——而且还是正确的——不用这么激动吧，Hansen博士。
因为这事儿，这两天，在日理万鸡之余，我看了一些Climate Audit的文章，很受教益。回顾网上（无论语种）支持人为导致全球变暖理论的积极分子的blog，McIntyre太脚踏实地了。
Freeman J. Dyson的文章也很值得一看[0]，McIntyre在怀疑数据的可靠性（曾要求Hansen博士公开算法以做检验，被拒绝），Dyson怀疑的是模型 的预测能力，理由之一是El Niño现象是观测出来的，没有什么气象模型预测了它的存在。这些模型预测的结果可靠么？[1]
顺便说一下 BBC员工匿名修改Wikipedia的故事：Wikipedia Scanner出来后，BBC借助这个工具的帮助，揭露CIA等大众明星机构有人化名修改Wikipedia，粉饰自己，报道被广泛引用，甚至连 HowStuffWorks都有。作为柿油派劲旅，BBC当然没有检查自己的习惯，但是有好事之徒这么做了，并发现BBC内部的确也有人匿名修改 Wikipedia，比如把“terrorists”改为“freedom fighters”、把George Walker Bush改为Georage Wanker Bush[2]。 BBC是一个有licence fee的媒体，据说这可以保证BBC的公正，但是现在看来也保证了它的不公正，从BBC前编辑Antony Jay最近的“自白”[3]看，以前我对BBC的种种偏见并非捕风捉影。“We saw ourselves as clever people in a stupid world, upright people in a corrupt world, compassionate people in a brutal world, libertarian people in an authoritarian world.”，我的天，不要太准确。
[0] PDF文件，Dyson的文章在最后一页
http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/archives/upload/may99new.pdf
[1] 两个slashdot的帖子以及跟帖都值得一看：
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/11/0515250
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/17/125219
[2] 来自BBC的全部匿名修改参见：
http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/f.php?ip1=132.185.240.0-255&ip2=132.185.132.0-255&ip3=&ip4=
[3] Confessions of a BBC liberal
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2240427.ece
批评布什政府对京都协议的态度，就像道德高洁的人感叹“世风日下”，早已成了一种量产的表演。一个白痴鹦鹉学舌地来上两句就能获得一种“先进感”。就连无锡人士、“新新闻人”安替同学，在无锡老家爆发水污染的时候，也不忘批评美国总统布什以及“马屁精布莱尔”（参见安替同学的《布什以攻代守，环保跃居国际政治主战场》），而且口气居高临下，颇有日人民报评论员之风。
在关于Plame案件的文章中，安替同学栽赃准备坐牢的美国记者Cooper害怕坐牢并为“同行”耻笑，在这篇《布什以攻代守》中，安替同学编故事的技巧依然热情而拙劣，他“报道”到——“就连标榜自己很亲美的G8 东道主德国总理默克尔，也对布什抛开联合国另起炉灶、拒绝具体减排目标的‘新方案’表示极为愤慨”。
关于Merkel的表态，6月7日金融时报的报道是这样的：
Their agreement was hailed by Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and G8 summit host, as “a big success…All of us have made concessions so that we could send this strong signal”.
“极为愤慨”在哪里呢？政治人物在一起谈论什么框架、政策，一定会有异议并且为此讨价还价。安替同学作为记者，居然把这个正常的过程演绎为英雄和小丑的对决。建议宣传部注意和培养一下该同学。
关于京都协议，有一个简单但是不常被提起的事实，就是现在京都协议的强力推行者、美国前前副总统Al Gore在任时对京都协议的态度。
根据CNN十年前的报道，当时担任美国副总统的Gore对京都协议的态度是：
Gore, who often serves as the administration’s point person on environmental issues, said the U.S. intends to press for “meaningful participation by key developing nations.” Until that happens, the administration will not seek a ratification vote in the Senate, Gore said.
“As we said from the very beginning, we will not submit this agreement for ratification until key developing nations participate in this effort,” Gore declared. “This is a global problem that will require a global solution.”
Gore现在对京都协议的看法是在布什当选总统以后的事情了。其实布什的观点和他在任时候类似——也是批评中国和印度不受京都协议制约：
This is a challenge that requires a 100 percent effort; ours, and the rest of the world’s. The world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is China. Yet, China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol.
India and Germany are among the top emitters. Yet, India was also exempt from Kyoto. ….
这一事实很少被人提起，特别是Al Gore现在成为绿色积极分子的代表人物后。
在上述安替同学的垃圾文章中，还有这么一句：“可是作为《京都议定书》缔约国的美国，不但没给中国（以及印度）这样的后发污染国家做出榜样……”，做出什么榜样呢？做出接受一个不约束中国印度，反而只约束那些环保较好的国家的协议的榜样？环保问题恰恰在于：如果你认为全球变暖责任在人，那么就不能区分什么先污染后污染。安替同学在这里只不过是再次表演一下政治正确——因为他既不了解全球变暖背后的科学之争，也不能中立地用记者的眼光看待全球变暖的政治之争，除了玩玩政治正确，跟风嘲讽一下布什，他别无所长。
Channel4的片子The Great Global Warming Swindle很值得一看，原因不是它是否正确，而是你几乎听不见这种反对的声音。
贴一张片中用来反驳前美国副总统戈尔用来“证明”二氧化碳排放量和气温关系的图，图中显示太阳和气温的关系显然比二氧化碳更具说服力：
注意：片中采访的科学家并不反对出现全球变暖的现象，反对的是认为气温变暖原因是人类造成的温室气体排放。除了科学上的争议外，还有关于经济的，以及IPCC的报告怎么出来的，等等。总之不管你观点如何，都值得一看。
Youtube上可以看到全片，但是不很清楚。
这是片中发表观点的被采访者。
