Hal Lewis: My Resignation From The American Physical Society

outdoor338 wrote: Funny you should mention tea party, its the liberal moonbats that are pushing global warming. JMTCW

Hey, thanks for calling me a moonbat Outdoor. 'Preciate it.

Just out of curiosity, did anyone look into his statements more closely? He certainly does give his reasons, but he states nothing that refutes the science of AGW. Actually, his comments seem to contradict one another on that point, and the rest are claims with no evidence to back them up, just opinions and conjectures.

Hal Lewis wrote: It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford's book organizes the facts very well.)

Every inquiry into the issues surrounding Climategate cleared all researchers of any wrong-doing and re-affirmed that there was no scientific malpractice.
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He mentions Montford's book - it is riddled with errors and misrepresentations, not the best source for refuting AGW:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... -delusion/

His issues with APS, the petition, and the outcome. Well, there's another side to this story, of course.
http://physicsfrontline.aps.org/2009/11 ... statement/
I think this comment sums up the true, unstated purpose of the petition; a purpose that Lewis himself laments in his resignation - that money and politics have corrupted science. Ironic, really.
Henry A. Miranda, Jr.
Posted December 17, 2009 at 5:35 PM

The scientific community includes a plethora of specialties, most of which are not at all related to the issue of Climate Change. On the other hand, there exists a relatively small group of atmospheric scientists, (including meteorologists), who are most knowledgeable, (or rather, least ignorant), about the many interlocking aspects of the exchange between incoming and outgoing radiation throughout the entire atmosphere, (as well as surface vegetation and the vast expanses of ocean waters), and their multi-faceted effect on the “mean” temperature of the entire Globe. Why does the APS insist on soliciting the views of its entire membership on this important issue, (the vast majority of whom know little more about these complex factors than the average citizen), and then publish the results? Are not the views of these individuals, (who are, after all, as human as anyone else), as affected by the massive publicity in favor of this questionable hypothesis as the average citizen? Does this not create the illusion that the poll represents the facts of the matter? I think so.
Does this not play into the hands of those who benefit greatly by promoting this hypothesis in the political arena, rather than in the arena of science, where truth is more likely to be served? I think so. Would it not have been eminently more fair to solicit the views of the above specialists in this field, and then to report the consensus of their views separately, as a bare minimum? I think so.
What the APS has done is as silly as soliciting the views of geophysicists on, say, how patent law should be modified in light of the impact of quantum entanglement on encryption code security, (or any one of a hundred other equally esoteric aspects of scientific enquiry having serious political implications). Would we not all be much better off if the APS were to get out of the political arena entirely?

Who was really behind the petition? http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.de ... v3%200.pdf
http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/11/ ... -petition/

Most significant is that of the signatories:
- only one is/has ever been active in climate research
- all work(ed) in fields and specializations largely unrelated to climate science (eg astrophysics, aerospace, defense, nuclear)

The effort was instigated by a core group dominated by members involved with four industry funded groups that pose as “think tanks”, but in reality are little better than Public Relations firms.

This is consistent with the pattern of climate change Denial being driven by a tiny handful of lobbyists and consultants (here and here) working through a network of phony think tanks and astro-turf “citizens groups.” As APSmith observed (reported at Get Energy Smart Now!!!), they have been involved in campaigns that claimed:
o that ozone depletion is nothing to worry about
o that smoking doesn’t cause cancer
o that second-hand smoke is nothing to worry about anyway
o and now that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is nothing to worry about.

Hal Lewis wrote: 6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/con ... y_emeritus

In any case, one outcome of the discussion last year was a plan to develop a new topical group on "the Physics of Climate", something I heartily endorse. Lewis seems to dispute the account given in the APS News article just linked, in particular referring to the organizing committee formed by the APS as "secret and stacked" to form "your own" topical group. If Lewis wasn't planning for the new topical group to be an APS topical group, what did he think he was doing? Lewis's claims also seem a little odd given that the person selected by APS to head up the organizing committee, Nobel laureate Jerome Friedman of MIT, was one of the signatories on Cohen's petition for the new group. Did Lewis want to try to form a "climate skeptics only, nobody else invited" group somehow with APS sanction?

Hal Lewis wrote: They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.

Here's the part of the 2007 APS statement to which he refers: http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm

The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

And the 2010 Statement: http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm

There is a substantial body of peer reviewed scientific research to support the technical aspects of the 2007 APS statement. The purpose of the following commentary is to provide clarification and additional details. The evidence for global temperature rise over the last century is compelling. However, the word "incontrovertible" in the first sentence of the second paragraph of the 2007 APS statement is rarely used in science because by its very nature science questions prevailing ideas. The observational data indicate a global surface warming of 0.74 °C (+/- 0.18 °C) since the late 19th century. (Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html )

Now, Lewis has issues with the use of the word "incontrovertible" and says it's "a position supported by no one."
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-repor ... yr_spm.pdf

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal

http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2009/ ... letter.pdf
October 21, 2009
As you consider climate change legislation, we, as leaders of scientific organizations, write to state the consensus scientific view. Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Chemical Society
American Geophysical Union
American Institute of Biological Sciences
American Meteorological Society
American Society of Agronomy
American Society of Plant Biologists
American Statistical Association
Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
Botanical Society of America
Crop Science Society of America
Ecological Society of America
Natural Science Collections Alliance
Organization of Biological Field Stations
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Society of Systematic Biologists
Soil Science Society of America
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2007 ... cientists/
The 2007 IPCC report, compiled by several hundred climate scientists, has unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming rapidly, and that we are now at least 90% certain that this is mostly due to human activities. The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now far exceeds the natural range of the past 650,000 years, and it is rising very quickly due to human activity.

incontrovertible: Not capable of being denied, challenged, or disputed; closed to questioning
unequivocal: Unambiguous; without equivocation or ambiguity; singularly clear, unmistakable, or unquestionable

He made previous statements that show quite a bit of ignorance of the current literature:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504383_162- ... 04383.html

I know of nobody who denies that the Earth has been warming for thousands of years without our help (and specifically since the Little Ice Age a few hundred years ago)...The important question is how much warming does the future hold, is it good or bad, and if bad is it too much for normal adaptation to handle. The real answer to the first is that no one knows, the real answer to the second is more likely good than bad (people and plants die from cold, not warmth), and the answer to the third is almost certainly not. And nobody doubts that CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing for the better part of a century, but the disobedient temperature seems not to care very much. And nobody denies that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, along with other gases like water vapor, but despite the claims of those who are profiting by this craze, no one knows whether the temperature affects the CO2 or vice versa. The weight of the evidence is the former. If you say that the Earth is warming you are telling the truth, but not the whole truth, and if you say it is due to the burning of fossil fuels you are on thin ice.

"People and plants die from cold, not warmth". Okay, here I have to get snarky - seriously? A physicist said this? Wow. And we're supposed to believe what he says about climate science when it's not even his field of expertise and he hasn't even bothered to learn the basics behind climate science?
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5529a2.htm
http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/not ... twave.html
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/ ... 3/update29
http://www.wwfblogs.org/climate/content ... scow-alone
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NE ... 7113350203
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wheat6.htm

I'd guess that he thinks that excess CO2 is only good for plants too and isn't causing damage to the oceans with the excess continuing to dissolve in it and acidify it.
http://www.liebertpub.com/MContent/File ... 79-398.pdf
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... ction.html

Studies of past climate changes suggest the land and oceans start releasing more CO2 than they absorb as the planet warms. The latest IPCC report concludes that the terrestrial biosphere will become a source rather than a sink of carbon before the end of the century.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 075233.htm
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... -emission/

His claim that CO2 and temperature aren't correlated: false.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=2&t=79&&n=61

His statement: "How much warming? No one knows." This is a pretty vague and generalized statement. No, no one can predict accurately and precisely, but they can make really good predictions within a high confidence range based on the physics known of how CO2 and other greenhouse gases act in the atmosphere and what has happened in past climates.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... se-effect/

Hal Lewis wrote: And nobody denies that CO2 is a greenhouse gas,...no one knows whether the temperature affects the CO2 or vice versa.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... ice-cores/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... bon-cycle/

Temperature depends on CO2 concentration via radiative equilibrium in the blue curves, and CO2 concentration in the air is affected by temperature according to the red lines. A rise in CO2 concentration from an external source changes the equilibrium CO2 as a function of T relation toward higher CO2, to the right, labeled “forcing”. The stable final equilibrium is where the two relations cross, with further CO2 degassing from the land or the ocean, so that more CO2 ends up in the atmosphere than would have if there were no feedback (a vertical red line).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 151248.htm
http://insciences.org/article.php?article_id=8239

However, the actual strength of feedback between carbon cycle and warming is still being extensively debated within the scientific community. The results of this study now provide an answer. Nine different reconstructions of temperature fluctuations and three CO2 histories were tested for their reliability and used to constrain the carbon cycles response to climate change. The researchers calculated the links between temperature and CO2 levels for more than 200,000 possible data combinations. They managed to produce a reliable mean value and a corresponding confidence interval for the extent of feedback between temperature and CO2.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 08769.html

Hal Lewis wrote: If you say that the Earth is warming you are telling the truth, but not the whole truth, and if you say it is due to the burning of fossil fuels you are on thin ice.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... h_lang/in/

CO2 produced from burning fossil fuels or burning forests has quite a different isotopic composition from CO2 in the atmosphere. This is because plants have a preference for the lighter isotopes (12C vs. 13C); thus they have lower 13C/12C ratios. Since fossil fuels are ultimately derived from ancient plants, plants and fossil fuels all have roughly the same 13C/12C ratio – about 2% lower than that of the atmosphere. As CO2 from these materials is released into, and mixes with, the atmosphere, the average 13C/12C ratio of the atmosphere decreases.

Lewis's claims about the corruption of money have no evidence to back them up, it's merely his opinion:
http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/con ... y_emeritus

Lewis talks about "trillions of dollars". Going to scientists? That seems rather unlikely. The vast majority of the (billions) spent on climate research go to two places: satellite manufacture, launch and operations, and supercomputer centers for doing climate model calculations. The average climate scientist is paid no more than the average American, about $50,000/year, and many work for hardly more than minimum wage, some spending long hours and even putting their lives at risk for their work. But Lewis thinks this has something to do with climate research, to the extent that it corrupts a professional society that doesn't even include very many actual climate researchers? That seems a real stretch... Where are his numbers? He has none, no proof of his speculations at all.

Yes, the total dollars going into research has increased - and that's a good thing. Scientific innovations are the primary driving force of the success of our economy. The U.S. has historically led in patents and biotech products that have put us on top and improved our quality of life - not such a bad thing. Research is still about the search for truth, but to paint a broad brush and continue to focus on the idea that scientists are being corrupted by that money, when they personally receive small fractions of it, is to continue a very cynical view of a minority population that doesn't behave with the best of intentions. Yes, there is an emphasis on researchers to bring in money - that's how the system has been set up - and that promotes a system in which the best make it, and the rest don't, and don't waste our taxpayer dollars. Does that set up situations in which researchers are desperate to get results and hold on to their jobs, yes. But considering how desperate times have gotten recently, I'd dare say there'd be much more fraud being reported than currently is. And would we want to continue funding scientists whose projects are just skating along, not adding productive, meaningful results to the stores of knowledge and generating advancements? Nope. Older, more established scientists are more likely to receive continued, renewed funding than new, young investigators are to get awarded at all, and are also less likely to investigate riskier avenues of research contributing to conservatism in results.

It sounds like Dr. Lewis has had quite a distinguished career and I applaud that. But to take a scientific issue, lament its politicization while using it thusly, with no credible evidence to support one's claims, is sad.