American Physical Society reverses stance on Global Warming

[Ace Pace]

The fuck?

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible."

In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."


The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity -- the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause -- has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.

Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton's paper an "expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and "extensive errors"

In an email to DailyTech, Monckton says, "I was dismayed to discover that the IPCC's 2001 and 2007 reports did not devote chapters to the central 'climate sensitivity' question, and did not explain in proper, systematic detail the methods by which they evaluated it. When I began to investigate, it seemed that the IPCC was deliberately concealing and obscuring its method."


According to Monckton, there is substantial support for his results, "in the peer-reviewed literature, most articles on climate sensitivity conclude, as I have done, that climate sensitivity must be harmlessly low."

Monckton, who was the science advisor to Britain's Thatcher administration, says natural variability is the cause of most of the Earth's recent warming. "In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years ... Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth."

Updated 7/17/2008


After publication of this story, the APS responded with a statement that its Physics and Society Forum is merely one unit within the APS, and its views do not reflect those of the Society at large.

[Ender]

I'm curious, did you bother to look any further into this? Examine it at all? Or just take the one blog's coverage as gospel. Nevermind, I know it is the latter. Numerous science blogs have been on this like white on rice for a while so far.

In ONE newsletter (newsletter, not a peer reviewed journal, not a symposium, not a conference, a freaking newsletter) a SINGLE editor posted a ridiculous claims from a long debunked GW denier - IOW, not the results of his latest research, not the newest models, hell nothing to do with him or science performed by him at all, but something a known kook came up with.

One guy, who does not speak for them in a whole, not in an official forum, repeated something someone else said.


Of course now every hack with a political axe to grind, every nutter who thinks this is god's "plan" and part of the "end times", and every nitwit who can't be bothered to spend 5 seconds on google (read as: YOU) is parroting this. Which is really funny, because the APS has already issued clarification on this topic, reaffirming what they have been saying for decades.

Here is more info on the topic.

[Kuroneko]

The APS had already clarified last Thursday that the article does not represent the views of APS at large. As usual, FOX News jumped on this with no retracting in sight. A minor note: my understanding of it was that the article itself was peer-reviewed, regardless of whether it was published in a normally peer-reviewed medium [*].

[*] This is somewhat unclear. The author, Viscount Monckton, said that he was invited to write the article and not only that it was reviewed, but that he complied fully with reviewers' requests.

[Metatwaddle]

A minor note: my understanding of it was that the article itself was peer-reviewed, regardless of whether it was published in a normally peer-reviewed medium [*].

[*] This is somewhat unclear. The author, Viscount Monckton, said that he was invited to write the article and not only that it was reviewed, but that he complied fully with reviewers' requests.

The APS says pretty unambiguously that the articles in Physics and Society are not peer reviewed: Link

The Forum on Physics and Society is a place for discussion and disagreement on scientific and policy matters. Our newsletter publishes a combination of non- peer- reviewed technical articles, policy analyses, and opinion. All articles and editorials published in the newsletter solely represent the views of their authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Forum Executive Committee.

[Kuroneko]

I know that this is publication does not require peer review; what I said was that the author said the article itself was peer reviewed. Looking into it, it was reviewed prior to publication by a Professor Alvin Saperstein, who was given it by the editor of the newsletter. He was apparently the only reviewer, although with substantial rewriting based on his input. Now, how significant this should be taken is debatable, but surely it makes the question of whether it was peer reviewed at least not unambiguous.

Fortunately, that's really a side issue. What is far more important is whether the APS at large or even a significant fraction of its members supports the conclusions of the article, and of course neither of those are the case.