David Evans and that "missing" signature : Deltoid

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Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.

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David Evans and that "missing" signature

Category: Global Warming
Posted on: July 29, 2008 12:22 PM, by Tim Lambert

David Appell showed David Evans the AGW signature from the IPCC report that Evans claimed was missing. Evans replied:

Comparing a model to observations doesn't prove the model works. It's encouraging to the model builders, but it's not proof. For instance, the model could just be lucky.

So when Evans wrote:

The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

He meant that we had found the signature, but Evans didn't think it should count.

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Comments

Obviously, the so-called "signature" was created by Jehovah to test our faith.

Or maybe the "signature" was due to chemtrails from the Illuminati.

Posted by: bi -- IJI | July 29, 2008 12:52 PM

You need to tighten your tinfoil helmet: It was clearly the reverse vampires...

Posted by: Jason Failes | July 29, 2008 1:00 PM

Paraphrased David Evans: There was a signature after all, but it's not notarized!

Posted by: t_p_hamilton | July 29, 2008 2:04 PM

Yeah, but a few amateurs taking pictures has prrrrrroven! that the temp measurements are Hansenian frauds and look like Mannian shapes, so the model was tuned to a fraudulent Schneideran station broadcasting nothing but Oreskesian big band music. Kinda like a gangsta rap by the upper-class son of a real estate broker in Carol Stream, Illinois.

Best,

Posted by: Dano | July 29, 2008 2:33 PM

Wait, I know what's causing the "signature":

It's the Phantom Soviet Empire!!!

They must have constructed a huge gigantic gizmo in the sky to fabricate the "signature" so that they can blame it on our patriotic CO₂ emissions. Yep, that's it.

Posted by: bi -- IJI | July 29, 2008 2:49 PM

That was a great Danoian comment (Dano at #4); quite Lambertian and very non-Evansian.

Posted by: steve murphy | July 29, 2008 4:15 PM

I'm as fond of pounding on Evans as the next fellow, but wasn't the "signature" he was referring to tropospheric warming, not the global average temperature?

Posted by: James Haughton | July 29, 2008 10:58 PM

There was a discussion about Evans' claims in the comments to a post on RealClimate. The gist of it was that he is confused in his assertion that there is a signature for greenhouse gas specifically. (His argument seems to be that, while warming might have occurred, since the signature is missing, it can't be gas that's causing it.) There is a signature for warming, but no indication of what is causing it.

Evans' CV was linked to in a post on Sadly, No. I am still puzzled by his claim to being a "Rocket Scientist". I wondered if he meant it jocularly ("Hey, I'm really smart - I'm a ROCKET SCIENTIST!!"), but he has been introduced under that appellation a number of times.

Bolt et al. have jumped on his claims, of course. I'm trying to work out if I'm being unfair to him -

As far as I can tell, he was contracting at the Australian Greenhouse Office as a Windows GUI application programmer. He refers to FullCAM as a "model", when it is actually a piece of software. He might have had to plug models into it, but I don't see anywhere where he states that he actually developed them. His proclamations on climate physics suggest that he has no expertise in the area: most of them seem to be lifted from the standard denialist sites.

Posted by: Ezzthetic | July 29, 2008 11:00 PM

Thank you Steve Murphy. I'd try to write something else witty, but I've got brain-lock from thinking about 'Oreskesian big-band music' as an accompaniment to Evans' tap-dancing.

At any rate, just goes to show how the denialists got nothin'. Nothing at all. Not one thing but tap-dancing, fudging, cherry-picking and making sh*t up.

Best,

Posted by: Dano | July 29, 2008 11:39 PM

re: #8 Ezzthetic See DeSMogBlog on rocket scientists, including info from David Evans and other posts there.

Posted by: John Mashey | July 30, 2008 12:18 AM

John,

Thanks for clarifying the Rocket Science claim. My derisive Bolt postings can stand.

I suppose he can use the term if he likes (although it really should be in quotes, or something). The problem is that it keep getting used literally by those who cite his claims, and he isn't doing anything to clarify the misunderstanding.

They might be unfair over his claims to be writing a word processor - anyone can write one, and he never claimed to be working for Microsoft.

Posted by: Ezzthetic | July 30, 2008 1:53 AM

Much as I hate to do this... I Googled "define:Rocket Scientist" and this was the top hit from Cisco.

A person or investment firm that has crafted innovative and creative investment or risk management products.
An employee of a firm that works on major mathematical problems and performs quantitative analysis.

So, does he fit either of those bills?

Posted by: Jamie Bull | July 30, 2008 4:14 AM

Oh darn it. He is a rocket scientist after all, then.

You know, it's a real pity I never finished my Ph.D (which was on John Lyly, the Renaissance playwright). I also do Windows GUI programming. I was contracted to the Anti-Cancer Council for a few months to develop software. (You know when they ring you up to persuade you take raffle tickets to sell to your workmates? - I wrote the software they use to administrate that.)

Imagine the fun I could have as Dr. Ezz, former Consultant to the Anti-Cancer Council, with my new cancer treatment ...

Posted by: Ezzthetic | July 30, 2008 5:21 AM

As someone who has actually designed rockets (for the Tripoli Science Association), I think I can say with some confidence that there is no actual discipline known as "rocket science." Ballistics, metallurgy, chemical engineering, control systems, celestial navigation, meteorology, physics, these are all of interest to launching a rocket. But there's no university in the world that awards degrees in "rocket science."

Posted by: Barton Paul Levenson | July 30, 2008 9:53 AM

I think I can say with some confidence that there is no actual discipline known as "rocket science."

I think the name might have been invented by a journalist to describe "rocket scientists" brought over to the US from Germany after World War 2.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | July 30, 2008 10:42 AM

I think I can say with some confidence that there is no actual discipline known as "rocket science."

I think the name might have been invented by a journalist to describe "rocket scientists" brought over to the US from Germany after World War 2.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | July 30, 2008 10:49 AM

Dano (your #9 comment):

You're welcome. It was a nicely played comment that indeed gets to the heart that "they ain't got nothin". One reason I link blogs like Deltoid is because of both Tim's articles and then the comments - I tell my students some real gems, like yours, are available as concise and often spontaneous summaries. Of course some real crap is to be found (crap often being posts by the 'anti-Dano's around)

Posted by: steve murphy | July 30, 2008 6:47 PM

Besides being a self-professed rocket scientist, Dr David Evans is also a self-confessed rider on a "gravy train" for six years from 1999 to 2005. (See his article for the Lavoisier Group on 5 May 2007 and a rehash for the Ludwig von Mises Institute on 28 May 2007). Funny thing, though, when the Lavoisier Group provides a link detailing his experience, more space is devoted to the "gravy train" job than any other. In these two articles, Dr Evans uses three reasons why he questioned that carbon dioxide caused climate change. The third assertion was that a credible alternative suspect now existed for global warming. Dr Evans said clouds both reflected incoming radiation (albedo) and prevented heat from escaping (greenhouse), but with low clouds the albedo effect was stronger than the greenhouse effect. He wrote: "Thus low clouds caused net cooling (high clouds were less common and did the opposite). In October 2006, a team led by (Danish physicist) Henrik Svensmark showed experimentally that cosmic rays affected cloud formation, and thus that "Stronger sun's magnetic field => Fewer cosmic rays hit Earth => Fewer low clouds are formed => Earth heats up." Evans continued: "And, indeed, the sun's magnetic field has been stronger than usual for the last three decades. So maybe cosmic rays cause global warming. But investigation of this cause is still in its infancy, and it's far too early to judge how much of the global warming is caused by cosmic rays." In his 18 July 2008 article, there is no mention of the Svensmark experiments. There is no mention of why Dr Evans has dropped something that 14 months earlier was one of three reasons that caused him to question (deny) his earlier belief.

Posted by: JohnL | July 31, 2008 1:44 AM

JohnL

There is no mention of why Dr Evans has dropped something that 14 months earlier was one of three reasons that caused him to question (deny) his earlier belief.

It's probably because he started getting claustrophobic when he finally realised that sitting in a damp cupboard in Copenhagen really wasn't turning out to be as productive as the people who shut him in there had promised

Posted by: Hugh | July 31, 2008 2:45 AM

They did not find the signature at all. They just invented a new model and made it spit out a predicted hotspot where those pesky "observations" fail.

Imagine in ANY OTHER field of science the scientists failed to find a result in an experiment and instead created a computer model of the same experiment and simulated a successful result. That is such bull#$%#$%.

Posted by: Mick | August 3, 2008 4:21 PM

It bears repeating that the tropical troposphere "hot spot" is not a signature of an enhanced greenhouse effect, but a signature of warming, which we know from many independent lines of evidence is happening. Signatures of an enhanced greenhouse effect include: 1) Stratospheric cooling, 2) nights warming faster than days, and 3) reduction in outgoing longwave radiation.

Posted by: cce | August 3, 2008 7:03 PM

Further to cce's salient repetition of the significance of a 'hot-spot signature', it seems that the whole Denialist hysteria about the hot-spot/AGW relationship only started in earnest a few weeks ago.

Does anyone know from where the distorted perceptions of the Denialists on this issue orignated? It fascinates me how lemming-like the galloping has been...

Posted by: Bernard J. | August 3, 2008 11:14 PM

From McKitrick (June '07) http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=d84e4100-44e4-4b96-940a-c7861a7e19ad&p=1

From McIntyre (praising McKitrick) http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1700

From Monckton (Aug '07): http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/moncktonpapers/greenhousewarmingwhatgreenhousewarming.html

From McIntyre (April '08): http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3048

McIntyre again (June '08): http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3161

That last one seems to have set off the latest burst of publicity.

RealClimate explained this in December '07 http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends/

Posted by: cce | August 4, 2008 2:35 AM

Mick, where did you read that lie you posted here?

Or did you just make it up on your own?

Posted by: dhogaza | August 4, 2008 7:51 AM

Hi guys,

You may be interested to hear this - a radio interview with David Evans and a rejoinder from Andy Pitman of UNSW.

Its the same old formula from Evans, cherry picking using monthly data, the misrepresentation of the hot spot issue, the bogus claim about the lack of evidence, nothing new.

But it's interesting to hear how he talks about himself.

Look for the podcast timed at Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:53:13.

http://www.2gb.com/index.php?option=com_podcasting&id=8&Itemid=41&task=view&limit=10&limitstart=80#top

The interesting thing is how he says: "we assumed that the carbon dioxide was causing the temperature rise" "when we did further ice core studies" "the only thing we ever found was the old ice core data but that's been reversed by the new ice cores" "what we've found instead" "now we've sent up hundreds of radiosondes" "so we know for sure the hot spot isn't there"

"we" this and "we" that.

I had thought he was just a glorified spreadsheet builder, but from this it would appear from this that he's actually been involved in research into the climate - the heroic Dr Evans on his quest for knowledge, drilling into the ice and launching weather ballons and all that.

Can anyone tell me where his research was published?

Posted by: Gaz | August 7, 2008 3:31 AM

Does anyone know from where the distorted perceptions of the Denialists on this issue orignated? It fascinates me how lemming-like the galloping has been...

Back in the day, it was easy to track such origins*.

Today, the spores of the denialist industry have spread far. The key is not where FUD originates, but that it is the same BS, same deception, same strawman, same hasty generalization, same conflation, same cherry-picking as it always was, and the small-minority fringe eats it up like ice cream on a hot day.

Best,

That's how the Dano character got started, chasing down origins of FUD.

Posted by: Dano | August 7, 2008 11:18 AM

Gaz, it doesn't matter.

It was established (Watts/Evans 2008) that Antarctica is so built-up now that any perceived warming or melting is due to urban heat islands. It's as if you left your Dove bar in a microwave on high during a heat wave in the southern part of hell!

Posted by: Marion Delgado | August 19, 2008 6:31 PM

Marion #27 OMG I thought you were serious for a moment!

Seriously, though, this Evans guy wandering around the media traps passing himself off as a climate scientist and wheeling out his discredited nonsense is really getting tiresome.

Posted by: Gaz | August 19, 2008 11:12 PM