Inhofe's 650 list misrepresents Belgian climatologist

Marc Morano in his '650 skeptics' list copies a misrepresentation, made last year, of the words of Luc Debontridder, scientist at The Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute.

Morano's report writes :

Climate scientist Luc Debontridder of the Belgium Weather Institute's Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) co-authored a study in August 2007 which dismissed a decisive role of CO2 in global warming. The press release about the study read, "CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming.

This is the conclusion of a comprehensive scientific study done by the Royal Meteorological Institute, which will be published this summer.

The study does not state that CO2 plays no role in warming the earth." "But it can never play the decisive role that is currently attributed to it," Luc Debontridder said according to the August 2007 release.

"Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore's movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it," Debontridder explained. "Every change in weather conditions is blamed on CO2. But the warm winters of the last few years (in Belgium) are simply due to the 'North-Atlantic Oscillation'. And this has absolutely nothing to do with CO2," he added.

Source for Morano is a website of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, a well known group of skeptics who produce more noise than actual science.

Their website points to articles in two Belgian newspapers, one being on the website of "De Morgen" which is no longer online. The other article is on the (paid section) website of "De Standaard". I bought entrance to the article in which to my surprise Debontridder actually denies minimalising the role of CO2 (i'm not quoting the exact text, to not violate copyrights).

Moreover, Debontridder states in this article in De Standaard that what happened is that yet another Belgian Newspaper (Het Laatste Nieuws (HLN)) grossly misrepresented him and the RMI report.

The article of HLN also disappeared from the net, but the story was quickly picked up by well known Flemish climate skeptics, like the aforementioned Jos Verhulst and they copied the news in a forumpost on politics.be so we can still see what was written back then.

In HLN, Debontridder was quoted saying :

"... nu moeten we toch eens terug naar de échte realiteit. De hele reeks warme winters die we de laatste jaren hebben gehad, bijvoorbeeld, zijn simpelweg een gevolg van de Noord-Atlantische schommeling. Dat heeft nu echt eens niks met CO2 te maken".
Over de 'global warming-storm' ofte media hype zou hij hebben gezegd: "Over enkele maanden hoor je er niks meer over. Precies doordat er zo overdreven op die CO2 werd gefocust, en alles op één hoop werd gegooid"

in English, my translation :

"... now we really need to enter reality again. the series of long winters we have known are simply a result of the NAO. It's totaly unrelated with CO2."
About the global warming hype he [Debontridder] said : "in a couple of months you won't hear about it any more. Just because everything was focussed on CO2."

People with a little bit of background on the subject will probably quickly understand by themselves how and where the confusion has risen. And how Debontridder could've gotten so misrepresented.

In an article (in Dutch) with Belgian magazine Knack, Debontridder leaves no doubt what his opinion on the subject is.

Some key passages (my translation) :

Luc Debontridder

"CO2 isn't the big cause of global warming" is what newspaper HLN concluded. "A complete misrepresentation", climatologist Luc Debontridder of the RMI says.

(...)

"as a scientist, i'd be absolutely crazy if i'd be saying CO2 isn't the main cause of global warming"

(...)

"RMI's new climate report has been wrongly interpret. Earth's warming of the past 20 years is caused mainly by CO2"

Later on, the Knack-article has a closer look where the confusion comes from and explains that without greenhouse gasses it would be minus 18 °C. Debontridder explains wator vapour is the most important GHG, but unlike what the NZ-coalition wants to insinuate, Debontridder is not minimalising the role of CO2 :

"The increased greenhouse effect is causing problems and of 60% of the effect comes from CO2"

Debontridder concludes :

"we cannot go on, following a busines as usual policy like this, but there's no need either to needlessly frighten the public. Bruges will not be on the coastline by 2050."

I think it is clear Morano's claim that Debontridder is a "climate-skeptic" is incorrect. Something Morano could've known without speaking Dutch, because the misrepresentation had already been mentioned on Michael Tobis' initforthegold blog
j'accuse.

UPDATE : do also read how this post lead to a quote-mined erratum in the Inhofe 700

Jos Verhulst on Hurricanes and Climate Change

In this post (in Dutch) on Belgium's biggest forum about politics Jos Verhulst, who is co-author on the conservative blog The brussels journal mentions that the the past two years have been below average on hurricane-activity.

Verhulst writes :

Het voorbije jaar 2007 was, in schril contrast met allerlei deskundige voorspellingen, behoorlijk slap op orkaangebied. Het ACE-totaal kwam voor het noordelijk halfrond uit op 73% van het gemiddelde voor de laatste 26 jaar. En 2008 is tot op heden evenzeer in mineur verlopen.

in English, his word would mean something like (my translation) :

In sharp contrast with what experts predict, the last two years have been minor ones on the field of hurricanes. The ACE-total for the Northern Hemisphere ended on 73% of the average level of hurricane activity of the past 26 years. Above, 2008 also has shown a small hurricane-activity.

In science, hurricane activity in isn't measured by simply adding the number of hurricanes because that number doesn't say anything about the strenght of the hurricanes. Instead, scientists use an index developed by the American National Oceanic & Atmospheric Association (NOAA) which is called the ACE-index (Accumulated Cyclone Energy). This index takes into account the number, strength and duration of all tropical storms in the season.

Verhulst shows a graphic from Florida State University to support his findings :

Is Verhulst's claim correct that climate science's predicted increased hurricane activity is falsified by this graphic which shows the last two years have shown lower activity?

Well, err, no of course not !


Hurricane activity is closely related to the sea-surface temperature (SST), and this SST is something that shows huge interannual variability, most notably because of the El Nino and La Nina events, or as scientists call it : The Southern Oscillation (often referred to as the El Nino Southern Oscillation ENSO)

The KMMI (Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute) gives a nice explanation in Dutch : click

The reason the Nino/Nina events are important enough to be taken into account is the fact they alter the SST in the areas where hurricanes are formed. And the change is this big, that it clearly has an impact on hurricane activity : when you look at the years there were Nino/Nina years, and compare this to the image below, there's no doubt at all : these events have a dramatic impact on SST temperatures in areas where Hurricanes are formed.


If you look at the graphic presented by Jos Verhulst there's a very straight correlation with the Southern Oscillation :

• The low parts of the graphic are the years there's a La Nina

• The top parts are the years there's a El Nino event.

This means there's a very close relation between SST and hurricane activity !


This implies:

1. science's claim that increasing temperatures could result in a higher ACE-index isn't all that weird
2. Verhulst's claim on the ACE-index of 2007/2008 is incomplete : he forgets to take into account in which phase ENSO is at the moment, for this matters.

2007 & 2008 were years there's a ... La Nina.

Or in other words: those two years have had lower SST's because of the ENSO, and therefore showed lower hurricane activity.

Therefore, Verhulst's claim that the last two years have known hurricane below the average off the last 26 years is ... exactly what one would expect.

One again, we can see that in climate science, you cannot draw conclusions out of very short time periods. Verhulst's base period simply is way too small to conclude anything.

Shamefully, Verhulst made this post exactly one day after i explained to him his baseperiod on another topic (sea level rise) was ... too short. And this by far hasn't been the only error Verhulst has made on politics.be on the field of climate change.

My conclusion is very clear :
Despites his high level of arrogance towards the scientific community, Jos Verhulst demonstrates time after time after time he fails to understand climate science. Verhulst instead is just another libertarian who gets blinded by his bias. Hereby helped by the known inreliable websites he frequently cites like e.g. co2-science

Verhulst concludes his post with :

Men kan nu een eenvoudige geestelijke oefening uitvoeren. Beeld u in, dat tijdens de laatste twee jaren de orkaanactiviteit sterk bovengemiddeld ware geweest. Denkt u, dat de media over deze bovengemiddelde activiteit dan dezelfde radiostilte in acht zouden nemen, die we nu vaststellen in verband met de sterk verlaagde activiteit? Denkt u, dat men dan zou zeggen dat twee jaar een te korte periode is om conclusies te trekken?

De vraag stellen is ze beantwoorden. Let maar op het propagandistisch wolvengehuil dat zal opstijgen, zodra er weer een jaar komt met meer orkanen dan gemiddeld.

or, in English (once again, my translation) :

Time to make a little mental exercise : picture that the last two years, hurricane activity would have been above average : do u think the media would have been as silent about the topic as they are now activity is below average ?
Asking the question means you have to answer it : be sure that the wolves' cries of propaganda will rise again as soon as there'll be a year activity is above average.

As Sarah Palin would say : it's all about the liberal media elite.