space sci competitive comm sen
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OMG CRUZ
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<p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Climate-denying arguments by <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/11-reasons-why-everybody-hates-ted-cruz-1882128569.html">Ted Cruz</a> at a Senate committee hearing last year have been soundly debunked by a new study published in the <a href="http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0333.1" target="_blank">Journal of Climate</a>. Testimony at the hearing attacked <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">climate change</a>
by using cherry-picked satellite temperature data allegedly
inconsistent with global warming. The paper found errors in this
analysis that refutes the bogus claims.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In
the midst of the Texas senator's stillborn run for nomination as the
Republican presidential candidate, he used his position as chairman of
the Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness to convene a <a href="http://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/hearings?ID=CA2ABC55-B1E8-4B7A-AF38-34821F6468F7" target="_blank">hearing</a>
entitled, "Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate over the
Magnitude of Human Impact on Earth's Climate."Hand-picked witnesses
included noted climate skeptics <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/us/skeptic-of-climate-change-john-christy-finds-himself-a-target-of-suspicion.html?r=0" target="blank">John Christy</a>, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/08/22/213894792/uncertain-science-judith-currys-take-on-climate-change" target="blank">Judith Curry</a>, conservative author <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/12/08/why-is-shock-jock-mark-steyn-testifying-at-a-se/207349" target="blank">Mark Steyn</a> and Princeton University's William Harper. Harper was caught up in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/science/greenpeace-subterfuge-tests-climate-research.html?r=0" target="blank">sting operation</a>
by Greenpeace last year when he agreed to write a paper that, he was
told, would be paid for by an unnamed Middle Eastern oil and gas company
that wanted the payments to remain undisclosed. </span></p><p>The core of the
arguments in the Senate hearing centered around satellite data that
measures the emissions of oxygen molecules in the atmosphere using
microwave sensors and uses that to extrapolate temperature. It's not the
same as sticking a thermometer in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troposphere" target="blank">troposphere</a>. These datasets are among the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/jan/18/ted-cruz-fact-check-which-temperature-data-are-the-best" target="blank">least reliable</a>.
The study looked at two claims made by the climate skeptics:
that temperatures in the mid-troposphere are rising three times faster
in climate models than measured by satellites, and that there has been
no statistically significant warming in the troposphere for 18 years.
The researchers, who hail from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, NOAA and private research
firm <a href="http://www.remss.com" target="_blank">Remote Sensing Systems</a>,
found that the "three times faster" divergence is significantly reduced
when the most recent data is used and when the effects of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratosphere" target="_blank">stratospheric</a> cooling on the troposphere is accounted for. </p><p>"Next,
we assess the validity of the statement that satellite data show no
significant tropospheric warming over the last 18 years," states the
report. "This claim is not supported by our analysis: in five out of six
corrected satellite TMT [mid- to upper troposphere] records,
significant global-scale tropospheric warming has occurred within the
last 18 years."</p><p>Environmental scientist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/jan/18/ted-cruz-fact-check-which-temperature-data-are-the-best" target="_blank">Dana Nuccitelli</a>,
writing in The Guardian in response to the views aired in the Dec. 8,
2015 hearing, stated, "In the end, Ted Cruz's claim is rated false by
every objective measure." New Mexico Senator Tom Udall, a Democratic
member of the committee, <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2015/12/08/senate-democrats-blast-ted-cruz-for-climate-change-denial" target="_blank">said</a>, "Climate change should be a bipartisan issues. That is why it is so regrettable today with the way Sen. Cruz is proceeding."
It has been well reported that Ted Cruz repeatedly <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/ted-cruz-lies-again-about-the-science-of-climate-change-1882107149.html">lies</a> about the science of climate change, has used his position in the Senate to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/watch-climate-denier-ted-cruz-bully-sierra-club-president-in-senate-he-1882106755.html">bully</a> Sierra Club president Aaron Mair, works to promote his <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/ted-cruz-continues-to-coddle-his-fossil-fuel-funders-in-wake-of-deadly-1882045773.html">fossil-fuel funders</a> and calls climate change a "<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/watch-this-alarming-video-of-ted-cruz-attacking-climate-change-as-a-re-1882116533.html">religion</a>."</p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060029193
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</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">CLIMATE:</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Cruz hearing stirs partisanship, White House nominee posturing</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Hannah Northey, E&E reporter (not horner)</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Published: Wednesday, December 9, 2015</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Looking to shore up his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas yesterday convened a controversial, skeptic-laden hearing on climate change in which he attacked mainstream science and riled up his Democratic rivals.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Cruz, chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness, kicked off the hearing by accusing climate "alarmists" and the media of ignoring critical data and warning that scientists skeptical of popular climate data points are being muzzled by Democrats and the Obama administration.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Cruz also reiterated his go-to assertion that some satellite data show there's been no significant warming for almost two decades. “According to the satellite data, there has been no significant global warming for the past 18 years," Cruz said. “Global warming alarmists don’t like these data. They are inconvenient to their narrative, but facts and evidence matters."</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Although Cruz appears to be gaining in the polls ahead of February's Iowa presidential caucuses, one Democratic contender for the White House yesterday said the senator had done little to differentiate himself among Republican nominees by holding the hearing.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" face="Times New Roman" size="4">Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state and front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, wasted no time in releasing a statement critical of Cruz and his decision to invite climate skeptics to Capitol Hill so close to the president's call for action at Paris negotiations.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"Ted Cruz may be the latest candidate to use his office to stoke doubts about climate change, but virtually all the Republicans running for president share his commitment to denial and defeatism about America's capacity to lead the world in confronting this challenge," Hillary for America Chairman John Podesta said in a statement. "We can't afford to put one of these deniers, one of these doubters, in the White House."</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Democrats on the Senate subcommittee and the lone minority witness -- Rear Adm. David Titley, former naval oceanography operations commander and professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University-- also challenged Cruz.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Democratic Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico accused Cruz of injecting controversy and uncertainty into established science and the need for climate action (Greenwire, Dec. 8).</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the subcommittee's top Democrat, acknowledged there are questions about climate science but argued against halting action.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"We know there will always be more to learn ... that's the beautiful thing about science," Peters said. "But knowing there's more to learn shouldn't stop us from acting on what we know now."</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">At one point, Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts sparred with witnesses including Judith Curry, chairwoman of the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, who asked the senator whether he was aware of a survey of more than 1,800 members of the American Meteorological Society that showed 52 percent of those asked said climate change was occuring and humans were to blame.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"We need to sort this out rather than ignore it," Curry said.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>One Republican witness, Mark Steyn, the Canadian National Review writer and author of "Climate Change: The Facts," accused Democrats of trying to threaten and hush scientists who question the theories behind climate change, while Curry said there's a "chilling effect" in the scientific community among those who disagree.</b></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" face="Times New Roman" size="4">"The social contract currently between the Obama administration and climate science is that if you say alarming things, you'll get funding," Curry said.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But <b>Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida</b> cautioned Cruz and his witnesses about making such accusations.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Nelson said he found it "ironic" the subcommittee was talking about stifling those questioning climate science, when the opposite appears to be true. Nelson noted that he introduced an amendment in March to combat Gov. Rick Scott (R) allegedly directing state officials to stop using the words "climate change" or "global warming."</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Nelson said his amendment, which secured a vote of confidence from two Republicans on the Senate panel -- would have prevented any similar "muzzling" of federal officials,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> but Republicans raised a point of order against the amendment as too prescriptive under <b>budget</b> rules </span>(E&E Daily, March 27).</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"We start talking about muzzling of scientists, I think we better watch out how we talk about which side is trying to do the muzzling," Nelson said.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Cruz also sparred with Democrats over whether or not Sierra Club President Aaron Mair was properly invited to testify.</b></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Whereas Cruz accused Mair of "pre-emptively" refusing to attend the hearing in October following a separate hearing on U.S. EPA regulations, Democrats including Nelson said the majority should have sent him a formal invitation.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Cruz was referring to a hearing at which Mair said there was a "preponderance of evidence" that man-made climate change is real, to which the senator asked Mair about the last 18 years of satellite data. Cruz said the group's president in a string of emails then refused to attend yesterday's follow-up hearing (E&E Daily, Oct. 7).</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Sierra Club acknowledged Mair refused the senator's invitation, saying the hearing was no place for serious debate.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"Mr. Mair did turn down an invitation from Senator Cruz," said Melinda Pierce, a legislative director for the environmental group, adding that Mair just returned home from the climate negotiations in Paris. "These are critical negotiations at which Ted Cruz's absurd conspiracy theories would be summarily dismissed, a problem he faces any place where serious discussions are happening to solve real issues."</font></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> =</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">While the eyes of the world are on Paris, where nations are hammering out an agreement to do something about the reality of climate change, the <b>Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness</b> once again held a hearing on Tuesday to debate whether climate change is for real. Subcommittee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who is running for his party’s presidential nomination, convened <a href="http://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/hearings?ID=CA2ABC55-B1E8-4B7A-AF38-34821F6468F7" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">the hearing</a> titled “Data or dogma? Promoting open inquiry in the debate over the magnitude of human impact on Earth’s climate.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Senator Cruz opened the hearing with some ironic remarks. “This is a hearing on the science behind the claims of global warming. Now, this is the Science Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, and we’re hearing from distinguished scientists, sharing their views, their interpretations, their analysis of the data and the evidence. Now, I am the son of two mathematicians—two computer programmers and scientists—and I believe that public policy should follow the actual science, and the actual data and evidence, and not political and partisan claims that run contrary to the science and data and evidence.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">”Senator Cruz brought in four witnesses to testify, mostly chosen from the usual suspects that have participated in similar hearings in the past. There were two of the very small handful of climate scientists who express doubts about human responsibility for climate change—Georgia Tech professor and blogger <a href="http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">Judith Curry</a> and <a href="http://nsstc.uah.edu/users/john.christy/about.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">John Christy</a>from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Happer" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">William Happer</a>, a retired Princeton physicist and chairman of the<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Marshall_Institute" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">George C. Marshall Institute</a>, a conservative think-tank, was also invited to speak. The fourth person brought in to talk climate science was conservative radio host and columnist<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Steyn" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">Mark Steyn</a>.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (The last two were keynote speakers at this year’s Heartland Institute conference for climate “skeptics.”)</span></font></p><div id="teads-container" style="color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>John Christy</b>, who has helped develop the UAH satellite temperature dataset favored by climate “skeptics” because it shows slower warming in portions of the troposphere than we see in surface records, made his pitch for why we just don’t know what has caused recent warming. That explanation involved highlighting <a href="http://www.climatedialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Christy-fig-1.jpg" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">his graph</a> of tropical mid-troposphere (rather than global surface) model projections and observations that frequently appears in the comments on stories like this one—a graph other climate scientists <a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/674336477669670912" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">take issue with</a>—and claiming that emissions cuts would have a minimal impact on climate change. While claiming that research funding is biased, he proposed setting aside five to 10 percent of federal climate research funding for a “Red Team” like <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/30/inside-the-cia-red-cell-micah-zenko-red-team-intelligence/" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">the CIA section</a> tasked with outside-the-box analyses that challenge the status quo. This Red Team would “produce an assessment that expresses legitimate, alternative hypotheses” for climate change.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Judith Curry echoed Christy’s complaints,</b> claiming that climate science has fallen victim to “groupthink”—a conclusion she says she reached after reading the quote-mined “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">Climategate</a>” e-mails between scientists in 2009. (A pile of subsequent independent <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy#Inquiries_and_reports" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">investigations</a> found no evidence of scientific misconduct.) The rest of Curry’s testimony entailed claims that the science of anthropogenic climate change is unsettled, which she has spoken and written about at length over the years.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Mark Steyn</b>’s testimony focused on his accusations that climate science is fraudulent and oppresses contrarians. Steyn’s claim to climate fame is that he’s being sued for defamation by Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann, whom Steyn has repeatedly accused of fraud.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>William Happer </b>used most of his time to argue that rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are good for the planet, claiming that there is “not much dispute” that there is too little CO<span style="vertical-align: bottom; position: relative; top: 0.35em;">2</span> and too much oxygen for plants right now. He also seemed to like Christy’s “Red Team” idea, as he said climate science lacks an “adversarial process” to check if the science is right. (Of course, “an adversarial process” isn’t a bad description of peer review or the work of thousands of independent researchers.) “I would like to argue very strongly that we set aside some fraction of funding for climate research that is designed to be for the other side,” Happer said. That would run counter to the way funding is granted today, which is based on the hypothesis and the quality of the test rather than what the resulting conclusion is going to be.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Happer became </span><a href="http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/12/08/exposed-academics-for-hire/" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a story</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> in his own right earlier in the day, when Greenpeace released </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2642410-Email-Chain-Happer-O-Keefe-and-Donors-Trust.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">e-mails</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> with Happer in which they had pretended to represent a foreign energy company. They asked Happer if he would produce a report extolling the virtues of CO</span><span style="vertical-align: bottom; position: relative; top: 0.35em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">2 </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">but without disclosing their financial support, and Happer agreed this was something he could do. Happer explained that Peabody Coal Company had paid him $8,000 to testify at regulatory hearings in Minnesota. That fee went to the tax-exempt</span><a href="http://co2coalition.org/" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CO<span style="vertical-align: bottom; position: relative; top: 0.35em;">2</span> Coalition</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, which he said pays his travel expenses but no salary</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Just before Tuesday’s hearing, someone from Greenpeace <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/watch-industry-funded-climate-denier-goes-off-on-camera-lies-about-fossil-fuel-funding/" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">filmed a heated exchange</a> with Happer asking whether he had been paid to testify. Happer seemed to indicate that the CO<span style="vertical-align: bottom; position: relative; top: 0.35em;">2</span> Coalition “took some of my fee” before rising out of his chair and angrily replying, “I haven’t taken a dime, you son of a bitch.”</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Finally, there was testimony from a witness invited by committee Democrats—former Navy Rear Admiral and current Penn State meteorology professor <a href="http://www.met.psu.edu/people/dwt12" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">David Titley</a></b>. Titley calmly attempted to explain the basics of climate science, highlighting the fact that nothing is ever 100 percent certain in science, yet we understand how to act on risks despite imperfect knowledge.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A question-and-answer portion followed this testimony, which at one point devolved to Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Steyn, and Curry pretty much shouting at each other. But there was also some discussion about satellite temperature data sets. (Curiously, this involved no questions for John Christy, who helps run one.) </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Senator Cruz is fond of claiming that one of the satellite data sets shows “no warming for 18 years” while ignoring longer-term trends and the fact that all surface temperature data sets show warming over that period.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">After Senator Cruz pushed Titley to answer a question about the satellite records, which he claimed “the global warming alarmists don’t want to talk about,” Titley let loose. “Let’s talk about the satellite measurements,” Titley said. “Let’s talk about orbital decay. Let’s talk about overlapping satellite records. Let’s talk about stratospheric temperature contamination.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> I think Dr. Christy and Dr. [Roy] Spencer, when they’ve put this out, they have been wrong, I think, at least four consecutive times. Each time the data record has had to be adjusted upward. There have been several sign errors. So, with all due respect, sir, I don’t know which data, exactly, your staff has, whether it’s the first or second or third or fourth correction to Dr. Christy’s data. We used to have a negative trend, and then we had no trend, and now we begrudgingly have an upward trend.”</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">To be fair, Senator Cruz was pointing to a competing data set run by Remote Sensing Systems in California that, until recently, showed an even smaller 18-year warming trend than the University of Alabama in Huntsville data set. And the latest version of that UAH data set, which is in beta, reduces that trend once again.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In a curious moment, William Happer chimed in to state that these satellites measure temperatures “the same way as hospitals do today,” with devices that measure infrared radiation. In fact, these satellites <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Microwave_Sounding_Unit" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179);">measure</a> <em>microwave </em>radiation, and doctors aren’t trying to simultaneously determine temperatures of various layers inside you when they pop a thermometer in your ear.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Senator Cruz also accused scientists of deliberately manipulating land surface temperature data to create the appearance of warming over the 20<span style="vertical-align: bottom; position: relative; top: -0.8em;">th</span> Century. (Quality-control adjustments to sea surface temperature data, which obviously involve a much larger portion of the globe, actually make the overall effect a <em>decrease</em> in global 20<span style="vertical-align: bottom; position: relative; top: -0.8em;">th</span> Century warming.) When asked about this, Judith Curry didn’t quite support Senator Cruz’s accusation but did comment, “To me, the error bars should really be much bigger if they’re making such a large adjustment, so we really don’t know too much about what’s going on.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In contrast to this talk of uncertainty and scientific skullduggery, <b>Senator Gary Peters (D-Mich.</b>) opted for some remedial physics in his opening comments. “By burning fossil fuels, humans are releasing carbon into the atmosphere that would have otherwise remained locked away. This process creates carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat that otherwise would have been radiated off into space. We know that by the law of conservation of energy, that additional heat can’t just magically disappear. Instead, it causes our planet to get warmer.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; color: rgb(38, 48, 52); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#263034" face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/senate-science-committee-hearing-challenges-dogma-of-climate-science/">http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/senate-science-committee-hearing-challenges-dogma-of-climate-science/</a></span></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/scienceandspace"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/scienceandspace</font></a></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Republicans<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Ted Cruz - Chair </font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Marco Rubio</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Jerry Moran</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Dan Sullivan</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Cory Gardner</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Steve Daines</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">---</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">dems</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; color: rgb(98, 99, 88); line-height: 22.8571px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Gary Peters - Ranking Member</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; color: rgb(98, 99, 88); line-height: 22.8571px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Edward J. Markey</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; color: rgb(98, 99, 88); line-height: 22.8571px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Cory Booker</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; color: rgb(98, 99, 88); line-height: 22.8571px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Tom Udall</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; color: rgb(98, 99, 88); line-height: 22.8571px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Brian Schatz</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">==</font></div></div></div></div></div>