Below please find two “Editorials” published in the pages of Hydrocarbon Processing Journal, which have been reproduced with kind permission of the Hydrocarbon Processing Journal and Robert Ashworth:

•  Editorial in the October 2009 edition, by Robert Ashworth “Ozone Destruction Major Cause of Warming – Part 1”

•  Editorial in the October 2009 edition, by Robert Ashworth “Ozone Destruction Major Cause of Warming – Part 2”

Jeff Temple wrote a response to these editorials, entitled “Ozone Destruction Bunkum”, but the Publisher refused to allow any response in the Journal, including this one. It is the opinion of Jeff Temple, the Hydrocarbon Processing Journal (unintentionally) published information designed to mid-lead the readers of its Journal. For this reason, this site also includes Jeff Temple's response (after the “Editorials”) to point out and correct those errors. This response has as its conclusions:

1.  Some conclusions have been made in the “editorials” by merely making (and repeating) statements, without any substantial scientific justification.

2.  Some information has been altered, or left out, to be able to reach desired conclusions.

3.  Other conclusions are only reached by cherry picking data, or taking data out of context, or ignoring other widely available and credible information.

4.  These “editorials” were consistent in ignoring proper scientific analysis to draw conclusions.

5.  These “editorials” had no place in a Technical Journal, and the readers of the Hydrocarbon Processing Journal deserve better.

6.  These “editorials” are bunkum!

Top

11 th May 2010

Ozone Destruction Bunkum

For the attention of the Editor

Dear Les,

I refer to the “editorials” from Bob Ashworth published in your October and November 2009 editions, entitled “Ozone destruction major cause of warming!”. I am disappointed that you considered it reasonable to publish snake oil “science” like this. There are so many mistakes in these “editorials”, it puts into doubt the technical reputation of your Journal. Let me tell you why these “editorials” are flawed, and expressed quite simply, are bunkum.

Use of Information and Analysis Technique

In general terms, running through these “editorials”, there are many errors in science and the methods used. The majority of the “editorials” are a sequence of statements, presented as scientific facts. There is little attempt to present any sort of balance, with arguments explaining why accepted science is wrong. Information is selectively extracted, whilst ignoring other information from the sources which contradict the facts supporting the conclusions given. Appropriate references are missing; statistics are abused, bringing in many red herrings. The readers of HP are not experts in climate change, and should not be expected to be able to sort out the nonsense science like was presented in these 2 “editorials”. It is difficult to know where to start, so let me pull out just a few of the major flaws in the analysis techniques.

I counted at least 15 times when claims are made, which are either not supported by science, or for which no support or references is offered. The list of “facts” near the start of Part 1 are presented without supporting evidence, and without reference, and are therefore worthless.

Part 1 of the “editorial” has a paragraph headed with another “fact” “No empirical evidence for CO 2 causing warming”. Any scientist in pretty much any field knows that you cannot extract any meaningful conclusions in noisy data from single-year end points, or from inadequate information (particularly when a lot more was available). One cannot, just cannot, use starting and end points in noisy data, drawing a straight line between them, to justify a trend. This error is made several times (e.g. “the earth's temperature in January 1998 was some 0.6 o C hotter compared to January 2008” and “the yearly average temperature in 2002 was warmer than in 2007” ). Let me prove just why. In one case, January 1998 was selected as a starting point, and January 2008 as an end point. Let us take instead a similar, but more recent 10 year span, from January 2000 to January 2010. If we look at the data coming out of the same global annual-mean surface air temperature plot supplied by HadCRUT3v (Reference 1), as claimed to have been used by Mr Ashworth, we see that January 2000 temperature was +0.21 Deg C, whilst the January 2010 temperature was +0.48 Deg C. This is the opposite of the result given in the “editorial”, I repeat, using the same ten year span, but with more recent data. Now I am plainly not going to use this information to broadcast that temperatures have risen by 0.27 Deg C in the last 10 years, but I do say that anyone who uses this method to justify a trend plainly does not understand data analysis, or is trying to fool his audience. Additionally, because of year-to-year variations in global average temperatures, it takes a lot longer for a trend to emerge. Hence, although 2008 was cooler than 2003, this is most certainly not sufficient information to draw any meaningful conclusion. However, Mr Ashworth considered this point so important that he used this again in the Conclusions to Part 2 of the “editorial” “the effect of CO 2 appears insignificant due to an earth temperature drop of around 0.6 o C from 1998 to 2008” . Again there is no evidence to support this claim, but in his vision, a statement has now become a fact. This approach by Mr Ashworth is just not sound science, and the statement “No empirical evidence for CO 2 causing warming” is clearly worthless.

Not only that, but we now need to look at the way the information was manipulated to be able to reach his conclusions. The initial reference in Part 1 was to January 2008 compared with January 2008, whilst in Part 2 this same 0.6 o C is no longer January to January, but the whole year 1998 to 2008 “temperature drop of around 0.6 o C from 1998 to 2008” . The month to month data comparison has been extrapolated to become a year to year comparison, with no scientific justification. But why stop there, Mr Ashworth was obviously on a roll. The data used by Mr Ashworth was referenced to come from the internet paper from Mr D'Aleo. If we look up this source, we actually see the paper selected its start date as February 1998, not January. I believe that Mr D'Aleo used the month of February 1998, as this was the warmest month on record, standing quite exceptionally high. Mr Ashworth maybe noted this cherry pick, but I guess tried to brush over it by saying it was more sensible to have a January start. But that is still not enough. I have gone back to the original source of the data (via the Internet paper), as quoted by Mr Ashworth, which is from the Hadley Climate Research Unit. However I have been unable to duplicate his data or results, whichever month he chose, even if we could accept the validity of a point to point comparison in noisy data. Let us be absolutely clear, this temperature decline of 0.6 o C, comparing 1998 with 2008, as referred by Mr Ashworth, has never happened, and is a fiction, his fiction, and all his conclusions fall apart by default. But let us continue, just in case the reader is still not convinced.

The standard deviation of a data set steadily increases with sample size, until it reaches a certain point, after which the value is stable. To determine if the data has validity, we need to ensure we have an appropriate sample size, and then that the results are statistically significant. Besides which, data periods (i.e. start and end points) are normally chosen for a reason. One must choose some starting point. In the case of the often used 1978, it's often chosen simply because it is the first year that satellite records of tropospheric temperatures were available, and this would give us a statistically acceptable 30 years of data. We have experienced approximately 0.2 Deg.C/decade of warming in this period.

We could choose 1880, which represents the start of the NASA record. This shows a warming of 0.8 Deg C.

We could chose the last 500 years data to look at, from the furthest data from bore hole analysis. This puts today about 1 Deg C above the first 3 centuries of that record.

And there are many other records available, which I have not included, but which are very widely available, and which do not need a start date of February 1998 (or even January 2000) to reach valid conclusions. Instead, to be able to claim “it has stopped warming”, Mr Ashworth takes a single start year out of context, uses a very short and unrepresentative time period, selects start and end points outside his reference (a double cherry pick), changes the data, whilst ignoring every other temperature record, and making no explanation for the previous temperature rise.

One more point on the data source, in Mr Ashworth's words “recent empirical data show that atmospheric CO 2 concentrations have no discernable effect on global temperature”. The Reference (article by D'Aleo) he used for this, is an internet article, which has not been peer reviewed. It is generally accepted that unless scientific conclusions are peer-reviewed and published in a respectable journal, it's not worth debating (web data leaves many questions unanswered, such as the qualifications of the writer, why that information was created, has the information been double checked, etc?). Following this sensible and generally accepted rule, Mr Ashworth's reference becomes worthless, as indeed we can see from the cherry picked start date. Indeed, all the strong and widely available science show a strong link between rising CO 2 levels, and increasing global temperature, and he has not attempted to show how this accepted science is wrong.

Continuing through the “editorials”, Mr Ashworth states in the first “editorial”, that “If we eliminated all the global anthropogenic CO 2 from the atmosphere we would go back to the level we had in 2002” . This sentence is meaningless without context and/or without references. Does he refer to just the CO 2 which has been absorbed, or converted to other forms, etc? It is unclear, but as stated is extremely provocative, representing as it does a clear, but possibly wrong, conclusion.

In the same paragraph Mr Ashworth gives a conclusion “so the evidence suggests that methane emissions are tied to ozone depletion”. This is unsupported by detailed evidence, or by peer reviewed paper, yet Mr Ashworth gives his undoubted conclusion. He should well know that correlation from limited data does not necessarily imply a link, which may be just casual, with other explanations.

In the last paragraph of the first “editorial”, Mr Ashworth says “Researchers estimate that methane carbon is being emitted at a rate some 100 times the rate of carbon released from burning fossil fuels”. Yet again, Mr Ashworth does not give the context or the references, yet he uses this to draw the conclusion “This extra methane release appears to be the major cause of increasing CO 2 concentrations in the atmosphere”. I do not see anywhere how he establishes cause and effect. Just how he reaches his conclusion, we do not know, as again the piece does not include references. To be credible he must also supply an explanation for why existing science does not work. He has failed in that. Nonetheless, there are at least 4 lines of widely available evidence that argue persuasively that it is the human perturbation, particularly the combustion of fossil-fuels that is driving the observed increase in atmospheric CO 2 . First, if we plot the cumulative increases in both atmospheric CO 2 and fossil-fuel emissions, we find that the two curves are tightly linked. Second, if we examine the latitudinal gradient of the concentration of atmospheric CO 2 , as revealed in data from many monitoring sites, we observe that the concentration is growing more rapidly in the Northern Hemisphere, as expected with the fossil-fuel source some 95% in the Northern Hemisphere. Although CO 2 mixes throughout the atmosphere, there is a lag in the mixing between hemispheres that can be correlated with the latitudinal mix of sources and sinks. Third, the changing 13C/12C ratio of atmospheric CO 2 tells something of the source of the excess C. Plants, and thus fossil fuels, preferentially concentrate the lighter 12C . An increase in atmospheric CO 2 derived from burning fossil fuels or terrestrial vegetation should be accompanied by a decline in the 13C/12C ratio whereas excess releases of CO2 from the ocean or volcanoes, for example, would leave the atmospheric 13C/12C ratio relatively unchanged. The observed changes in atmospheric 13C/12C have been consistent with a CO 2 source from biologic materials. And, fourth, the declining concentration of atmospheric O 2 provides a compelling connection with increasing CO 2 . The evidence that increasing atmospheric CO 2 is largely a consequence of fossil fuel burning is very strong (References 2, 3 and 4).

Mr Ashworth's “editorials” were not only limited to selective use of data, but also applied to selective use and manipulation of information. Let us look at two examples. In Part 2, Mr Ashworth says “Whenever ozone concentration drops, the temperature drops and vice versa”. Mr Ashworth raises this as if it is a new conclusion. This effect is well known and documented, but the data just does not exist to suggest that this is the cause of global warming. However, here Mr Ashworth abuses the information. Look at his words, “the direct effect of ozone concentration on stratospheric temperature is shown in figure 1” . If we look to the original source, and all other uses of this source I have seen, it is seen that this information represents just the tiny Arctic region (this is highlighted in the original of the material used by Mr Ashworth, but airbrushed out when used by Mr Ashworth). Let me repeat. The data used by Mr Ashworth to represent the earth is based on data specific to the Arctic ! The Arctic is of course one of the two regions where the ozone concentration is reduced (the famous ozone hole) due to the earth's votex effect. This data cannot be used to represent behaviour elsewhere, and to have hidden this information is disingenuous, and insulting to readers. Let us look instead at the earth as a whole. Multiple satellite measurements and ground-based observations have determined the ozone layer has stopped declining since 1995 while temperature trends continue upwards. This is the same data as seen and used by Mr Ashworth, but with a proper scientific analysis. Continuing with the abuse of information, now let us look at his use of his Reference 2, Shindell et al (my Reference 5). Here Mr Ashworth is selective to the extreme. The first two sentences from this paper run as follows “The chemical reactions responsible for stratospheric ozone depletion are extremely sensitive to temperature. Greenhouse gases warm the Earth's surface but cool the stratosphere radiatively and therefore affect ozone depletion”. In other words, Mr Ashworth ignores the discussion on whether these effects are a feedback loop from increased greenhouse gases. He unscientifically makes his own conclusion, ignoring the information which does not suit his predetermined conclusions. This unscientific cherry picking of data from his own source (just see the title of the reference paper!), without a full and proper analysis, leads us to conclude that he is perhaps attempting to mislead the reader.

Let us read again the first paragraph to the Conclusions to Part 2 of the “editorial”. “ Many factors can influence the earth's temperature. However, the effect of CO 2 appears insignificant due to an earth temperature drop of around 0.6 o C from 1998 to 2008, when CO 2 concentration in the atmosphere increased some 20 ppmv. It should be obvious to anyone who has analyzed climate science that climate driving forces, other than CO 2 , control the earth's temperature ”. To be able to reach his conclusion, Mr Ashworth has taken a comparison of a single month from noisy data, out of context and over a short time period, ignores the fact that this month was not in his data source, or that other months using the same analysis technique show the opposite result, extends that single month comparison (not forgetting on manipulated data) to be a year to year comparison, without any scientific basis, and ignores the massive bulk of information which disputes his conclusion (offering no reason why that science is not sound).

Red Herrings

Finally, I see that Mr Ashworth likes Red Herrings, and uses a number of them. I supply one example below.

In “editorial” 2, “A greater than normal warming did occur in recent times, but no measurements confirm an increase in CO 2 had any discernable effect on global temperatures”. Whilst the statement is undoubtedly true, because there is no direct measurable link (a fact accepted by climate scientists), this statement is irrelevant. Let use a parallel statement as concerns smoking. “No measurements confirm smoking a cigarette has any effect on cancer”. Just because we cannot measure the relationship directly, that does not mean that there is not a link, but Mr Ashworth uses this to try to divert attention. He made no explanation for the massive science existing, confirmed with empirical results, which although it cannot be physically measured, shows just that link existing.

Conclusions

So, let us make some conclusions:

1.  Some conclusions have been made in the “editorials” by merely making (and repeating) statements, without any substantial scientific justification.

2.  Some information has been altered, or left out, to be able to reach desired conclusions.

3.  Other conclusions are only reached by cherry picking data, or taking data out of context, or ignoring other widely available and credible information.

4.  These editorials were consistent in ignoring proper scientific analysis to draw conclusions.

5. These “editorials” had no place in a Technical Journal, and the readers of the Hydrocarbon Processing Journal deserve better.

6.  These “editorials” are bunkum!

Literature Cited

1.  Hadley Centre CRU Data set available at http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3vgl.txt

2.  Keeling, R. F., S. C. Piper, and M. Heimann, 1996. Global and Hemispheric CO2 Sinks Deduced from Changes in Atmospheric O2 Concentration, Nature 381: 218-221.

3.  Bender, M. L., M. Battle, and R. F. Keeling, 1998. The O2 Balance of the Atmosphere: A Tool for Studying the Fate of Fossil-Fuel CO2, Annual Reviews of Energy and Environment 23:207-223.

4.  Battle, M., M. L. Bender, P. P. Tans, J. W. C. White, J. T. Ellis, T. Conway, and R. J. Francey, 2000. Global Carbon Sinks and Their Variability Inferred from Atmospheric O2 and del 13C , Science 287: 2467-2470 .