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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 55501 to 55550:

  1. Sea Level Isn't Level: This Elastic Earth
    chriskoz@4 Rob's fig 4 shows crustal uplift, whereas Figure 1 in Horton (2009) shows changes in the geoid (essentially sea level). So, the two maps show different consequences from the same cause. You can compare maps for GIA effects on the geoid, the lithosphere and the water equivalent thickness at these links. As for Patagonia, I don't have access to the full paper, but judging from the abstract, this observed rapid uplift seems to be associated with historical (century scale, since the Little Ice Age) deglaciation on a localized area with a local low viscosity mantle. So I think that your suggestion that this is a small scale phenomenon may be correct.
  2. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    JasonB: "Bob, Roger actually addressed this in the comments of his blog post" Well, while we're quibbling about the meaning of words, I disagree that Roger "addressed" this. I consider his statement a complete weaseling out of the responsibility of testifying before Congressional committees. The idea that anyone can be allowed to spread misinformation because it's their "person opinion", and because some congresscritter in (climate) denial likes it, is abhorrent to me. After all, if I were to testify in such a place that Roger Pielke Jr. is a [self-censoring snip], and it wasn't true, would Roger give me a free pass because it was just my "personal opinion" and someone on the committee had invited me because they found the message "convenient"? What a load of crap. It's just another example of how Roger is biased.
  3. Global Warming - A Health Warning
    While I agree with everything written, there is another health issue that is only just touched on here and which I fear might be greater than these. Climate change will undoubtedly reduce the availability of food, through changes in the productivity of agricultural land and the scarcity of water (or the opposite; flooding). There's also the issue of acidification of the oceans which is likely to cause extinctions to some plankton species and thus impact on the availability of human food species further up the chain. While availability of food and/or water might not be considered directly a 'health' issue, it certainly plays a significant role in the ability of animal species -- including humans -- to stay healthy and fight off disease.
  4. The Continuing Denial of the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
    barry@14: Yes, my use of "rotate" is not right. The Kahan Study questionnaire actually said "How long does it take for the Earth to go around the Sun?" I'll change it. Thank you. barry@15: I agree, when I read the questions in the Yale project, there were a few instances where my initial reaction was "well, it depends what you mean".
  5. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    JasonB - very good points. I never did understand Pielke's argument that Field's testimony was important and Christy's wasn't. I suspect it's just an excuse to avoid addressing Christy's myths. I should also note that at the LinkedIn discussion, MacCracken had some comments that I didn't previously see. I hope he doesn't mind me quoting him here. Remember, this is what Roger claimed (emphasis added):
    "the fact that Field's testimony is at variance with the IPCC SREX is trivial to show -- for instance, over in the Linkedin Climate Policy Group, Mike MacCracken (former head of the USGCRP) accepted this"
    This is MacCracken responding to Roger in the LinkedIn Climate Policy Group 8 days ago, before this post was published (emphasis added):
    "I did not accept that the points you are questioning were misrepresentations."
    So basically Roger has completely misrepresented MacCracken here, who specifically said that he did not agree that Field's testimony contained misrepresentations. Ironically Roger has accused Field of being 180 degrees wrong, while himself claiming MacCraken said exactly the opposite of what MacCracken really said. It's funny that Roger even used the exact same (but 180 degrees opposite) language as MacCracken.
  6. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    On a positive note, SkS comes in at #1 if you do search for "john christy" congress, past month. :-)
  7. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Bob, Roger actually addressed this in the comments of his blog post:
    But let's be clear about one thing. Christy was cherrypicked by Republicans to deliver a certain message that they find convenient. The IPCC does not have that luxury. Field was representing climate science, Christy his personal views of the science. Field had an obligation to accurately represent the IPCC report, or alternatively to present his personal views.
    So because Field was representing real science, and is therefore important, any confusion about what he might have meant (rather than what he actually said) warrants accusations of misleading Congress, while Christy gets a free pass because he was just there because some folks are interested in his personal opinion as a regular Joe. The problem with this idea can be found in a few seconds on Google: "United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works" "john christy": about 13,400 results. "United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works" "christopher field": about 60 results, including Roger's critique a couple of times on the first page. If we use simpler terms, like "christopher field" congress, past month, we get 641 results: #1 is WUWT, talking about how Roger "demolishes" Field's testimony; #2 is Roger's blog post; #3 is an article about Field being caught lying to Congress by Roger; #4 is junkscience about "Field lying to Congress"; #5 is climateaudit talking about Roger's blog post; #6 is climateaudit talking about the SREX; #7 is Wired actually talking about the substance of the testimony #8 is Field being called a liar again. "john christy" congress, past month, gets twice as many results. So Christy's "personal views" has attracted somewhere between 2x and 200x as many hits, and almost the entire first page of Field's results is taken up by Roger, people who copied Roger, or people using Roger's blog posting to say Field is a liar. A tool indeed! I wonder what they would have done without an "honest broker" there to enable their behaviour? One of the great ironies, of course, is that a large part of Roger's criticism is that he feels that Field went "beyond" what the IPCC SREX had concluded (although this is clearly in dispute), while ignoring the fact that Field specifically states:
    In my testimony today, I will be presenting information from a variety of sources, including the assessments from the US National Academy of Sciences, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the IPCC, and papers in the technical scientific literature.
    In other words, Field was under the impression that he was being called as an expert to update the committee on the latest climate change science -- you know, because the hearing was actually entitled "Update on the Latest Climate Change Science and Local Adaptation Measures.” and not "A Book Reading of the IPCC SREX" -- and so he specifically stated that was his intent. Even if he had gone beyond what the SREX had concluded, it would have been fine provided he was reporting on assessments from the US National Academy of Sciences, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the IPCC, and papers in the technical scientific literature.
  8. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Bob @130 - I totally agree. I've now made the point many times that while we're nitpicking about how explicit Field should have been in his testimony, Christy just repeated a bunch of long-debunked myths in his own. Pielke was hammered on this for a long time in his blog post comments, and I think the most he was willing to say was 'there are probably some aspects of Christy's testimony I agree with, and some I disagree with'. This is very characteristic of Pielke's strategy of trying to place himself between the 'skeptics' and 'alarmists' as the 'honest broker' in the middle. The problem is that sometimes the truth doesn't lie in the middle. Sometimes one side is right and the other is wrong. That's not to say the 'skeptics' are 100% wrong and the mainstream climate scientists are 100% right, but the truth unquestionably lies far closer to the mainstream side. Positioning yourself in the middle just makes you a little less wrong than the contrarians, and in the meantime you become a tool for delaying climate action.
  9. Hansen's New Climate Dice - Hot, Loaded, and Misunderstood
    Yes, nothing but a bunch of ad homs from Mass so far. Very disappointing. He's guilty of exactly what he accuses SkS of. Coincidentally, we just received some high praise from a rather prominent climate scientist regarding this post. I'm not going to name names, but he said this post is the best he's seen on the Hansen paper, most accurately reflects his opinions about it, and when he's asked about the paper by journalists, he refers them to this post. So it appears that Mass' criticisms aren't shared by those with expertise in the subject. Of course we already knew that, but as long as we're going to appeal to authority (as Mass does with his silly 'no graduate degrees in atmospheric sciences' jab), we've got Mass trumped there too.
  10. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Philippe: ...and I'm sure he'll say "Thanks!" at the end... ...but the whole "we'll agree to disagree" is just one of his tactics to avoid engaging in honest discussion of the questions or issues. Again, just another indication that there is no reason to trust him.
  11. Philippe Chantreau at 02:10 AM on 19 August 2012
    Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Bob, I suspect that Dr Pielke Jr may simply agree to disagree on the merits of Christy's testimony...
  12. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    I think OPatrick makes a very valid point, but even more important to me is that Pielke Jr. has basically made us follow his blimp of debating the accuracy of Field, leading us away from the serious errors in Christy's testimony. Pielke has taken something that is barely even a molehill, and turned it into a mountain of discussion. Quoting Albatross' and dana's article:
    The real irony here is that Pielke Jr. and McIntyre falsely accuse Field of misleading Congress while completely ignoring that John Christy actually did mislead Congress in the very same hearing.
    If repetition is a key to remembering, casual readers of this thread will see lots of discussion of what Field did, but little of what Christy did. The fact that Pielke Jr. is completely unwilling to apply the same level of of analysis to Christy's testimony is extremely telling. Basically, what Pielke is doing is akin to creating a Sacrificial Anode - a spot to focus the discussion and divert it away from what he is really trying to protect: the inaccurate and unfounded attacks on climate science by Christy. If Pielke Jr. does return to this discussion, it would be beneficial to keep hammering away at this issue - asking him why he does not apply the same fine-tooth comb to Christy's testimony. There is no necessity to argue nuances of what Christy might have meant or how he should have been interpreted - Christy is just plain flat-out wrong about so much of what he said that you can drive a Mack truck through the holes. I highly suspect, however, that any further participation by Pielke Jr. will follow the same tactic of refusing to respond to direct questions or issues. Mr. Pielke: if you feel you are an "honest broker", as has been suggested, then please treat Christy's testimony in the same fashion as you treat others. The failure to do so is a clear indication that you have an agenda, and that there is no reason to trust you.
  13. The New Climate Dice: Public Perception of Climate Change
    Skeptical Science can help Hansen with a problem he is going to have with his next paper. He used "hot" for one sigma, "very hot" for two sigma and "extremely hot" for three sigma. The data already shows four sigma events occurring. What term will he use for four, five and higher sigma?? What is a stronger term than "extremely hot"? Would these work: four sigma = "extraordinarily hot" five sigma = "unbearably hot" six sigma = "hot as Hell" seven sigma = "hotter than Hell" eight sigma = ??? Who has a suggestion?
  14. The Continuing Denial of the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
    Some of the questions in the US survey are a bit narly, even for well-informed people.
    In the past, the Earth's climate always shifted gradually between warm and cold periods
    The answer is given as 'False', but how do you parse 'gradually'? I would have answered True, thinking that even the PETM event was a slower temp rise than current, and gotten that one wrong.
  15. The Continuing Denial of the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
    "In a recent study by Daniel Kahan, "scientific literacy" was determined by asking rather simple questions, in this case, only 32% knew that the Earth rotates around the Sun one time per year"
    Oops, some unintended irony here - "revolves" is the word you want.
  16. Sea Level Isn't Level: This Elastic Earth
    Nice article Rob. A question: why there is a difference in numbers between Fig4 and figure 1 in Horton [2009]? Both figures describe the same thing: postglacial isostatic rebound. Fig4 shows much larger numbers, e.g. Hudson Bay (the bottom of Laurentide Sheet) appears to be rising 18mm/y on Fig4 while only some 0.6mm/y in Horton [2009]. Those must be somewhat different numbers (although both expressed in mm/y) that I don't understand. Also, a whooping 39mm/y rise of Patagonia is not marked on Fig4: does it mean that the rise can be a very local phenomenon, not to scale on global map? Then Western Antarctica is rising fast: does it mean WAIS has undergone serious melting in Holocene?
  17. Hansen's New Climate Dice - Hot, Loaded, and Misunderstood
    Yes Doug, a whole lot of empty words from Cliff Mass thus far. The 'atmospheric science background' appeal to authority just demonstrates he has not grasped the concept of Hansen's paper.
  18. Hansen's New Climate Dice - Hot, Loaded, and Misunderstood
    As a frequent reader of Cliff's blog and admirer of his synoptic analysis and weather prediction modeling efforts I feel a little bit torn over his remarks about Hansen et al. Pondering on it, I really don't believe Cliff has a clue as to how frequently and deeply degraded is discussion around the topic of climate change; I think Dr. Mass is unwittingly emulating a lot of unworthy behavior, with basically good intentions but inadvertently poor results. If Dr. Mass has a fault, it's to do with dialing up his hyperbole to "11" a bit too often. Along those lines, I find Mass' description of Hansen's recent paper pointlessly offensive and insulting, and unfortunately harmful to his own credibility. I don't think Cliff understands how debased and empty words such as "deception" are when applied to climate researchers. It's much better to stick with specific complaints centered on specific facts. Mass published my remarks on his Hansen posts, except for one I invited him not to publish at all. Perhaps that's because I'm a bit more of a familiar presence at his blog? Tom, oddly enough Cliff appears to have published a reply to your comment that is free of content regarding your requests but does include another silly "appeal to authority" swipe at Skeptical Science. Oh, well. Nobody's perfect. :-(
  19. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    Chrisoz - I am guilty of remembering/grabbing numbers from other arguments without thinking hard enough. The 3.7W/m2 is of course the forcing for doubling CO2 which hasnt happened. I definitely defer to IPCC for actual figures. Its still showing man able to produce forcings an order of magnitude higher than nature. Lanfear - the calculation is from difference in annual 65N insolation between min and max glacial divided by no. of centuries. I dont have the reference for that to hand, but probably on this site.
  20. Hansen's New Climate Dice - Hot, Loaded, and Misunderstood
    Honestly, given the quality of the arguments Mass made in his blog post on the subject, he's in no position to criticize anyone else for making 'technical errors'. As noted above, his post was exceptionally oversimplified which made it technically quite wrong. For him to then write off our post, which is based on numerous peer-reviewed studies, as being 'full of serious technical errors' - pardon me for being less than concerned, especially as he seems unwilling to specify what errors he thinks he's identified.
  21. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    I think Roger was objecting to my summary that when you boil it down, he's just quibbling over Field not being as explicit as Roger would have liked about the tenuous link between climate change and disaster-related economic losses. Why Roger objects to that I don't know - he didn't clarify and I think we've pretty clearly established that was the only aspect of Field's testimony that he seems to take issue with.
  22. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    Dana quotes Roger: "What Field says the IPCC says is blantantly wrong, often 180 degrees wrong. It is one thing to disagree about scientific questions, but it is altogether different to fundamentally misrepresent an IPCC report to the US Congress." Roger rejoins: "Thanks, but I reject your characterization of my remarks." I'm probably not the only person left scratching my head over how a direct quote can be a mischaracterization. Roger's statement stands out as an immoderate remark and doesn't require any characterization or contextual preservation for that to be obvious. But perhaps my impression of Roger's apparent intent to characterize Field as deceptive is wrong. If that's the case, as usual the problem lies with the communicator, not the listener. If there's any lesson here, it's that more blogs could benefit by employing strict rules such as are found here at SkS. Swerving into immoderate words myself, I must say that Dr. Pielke Jr. seems of a piece with Dr. Judith Curry, who has a reputation for letting off a wild shot or two and then leading those who object through a gyrating semantic dance.
  23. Hansen's New Climate Dice - Hot, Loaded, and Misunderstood
    Doug Bostrom @20, yesterday, I posted a comment at Cliff Mass's blog asking him politely to list the "serious technical errors" so that Dana could correct them. He has not bothered to list them, nor to allow my comment to be published. That failure is certainly not due to a lack of time or attention, as he has approved for publication another comment since then. I have repeated the request today. My repetition of the request was slightly less polite. I pointed out that without a listing of the errors, his comment amounts to an argument form authority followed up by an ad hominen. IMO his response is certainly worth no more than the detail he is provided to give.
  24. Sea Level Isn't Level: This Elastic Earth
    I forgot to mention, thanks for the article! This sort of long-wavelength attention span is one of the distinguishing and excellent features of SkS. Not to plot spoil, but readers willing to skip ahead will likely find the sea level effects of Greenland's ice mass pretty mind-blowing. Our planet is nothing if not full of dynamic potential. It'll be very nice to see a more elaborated discussion of the topic.
  25. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    What disturbs me most about this episode, and so many more like it, is the way that genuine valid criticism gets swamped by hyperbole. As Dana notes above it may be arguable, for example, that Field was not as explicit about economic losses as he could, or should, have been. However when Roger Pielke starts his post with claims that Field was 180 degrees wrong and fundamentally and unambiguously misrepresenting the IPCC it is inevitable that he will attract criticism for these claims. Certain commentators will then focus on the way that Pielke was 'attacked' and the impression will be given that anything critical of the consensus position is once again being dismissed out of hand. This seems a very common pattern to me.
  26. Sea Level Isn't Level: This Elastic Earth
    Thanks Doug. Will be getting to that in a later post in this series. I suspect a lot of this will seem highly unintuitive for a number of readers.
  27. The Continuing Denial of the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
    Thanks, DSL. That has spoiled my entire day. ;-b Here's a clickable link: Apocalypse Not: Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Worry About End Times Your characterization of his article is pretty good. It's mostly a polemic, cherry-picking the most extreme alarmist statements from the past and then helpfully reminding us that the world did not, in fact, end. He glosses over the fact that at the same time as these alarmist comments were made on HIV/AIDS, acid rain, DDT and the ozone layer, others were busy making unscientific and false claims that these things posed no threat at all. These counter-consensus claims were all given undue press attention and were embraced by reactionary political factions, indulging in wishful thinking in an attempt to preserve the status quo. Draw your own parallels with the climate crisis, because Matt Ridley won't do it for you. In the case of AIDS, for example, HIV denialism to contributed to what can only be described as an apocalypse in Southern Africa. Thanks to AIDS, there are an estimated 30 million people who no longer have to worry about the end times. (Wikipedia) It would be a disgraceful rhetorical sleight-of-hand to associate Ridley with the disaster made worse by fringe HIV/AIDS denialists. Nevertheless, he seems to think it is a legitimate tactic to associate anyone worried about the prospect of doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere with the very worst alarmists, including Harold Camping and the Mayans. Ridley used to be a fine science writer. It is a shame to see him fallen to the level of a partisan hack.
  28. Sea Level Isn't Level: This Elastic Earth
    It's worth noting that beyond isostatic effects large ice sheets adjacent to oceans can influence sea level relatively local to the ice sheet quite dramatically by the gravitational anomaly they create. The numbers around this effect can be startlingly, nonintuitively large, particularly adjacent to such impressive ice masses as Greenland. Discussion toward the end of this article: The Secret of Sea Level Rise: It Will Vary Greatly by Region More: Global geoid and sea level changes due to present-day ice mass fluctuations The Sea-Level Fingerprint of West Antarctic Collapse The impact of Greenland melt on local sea levels: a partially coupled analysis of dynamic and static equilibrium effects in idealized water-hosing experiments
  29. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    BTW, the National Science Foundations is giving 19 million in grants for climate change education: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2012/08/nsf_promotes_climate-change_ed.html
  30. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    I think we all (even Pielke) agree that climate change has been linked to many types of extreme weather, which in turn can cause disasters, which in turn can cause economic losses. Taking the step from extreme weather to disasters/losses is difficult because as has been discussed here, there are other factors which come in to play, like improving technology - basically people adapting to extreme weather. So I think we're all generally in agreement about the science, and then the question becomes whether Field accurately presented the scientific literature in his testimony. I think my comment @114 showed that it did - Field never said climate change is linked to increasing economic losses. All he did was say there have been associated economic losses, so it's important to examine the role climate change has played. Then he talked about how climate change has impacted various types of extreme weather events. So as I noted @116, we're left with Field at worst not explicitly stating that the link between climate change and economic losses from disasters is complicated and unclear, despite the fact that climate change has been linked to an increase in extreme weather events. I think that's an exceptionally nitpicky criticism, especially when during the same hearing John Christy repeated a bunch of flat-out wrong climate myths without a peep of criticism from Pielke. Moreover I think we've clearly established that Pielke's assertion that Field's testimony was 180 degrees wrong is completely unfounded. Pielke still disgrees, but has failed to explain why or provide any evidence that his original criticism is valid. Pielke complains that we're only focusing on 1 of his 5 points, but the other 4 are very similar, an in fact some are even weaker criticisms (i.e. the drought criticism). So bottom line, Field's testimony was consistent with the scientific literature, did not mislead Congress, and at worst was not as explicit about links to economic losses as Pielke would have liked.
  31. The Continuing Denial of the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
    By the way, Andy, your good friend Matt Ridley is at it again, this time at Wired: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/ff_apocalypsenot . His argument? False alarms have happened before, and lukewarmers don't get published; therefore, technology will save the day.
  32. Massive Arctic storm batters sea ice
    Nice PIOMAS Arctic Sea Ice animation (1979-2012) from RealClimate participant Andy Lee Robinson: http://haveland.com/share/piomas-arctic-1979-2012-07-pov-anim.avi Props, dude. You're my hero!
  33. Massive Arctic storm batters sea ice
    IJIS sea ice extent has dipped below 5 million square km now, currently at a record low for the time of year, passing the 5M sq km mark at six days before it was reached in 2007, and 11 days before last year (the current 3rd lowest). It's unsettling to watch the graphs and look at the MODIS Arctic mosaic images, to say the least. Much informative talk as ever at Neven's great Arctic blog, but I'll restrict myself to an unscientific Excel estimation of the minimum ice extent from today: It's based on projecting the IJIS extent loss from the current date (yesterday, so as not to include the preliminary IJIS current day data) to the date of minimum. Minimum values are estimated from the losses between the current date and each year's minimum date. For example, 2009 lost ~911,000sq km from 17th August to bottom out on 12th Sept '09, so the estimate based on 2009 data is 12th Sept (day 256) and ~4.03M sq km. Estimates based on the last 5 years are open red circles, the previous four years (2003-2006) are triangles: It looks extremely likely that we'll see a new record this year, as many are forecasting. With losses like any of the last 5 years, the minimum will be close to or below 4M sq km. All sorts of uncertainty with this sort of estimate (not least that the ice lost is now in the central Arctic, rather than round the edges), but it's safe to say that those looking for "recovery" might want to look away for a while...
  34. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    Tom Curtis @19, a very good point - one I need to start incorporating in my talks on the subject! I think that's exactly why good people like David Bellamy fall into denial. It's also a reason why people can be in denial about personal matters - like a failed marriage: the longer it goes on, the harder it is to admit that one has been flogging a dead horse and making oneself and others miserable. And again, the only way to move forward is to admit to oneself that the current course is wrong. So you're absolutely spot on, but it may be a tricky point to make with children. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try!
  35. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    Monkeyorchid @13, another motive of some deniers is an unwillingness to accept the undermining of their life's narrative. These are people who have worked hard throughout their life trying to make the world a better place for their children. They are now being told that that hard work has polluted the atmosphere with CO2 in a way which may destroy their children's future. That is a bitter pill to swallow, and some simply will not accept it because it undermines their self narrative. I think this is a significant factor in the fact that so many deniers are fifty and over. Ironically, by not accepting it they are contributing towards turning a recoverable situation into one beyond recovery.
  36. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    @ 16 monkeyorchid Exactly, "If children *see* a container of C02 getting warmer than one of air, when both are exposed to re-radiated light, that's a big block of the science covered." and an historical experiment to boot. Discovery is always exciting and captures the imagination, placing that discovery in a context ensures that its meaningfulness endures.
  37. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    scaddenp@11 also, please provide the reference for your claim: "anthropogenic GHG is about 3.7W/m2". My reference: IPCC table, shows the anthropogenic GHG forcings as 3.0W/m2 (other forcings, mainly aerosols, are -1.4W/m2), so your number appears to be exagerated.
  38. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    @ Steve L 12 & Macro 14 I also agree - and perhaps one could build up to climate change from multiple angles. First, we'd need to get to the properties of CO2 as a greenhouse gas, which could be covered by experiments on physical properties of different gases. If children *see* a container of C02 getting warmer than one of air, when both are exposed to re-radiated light, that's a big block of the science covered. This itself might be the culmination of gradual exploration of elements and compounds, with a constant eye on how they affect our lives. Indeed, CO2 and water are arguably the two compounds most relevant to life on earth and there is much that could be taught about them. Teaching the carbon cycle from the simple perspective of plants breath it in, animals breathe it out also kills off the absurd "humans only produce 3% of CO2" myth. A second angle might be the history of weather forecasting, which is full of exciting stories that could embellish the facts - for example Robert Fitzroy (captian of the Beagle) and his struggle to save sailors' lives by forecasting storms. Early heroes of climate science like Arrhenius and Keeling could then be brought in. Thirdly, aspects of the history of life could be covered - explaining how coal and oil formed, and how locking up of carbon cooled the planet. Timescale would need to be emphasised! I'm sure there are other angles too, but you're both right that just jumping straight in with climate change may not be the best approach. With building blocks of science i place beforehand, children will be able to work out for themselves that denialists myths are full of holes.
  39. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    scaddenp@11 Do you have a reference to the Milankovitch-number? It would be a great asset to beat the people who refer to the magical cyclical nature of climate. TIA.
  40. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    @ Steve L 12 Totally agree Steve. As an educator of 30 + years, teaching at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels the value of context is everything. When a subject is revealed as a process of the development of human understanding it gains relevance. In Physics, far better to start with the Ancient Greek world view, the questioning of Copernicus, and Galileo, etc.. (I'm missing out steps here - but I hope you get the drift.) Far too often a subject is presented as a unified whole - devoid of human spirit - here it is kids x, y z!) And we wonder why they are turned off - or fail to see the relevance! For instance, a few years back, my eldest daughter was beginning her degree in Chemistry, and the major topic of the year was oxidation, as one would probably expect. But no context, no hint of why this might be a relevant line of enquiry, nothing - just a whole bunch of "knowledge to be learnt". That's a big turn - off. Although a very competent A student, she decided Chemistry wasn't for her, and turned her attentions to other subjects that were presented in a more relevant way. I'm not saying she should have persisted with the subject - I'm simply saying that subjects need to be given relevance. The historical development of a subject as a process for revealing the emerging human understanding of the world around us, is a valid and useful pedagogical tool.
  41. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    4. ubrew12, Very good comments - as I wrote this, I felt that bright kids would keep asking valid questions like these, forcing teachers to keep expanding on the topic. "Why do otherwise sensible people say it isn't happening?" is a very likely question. Hence it may be necessary to equip teachers with an understanding of the causes of denial. I tend to think that there are three basic causes: Fear, Ideology and Profit. The man on the street doesn't want something so scary to be real (who can blame him?!); a lot of right-wingers hate the political consequences of climate change being real, so they pretend it isn't; a small but hugely influential group of people spew out disinformation to earn money or protect their profits. To really understand climate change, possibly children need to understand these motivators, too. 6. calyptorhynchus True, though the topics overlap. Ideal would be if science and sociology teachers could teach classes on this together, or at least collaborate closely over lesson plans. At very least, the sociology teachers would need a decent grasp of the science to deal with any awkward questions coming along. Of course, really teacher of every subject should understand the science, in an ideal world! 8. michael sweet The grant money question is a popular denialist myth precisely because of the difficulty you mention, which stems from most folk knowing so little about how science and its funding operates. Perhaps classes on critical thinking need to expand to how research is funded? Of course, you can point to the massive amounts of money paid to people specifically to deny the reality of climate change, and to Richard Muller, whose BEST work was only funded because the funders expected the opposite result to what he provided. Perhaps a case study of BEST would help address these points? Also you might ask why, if it really were a myth, politicians would continue paying scientists to talk about a problem that politicians are abjectly failing to solve!
  42. Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation
    So the nearest we have of Roger Pielke Jr clarifying his understanding of the distinction between extreme events and disaster losses is his acknowledgement in #115 that SREX dealt with the state of the science quite well. That's vague, and far from what I was looking for from my earlier question, but better than nothing. Can we take from this comment, that Dr Pielke accepts the SREX position on the anthropogenic origin of changes in temperature, precipitation and sea level, as quoted in the post above? I hope so. If Pielke accepts that the SREX is correct on the anthropogenic change of certain meteorological events, we are left wondering how he disagrees with Field - because the SREX agrees with Field that the link between climate change and these kinds of extremes [temperature, precipitation, sea level] is clear. So does that mean Pielke disagrees with the other part of the statement? Does Dr Pielke think that these "kinds of extremes" [of temperature, precipitation and sea level] cannot "lead to disasters"? Ludicrous! This is not a position on which it is acceptable to merely "agree to disagree", as Pielke wants. He has made rather serious claims about Field's testimony, which he has been utterly unable to support or justify with evidence. When pressed on these matters, Pielke prefers to 'agree to disagree', muddying the issue, rather than considering that he might be in error. Consider me unimpressed by Dr Pielke on this issue.
  43. The Continuing Denial of the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
    An article that is somewhat relevant to BodHod and Tom's comments is the paper by Freudenberg and Muselli (2010). The Asymmetry of Scientific Challenge concept (discussed in this SkS post) deals mostly with an effect that tends to draw research towards being more conservative rather than 'alarmist', but the concept is a bit similar to the media effect described above. Research that shows results to be 'about what we thought' get less attention. The closing paragraph of the SkS post is worth quoting:
    "If the intention is to offer true balance in reporting, the scientifically credible ‘‘other side’’ is that, if the consensus estimates such as those from the IPCC are wrong, it is because the physical reality is significantly more ominous than has been widely recognized to date".
    Will we see a point at which the media realises that it might be "worse than we thought" rather than the existing pseudodebate between "it's happening" and the misinformation of "it's not happening"?
  44. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    PZ Myers just recently linked to a cartoon in which someone questions a history teacher about revolution in the same way that biology instructors get questioned about evolution. The history prof relents and admits that teaching history is easier. I'm not sure that's always true, but I am frequently referencing the history of climate science and sending people to Spencer Weart's work. When we first take physics, we start with Newton. (Don't we? It has been a while for me.) Or in Chemistry, we go through a bunch of old models of the atom. It's useful to follow the historical intellectual development of how we have come to understand the world. Well, that's how I think climate change should be taught in school. Start with development of theory and how people tested it in the past. That's the curriculum in grade X. In grade X+1 more recent developments would be covered along evaluations of alternate 'theories'. What do these theories predict? Well, teach it when the kids are in grades 4-6, then don't worry about it. Teach them how to evaluate things in general after that. By the time these kids reach voting age, they'll be able to see if temperatures have dropped or sea ice has recovered. They should be able to look at the various predictions and figure out which are more useful.
  45. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    And to elaborate on that with a comment from a previous post.. The maximum milankovitch forcing that drives ice age is due to change in solar forcing that is about 0.25W/m2 per hundred years at 65N. Globally, its maybe a tenth of that. By comparison, anthropogenic GHG is about 3.7W/m2 over last 100 years on a GLOBAL scale. Think how much change is involved between glacial and interglacial for that small a forcing and then think about what 3.7W/m2 might do. In this respect, man is hardly insignificant compared to nature.
  46. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    This could really bogged down in semantics. "Man doesn't drive climate change, we influence it. Nature drives the climate change bus" would be better written as Man can drive the climate change bus and Nature can drive climate change bus. And note we are talking about change. Manmade forcings over the last 200 years are as powerful as those found in nature over a similar period. That is an accurate statement that teachers should be teaching.
  47. The Continuing Denial of the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
    Bodhod @8 touches on a very important point. Newspapers (and other news media) value stories only on the basis of how many readers they will attract. A story about the IPCC being wrong will interest people far more than, for example, a story about Anthony Watts being wrong. The former is a "Man bites dog" story, the latter is "Dog bites man". The result is that people whose only source of information will read detailed coverage of the few errors by the IPCC, but nothing about the innumerable errors by deniers. The picture they inevitably gain is of an inaccurate IPCC, and of deniers who make few or no errors - ie, the exact opposite of the truth. This institutional bias works to miseducate the public on climate change in a number of ways. Studies that can be construed as contradicting the IPCC will get more attention than those that confirm it (even if they have to be misconstrued to contradict the IPCC). Studies that confirm the IPCC will be ignored. Those studies that give results "alarmist" enough to generate controversy will have their "alarmist" conclusions exaggerated out of all proportion to make them more news worthy; and then the same reporters will happily run stories about failed predictions, never noticing that the failed predictions are not those of the scientists, but their own distortions. The media make strong claims of the rights of freedom of speech, of the press, and to the right to protect their sources. There claims, however, are premised on the notion that a free press contributes to the strength of democracy. Repeated recent experience shows that a commercial press driven only by commercial considerations cripples democracy rather than strengthens it.
  48. Hansen's New Climate Dice - Hot, Loaded, and Misunderstood
    @Martin - hurricane formation is inhibited by wind shear. I recall hearing that this was supposed to increase in a GW world, but don't recall the source. Here's one: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100121/full/news.2010.24.html. What I'd expect to see with a hotter ocean is more years like 2005, placing 3 (Atlantic) hurricanes in the 6 most intense, and more rapid intensifications like Wilma's. 2005 was a WTF year for hurricanes.
  49. The Continuing Denial of the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
    Unfortunately there's now a media consensus that climate change is boring. "...surely reporters could at least write accurate stories on the state of the scientific consensus." Newspapers only really want to print headline grabbing stories and therefore love to report tales of scandal or the opinions of the latest eminent loon to come out with a contrarian rant. Reporters aren't encouraged to do in-depth research anymore - only to churn out copy. Sadly this is what informs public opinion. Am I being overly pessimistic? ;(
  50. Teaching Climate Change in Schools
    Answering the grant money question? Try Scott Mandia's pair of "Taking the money for granted" posts on the issue. Part 1 , Part 2

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