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BWTrainer at 03:59 AM on 30 May 2012IEA CO2 Emissions Update 2011 - the Good News and the Bad
Howarth et al 2011 Howarth et al 2012 follow up Sorry, please feel free to delete my second commentModerator Response: [Sph] Done. -
BWTrainer at 03:43 AM on 30 May 2012IEA CO2 Emissions Update 2011 - the Good News and the Bad
When the IEA says CO2, does it literally mean carbon dioxide, or does it mean all CO2 equivalents? I ask because the "transition away from coal power to natural gas" worries me. If research like that of Howarth et al. at Cornell bears out, the reduction in CO2 when switching from coal to nat gas is negated by the increasing methane emissions. If that's the case, then we could be in worse shape than what this report indicates. -
dana1981 at 03:24 AM on 30 May 2012Modeled and Observed Ocean Heat Content - Is There a Discrepancy?
Pielke Sr. has a response blog post to this one. Suffice it to say Pielke Sr. is very, very confused, and he would do well to read Gavin Schmidt's explanations at RC. Note that we don't plan to respond to Pielke's post, but I thought it would be worth mentioning, since it's a direct response to this post, albeit a very confused one. -
dana1981 at 02:14 AM on 30 May 2012CO2 limits will harm the economy
D.B. - two things. First, yes poor people can be provided with power without significantly increasing their carbon footprint, if that power is provided from renewable sources. Second, the poor are disproportionately impacted by climate change, so you have to take that factor into consideration as well when evaluating the economics of the situation. -
D. B. at 02:10 AM on 30 May 2012CO2 limits will harm the economy
I think this article fails to adequately answer the "skeptical" viewpoint quoted at the top, since it focuses mainly on the USA. The world outside of North America contains an enormous number of very poor people who would benefit from being able to live in air-conditioned apartment buildings instead of sweltering, rat-infested slums. Can such an improvement in the masses' quality of life be achieved without increasing their carbon footprint? I suspect that the answer is no. I am not a "climate skeptic". I think that man-made climate change is real, is happening, and will probably have catastrophic effects. But a solution that involves making cheap electricity more expensive must surely be expected to place a terrible burden on the many humans who can barely afford electricity now. Arguments that carbon pricing would increase the GDP of a highly developed economy such as the United States seem irrelevant to this problem. -
Jim Eager at 01:46 AM on 30 May 2012New research from last week 21/2012
Tom Curtis, except for two facts: 1) the Maunder Minimum of ~1645 to ~1715 was neither the end of the MWP nor the start of the LIA; and 2) natural CO2 change in response to a change in temperature is delayed by the thermal inertia of the ocean and by the ocean mixing rate, hence CO2's multi-century lag behind temperature coming out of a glaciation in the ice core record. There simply wasn't enough time for significant natural temperature-driven CO2 reduction, and certainly not in the wake of the Maunder Minimum with respect to the ca. 1600-1620 decline. See Mike Mann's RC post Global Temperatures, Volcanic Eruptions, and Trees that Didn’t Bark at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/global-temperatures-volcanic-eruptions-and-trees-that-didnt-bark/ on his paper Underestimation of Volcanic Cooling in Tree-ring-based Reconstructions of Hemispheric Temperatures (Nature Geoscience, 2012) which cites the as yet unidentified 1258-1259 AD eruption as one a number of forcings that initiated the onset of the LIA, reinforced by other eruptions in 1452-1453, 1809 and 1815. Also see Ruddiman regarding the impact of the ~1345-1351 Black Death plague pandemic, which reduced the population of Europe by up to 60% or more in some districts, with the resulting return of considerable agricultural and grazing land to scrub and forest and consequent draw down of CO2. The point is the end of the MWP and onset and sustaining of the LIA was due to multiple factors working in concert over an extended time, including but not limited to volcanic eruptions, the Maunder Minimum, rapid and dramatic population decline in Europe and then the Americas, and a very limited response to reduced global temperature from these forcings.Moderator Response: TC: Link connected. -
Rob Honeycutt at 01:46 AM on 30 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Steve @ 34... But if you go back to the 1900's you have a much more complex question on your hands due to other forcings on the climate system. You'll note that climate scientists generally use 1970 and beyond, not because they're cherry picking, but because that is the point where anthropogenic forcing sufficiently asserts itself and becomes distinguishable over the natural system. -
Kevin C at 01:40 AM on 30 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Composer: I think that's very helpful, especially your first point. Indeed I think we could legitimately characterise the history of science as a struggle to extract nuggets of truth from the flawed, biased, and occasionally fraudulent efforts of individual scientists. In that context, the role of the social structures which have developed around the scientific endeavour become clear. The need for consensus and the gatekeeper role of journals and academic institutions is a necessary response to the fact that individual scientists are, by nature of their humanity, unreliable. It is only when you subject their work to critique before and after publication, and demand that the bulk of their opinionated and often self-important peers also be convinced, that any kind of objectivity can be obtained. If we look at the scientific endeavour in that light, then anyone making a claim on the basis of their own expertise is a fake expert (that's not exactly the original usage, but might be more useful). The only real basis for expertise is in making arguments which are grounded in a scientific consensus. That doesn't preclude new lines of research which challenge a consensus, but presenting such work to the public as fact would be inconsistent with true expertise - we could call that 'fake expertise'. Carter's piece would certainly qualify under that criteria. -
Composer99 at 00:40 AM on 30 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist & Kevin C: Research in psychology increasingly shows how people tend to make decisions first, based on snap judgements, mental shortcuts, and biases, and only then use reason to rationalize their decisions after the fact. Going about things the other way around, using reason and evidence to come to a conclusion, is a difficult skill which must be carefully cultivated (especially among scientists, for whom the proper exercise of reason-based thinking is crucial). Suffice it to say, I do not think it unreasonable to expect even the best of us to operate using rational thinking all the time. Indeed I suspect most of us use instinct/irrational thinking more often than not. Given that, I think there is the wherewithal to describe Dr Carter, in the context of his activity as a climate science contrarian (including the Financial Post column which is the subject of this post), as a fake expert, without necessarily accusing him of general incompetence or of other malfeasance. All that is required is the acknowledgement that in this specific case he is not behaving with the respect for evidence & inference required in good scientific practice. ScienceBlogs' denialism blog (from which the 5 characteristics of denialism discussed elsewhere on Skeptical Science are drawn) adds context to the discussion of fake experts: Clearly, the exact definition of what an “expert” is still eludes us, but it becomes readily apparent from the legal, dictionary and common practice definitions employed by scientists what experts are not. They aren’t merely an empty set of credentials and they aren’t merely people who have at some point published in some random field. Even the rather silly expert wiki would seem to agree on this. Therefore I would say a fake expert is usually somebody who is relied upon for their credentials rather than any real experience in the field at issue, who will promote arguments that are inconsistent with the literature, aren’t generally accepted by those who study the field in question, and/or whose theories aren’t consistent with established epistemological requirements for scientific inquiry. There's no rule that fake experts can't be real experts in other contexts (e.g. Michael Egnor is a real expert neurosurgeon while a fake expert in evolutionary biology on account of espousing science denialism with regards to evolution). Bottom line: (1) Not even the best scientists are immune to irrational thinking, which is simply a function of human nature (2) Someone who is a fake expert in one field can be a real expert in others (3) Given the above, characterizing Bob Carter as playing the part of fake expert in his Financial Post letter is accurate and is not necessarily a general attack on his competence or character -
Steve Case at 00:09 AM on 30 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Sphaerica #30, Why do I go back to 1900 instead of choosing the 1970-2005 time frame? Because I don't believe in cherry picking. The rise in CO2 due to human activity started well before the 1970's I don't believe that the effect some how lay dormant for nearly a century. -
adelady at 23:58 PM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
steve, I may be wrong but I get the impression you're from the USA - in any event not from Australia. One thing that outsiders, and more than a few Australians, have trouble with is the sheer size of Australia as a whole and the gigantic expanse of desert within. Personally, I have a mental picture of Texas, probably a relic of films half-remembered from childhood, as being a dry and dusty place similar to South Australia's mid-North & Flinders Ranges region. I now know that there are 2 distinct climatic regions and probably several other smaller local climate regimes in Texas. Western Australia is a smidgen less than 4 times the size of Texas (or 150% of Alaska) but with only one southern region of good wheat growing agricultural soil that has traditionally had regular winter rainfall. In fact, Alaska might be a better comparison than multiples of Texas. Most of the interior is unsuitable for agriculture or large settlements. Only particular sub-regions have both climate and soil suitable to support agriculture. South Australia is 'only' half as big again as Texas and it lacks the tropical area that WA has in its north. We also get little to no direct benefit from increased rain in the east. Lake Eyre might be full, but that's only good for a couple of hundred locals and a few thousand seasonal tourists. The benefits to SA accruing to orchards and vineyards from increased flows into the Murray-Darling system are delayed because of its slow flows and, in any event, are of no value at all to grain growers. They need rain - from the sky, in the right quantities, at the right time for seeding, and definitely not in summer at ripening or harvest. -
Tom Curtis at 23:52 PM on 29 May 2012New research from last week 21/2012
Dorlomin @1 and Jim Eager @3, it is probably no coincidence that CO2 levels rose circa 1000 AD, and fell circa 1620 AD. The former date coincides approximately with the start of the Medieval Warm Period, while the later, of course, coincides with the Maunder Minimum and the end of the MWP. On that basis, the probable cause of the changes in CO2 levels are simply changes in Sea Surface Temperature. On that assumption, and based on a 6.5 degree C difference in Global Mean Temperature from the LGM and Pre-industrial average with an associated 100 ppmv excursion in CO2 concentration, the CO2 record provides an approximate measure of temperature change in the MWP. The glacial benchmark sets an expected change of 15 ppmv per degree C, which means the MWP was 0.5 (WAIS divide) to 0.66 (Law Dome) warmer than the Maunder Minimum and associated LIA. Only a back of the envelope calculation, of course, but a significant reality check to those who claim the MWP was significantly warmer than the end of the 20th century, and of course, to those who claim it is the 20th century warming that has caused the modern rise in CO2 levels. -
Jim Eager at 23:28 PM on 29 May 2012New research from last week 21/2012
Re Ahn et al (2012), as per Ruddiman, the ca. 1600 low in CO2 correlates time-wise with the ca. 1500-1600 precipitous drop in indigenous North and South American population after first contact with Europeans and unintentional exposure to their diseases, and the subsequent return of considerable agricultural land and managed forest to scrub and wild forest. -
Tom Curtis at 22:41 PM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Sphaerica @30, precipitation trend maps of Australia started in 1970 are potentially misleading on three counts. First, Australia's wettest three year period on record is 1974-76, due to a strong La Nina; while among its driest periods on record is the period is the early twenty-first century, where a series of El Nino's lead to extensive droughts, and in some areas a 10 year drought. Second, as you will probably have noted, Eastern Australia's rainfall is dominated by ENSO, with El Nino's bringing drought, and La Nina's floods. The intensity of that transition has increased, ie, the floods are wetter and the droughts drier, but as the long term effects of warming on ENSO are uncertain, the apparent recent trends are not projectable. Third, while anthropogenic global warming has taken of since 1975, the Earth responds to temperature change regardless of origin, and the early twentieth century saw significant warming - although not as marked in the SH as in the NH. Therefore to the extent that changes in rainfall pattern are the consequence of global warming, some of that change will have occurred between 1910 and 1940. Consequently, while the use of the 40 year trend graph was valid to show the fallacy in using Australia wide averages in testing hypotheses about regional effects, using them to predict future trends is ill advised for Eastern Australia. -
Bob Lacatena at 22:08 PM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Steve,...the dominant change that has occurred and will probably continue to occur in a future warmer world is more rain.
Look at the facts (particularly when the change to more rain -- beginning of the 19th century -- versus less rain -- last half of the 20th century -- occurred) and what the recent (past 40 years) trend has been, and please more accurately recast your statement concerning "and will probably continue to occur in a future warmer world." -
Bob Lacatena at 22:03 PM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Steve, Why do you insist on going back to 1900? Modern AGW is recognized to have taken hold starting in the late 70s. The site to which you linked actually has a map for that. Just click the "Trend" link.:
So in the past 42 years, Australia looks not so good.
I find it interesting that you bypassed this obvious and very relevant bit of information in your quest for knowledge.
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Martin A at 20:26 PM on 29 May 2012CO2 has a short residence time
Dikran M: I tried to work through your paper but found I was making slow progress. So I decided to reproduce the results of your "A One-Box Model of the Carbon Cycle". Here is my working - I hope I have not made errors despite my tendency to do so. I've made my notation close to yours, though not exactly the same. If you would clarify the points I am sure of (where I've put questions), I'd be very grateful. I am eager to get to the bottom of this (residence time)/(adjustment time) question. Let: C(t) = total atmospheric carbon at time t, (Gt). Fe(t) = Rate that carbon is absorbed by the reservoir from the atmosphere at time t, (Gt yr^-1). This is taken as being given by the formula Fe(t) = ke C(t) + Fe0 where ke = 0.0135 yr^-1 and Fe0 = 182.7 Gt yr^-1 . [Please see question 1 below] Fi = rate that carbon leaves the reservoir and enters the atmosphere, assumed constant and equal to the pre-industrial emission rate, = 190.2 Gt yr^-1 (calculated from values taken from your figure 1). The differential equation for the carbon in the atmosphere is dC(t)/dt = -ke C(t) - Fe0 + Fi = -0.0135 C -182.7 + 190.2 = -0.0135 C + 7.5. [Please see question 2 below] In equilibrium, the carbon in the atmosphere is given by putting dC(t)/dt = 0, which gives Ceq = 7.5 / 0.0135 = 555.5 Gt. The solution for the differential equation, assuming C(0) = Ceq + delta is C(t) = Ceq + delta exp(-ke t). The time constant for this 1st order equation is ke, so the adjustment time is 1/ke = 74.07 yr. [Please see question 3 below] For residence time, your paper talks about carbon of natural and anthropomorphic origin. I did not see why this was necessary. As you say, nature can't distinguish the origin of CO2 molucules so I did not grasp why it is useful to calculate the lifetime of molecules of specific origin. For arbitrary CO2 molecules, the residence time in equilibrium is (content)/(throughput). So residence time = Ceq/Fi = 555.5/190.2 = 2.92 yr. General question on linearity - [Please see question 5 below] Questions 1a. Does "the size of the atmospheric reservoir" (p18) mean the mass of carbon in the atmosphere? 1b. How are the numbers for (Fi - Fe) calculated, please, (in enough detail I can calculate them myself from the Mauna Loa or other data)? 2. This involves taking differences of largish numbers which I imagine are not precisely known, to get smallish differences. An error of a few percent in the numbers would mean that their difference contained no useful information. Is there reason to believe the difference has meaning? 3. This is slightly different from your value of 74.2 yr - I assume this is a typo. 4. Have I got the residence time right (for CO2 of arbitrary origin)? Or can you help me understand why calculating the residence time of a subset of CO2 molecules is useful? 5. Linearity. In ES09, Fe was given by Fe = ke C. You have replaced this with a function Fe = f(C) where f(C) = ke C + Fe0. This function is the formula for a straight line but that does not make the equation linear, so far as I can see. For the equation dC(t)/dt = f(C) to be linear, the function f(".") must satisfy f(C1 + C2) = f(C1) + f(C2) for any C1, C2, because this is how linearity is defined. In this case, for example f(0 + 0) = f(0) = Fe0. But f(0) + f(0) = 2Fe0. So it does not, so far as I can see, qualify as a linear differential equation. Does this make sense? Have I missed something? Thank you your help. -
JasonB at 20:21 PM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Steve #28, As one of a couple of million people living in that "5% of the country", allow me to point out that absolutely nothing you have said contradicts the original post in any way. As it very clearly stated, rainfall in these regions is dominated by cold fronts passing through in winter. As the temperature has risen, those fronts have move further and further south, to the extent that a significant amount of rainfall that would have made landfall in past decades now falls on the ocean to the south of the continent. The decline in rainfall and dam runoff in this region since the 1970s is well-documented and shown again by your own figures, proving the original post is correct. Before getting carried away with the importance of "averages", whether over the whole continent or even a single state like WA, you also might want to take a look at the population distribution and land usage. The north of Australia is tropical, so of course it gets a lot of rain. But most people live in the south. According to your table, WA as a whole has had an increase in rainfall of 22% -- but the south west had a decline of 17%. Guess where the people live?
The largest town in the top 3/4 of that image has about 14,000 people. The state as a whole has over 2.3 million.
Now look at WA in Google Maps and turn on the satellite view. Have a look at the area in WA that has recorded the biggest increase in rainfall according to the image posted by muoncounter in #14. Compare it to the area that has recorded the biggest decrease. Do you notice how the first area basically looks like desert, while the second is agricultural land? That's because the first area is basically a desert. (I grew up in that area, and in one particular two-year period the only rain we had was during cyclones.) While the rainfall might have increased, it's still not good enough (or reliable enough) to be agricultural land, whereas the area that is suffering the decrease is agricultural land -- the bread basket of the state, basically.
Location matters. The problems caused by drought in one region do not disappear because there is increased rainfall in another.
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Jsquared at 20:09 PM on 29 May 2012New research from last week 21/2012
The nicest expression for GHG production by cattle that I'm aware of is "enteric fermentation". -
Steve Case at 19:09 PM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
DSL #27, Did I make an error using rainfall for all of Australia instead of the regional precipitation patterns? Yes, I would have been better off if I had found the page with all the data first. But now that I've found it, and at your prompting, and some more work on my part shows that most of Australia since 1900 has enjoyed more rain. Tasmania and South Western Australia did indeed trend down over the last 110 years. Depending on your definition of South West Australia that's a little over 5% of the country. Here's the numbers, in cm/yr, and change since 1900, that I get from that page:That Australian rainfall has gone up 18% since 1900 I find very surprising. My editorial comment, and there's been plenty of that in this discussion is that drought is brought up over and over and over again, when the dominant change that has occurred and will probably continue to occur in a future warmer world is more rain.
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dorlomin at 19:07 PM on 29 May 2012New research from last week 21/2012
The drop in CO2 during the 1500 is really a stand out event. There has been a theory that the waves of small pox and death in America after contact with Europe lead to a huge amount of reforestation. This could be a part of that drop in CO2. Coming after the vulcanism that is thought to have triggered the glacier growth that helped bring about the so called "little ice age", its a tantalising suggestion of small amounts of human impact on climate before the industrial era. -
Kevin C at 18:44 PM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist: For the record, I'd like to thank you for your contribution to this discussion. The SkS comments policy forbids accusations of deception, and the article itself steers close to the wind, as do some of the responses here (see my moderation of #1 - perhaps the rest of the thread needs moderating, but maybe it is more useful for me to comment instead.) When published scientists make demonstrably counter-factual claims however it is hard to know what else to say. The three approaches seem to be to (a) challenge their competence, (b) challenge their honesty or (c) challenge their sanity. Under the circumstances, (a) may be the least uncharitable option, although I share your discomfort. The specific terminology 'fake expert' comes from the study of previous anti-science campaigns - see Oreskes' 'Merchant's of Doubt'. It is descriptive of a general strategy, although to what extent the term can be accurately applied to any individual or to a particular campaign is certainly a matter for discussion. -
skywatcher at 18:23 PM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
And I would still argue that 300 years is a rather short period for a science.
Much like vroomie, I can't agree with this statement at all, as the maturity of a science is not based on the number of years that people have been studying it, but the level of effort and expertise that has been garnered in the practise of it. The expertise developed in geology is enormous, based in no small degree upon the mineral and hydrocarbon wealth that is a direct product of that expertise... geology has come an awfully long way from the days of Hutton and Geike! Subfields are sufficiently developed such that you would not go to a specialist in interpreting 3D seismic data to learn about the geologic carbon cycle in the Ordovician, for example; nor would a volcanologist say much about Precambrian thrust fault mineralogy. Of course it's not particularly relevant to the fact that Carter is very clearly dreadfully misinforming people on the subject of palaeoclimate, as we both agree on! -
Geologist at 17:14 PM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
dana1981, I agree with the point you were trying to make and if you had insted pointed out that while paleoclimatologist is usually a highly relevant title the actal expertise in this case wasn't I would never have commented. As Andy S suggests it was the "fake" part that set me off. I have to admit that vrooomie has a point in that I sound as tone-trolling, it truly wasn't what I intended but that does not make it not so. I will try to avoid further comments in this thread as I mostly agree with all of you, it's just that the points where I disagree are a bit too close to my pet peeves. Just like Andy S I get very annoyed when people say that they can dismiss climatology because they know of past climate changes. However if you work with climate reconstructions far back in time you might only need a crude understanding of the climate as the conditions where sufficiently different and, poorly restrained anyway and your resolution, especially temporal, are often very poor. Thus you may make good local climate reconstructions without being very knowledgeable about the much more complex understanding which is useable in more modern series. Of course you should know that and either educate yourself or stay in your subsubfield of paleoclimate in "time period far back in time" or whatever but I don't think that just because the research might be irrelevant to the current climate change it's necessarily without other scientific values. And I would still argue that 300 years is a rather short period for a science. -
curiousd at 16:37 PM on 29 May 2012Renewables can't provide baseload power
Where should I go to understand the following issue? Say one wished to generate serious solar power for the U.S. Then if one covered 7.5% of Arizona's land area with photovoltaics of 15% efficiency you could probably generate all U.S. electrical needs. (Wolfson, "Energy, Environment, and Climate", 2nd edition, p. 251.) (Granted you would do better with a concentrating system in terms of land area, but that is not my basic issue.) My question is: If you wanted to get desert electricity to New York City, which is part of the Eastern Interconnection Subgrid, would you not need to build something quite different or in addition to, the existing grid? At the very least, high voltage D.C. transmission? Or does such a connection presently exist? Although political comments will be deleted, perhaps it would be o.k. for me to say that I can document thoroughly what a political nightmare it would be to obtain any upgrade for the Grid system in the U.S. It is not just the cost. -
oldfueler at 14:56 PM on 29 May 2012Dear Heartland, Stop using Arthur Robinson's Trick to Hide the Incline
Your comments on Robinson's temperature curve were very helpful as I have been asked to critique his paper by some global warming agnostic friends. Equally puzzling, however, is his plot of total solar irradiance (Figure 3). Have you analyzed the origin of that? The 1980 to 2000 portion looks very different than the PMOD data shown elsewhere on the Skeptical Science website. -
DSL at 13:04 PM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Let's test your hypothesis, DB. Steve Case, do you acknowledge that you made an error in using the graph of annual mean rainfall for the entire continent in order to attempt to discount the possibility of global warming-related shifts in regional precipitation patterns and accumulations? -
vrooomie at 11:01 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geolgist@14, you state, "Geology is a rather small and young subject and I believe that the subfields are a lot less distinct than in most other fields..." Since I am a geologist (UC-Denver, '99, B.Sc., currently employed at USGS)it's my considered opinion that your whole point is tone-trolling. Be that as it may, I strongly disagree with your point, above. Geology is now in its third century and there are *very* well-defined and numerous subareas within the aegis of the concept of "geology." It is demonstrably ~not~ a young field. To your second assertion, I believe if you refer to the member list of GSA, AAPG, SEG, AGU, and numerous other geological societies, you'll discover there are thousands, at least, who are geologists. Not young. Not small. Others have made informed, to-the-point refutations of Carter's CV and his qualifications to call himself a paleoclimatologist. I can guarantee you there are those with whom I work who are bona fide experts in paleoclimatology, and they would concur. Others' here who have reasoned about Carter's assertion are spot-on, and consistent with given and accepted norms of field definition that exists within the broad scope of geology. I see *nothing* in his available list of pubs, or his CV, that would indicate he has the "right" to refer to himself as a paleoclimatologist, irrespective that he seems to have published a few papers associated with the field.. Finally, and utterly irrespective of what he calls himself, his 'facts' are nothing of the like, and in making them, and calling himself something he is not, is entirely fair game for professional criticism, and he opens himself not only to the scientifically-sound critiquing of his facts, but also concerning his self-professed title.Moderator Response: [DB] Converted all-caps usage to bold lower-case. Please refrain from all-caps usage except for acronyms. The Comments Policy has a section illustrating how to use html tags to achieve the same effect (via underlining or through bold text). Thanks! -
adelady at 10:43 AM on 29 May 2012Why I care about climate change
billy52 "I don't believe deniers should be the ones setting the agenda for discussion." But they do tell you where your obstacles are in the public debate. Taking an example from behaviour rather than science, I used to do a fair bit of adult education on prejudice/ discrimination generally and racial and gender equality of opportunity specifically. What was needed was a way to show people that their thinking was influenced by unthinking presumptions, but doing it politely and more-or-less gently in a non-threatening context before moving on to the hard stuff. (Talking about attitudes towards public servants or other occupational groups before moving on to personal attributes like skin colour or gender issues.) Discussions about climate and other science is a bit more difficult, because what you often have to show people is that their "unthinking presumptions" arise from inadequate understanding of large numbers generally and of scientific facts and reasoning in particular. For many people, this seems harder than acknowledging that, underneath their claimed lack of prejudice about women or particular ethnic groups, they do still harbour some totally unjustifiable assumptions. But both scenarios have one thing in common. For prejudice, you can legitimately tell people that it really doesn't matter what they think or how they feel. What does matter is what they say, how they behave and what decisions they make in their work. You really can fake it until you make it. And you don't even have to make it - change your privately held, not-so-nice views - so long as you don't impose them on other people or allow them to influence your work. For science, it's much the same thing. If you don't want to 'believe' it, you don't have to. But you do have to follow the bouncing ball. Use proper scientific references and accurate data in discussions. Ensure that public policy is based on the best and most recent scientific conclusions. Play at 'being a scientist' by adjusting your currently held position when new information or insight comes to hand. I know that we often presume that the most persistent deniers are driven by ideology rather than science. Many of them even make this claim quite openly. I have a sneaking suspicion that, in some cases, this is actually a bit of self-protection. Many people mistakenly think that science is all about being 'clever' and that they can't measure up on this scale. Alternatively, knowing that they are pretty clever, they presume that they can master any field with little to no effort. They're not mistaken about the clever requirement. They are seriously mistaken about what clever amounts to. It's not an eternal, inborn, unchanging quality like being born one gender or skin colour rather than another. Being clever is like being lucky. The harder you work the luckier, or the cleverer, you get. And if you start out clever, you can only demonstrate it by putting in the hard work. (Much as if you were born gifted with athletic or musical talent. Winning at Wimbledon or singing at La Scala are not things you can do by relying on untrained natural gifts.) Right now, I'm on the gloomy side. When I got my first solar hot water service 25 years ago, I really presumed that this was just one individual instance of the beginning of a sensible, gradual society-wide move towards renewable energy development. That water heater is still going strong. Not so much the rest of the picture. -
Daniel Bailey at 10:39 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
What we have witnessed here on this thread is a textbook case of fake-skepticism erecting strawman arguments, fomenting off-topic ideology and employing goalpost shifting & misdirection to drive yet another thread off-topic in the wild-goose-chase of flailing at straw. All the while denial fails to ever acknowledge its errors (as amply illustrated by Tom Curtis, bath-ed, muoncounter, Sphaerica and scaddenp), let alone correct them. Just moves on to the nextmissionthread. BAU... Fascinating, the ideological underpinnings that drives denial. For there clearly is no basis in the science. -
Tom Curtis at 10:24 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Eric (skeptic) @24, if you are going to check individual stations, it would be better to compare the data for each month over the entire period, rather than year by year. It is also preferable to check a number of stations. In this case, in addition to Cape Naturaliste (33.5 south; 9519), I checked Woodburn (34.7 south; 9621) and Armadale (32.1 south; 9001). If you do so, the first thing you notice is that years of peak rainfall in a give month do not tend to correlate between stations. The second is that the pattern you claim to find is not at all evident. Given that, I think the regional data, by eliminating some of the noise, gives a better picture. Edited to add: For those who want to explore the detailed data themselves, here is the site. I am sorry, but the site is currently butchering the links to the graphs I originally provided. I have included station numbers so that you can look up the graphs for yourselves. -
empirical_bayes at 09:23 AM on 29 May 2012Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
(Late to party) @Uncle Ben, #3, regarding "3. The little model demonstrates a mathematical fact, which is already obvious to students of statistics, namely that you cannot compute the sensitivity to one variable if another hidden variable is varying the output": It's not a fact. In fact, it's false. The effect of "one variable" upon a response is in many systems separable from the effects of the others. In fact, this is often how "others" are identified. This is especially the case if the "one variable" is tied to the response using a physical model derived by experiment. -
Eric (skeptic) at 09:23 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Thanks for the reply Tom. I was looking at graphs like this from BOM for 1917: http://goo.gl/xBCZG It's obviously not systematic or rigorous, but the monthly charts seem to bring out variations that are not as apparent in recent years, e.g. 2007 http://goo.gl/U3lrZ -
Tom Curtis at 09:16 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Steve Case, Muoncounter @14 merely demonstrated the folly of using Australian average figures to test a prediction about rainfall patterns in a particular region of Australia. Rainfall patterns in Australia are very different in different locations. That means your argument @4 was about as sensible as arguing that Death Valley is verdant because the average annual rainfall of the contiguous US is 29 inches. Your argument has been thoroughly rebutted, in particular by myself @7 and by bath_ed @16. Some acknowledgement that the data actually contradicts your view, and your initial argument would be nice. Failure of such acknowledgement makes it reasonable to conclude that your views are not driven be evidence. -
funglestrumpet at 09:02 AM on 29 May 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #21
After posting the above comment I found that this week's New Scientist has a Thorium article in it. I have yet to read it, but a quick skim leads me to think that it is not LFTR based, which is the design that I find impressive. After that, I found on TED an excellent talk by David MacKay: A reality check on renewables. Well worth watching. (Hope I have not breached the new comments policy.) On the subject of discussion issues, I think this site needs to consider some direction issues. We are at the fag end of the science debate on climate change (with 97% of the world's leading climate scientists in support of the central issue of cause and predicted consequences, how else does one descibe it?) I know that some will never be persuaded, and I guess they comprise the 3%. (By way of example take Lindzen and his recent talk in the British House of Parliament where he repeated long debunked myths. I doubt that he will ever change.) So what now? I personally don't trust Greenpeace as far as I can throw them as I think they are as bad as the Heartland Institute, but in the other direction. I am looking for some way that I can get active that is going to do more than just sort out the science. I want something that is going to actually make the world a better place than Monckton, Lawson (both of them), Hitchens, Philips etc. want it to be (and that is only the British buffoons). Perhaps it is not to be found here, but reading between the lines I suspect that many of the regular scientists posting on this site are motivated by what they see as the future for their spouses and children to some extent and a considerable extent in some instances. We don't want to win the scientific debate with a 'told you so', do we? That would mean that in reality we lost. -
Tom Curtis at 09:00 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Eric (skeptic) @21, I disagree with your final conclusion. If you look at the rainfall anomaly for South Western Australia during the southern wet season (April-November), you will see that not only are the extremely wet seasons absent in later years, but dryer than average seasons become more frequent, whereas wetter than average seasons were more frequent in the early twentieth century. Further, very dry seasons (> 100 less than average) are more frequent toward the end of the twentieth century as well. If you look at the 15 year average, it shows a steady decline approximating in slope to the linear trend. This to me suggests a more or less consistent decline with increasing global temperature. The apparent dominance of a few very wet years in the early record that you see is just a product of the variability which follows from extreme events in a region with low average rainfall (around 700 mm per year). -
funglestrumpet at 07:57 AM on 29 May 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #21
Issue of the week How about designating a day of the week to particular types of post e.g. Mondays - Myths, Tuesdays - Technicals etc.? If you have nothing in the category for a particular day, take a break. At least it would allow some of the hardworking regulars to catch up with replies to their posts. Sometimes I suspect that you desperately scrape the bottom of the barrel in order to have something to post. You are not a newpaper with a daily print run to maintain. I would like to see one day where anything goes (within comments policy, of course), such as if someone has discovered a particular piece of information (obviously that is legitimate and relevant to Climate Change) that they think the community would should consider, then that day's comments column (Sundays?) would be the place for it. For instance, I have recently come across LFTR nuclear reactors (Google 'Thorium'). Because they have so many advantages over uranium reactors they seem like they just might be the way nuclear can be developed as a replacement for coal, which seems to have a lot of pollutants that I did not realise it had) that would be publicly acceptable. Unless we ditch coal, then we can forget limiting warming to 2C. I guess this comment is an example of what I think Sundays could be used for. -
Bob Lacatena at 07:50 AM on 29 May 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #21
1, chriskoz, The policy has primarily simply expanded to more explicitly cover some undesirable behaviors that have become tiringly repetitive and yet were not explicit violations before. Other aspects of the policy were merely better qualified. Basically, the goal was to allow moderators to think less by making moderation more objective than subjective, by better defining some gray areas. -
Andy Skuce at 07:27 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist: I agree that "fake" may be a little strong since it implies deliberate deception. It's not an unjustified charge but it might nevertheless contravene the comments guidelines here. But that's not to argue that Carter actually has any worthwhile credentials at a paleoclimatologist. I'm a geoscientist myself and I am frustrated by many of my colleagues claiming that they have professional insight into paleoclimate because they are aware that climate has changed in the past. It's true that you simply can't do sedimentary geology unless you have some notion of what the climate, geography and sea levels were when the rocks were deposited. Paleontology is very closely linked to the study of past climates as well. However, to call yourself a paleoclimate expert requires that you understand why and how the climate changed and many geologists don't have a better understanding of that process than the average non-specialist scientist. Once I started studying climate change a few years ago, I was amazed at how much was known about paleoclimate, much more than was ever taught to me in my university courses. Frankly, it makes me cringe when some geologists claim that anthropogenic climate change is impossible because "climate has changed in the past". The gross logical error is common enough but what irks me is the arrogance of thinking that because they know a few factoids--eg the existence of Ordovician glacial tills in West Africa, or Zechstein sabkhas in the North Sea-about the climate of the past, that that somehow gives them the authority to dismiss a whole subject, climatology, about which they are manifestly ignorant. -
Eric (skeptic) at 07:20 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
A potentially relevant study attempting to determine cause of declining rainfall in SW Australia is here: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI3817.1. The model matches temperature trends when anthropogenic forcing is included and does not when it is not. So the model seems valid enough. But the rainfall decline is much more difficult to attribute. My conclusion for that location would not be that the "dry get drier". That truism will only apply in some cases (perhaps not even 50%?) . A more fitting conclusion for SWA is that this area with highly seasonal rainfall got drier, consistent with anthropogenic influences added to the model. My best guess comes from some hints here: http://www.oceanclimatechange.org.au/content/images/uploads/Leeuwin_Current.pdf In particular the weakening of the westerlies and decrease in intense rainfall events. Eyeballing some of the data from bom.gov.au seems to show that what is missing now is the really wet winter months that used to show up regularly at the beginning of the 20th century (with all other months staying about the same). So perhaps it is actually the extremes that used to bump up the yearly average are missing now. -
Composer99 at 07:00 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Steve: muoncounter's comment was not about Eastern Australia in and of itself, and neither is the OP. Rather, muoncounter's comment was criticizing exactly the sort of thing your comment on Eastern Australia rainfall appears to be doing: obscuring a small-scale phenomenon (the projected drying up of specific regions whose primary source of rain comes from the westerlies) by pointing at other, unrelated information (large-scale rainfall anomalies in other countries/regions). The OP was not claiming that Australia, as a whole, was going to suffer drought as a result of warming. As such your interpretation of the OP smells of straw. -
dana1981 at 06:54 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Clyde @7 - I'm not really sure what you're asking. Climate scientists who build climate models are modeling experts. Climate scientists who use climate models don't have to be climate model experts, just like I don't have to be an electrician to turn my lights on. -
dana1981 at 06:52 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist - the problem, as noted in the post, is that since Carter provides zero evidence to support his assertions, the reader is expected to believe him because presumably he's an expert and knows what he's talking about. To gain that supposed credibility, Carter is listed as a paleoclimatologist. I've read a lot of stuff written by Carter, and this is the first time I've seen him referenced as a paleoclimatologist. He hasn't published anything related to the field in 7 years, and few papers in totality. He may have some knowledge of some areas of paleoclimate, but that doesn't make him a paleoclimatologist. The only reason we raise the issue is that his Financial Post and WUWT readers are expected to take him at his word because of this supposed expertise. If he had tried to support his claims, I wouldn't have even mentioned the fake expertise, but we are clearly expected to believe his nonsense because he is supposedly a paleoclimatologist, which is not a title he has earned, in my opinion. I think Composer @11 has a good analogy on this matter. -
Jim Eager at 06:21 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Clyde, you seem to be assuming that climate scientist's who work on and with climate models are not experts in doing so. Do you have any evidence to support this assumption? Or that they do not work with competent computer modelers when constructing the models? In any case, greenhouse theory and how human actions are changing the greenhouse effect doesn't depend on computer climate models, it depends on basic physics and chemistry and real world observations. The climate models are just a tool used to better understand how that physics and chemistry interact compared to what is actually observed in the real atmosphere. In other words, you're barking up a tree of your own making. -
Geologist at 06:18 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
My primary objective is not defending Bob Carter, his article is obviously full of nonsense, but as I generally consider SkS to be of the highest standard I get disapointed when I believe that it is making poor arguments. Geology is a rather small and young subject and I believe that the subfields are a lot less distinct than in most other fields. People therefore often move between subfields and you may readily find your self doing research that could be considered to be within three or four different subfields at the same time. On the other hand each subfield can be quite diverse, working with Ordovician ice ages is obviously quite different from studying Holocene lake deposits but you might still both be working with paleoclimate. For example there isn't (or at least very few) educations or PhD-programs in paleoclimatology, instead your overall field is normally Quaternary geology, Marine geology, Sedimentology or even Ecology and then you specialize. This means however that if you want to define whether someone belongs to a subfield or not the only reasonable way is to see if they publish in the field. I would say that if you have published articles corresponding to a PhD (a few articles)in a certain field you may claim to belong within it. We can argue whether this is still on the low side but it is not "fake". Of course before you deserve to be called an expert you need more. Carter has published several articles in paleoclimatology. It is not that he isn't a paleoclimatologist that is the problem it is that he is in the wrong part of paleoclimatology and obviously haven't educated himself about the rest. Thus it isn't by calling himself a paleoclimatologist that he is mistaken, it is by moving outside his own area of expertise without realizing that he is no longer an expert. And if I, who really like SKS, thinks that calling Carter a fake is unfair, it is likely that a somewhat "skeptical" geologist would conclude that SkS is calling anyone who disagrees a fake no matter if it is correct or not. -
Albatross at 05:43 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Composer @12, I concur with your assessment of climate scientists and computer modelling. Additionally, we scientists do not simply "...accept a climate scientist's work on models" as Clyde suggests. -
Composer99 at 05:37 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Clyde: I do not see how your question is applicable. On the topic of Bob Carter (whose Financial Post column is the topic of this post) while Dr Carter sets himself up as an expert in paleoclimate, his post is full of factual errors pertaining to paleoclimate, misrepresentations, and logical fallacies. As several of the errors & misrepresentations pertain to paleoclimate, they bely his claim to expertise in this field. It is these errors &c which allow his critique to be dismissed, and not his lack of expertise, in and of itself. Speaking more generally, I suspect you will find that other attempts to critique the mainstream findings of climatology will tend to fall on similar grounds (factual errors, misrepresentations & sloppy logic). The climate scientist vs computer modelling question is unclear. As far as I am aware, some, perhaps even most, climate scientists use computer models as part of their work, but only a few climate scientists would be accurately described (or characterize themselves) as expert computer modellers. Since the mainstream findings of climatology depend on an intertwining web of physics theory, empirical findings, and experiment, and computer modelling is but a small part of this web, I do not think there is a double standard in play. -
Composer99 at 05:02 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist: I played trumpet in the final years of primary school. Although I am now a semi-professional musician (singer & composer) I would not go so far as to call myself a trumpet player. By analogy, Bob Carter may have published some work on paleoclimatology, but if that is not a primary focus of his research & other professional scientific activities, I think it is too much to classify him as a paleoclimatologist. -
Albatross at 04:47 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist@9, You are missing the point. Publishing one or a even few papers on paleoclimate does not make on an expert in that particular field. And again, in his own bio he does not refer to himself as a "paleoclimatologist". It is really quite that simple. Now why should someone listen to the musings of Carter on the subject of paleoclimatology when a there are real, practising paleoclimatologists such as Mann, Bradley, Ammann, Wahl, Ljungqvist, Briffa and Moberg et cetera out there? Carter is not a paleoclimatologist-- and from his comments in his editorial, he does not even seem to be well versed in the paleoclimate literature-- hardly what one would expect from an expert in the field. That he stated so in public is disingenuous and misleading, and inconsistent with his own online biography. You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts Geologist. -
Geologist at 04:32 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
I am not calling him a climate expert, he clearly does not give the impression of being one. But from what I can tell he did not claim to be a climate expert, he claimed to be a paleoclimatologist. And if you publish scientific articles on past climate, which he has, it is correct to call youself a paleoclimatologist. This article: http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/Carter&Gammon-Science-04.pdf with Carter as first author is for example clearly whithin the field of paloclimatology (as well as the fields of marine geology and stratigraphy). Many paleoclimatologists today work with proxies and time periods relevant to the current warming, making them real climate experts. Carter is not one of them but his correct description of himself as a paleclimatologist does not make him a fake climate expert either.
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