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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. -
Albatross at 04:26 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist@3, "I strongly object to characterizing Bob Carter as a fake climate expert." That is not a "characterization" but a statement of fact. Also, the reality is that it is Carter who is characterizing himself in the media as something that he is clearly not. James Cook University does not list him as a "climate expert" or "paleoclimatologist", and even Carter's online bio states that: "He is a palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist..." Regardless, as this post demonstrates, Carter's claims are at complete odds with the data, the science and the facts. Sadly, this behaviour is par for the course for most "skeptics". -
Steve Case at 04:23 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Daniel Bailey #17, What I amply demonstrated with all of the data 1900-2011 not merely 1970-2005 is that rainfall in East Australia has trended upwards contrary to Muonconter's post. I object to your assertions without supportive basis. -
Clyde at 04:12 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
This question may have been answered before. I'm new to the site & not real smart on the science. Why is it that folks who critique AGW are dismissed if their not experts in climate science, but we should just accept a climate scientist's work on models when their not experts in computer modeling? Have a nice day. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:11 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
I find it fascinating how Carter avoids citations. The piece that I wrote on Carter points out where he does use a citation but in relation to nothing found in the the actual paper being cited! Worse than that, the paper he cites directly contradicts the claim he's making. It seems to me that Carter employs the same technique that Monckton relies on: Say whatever you like and assume that the people you're trying to convince are never going to check your facts. -
dana1981 at 03:43 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist - while Carter has a couple of papers related to paleoclimate, he is certainly not a climate expert, as is evidenced by his constantly incorrect claims on the subject. -
michael sweet at 03:28 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
bath ed, Do you have similar maps that show where wheat is grown in Australia?Moderator Response: TC: Wheat is grown in Australia in both winter rainfall, and summer rainfall regions, with different times of planting. Consequently I cannot see how your request can be on topic. If you have a specific on topic point to make, then make it. Otherwise discussion of wheat growing in Australia is off topic on this thread. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:21 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
Geologist... An "expert" would suggest someone has specific expertise in the field, someone who can impart accurate information. Carter makes so many incredibly elemental errors in regards to climate change it is a stretch to call him an expert. Carter is a stratigrapher and a mining expert, but with regards to climate, I would suggest, he is less informed than a large number of readers of SkS and therefore not an expert. Carter can call himself whatever he likes. He can call himself the Queen of England if he likes, but that doesn't make it so. -
Geologist at 03:02 AM on 29 May 2012Bob Carter's Financial Post Gish Gallop of Scientific Denial
I strongly object to characterizing Bob Carter as a fake climate expert. The field of paleoclimate is rather wide and much of the IODP research (International Ocean Drilling Program), where Bob Carter has been involved and published (eg. Carter 2005, Land et al. 2010), can very well be included. In my opinion he is perfectly entitled to call himself a peloclimatologist and even if you prefer a stricter definition it is still highly unfair to call him a fake expert. That of course makes it worse that he is arguing such nonsense. -
Bernard J. at 02:52 AM on 29 May 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #21
I'm loathe to draw attention to this on the more focussed threads, but I thought that there might be a few folk here with a perverse fascination for how Tim Curtin is currently butchering over at Deltoid the fundamental physics of Tyndall and Arrhenius. It truly has to be seen to be believed, and even then it's difficult. I keep trying to put fingers to keyboard to address the pseudoscience, but it's as futile an exercise as is harvesting a vineyard one grape at a time. Strong, strong, strong keyboard/beverage warning - you'll discover that greenhouse gases aren't, and that nitrogen and oxygen are. -
Daniel Bailey at 02:25 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Once again, we see amply demonstrated the factual impoverishment of denial's meritless arguments. Devoid of supportive basis, denial relies upon strawman arguments, goalpost shifting and the ol' reliable misdirection ploy to advance their agenda. -
bath_ed at 01:54 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Steve Case @ 15: This article is about declining rainfall due to weakening/poleward retreat of the westerlies affecting the winter rainfall region of South Africa and by analogy Australia. The winter rainfall regions of Australia, like South Africa are in the far south on west facing coasts. You can see them and their relative small size here shown in blue and blue-grey:
Eastern Australia is a red herring as it doesn't get its rainfall from the westerlies and therefore is of little relevance to the issue.
Here are the winter rainfall zones of southern Africa, (top left) with estimated distributions in past glacial periods. Note how they were more extensive when the Earth was cooler:-
Moderator Response: [Sph] Image widths adjusted. Please remember to keep images to 450 pixels wide or less. -
DSL at 01:41 AM on 29 May 2012Why I care about climate change
Agreed Billy52, but what do you suggest should be done? Deniers will always set the agenda for discussion if they are provided the means to pursue their agenda effectively. As long as 1) the general public does not understand how its opinions are formed, 2) opinion-makers are given scientific authority on par with the consensus understanding of working scientists, and 3) we live in something that resembles a democracy, where the education of the public is essential to the ethical/moral success of the democracy, then the deniers will always set the agenda for discussion. As it is, all one needs to do is sound sciency enough for the general reader to be dulled toward fact-checking, and one can then claim just about anything and have it believed. The comment streams on news sites are evidence of that. Despite Dan Kahan's findings, I am still convinced that one the roots of the problem is comprehension. Undoubtedly, one's cultural surround makes strong and persistent demands on one's set of beliefs, and Kahan's study confirms this for climate risk:CCT [Kahan's cultural cognition theory] posits that people who subscribe to a hierarchical, individualistic world-view—one that ties authority to conspicuous social rankings and eschews collective interference with the decisions of individuals possessing such authority—tend to be sceptical of environmental risks.
And, according to the results of Kahan's study, that stands fairly well for people who have the proven technical skill to understand the science. However, I posit that few people are capable of totally ignoring evidence-based reasoning. Cultural factors may severely delay understanding (and effectively prevent it, given the circumstances and issue), but eventually some minds are, in fact, changed. I've seen it happen on this website. One of my jobs as an educator is to reveal to individuals explicitly the cultural factors that influence those individuals. For me, that is the first role of higher education toward young people stepping into their adulthoods. Once the mechanism is revealed, competing epistemologies are truly on level playing ground, and science is pretty strong. However, the effectiveness of this revelation is diminished by the force with which the message is delivered. You can lead the horse to water, but if you try to force it to drink, it'll die of thirst first. The only force I apply in this "debate" is gently telling people to put up or shut up. I ask people how their beliefs were formed, and then I ask them to come discuss the science with an open mind. Invite deniers to ask questions and engage in open discussion (or be revealed as uncritical and gullible) on a site like SkS (where commenters, more than at any other site, are allowed to speak without being subject to intimidation). I think John's methodology with the site is effective in that respect, as it allows people to approach the science via their own beliefs, rather than being confronted by an unfamiliar staging. Unfortunately, though, learning through open discussion seems like a painfully slow process, and most people aren't allowed (explicitly or implicitly) to engage in that type of learning (and even when they are, the death of the humanities in higher education will eventually remove or severely diminish the opportunity). In my more cynical moments, I think it's all a waste of time, and that people aren't going to truly believe until it bites them in the posterior on a regular basis. -
muoncounter at 01:19 AM on 29 May 2012CO2 was higher in the past
Responding to a comment here: The geocraft cartoon graph rises again, with its ominous "... consternation of global warming proponents". And once again, there is no such consternation. The timing of high CO2 and glacial stage onset is critical - and that was always very tough to do on samples that are 450 M yrs old. So one has to wonder about the accuracy of the chronology shown on the geocraft cartoon. Especially in light of Saltzman 2005: ... the evidence suggests that the ice began to build up some 10 million years earlier than when volcanoes began pumping the atmosphere full of the CO2 that ended the Ordovician ice age. Abstract here. Young et al 2010 adds more to this consternation-busting line of research: The integrated datasets are consistent with increasing pCO2 levels in response to ice-sheet expansion that reduced silicate weathering. Ultimately, the time period of elevated pCO2 levels is followed by geologic evidence of deglaciation. -- emphasis added Full paper pdf here. -
Steve Case at 01:12 AM on 29 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
#14 muoncounter, The graphs you picked to illustrate your point all end at 2005, over six years ago. And they show East Australia getting drier. So I thought I'd take a look at East AU and see if I could find up-to-date data and I found this page. So I graphed out the precipitation for East Australia for 1900-2011, 1950-2011,
1970-2011 and 1970-2005 and it looks like this:
Looks like precipitation is up overall in East Australia since 1900, but because of some spikes mid-century trends with start points at those times show a decline and if 2005 is picked as an end point, the decline becomes quite exaggerated.
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DSL at 00:34 AM on 29 May 2012Newcomers, Start Here
curiousd, I'll second what michael sweet says: there is a wide range of opinion on the subject of mitigation/adaptation strategies. My opinion changes frequently, unfortunately. And it's very difficult to assess the science and economic analysis surrounding renewables, nuclear, and various mitigation schemes. Where CO2 is concerned, look at three papers: 1. Foster & Rahmstorf (2011) (discussed here by one of the authors), which removes solar, volcanic, and ENSO effects from the recent surface temp record to see what sort of trend might be left over. 2. Lacis et al. (2010) or Schmidt et al. (2010), which discuss the role of CO2 as the primary "control knob" of climate. 3. Puckrin et al. (2004), which compares modeled and observed radiative flux for various GHGs, including water vapor. Any further responses on the subject of "CO2 was higher in the past" really do need to go here. As for CO2 being the driver of climate, responses should go here. Any responses will be seen, since many (most?) of the regular posters check the recent comments thread regularly. -
Billy52 at 00:26 AM on 29 May 2012Why I care about climate change
I enjoy this site and you've assembled an impressive collection of sound arguments countering those promoted by the climate change deniers. But I question whether the "climate debate" is a proper focus for efforts to mitigate catastrophic climate change. In a world where average temperatures are 2 to 6 degrees C. higher than today, what difference will it make who was right or who was wrong about the climate? I don't believe deniers should be the ones setting the agenda for discussion. -
muoncounter at 23:21 PM on 28 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
The 'wet get wetter, dry get dryer' means that if you look at too large an area, you're averaging together drought and flooding: Trends in annual total rainfall for three time periods, 1900-2005, 1950-2005 and 1970-2005
-- source (2006)
It is clearly incorrect to look only at continent-wide averages.
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michael sweet at 23:15 PM on 28 May 2012Newcomers, Start Here
curiousd, Welcome to Skeptical Science, As you thought, there has been a lot of discussion of nuclear power and a variety of opinions expressed. You should use the search button in the upper left corner to locate the threads you are interested in. My favorite is the thread on renewable baseload power, where nuclear was often discussed. This is a hot button issue and you are likely to see lot of difference of opinion. If you have substantial references to contribute the discussion will be better than if you just state your opinion. At 211, why do you suggest the two options are different? CO2 is the dominant factor, but there are a number of other factors, especially on a short term basis. -
bath_ed at 22:52 PM on 28 May 2012Dead Ahead: Less Rainfall for Drought-Sensitive Southern Hemisphere Regions?
Steve Case @ 4: The clue is semi-arid winter rainfall regions that the article speaks of. In South Africa (and Australia too I believe) there is a strong distinction between the winter rainfall regions of the far west and south west and the rest of the country which receives most of its rain in the summer. It is also important to note that the winter rainfall zones are small compared with the summer rainfall zones, so any rainfall trend for the whole country is going to be dominated by the summer rainfall regions; rainfall in the Western Cape has declined in recent decades. In the winter rainfall regions, rain is brought by the westerlies and cold fronts rather like in the Atlantic edge of Western Europe. Unlike Atlantic Europe, the southern tip of Africa is at a sufficiently low latitude that it only gets the westerlies in the winter and in the summer they retreat further south, while Atlantic Europe being nearer the pole stays in their path all year. Rainfall in the rest of South Africa (and Australia) has little to do with Atlantic (Indian Ocean) westerlies and falls mainly in the summer, which makes an enormous difference to the vegetation, agriculture and appearance of the country. You will find that in January the region surrounding Cape Town will typically be parched and brown while Johannesburg, Pretoria etc are green. By July the situation is reversed. Going back to the plants of the area, I believe sadly that they may be especially vulnerable to any changes. This winter-rainfall zone supports the Cape Floristic Kingdom, by far the smallest of the world's six floristic kingdoms. Covering only 0.5% of Africa it contains 20% of the continent's plant species and more than all of North America. As well as occupying such a small area, many of the plants had the misfortune of growing on land suitable for growing wheat and other crops, or land now taken for urban development. Some now grow only at a single site or a handful of sites, or even only in cultivation. Given this, it would be difficult for them to shift ranges in response to drying.
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