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Comments 69651 to 69700:

69651. Bob Loblaw at 03:09 AM on 23 November 2011
       The Debunking Handbook Part 3: The Overkill Backfire Effect
       Sally@12 the quote from John Maynard Keynes " When the facts change, I change my mind, what do you do?" There is something that bothers me about the concept that "facts change", although perhaps that is the convention in economics ;-) (which my brother the Economist might take exception to...) Of course, when we accumulate more "facts", then "the facts" en masse will have changed. But we don't want to leave the impression that "facts" are malleable, because that makes "facts" just another opinion, which is not particularly scientific. I've made this distinction before on another thread, but we need to distinguish between Observation, Interpretation, and Conclusion. There are shades of gray in the boundaries, but it is worth trying to distinguish between these parts of the process of understanding. It is relatively easy to get people to agree on observations ("yes, that thermometer read 12.3C at noon today), but interpretations of a collection of observations become more speculative, and the conclusions we draw depend on those interpretations. The process that I try to follow is to collect all relevant observations (and accept that there can be errors in these), consider all reasonable interpretations of those observations, and draw conclusions that are supported by the evidence. They key ingredient is the willingness to consider additional observations and interpretations, and to change the conclusions when warranted, and that is the intepretation I would put on Keynes' quote. The catch is that different people will have different ideas of what is "relevant" and "reasonable". The bad part is when someone takes the view that observations and intepretations are only relevant and reasonable when they confirm the pre-conceived and inviolate conclusions that were brought to the table. That's not science.
69652. Bob Loblaw at 02:42 AM on 23 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       apirate@10 "Question #2 is adequately answered." Question 2 isn't answered at all. There would have been just as much information content if he had replaced "natural forcings" with "pixie dust". Except that if he had said "pixie dust", it would have been obvious that he had no answer. It's just another case of handwaving, making it sound as if he had something important and constructive to say while actually doing nothing but avoiding the question. ...and to throw in the bit about "the temperature anomalies are cooling" is a shameful attempt to pretend that nothing is happening anyway - there isn't anything that needs explaining! In my experience, anyone that answers a question with something that amounts to "it's so complex I can't explain it here" is usually either trying to cover up their lack of knowledge, or knows something that they don't want you to know. Either way, don't trust them.
69653. Eric (skeptic) at 02:36 AM on 23 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       KR, nice, thanks.
69654. Tom Curtis at 01:15 AM on 23 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Norman @109: 1) As a technical point, your method of calculating standard deviations is flawed because you use whole of state averages. The smaller the area, the larger the potential variability because you are averaging fewer stations. Therefore it is no surprise that Texas and Montana have the lowest variability using your method. That is not, however, indicative of variability plotted over an equal area grid. 2) Again, as a technical point, if you were going to test the hypothesis that higher latitudes have greater variability you should use either an equal area grid mapped to show the data (as done by Hansen), or calculate variability for all stations in a region, in this case CONUS, and plot against latitude. The later would be preferable as a strict test of the hypothesis. 3) As noted, Hansen does plot the standard deviation for June-July-August in figure 2 of of his paper. I have reproduced a detail of the plot covering CONUS and adjacent regions below: Examination of the plot will show that the general hypothesis of greater variability with higher latitudes is correct. That is even more obvious on the plot for the whole globe. However, as you will certainly notice, my assumption that the general pattern would apply in Texas is false. Specifically, over large areas of Texas, variability is greater than that in more northerly states, presumably because Texas is at the boundary between arid hot lands to the West, and verdant, relatively cool lands to the East. Such geographically distinctive features can, of course, have a significantly greater effect than the effect of latitude, particularly in summer when the latitude effect is smallest. 4) It is, however, very worthwhile to compare Hansen's plot of Standard Deviations to the plots of the 1936 and 2011 heatwaves you provided in your post @94: When you do so you see that the effect of the 1936 heatwave is largely (though not exclusively) confined to regions having a SD between 0.8 and 1 degree C (1.44 and 1.8 degrees F). In contrast the 2011 heatwave extends over much of the South East of the United States in which SD are typically in the range of 0.4 to 0.8 degrees C (0.72 to 1.44 degrees F) and in some regions (notably Florida) are as low as 0.1 to 0.2 degrees C (0.18 to 0.36 degrees F). As a result of this, the area of Extreme Heat in 2011 extends well beyond the area of peak anomaly (Texas) along the Gulf coast and over Florida, even though the anomaly in those regions is a third or less of that in Texas. So, the 2011 heat wave showed a much larger area of extreme heat because it covered extensive areas with low variability in summer temperatures. In contrast, although the 1936 heat wave covered almost as great an area, it was largely confined to areas with large variability in summer temperatures, and so did not show as much extent of extreme heat. This reinforces the point that anomalies tell you nothing by themselves about how unusual a heat wave is.
69655. KR at 00:51 AM on 23 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Eric (skeptic) - You should read Tamino's Extreme Heat post. He examines the Moscow heat wave using extreme value theory, calculating that this was a 1/260 event under current conditions, about 8x more likely than it would be without global warming. The set of tests he applies clearly demonstrate a one-sided distribution. Given a one-sided non-normal distribution, heat waves like this aren't 1/10,000 year events - but they're still much more likely than before recent global warming, and becoming more likely all the time.
69656. skept.fr at 00:18 AM on 23 November 2011
       World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
       Agnostic #51 : I agree with you, notably about conservative short-termism of the fossil-based energy system. But some observations: you say CCS is costly (it is), and seem to exclude it can improve (we don’t really know). But you adopt a double standard for RE energy : Sustainability is not a question of curtailing use of energy or limiting access to it. It is a matter of ensuring that energy needs are produced from renewable sources. We already have the basic technology needed to achieve this and in coming years it will be improved, made more efficient and cheaper to use You can’t be arbitrarily optimistic with RE and pessimitic with CCS : at least, you must explain why there would be progress in one field and stagnation in another. As I expose precedently when discussing with Tom Curtis (first page), we are not sure at all that renewable sources can meet energy needs of 9 billion humans in 2050 without seriously curtailing the use. The best estimate for RE supply in 2050 seems to be approx 250 EJ/y (IPCC SRREN median estimate), but we actually consume rather 500 EJ/y for 7 billion humans (492 EJ in 2008, IPCC source). For an order of magnitude, if you assume 9 billion in 2050, you would have to supply 640 EJ/y anything else beeing equal. If you have a 2% target of world growth, you need a 2% energy intensity gain each year for stabilizing this level (in fact, energy intensity gain are actually between 1% and 1,5% on 1980-2010). You can play with these numbers of course : a 3% economic growth with just 1,5% energy intensity gain would imply a huger energy production in 2050 ; a 1% economic growth with a 3% energy intensity gain would considerably lower the energy demand, etc. I think it would be misleading to suggest our readers that energy transition is an easy way, only blocked by fossil lobbies (de facto, we do know they tried and try to block any policy agenda detrimental to their interest, but it is not the whole picture). As I said, European countries met since the 1990s some favourable conditions : few denialism in public opinion, strong comitment of policymakers, modest economic growth (when compared to emerging countries), high level of scientific and technological knowledge… but the real progress in decarbonization are still modest, and the budget is even negative if you account for the carbonized goods we import from Asia instead of producing them in Europe (Peters et al 2011, see reference in page 1). In contrast, I would say an efficient energy policy in the USA would have very good results, because you start at a very high level of energy consumption (far higher than Europe in the 1990s or at any recent decade), with few private or public effort to change the fossil addiction of your economy.
69657. michael sweet at 23:54 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Norman, I am sorry, you are using Farenheit which makes your error smaller. It may be more likely that the problem is that the anomaly map you are using groups 2-4C together. Three standard deviations is only 0.8C greater than 2 standard deviations. Read the Hansen paper to determine where your error is. Keep in mind his argument is valid for a Global analysis. The large data set is required to show statistical relevance.
69658. michael sweet at 23:44 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Norman, Reviewing yor post here, you do not say what months your calculations are for. You conclude the standard deviation is about 1.5 degrees for the areas you picked. Hansen (2011) calculates standard deviations of the same area that range from 0.5-1.0. See the figures I cited in my last post. Since you do not say what you calculated it is not certain why you are wrong, but it appears to me from your other posts that you have only calculated the standard deviation for June, rather than JJA. You need to give it up and conceed that you have done the calculation incorrectly. It does not make your argument look better when you insist you have done the calculation correctly after it is clear you are mistaken. When you do not know how to do statistical analysis you cannot make convincing statistical arguments.
69659. CBDunkerson at 23:39 PM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       "Firstly, it's well worth nothing" should be 'Firstly, it's well worth noting'. Freudian slip (i.e. thinking Pielke's comments on ice melt were "worth nothing")? Has anyone tried to bring this commentary on Pielke's misrepresentations to the attention of the school (or CIRES)?
69660. Eric (skeptic) at 23:38 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       It seems to me that the way to avoid excursions about the statistics of temperature is to avoid over-generalizations like figure 1. The time period is far too short (since 1950) for a depiction of extremes. The distribution of temperature depicted is not symmetric and the Gaussian curve drawn on top does not really match the data. However, the gaussian distribution for daily temperature is supported, e.g. http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0442%281999%29012%3C1796%3ALSWRAL%3E2.0.CO%3B2, "The distribution of daily temperature is approximately Gaussian (Dettinger and Cayan 1992)". From what I have read at http://climate.met.psu.edu/www_prod/features/rainextreme.php and http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.846/abstract, extremes in precip are best characterized with gamma distributions. In the same paper (first link) they say "Daily precipitation has a one-tailed distribution that is well approximated by the gamma distribution". My question is do the extremes follow the statistics of the regimes (large scale patterns)? E.g. fig7 in that paper. Since extreme heat is often driven by feedback (heat causing dryness causing heat and heat overcoming thermal inertia), then the regime or pattern has a great deal of importance and should be considered in the statistical analysis.
69661. Norman at 22:58 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       muoncounter @ 113 I want to point out it is not my claims about the Moscow heat wave and its causes. NOAA scientists are the ones who come up with the explanation and support of their ideas. So it is not "Norman" vs the "Experts" and Norman receives a knockout with the first blow because of a total lack of knowledge, and experience in the field. It would be one group of experts with another explanation to another group of experts. NOAA and 2010 Heat Wave in Russia. From this article: "The strength of the height anomaly at 500mb during July/August 2010 was 4 times the standard deviation of July heights—a departure amplitude similar to that in the region's July surface temperatures. Typically, there is little persistence of the circulation pattern from July to August, although the current block that formed in early July continued with great strength through the middle of August. The extreme surface warmth over western Russia during July and early August is mostly a product of the strong and persistent blocking high. Surface temperatures soared as a result of the combination of clear skies, sinking motion within the environment of the high pressure causing compressional heating of air, the lack of any temporary relief owing to the blocking of the typical cold fronts that cool the region intermittently in summer. Add to this scenario the cumulative effect of drought that began in early summer which caused soils to dry and plants to desiccate to wilting point , thereby causing additional surface warming via land feedbacks as the blocking condition persisted. These are all well-known and studied physical processes that have accompanied summertime blocking and heat waves in the past."
       Response:

       [DB] And with this you stand revealed as not having read the OP at top.  And thus continue to prosecute your agenda of contrarian for the sake of contention alone.

       Cease.

       Extensive quote that should have just been linked to struck out.

69662. Norman at 22:51 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       michael sweet @ 115, I obtained my data from the NOAA maps generated from the sources found in post 94. I did not pick one state or one month but 5 states and 30 years of summer temps for the state. I linked muoncounter to the summary page of how NOAA calculated the state average summer temp.
69663. michael sweet at 22:02 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Norman, You continue to use anomaly data in an attempt to deduce what the standard deviation of a result is. This is impossible. Then you say, based on the anomaly summary graph of a single month (from Hansen), the standard deviations must be lower than Hansen calculated. You calculate that the standard deviations are approximately 1.5 degrees. Hansen (2011), figure 2, center graph shows standard deviations as 0.4-0.8 in Texas and about 1.0 in South Dakota. Your claim that they are the same is simply wrong. His numbers are lower than yours because he averages June, July and August. Hansen, figure 1, shows a large area of Texas (but not all Texas) with an anomaly over 3 degrees. You looked only at a single month in South Dakota, typical cherry picking. The anomaly data does not contradict the standard deviations as you claim. Your monthly state by state calcuations are simply wrong. You are claiming a problem that exists only because you are incapable of following Hansen's directions correctly. Did you read Hansen before you tried to replicate his data?? If you cannot do the calculation corrctly you should presume that trained scientists, who have been audited by the web, have done the calculation correctly. Don't compare apples and oranges. The key to Hansen's analysis is to use large amounts of data. That enables him to make broad claims that cannot be made with small data sets. You are using small data sets. That is why you get the incorrect answer.
69664. Hopeful at 19:50 PM on 22 November 2011
       The Debunking Handbook Part 3: The Overkill Backfire Effect
       This has been helpful for me as a layperson - thankyou for the tips. I like the tips for handling the splenetic person, noble_serf. At uni we were taught that small group discussion is the teaching process employed if the learning involves attitudinal change ( eg we are individually responsible) . Also, I learn with information presented in visual form, auditory form, experientially and with time to reflect, to allow pennies to drop and dots to connect. I think in images and simplified, familiar concepts eg I see the pot of water steaming on the stove thinking about the ocean warming, water vapour and floods. I see the 2.5 Hiroshima bombs every second heating the ocean. I conceptualise my changing level of understanding as a result of following the information on this website in a visual metaphor : Instead of appreciating "I am in a moving vehicle", I now appreciate that " I am in a vehicle travelling too fast,accelerating and on the wrong side of the road heading towards a semi-trailer with my brakes about to fail" - where is the paper bag in case I hyperventilate !!! I'm interested in how to help other lay people in my life who are not locked into denial and haven't read much on the topic to learn enough about climate change in 10-15 minutes ( I'm trying to write a summary of most potent facts as a cover note attached to the Critical Decade Report to hand out to professional women at work with the explanation that this is what I've learned, would you mind reading this, have a think and let me know if it makes sense and suggest ways to improve my summary) But what are the minimum and most potent facts required to arrive at the level of understanding/connected dots of the metaphorical semi-trailer collision ? Another question: I attended a lecture recently in which the speaker mentioned path-dependence theory to explain why people and organisations sometimes don't change in the face of new facts. The theory went something to the effect of: 1) an individual or organisation's decisions will tend to be influenced by previous decisions and understandings (prior path)and 2) if reinforced by "group think" supporting those understandings and decisions will cause the individual or organisation to become "locked-in" and unable to change. Part of the cause of the problem is a refusal by the organisation or individual to accept that they/she/he could be wrong. Some of us joked after the lecture when politely challenging each others different views "you're not being a bit path-dependent are you ?". It gaves us language/concept to examine our own and each others professional views and how it is that an idea can attract a following and maintain the following long after it had been proven to be relatively of limited value. Though the lecture was on a different topic altogether (not climate change) I wondered if path-dependence theory is relevant to understanding "locked-in" resistance to change in individuals and organisations in regard to climate change facts and action or is it an unrelated issue? The lecturer gave the quote from John Maynard Keynes " When the facts change, I change my mind, what do you do?" but I don't think that would go down too well with those of a different view.
69665. chriskoz at 18:17 PM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       The question 2 was formulated badly, as the consequence of wrong answer to q1 (if they've been asked in that order): student was seeking the primary cause of GW, because CO2 was suggested as negative. If the answer to q1 was: "CO2 - 48% forcing", then q2 would be redundant. And Pielke happily continues his theory of "climate complexity", "multitude of natural causes" blah blah. Deja vu classical denial attitude: obfuscate the simple outcome with confusing fringe factors of which general public has little knowledge. I think Pielke sounded more reasonable when he was discussing his points here on SkS. However this school interview shows that, assuming Pielke is just 'skeptic', not an intentional liar, he is also a very bad teacher, concentrating on talking his minute details while not paying attention that his audience gets the wrong message. Such person should not be allowed to teach kids.
69666. Riduna at 17:10 PM on 22 November 2011
       World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
       The door has closed on 2C and is barely ajar on 4C by 2100. We have sown the seed of our own destruction and are busily nurturing it with greenhouse gas emissions. The harvest we shall reap will be one which brings about socio-economic collapse and the loss of much that we have painstakingly built up because we persist in burning fossil fuels to meet our energy needs. We do so in pursuit of short term financial gain at the expense of long-term survival. Instead of moving to renewable energy sources, governments and industry cling to the hope that CCS technology will enable continued safe burning of fossil fuels to meet our energy needs. In so doing they ignore the fact that the capital and recurrent costs of CCS technology are such that it makes cost of energy produced by burning fossil fuels more expensive than energy produced from renewable sources. In short, CCS is neither a commercial or environmental option. Sustainability is not a question of curtailing use of energy or limiting access to it. It is a matter of ensuring that energy needs are produced from renewable sources. We already have the basic technology needed to achieve this and in coming years it will be improved, made more efficient and cheaper to use. It is not more widely deployed because: • burning fossil fuels is the cheapest way of producing energy and • the most promising alternative technology is at a developmental stage and neither urgency or finance are attached to its development and • vested interests seek to prolong the use of fossil fuels. To its credit, the Australian government is one of the few to enact legislation providing for rapid and sustained investment in clean energy alternatives, a move which is likely to prove more far-sighted than its proponents realize. Even so, the need for urgency in development and application of clean technology and its rapid global deployment is fiercely resisted, not so much by electricity generators per-se, as by the oil, gas and coal mining industries. How much longer will our species survive on this planet if we pursue business as usual or policies aimed at placating vested interests and failing to limit CO2 emissions to a dangerous 450ppm? Beyond 2100?
69667. KR at 16:22 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Norman Please consider what is being discussed here - extreme events. By their very nature extreme events do not happen very often, nor in many places at once, or they would be common events. In order to characterize rare extrema events, you need a great deal of data. Not just a single city, not just a couple of states that are a tiny fraction of a country representing, what, 4% of the planets surface? Far less than 1% of the Earth's surface? You instead need to use every data point possible so that you can clearly examine whether extrema events are changing frequency. Over and over on this website you have looked at published papers, containing world data, and said (paraphrasing) "But I don't see that happening in X", where "X" is some limited area near you. And if it's not clearly happening in your backyard, it is (to you) not happening at all. This is myopia at its most severe, and a completely incorrect approach with respect to the larger set of data. Hansen and others publish their data, their methods, etc. If you disagree you need to either assemble and analyze a set of data with matching or greater extent, demonstrate different results, or point out some error in their analysis. You have done neither, despite repeated pointers to this fact. Backyard statistics simply do not, and can not, outweigh global data.
69668. muoncounter at 15:44 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Norman#108: Some examples, followed by some unsolicited advice. 1. Your comment:I know the current global warming is about 0.8 C. This would shift the distribution curve just slightly to the right. Not enough to really affect the 2010 Moscow anomaly either way or make it more likely. Here is Hansen, as quoted here by Albatross:Thus there is no need to equivocate about the summer heat waves in Texas in 2011 and Moscow in 2010, which exceeded 3σ – it is nearly certain that they would not have occurred in the absence of global warming. My reading of your comment is that you feel Hansen's statement is absolutely incorrect. 2. In spite of the images of temperature anomaly distributions taken from Hansen's paper posted here, you maintain here and here that the distribution shown in those graphs is incorrect. 3. This post, as well as tamino's Extreme Heat and the 3 papers discussed immediately above suggest that the warming drives distribution curves to the right making extreme events more likely. Yet you've repeatedly stated that 'blocking' is the reason for sweltering summer temperatures. You've repeatedly stated on other extreme weather threads that there is nothing extreme about these events. This makes it clear that you find all this published research incorrect. To summarize, your technique is to invent your own method of analyzing records, which not surprisingly cannot duplicate the published results. Various posters, myself included, suggest that you re-evaluate your methods; I have seen no indication that you have even considered that advice. In that context, repeated use of 'I do not understand how ... ' sounds a lot like you believe that the published work is wrong. So here is the advice: Start by assuming that the methods used by scientists are appropriate - and that if your methods do not duplicate their results, it may be your methods that are questionable. Do not assume that no one else knows what they are doing. Listen and learn from the folks here who know what they're talking about (and I don't include myself in that group). The quality of the discussion would improve enormously if more skeptics approached this complex subject with a desire to learn rather than a preconceived drive to refute.
69669. skywatcher at 15:35 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Norman, none of this amateur statistic information you've presented contradicts in any way the thorough quantitative analysis by R & C, Hansen et al, or the other papers linked here. Therefore, I take it you agree, like Hansen and others, that there is sound evidence that globally extreme events are increasing as the world warms.
69670. Norman at 15:28 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       102 michael sweet, I was not intending to make a "wild claim" that Hansen calculated standard deviations incorrectly. (-snip-) I still want to point out that I am not making any claim that the Hansen data is not correct, valid or accurate. I am making the claim I do not understand how he developed his graphs. I did go to the GISS sight and did find long lists of temp data. Thanks for directing me to the source. I can't validate the graph with this information though. Not enough time in a day.
       Response:

       [DB] If you do not understand how Dr. Hansen obtained his graphs then I suggest emailing him.  Endless speculations using regional temperature data are off topic on this thread.

       Future comments like this will be deleted outright.  OT temperature perambulations snipped, again.

69671. Bob Lacatena at 15:20 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       109, Norman, Please stop doing pretend kitchen statistics. It's misleading and just plain wrong to do.
69672. Norman at 15:15 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Tom Curtis @ 98, I am not convinced your point 1)"The variability in temperature increases with higher latitude, so yes, "verall summer temps are much more variable in South Dakota than Texas" is correct. I did generate 30 years of NOAA maps with a State-wide summer temperature. I collected data on South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Texas and Oklahoma. I started with year 1951 and went to 1980 (same used in GISS maps). 1951 to 1980 State temperatues. (I am using Fahrenheit as that is how the NOAA maps are set up in, it will not matter on standard deviation it will be the same proportion) Nebraska Temp average:.. 72.18... Standard Deviation: 1.57 South Dakota Temp Ave:.. 70.07.... Standard Deviation: 1.61 Montana Temp Ave: .......... 63.8...... Standard Deviation: 1.36 Texas Temp Ave: ............... 81.33... .Standard Deviation: 1.54 Oklahoma Temp Ave: ....... 79.96 .... Standard Deviation: 1.87 Your conclusion that northward states would have a greater degree of variablility in the 30 year period does not appear to be forgone conclusion. Texas is less than Nebraska or South Dakota but not a great amount but greater than Montana.
       Response:

       [DB] You continue to ignore good advice in your eagerness to prosecute your agenda of "no it isn't".  The "statistics" you employ are woefully incomplete and inadequate to the task to which you set them.

       You must be able to grasp the figure I posted earlier in this thread here, or you will never comprehend the points made in the OP.  Or do your preconceptions keep you from comprehending them?

       Off-topic meanderings on regional temperatures struck out.

69673. Bob Lacatena at 15:13 PM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       10, Pirate, I think communicating the science properly to children is hugely important. There is no excuse for any sort of miscommunication. This applies as much to climate science as it would to, for instance, intelligent design versus evolution. One is faith, the other is science. It is absolutely necessary that children be taught the science, as it is currently understood, rather than a communicator's personal beliefs.
69674. Norman at 15:01 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       muoncounter @100 Here is a link. for the graphs posted in #94. "If you cannot duplicate the work of an expert analysis on the back of an envelope, the experts must be wrong." I do not recall in any of my posts making the claim that the experts were wrong (In this case Dr. James Hansen). My original post in #78 read "I have looked into those graphs and I do not understand how they have 2011 for US about double 1936 for extremely hot. I will agree the eyeball is not the most accurate measuring tool but it can still easily distinguish areas that are twice the size of another." I am curious as to how a lack of understanding becomes a claim the experts are wrong. Then in Post #86 I reinterate "So I guess I still do not understand how the United States percentage graph, in your post at 30, was generated." Again I am not stating Dr. Hansen's research is wrong. I am claiming I do not know how he arrived at this graph. If I do not understand something I like to start researching and work to the best of my abilities to figure it out. Questioning a graph is not the same thing as claiming the author is wrong. It must be a flaw in my style of posting. Maybe I come off as an arrogant wanna-be climatologist. I assure you that is not who I am. I do like to learn and research and validate claims (which I attempted in other threads, perhaps poorly). I recognize Tamio has great ability in the field of statistics. I understand that Hansen has a far greater degree of knowledge than I do in the area of climate. It does not forbid me from questioning their conclusions. Questioning things is the way to learn. If one does not understand something question, research and learn. As you research new worlds open up and new ideas from in the process.
69675. muoncounter at 14:31 PM on 22 November 2011
       Republican Presidential Candidates vs. Climate Science
       This one's a whopper, up there in the stratosphere of myths with Singer and Seitz. Air pollution has no connection to asthma, Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul said on the Senate floor. ... Paul's chart was a graph showing air pollution declining in California as the number of people diagnosed with asthma rose. The chart attributed the data to a May 2003 paper by what was then called the California Department of Health Services. But the department never plotted the relationship between those two factors. Reaction from a childhood asthma advocacy group: As Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Thus we read, “Air pollution has no connection to asthma,” Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul said on the Senate floor. ... Paul, an ophthalmologist and eye surgeon said in his remarks: “We have decreased pollution and rising incidence of asthma. Either they are inversely proportional or they are not related at all.” There's only one response to that: Wow.
69676. Bob Lacatena at 14:29 PM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       10, Pirate, Pielke's answer to question 2 includes this total and complete falsehood:

       For example, the global average temperature anomalies are cooling!

       Beyond this, he puts unnecessary emphasis (as he always seems to do) on natural climate forcings. But beyond this and more importantly he mentions feedbacks in the same breath (and after) natural climate forcings as if they have nothing to do with CO2, even though those feedbacks are primarily in direct response to the CO2 forcing! When speaking to high school students, one would expect a scientist (or a science teacher) to be a little more clear and honest about the current state of the science, rather than twisting the presentation to put forth a personal position.
69677. actually thoughtful at 14:20 PM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       I had, up to this point, reserved some respect for Pielke, based on his scientific credentials, and the fact that a contrarian forces everyone to up their game - and climate science is too important to not be researched with our top scientists "A" game. However, the goal when teaching students is to increase their critical thinking skills. Trying to wash their brains in a given ideology is NOT critical thinking. These students are worse off than they were before Pielke spoke, based on the information presented here. He appears to have bent many, many facts in order to present a very incomplete picture of what we know, as a species, about global warming. Shame on you Dr. Pielke.
69678. muoncounter at 14:13 PM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       pirate#10: Except for this blatant fiction: the global average temperature anomalies are cooling! Anomalies don't cool. Even so, it is fiction: See the animated gif of temp anomaly trends (figure 1 here) and the BEST summary thread. Or just use the Curry phrasing: there is no scientific basis for saying that global average temperature anomalies are cooling.
69679. actually thoughtful at 14:11 PM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       Apirate - what is your evidence that the world is cooling? That seems counter to everything we know, and what we know is more than Pielke acknowledges.
69680. muoncounter at 14:06 PM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Tom C and Albatross: That makes three papers plus R and C verifying this statistical approach. It is interesting to read in Schaer: The dashed and full curves in Fig. 2 relate to the empirical and the fitted gaussian distributions, respectively, and their close agreement shows that the gaussian distribution is an excellent approximation to the data. ... an event like summer 2003 does not fit into the gaussian statistics spanned by the observations of the reference period, but might rather be associated with a transient change of the statistical distribution. This interpretation is consistent with the idea that small changes of the statistical distribution can yield pronounced changes in the incidence of extremes. -- emphasis added And of course, tamino's Extreme Heat post shows the same. This is called consilience of evidence. An excellent lesson in the power of statistical analysis of comprehensive datasets as opposed to back-of-the-envelope and cherrypicking.
69681. apiratelooksat50 at 13:59 PM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       On the first read-through, Question #2 is adequately answered.
69682. macoles at 13:06 PM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       Dana, great post but here's a little nitpick: "that it's caused by anything but CO2" in the second last paragraph really should be "that the primary cause is anything but CO2". In no way does Pielke totally ignore CO2 as the original line suggests.
69683. John Hartz at 12:58 PM on 22 November 2011
       Congressional Climate Briefing - The End of Climate Skepticism?
       “Science-averse Republicans have once again blocked the establishment of a National Climate Service by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, moving from denial of man-made climate change to the denial of climate itself. “I’m very concerned that NOAA has taken steps to form what amounts to a shadow climate service operation,” House science committee chair Ralph Hall (R-TX) cried in September. At a hearing in June, Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) blasted the budget-neutral plan to consolidate NOAA’s existing, widely dispersed, climate capabilities under a single management structure as “propaganda services.” In the committee report submitted by appropriations chair Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) for the 2012 budget, the National Climate Service is expressly forbidden. Source: “GOP Deniers Block Creation Of Climate Service” Think Progress, Nov 21, 2011 To access the entire article, click here.
69684. Tom Curtis at 11:58 AM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Albatross @105, the results of Hansen et 2011 as shown by DB inline earlier on this thread also show greater variability of temperatures.
69685. Albatross at 11:32 AM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       Dana, I'm curious to see if Pielke is going to try and spin this on his blog, or even worse, at a misinformation site like WUWT. Wouldn't that be ironic....The easy and honourable thing for Pielke to do would be to admit error, revise his response to the high school in question and apologize. I am also very curious to know whether his interactions with the high school was done on his own initiative or was it done as part of the Interdisciplinary Education and Outreach programs run by CIRES ( Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)? Pielke is currently affiliated with CIRES. I would argue that his misinformation exercise is not consistent with their mission statement (in addition to that of NOAA, CIRES is a joint institute of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Colorado at Boulder): "Our goal is to support exemplary science education at all levels, encourage curiosity and understanding about our environment, and to bring our research to bear as a resource in service of societal needs, including education." In my opinion, his responses to the students represent the very antithesis of education or public service.
69686. Albatross at 10:50 AM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       Muoncounter @104, Now that is interesting, from Schar et al's (2004) abstract: "We find that an event like that of summer 2003 is statistically extremely unlikely, even when the observed warming is taken into account. We propose that a regime with an increased variability of temperatures(in addition to increases in mean temperature) may be able to account for summer 2003. To test this proposal, we simulate possible future European climate with a regional climate model in a scenario with increased atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations, and find that temperature variability increases by up to 100%, with maximum changes in central and eastern Europe." Now this is the interesting part, Medvigya and Beaulieu (2011) just reported that global weather has become more variable since 1984, a period of relatively rapid warming. "The changes in high-frequency climate variability identified here have consequences for any process depending nonlinearly on climate, including solar energy production and terrestrial ecosystem photosynthesis." Medvigy and Beaulieu did not look into a connection with CO2 forcing, but Schar et al. (2004) did find a connection in their work between increased GHG forcing and temperature variability. So background warming plus increased variability could explain quite a bit of what is going on here in terms of the recent spate of exceptional temperature extremes.
69687. muoncounter at 10:33 AM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       In another paper, Schaer et al 2004 demonstrate that long term warming results in an increased variability in temperature anomalies and that extreme events stand out. One expression of this warming is the observed increase in the occurrence of heatwaves. Conceptually this increase is understood as a shift of the statistical distribution towards warmer temperatures, while changes in the width of the distribution are often considered small. Here we show that this framework fails to explain the record-breaking central European summer temperatures in 2003, although it is consistent with observations from previous years. We find that an event like that of summer 2003 is statistically extremely unlikely, even when the observed warming is taken into account. We propose that a regime with an increased variability of temperatures (in addition to increases in mean temperature) may be able to account for summer 2003. And that was prior to the European heatwaves of 2006 and 2010. As they say, the hot just get hotter. Their distribution curves (figures 1 and 3) are remarkably similar to the ones shown here; their outlier graph (figure 4) is remarkably like the one posted by John Nielsen-Gammon for Texas 2011.
69688. Albatross at 10:13 AM on 22 November 2011
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       Contrary to certain absurd claims being made by "skeptics", the climate system has continued to accumulate energy since the cherry-picked 1998. In fact, between 1998 and 2008 another ~50x10^21 Joules of energy were accumulated/retained in the climate system, despite an increase in aerosol loading since 2000 and a prolonged solar minimum after solar cycle 23 (since 2003). [Source]
69689. Albatross at 08:41 AM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       Dana @6, Steve was probably referring to a claim that was trumpeted by "skeptics" on the internet back in late 2009 that "Al Gore admits that the majority of global warming that occurred until 2001 was not primarily caused by CO2". The number quoted there is 40%. Either way those data are 10 years old now, and yes the amount of net positive radiative forcing is not the same as the amount of warming. Concerning the glacier mass balance numbers in Fig.3, they have continued to decline since 2005 when the graph terminates. Between 2005 and 2009 they lost another 3 metres water equivalent. None of this challenges the fact that Dr. Pielke grossly distorted and misrepresented the facts thereby misinforming students.
69690. dana1981 at 08:19 AM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       SteveFunk @2 - I assume you're referring to Figure 3, not Figure 2. Figure 3 is in units of meters of water equivalent (m w.e.), not gigatons. For further details on global glacier mass decline, I recommend the World Glacer Monitoring Service, from which Figure 3 came. I suspect you're misinterpreting Al Gore's book. By our calculations, CO2 is responsible for approximately 48% of the net positive radiative forcing, which may be the figure you're referencing. This is not the same as the amount of warming due to CO2.
69691. Albatross at 07:41 AM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       Hi SteveFunk @2, Sorry to read that you are not disturbed by Pielke's antics. This post is about Dr. Pielke misinforming impressionable high school students, not Al Gore. Please stop trying to obfuscate and distract people from Pielke's misinformation. Thanks.
69692. Albatross at 07:39 AM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       WheelsOC, Good observations.
69693. scaddenp at 07:20 AM on 22 November 2011
       Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
       "Would that not make SkS an echo chamber?" I would say that SkS is indeed proudly the echo chamber for published science as opposed to misinformation.
69694. scaddenp at 07:16 AM on 22 November 2011
       The Last Interglacial Part Five - A Crystal Ball?
       Just to further reiterate the point. The rebuttals in links like Lindzen Illusions, Spencer Slip-Ups, Christy Crocks are not to statements they have made in published literature but to misinformation they stated in public forums. And since you are not impressed by Mann's tree ring data, perhaps you would like to discuss (on the correct thread) the published papers that have led you to this position. I would sincerely hope that since you respect science that your position is based on some published science and not blog commentary.
69695. WheelsOC at 07:04 AM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       I'm sure Dr. Pielke saw his answers as promoting nuance and a do-it-yourself encouragement to engage in scientific thinking. But when you're asked straight questions about whether global warming is happening and you don't answer "Yes," that's obfuscation. When you recommend unscientific and statistically backwards criticisms of climate models, that's promoting anti-science in place of the real deal. Likewise, his claim about cooling is anti-science (unscientific, statistically backwards). He might as well have recommended a Duane Gish book as reading material to a question about evolution and said that there are no beneficial mutations. I've become very disappointed the more closely I watch credentialed scientists of the "skeptical" camp lately. Spencer, Curry, and Pielke all seem to be retreating from genuine scientific thinking and literature at an alarming pace, leaving their real skepticism at the door. They're going in the Lindzen direction.
69696. SteveFunk at 07:02 AM on 22 November 2011
       Pielke Sr. Misinforms High School Students
       Al Gore's book (actuallly written by a team of scientists under his direction) Says 43% of warming is attributable to CO2. It's the largest single influence, but less than half. Figure 2 is meaningless without some context. Does a 20 gigaton decline in glacier mass represent a loss of 1%, 30% or something in between.
69697. les at 06:55 AM on 22 November 2011
       Congressional Climate Briefing - The End of Climate Skepticism?
       41 - moderator DB I appologuse for serving up that somewhat cheesy diversion. Although I think that apirates splenetic defense is illustrative... ... and I've learned a new word.
69698. skept.fr at 06:30 AM on 22 November 2011
       World Energy Outlook 2011: “The door to 2°C is closing”
       John : I totally agree with your contextualization. And I must add for a broader context: the 164 scenarios run for the IPPC report on renewable energy (SRREN 2011), including Teske model [r]Evolution and IEA WEO2009 as the baseline, disagree quite strongly with each other concerning the sustainable level of RE in energy mix for a 450 ppm scenario in 2050. This can be observed in page 19 of the Summary for Policymakers (approx. factor 4 of total dispersion for what we can supply with RE alone, around a mean value of 248 EJ/y). The Sven Teske model [r]Evolution has by far the most ambitious RE production, 428 EJ/y in 2050, but far away the median value and out the inter-quartile range (25th to 75th percentile). So we must suppose some experts are very critical of Teske model, as well as Teske himself is very critical of IEA model (your quote). That is to say : there is no consensus among economy-energy experts for the definition of solutions (as opposed to the consensus among climate experts for the definition of the problem). Of course, part of this dissensus is political by nature – as for example the well-known Greenpeace opposition to nuclear. But for the moment, it is not clear if the are also 'technical' dissensus among experts. The problem of an energy-economy model is not just to produce energy, because hypothetical limits on Earth are far greater that what we consume now, but to produce energy a) in a sustainable way from known technologies ; b) so as to meet basic needs in all sectors of activity ; c) in a given hypothesis of demographic and economic growth. As all citizens of one of the most experienced region in decarbonization (European Union), with Kyoto Protocol and the 20-20-20 Climate-Energy Plan for 2020, I observe the complexity and difficulty of such a transition in a large scale. For exemple, Peters et al 2011 have shown that EU met the (very modest) Kyoto targets only if the 'grey energy' from trade (imports) is excluded of the budget.
69699. Albatross at 06:08 AM on 22 November 2011
       Not so Permanent Permafrost
       Hi Charlie, Not yet i'm afraid. I know that a couple of groups have been emailed but, to my knowledge, they have not replied yet. Having to wait this long for them to reply is a little annoying.
69700. Charlie A at 05:58 AM on 22 November 2011
       Not so Permanent Permafrost
       Figure 2 of this article has the caption "Fig. 2 Actual and projected loss of permafrost. .." As I noted 3 weeks ago, all of the data in the figure, including the "actual" permafrost areas for the 20th century appear to be simulations. Although the caption says "Courtesy UNEP/GRID-Arendal ", the original graphic appears to have been generated by the World Wildlife Fund. Has SkS been able to determine the actual source of Figure 2 and the source of the "historical" data?

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