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

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Comments 46001 to 46050:

  1. Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable

    My prior post would have better said example +0.9 degrees C since that is the red line value. Example value makes no difference to the comment text though. 

  2. Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    That is very impressive fund raising!

    Three cheers for those that dug deep.

  3. Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable

    I disagree with point (2). Even if the graph C red line with flat temp next 300 yrs was correct I would disagree because "Global Warming" isn't changes in surface temperature, it's increase in the ocean heat content. Dr. Trenberth says in lecture 2 yrs ago there's 0.9+/-0.4 wm**-2 radiation imbalance and I believe him to be likely close enough because he seems knowledgeable. If temperature goes flat it's just because ocean mixing happens to match radiation imbalance. It would even be possible for radiation imbalance and temperature change both to be ~0 as much as is noticeable with "Global Warming" continuing, the heat just passes through unobtrusively (depending on the superbness of instrumentation & theory). As example only, if +1.5 degrees C happens to be the final average surface temperature then I see no reason why "Global Warming" would stop until the deep oceans entirely are +1.5 degrees C than they were a hundred years ago, or whatever is the base line for this. Furthermore, I think it's important not to mix'n'match phrases like "heat up" and "Global Warming" and also the trite ones bandied about (not in this post or comments) because that's going to confuse the heck out of non-scientists - when you say "heat up the planet" they'll think temperature of the bits they see. And "the planet" has a middley bit you know, apparently there's some molten rock. Shouldn't be calling "the ecosphere" "the planet". It really needs mention of the ecosphere, perhaps even some reference as to how deep in the earth and oceans is being considered.

  4. Philippe Chantreau at 15:47 PM on 26 April 2013
    Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    Dang! This was so quick that I didn't even see the original post, only the amended one with the "goal reached" update!!!

    Congratulations John and team. For one like me who has followed SkS since the early beginning, the evolution of the site is quite impressive. The collective publication record of the contributors is starting to add up too.

  5. Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham

    Agnostic @16 - I believe you do.  I certainly did!  Probably several dozen commenters linking to a terrible cherry picking blog post response by Tisdale on WUWT.

    Ironically cherry picking was the main subject I raised in my first Guardian blog post, and WUWT and Tisdale respond by...cherry picking data.

  6. Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    The paper will be published in a couple weeks.  We'll have a whole lot more to say about it then.

  7. Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    Oh yah: congratulations, well done, etc.  What's next?

  8. Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    What a hoot.  I was thinking, "Well, I'll have to wait till May 1, and then I'll pitch in."  Yah, so much for that. 

  9. Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham

    Congratulations!  By any standards, impressive.  Do I hear expressions of fury from the region of WUWT?

  10. Glenn Tamblyn at 10:49 AM on 26 April 2013
    Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    Thanks for all the support guys. 9 hours! Awesome

    The paper will be worth it. Hopefully JC will have more details on publication date soon.

  11. Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    Thanks to all who donated!  Very cool to have a citizen science paper open access-funded via crowd sourcing, and within 9 hours!  Great to see so much support of this important work.  I think everyone will be very pleased with the quality of the research and conclusions.

  12. Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    Just letting you all know our goal of $1,600 was met. As Dana published this blog post at 1am my time, we got halfway while I was blissfully sleeping. While I was on the train to campus, the donors quickly got us fully over the line. Thanks to all the donors, I'm blown away by the generosity and passion shown by SkS readers. Will publish a blog post with more details soon.

  13. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline

    Synapsid:

    The environmental/progressive community in the US and Canada is fully engaged in a multi-faceted effort to slow and eventually halt the extraction of fossil fuels in North America.  It is quite capable of adressing coal, oil, and natural simultaneously.
     

  14. Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    You don't need to complain about the donation being in AUD if you live in OZ such as in my case.The AUD go far better than they used to 15 or even 10yago, because of massively favourable exchange rate. Minor 2-3% exchange fees don't change this big picture, that donation is now far easier than ever for me.

  15. Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable

    Mark Bahner@40

    I don't want to have to guess what you mean, could you be more specific? I am not sure what premise Matthews and Solomon could have made that would be demolished by asking, or even answering, such a question about the economics of the far future.

    I don't think that anyone has the slightest clue what world GDP will be in several centuries' time. It depends on so many variables, among them population, technology, resources, plagues and, yes, even climate change.

  16. Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable

    wili@41

    Thanks.

    Yes, I do believe that we should follow the science, wherever it leads and however gloomy the prospect is. Frankly, I find the whole prospect of climate change and our response to it a rather uncomfortable and gloomy one. However, I have spoken to individuals who are very depressed because they believe that we are already on an unstoppable path to disaster; that climate feedbacks are out of control and will continue to worsen, no matter what we do. That is not (yet) correct and, as a misconception, could be taken to mean that resistance is useless, a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy.

    The science says that we need not feel fatalisitic, but neither can we afford to wait. Of course, this prescription will change the longer we procrastinate.

  17. Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    I usually give to SkS at the end/beginning of the year. A paper that more thorrowly investigates the consensus (the biggest attack point of big oil/coal) makes me exceed my planned giving budgets ... we need this paper, and we need it free.

  18. Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    If we save 2% by reducing one step of currency conversion, then over the whole amount of $1,600 we will have saved $32. This hardly seems worth all the extra set-up trouble in terms of multiple sub-accounts for different currencies.

  19. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline

    John Hartz:

    "...walking and working hand-in-hand...one of the biggest ecological disasters ever to have been created by the human race...continuing to develop a world-wide coalition of organizations dedicated to creating a grassroots (!) movement...campaign to get universities and colleges to disinvest in the fossil fuel industry..."

    More power to them all; every bit helps.

    My belief that Bill McKibben is focusing all of his time and energy on stopping the Keystone pipeline--I'm unaware of that belief.  I mentioned the attention McKibben has managed to focus on Keystone XL.  He has done that.  The rest of the statement comes from you.

    Ranking ecological disasters is a fool's game.  Mining the Athabasca oil sands  has had ghastly effects over a large area.  Right up there with what coal mining has done over large areas of Kentucky and West Virginia and Wyoming and Montana, with what the US Army Corps of Engineers has been told to do to natural drainage in Florida, with what Glen Canyon Dam has done to a chunk of southern Utah, with what has been done to the East Coast from New Jersey south (with the exception of North Carolina), with what the Aswan High Dam has done to Egypt...there's no end to the list.  I don't support any of it.  I'm pointing at coal and saying that the problem it represents needs much more visibility, and I'm doing that because the potential damage from utilization of coal is of a higher order of magnitude than is the damage from oil, bad as that is.  There are vast reserves of coal, and they're found in many parts of the world, and the demand for energy in countries with large and growing populations that want a Western lifestyle--that demand will grow and grow.  (The US and Australia are among the largest exporters of coal helping to meet that demand.)  Coal is and will continue to be the favored energy source in those countries, starting with China and India and their 2.5 billion people.  Coal production can be ramped up several fold but oil production cannot.  Got that last part?  If we don't tackle that, every way we can, with much greater effort and visibility than we have so far, then all the other efforts to cut back fossil fuels will be undermined even more than they are now.

    Want a mantra?  Here:  Coal is the climate killer.  Snappy; might have legs.

    The disinvesting campaign will likely do some good, but have you looked into how much money China has put into the oil sands?  China's first-right-of-refusal agreements for Venezuela's oil?  Similar moves in Brazil (China might come to regret those)?  Disinvest in fossil fuels, for good and worthy reasons, and you will send a message all right, and China will respond with, as they say, alacrity.  That's the downside we can't avoid.

    Let's give this a rest, out of consideration for the other readers on SKS.  I'm repeating my repetitions, and hearing about coalitions of organizations dedicated to_______________(fill in the blank) lost my sympathy decades ago.  May those folks all prosper and have daughters.

  20. Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    In my experience PayPal will let you set up several currency-specific accounts within your main account. So for example we have CAD, USD and EUR sections to our account. In the PayPal web site go to "My Account" > "My Profile" > "My money" and in the "PayPal balance" section click "Currencies".  Then you (SkS) can add a new currency.

    It would seem to make sense to receive the donations in the donator's currency and only convert once you know what currency you will be paying with. Note that money laundering laws prevent (or so PayPal claims) you from depositing foreign currency into a bank in your own country, even if that account is in the the foreign currency. But PayPal will convert it for you at their going fee and allow you to then put the (remaining) equivalent in your domestic bank account.

  21. Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable

    Andy, thanks for this great piece. One quible: In the second full paragraph, you say:

    "many mistakenly believe that the climate system is going to send more warming our way no matter what we choose to do. Taken to an extreme, that viewpoint can lead to a fatalistic approach, in which efforts to mitigate climate change by cutting emissions are seen as futile"

     

    My concern for now is not how valid various run-away gw scenarios may or may not be (I may get to that in a seperate post). But how you stated this sounds (though it may not be your intention) as if you think we should not consider valid any science that might make us feel sad or dispondent, since it may prevent people from taking effective action.

     

    It seems to me that this is essentially what Inhofe and others do when they admit that they accepted climate science until they started considering what tax or other policy consequences of accepting the science might be.

     

    The science is the science. We need to evaluate it on its own merits, not on what we think people's reactions to it might be or what politicies might be implemented because of it.

     

    Would you agree that we should look at the science, even if it does take us into places we may be emotionally and politically uncomfortable with?

     

    (Again, I think I am reacting to how some may interpret what you said as you stated it, more than what I would like to assume you actually think. Just looking for some clarity.)

  22. Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham

    Congratulations, John and Dana.

    I look forward to more.

  23. Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    The Journal's publication fee page is given here. They may bill SkS in UK Pounds (1000), Euros (1200) or US dollars (1600). Since the payment will coming from an Australian account, it will have to be converted into one of those currencies from Australian dollars. It would not have been practical to set up a foreign currency account in Australia just for this purpose.

    When you pay amount X in AUD, PayPal will tell you how much that is your local currency before you finalize the payment and you will be able to go back and change it if you want to.

    If you have any comments about anonymity or anything else, you have the option to "add special instructions to the seller". Alternatively, you can email John Cook at: john@skepticalscience.com

  24. john mfrilett at 04:27 AM on 26 April 2013
    Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    I want to donate but why not let me donate in US$ since that is the currancy you want?  Donation will be converted to AUD then back to US$.  I didn't see any way to donate in US$.

    John

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Paypal

  25. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline

    @Synapsid #12:

    You need to better understand the breadth and depth of the international coalition that has been created around the Stop Keystone Movement. The leadership of the Sierra Club is walking and working hand-in-hand with Bill McKibben and a myriad of others on this effort.

    Leaving aside the impact that the burning of petroleum products derived from the Alberta Tar Sands has on greenhouse gas emissions, the mining of the tar sands is one of the biggest ecological disasters ever to have been created by the human race. There are a myriad of environmental reasons why the mining of the Tar Sands should be brought to a halt.

    Your belief that the Stop the Keystone movement is diverting significant resources away from other ongoing campaigns to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in North America is simply wrong.

    Your belief that Bill McKibben is focusing all of his time and energy on stopping the Keystone pipeline is also wrong. He and his colleagues in 350.org are continuing to develop a world-wide coalition of organizations dedicated to creating a grassroots movement focused on climate change. He and his colleagues are continuing their campaign to get universities and colleges to disinvest in the fossil fuel industry.

  26. Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham

    jdixon1980, I wouldn't have expected it to remain the top link indefinitely... though I do still see it on the first page of results with a 'highly cited' tag. Clearly getting a lot of traffic and attention.

  27. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline

    John Hartz:

    Sure, the Sierra Club and Greenpeace and other organizations are doing their bit, and none of them are getting the attention that Bill McKibben has managed to focus on Keystone XL, more's the pity.

     

    I was a member of the Sierra Club for 24 years myself.

  28. We're heading into an ice age

    Tzedakis et al. (2012), "Can We Predict the Duration of an Interglacial?" mentions the end of the current interglacial only insofar as saying "We should also be able to predict the duration of the current interglacial in the absence of anthropogenic interference," and "glacial inception is possible despite the subdued insolation forcing, if CO2 concentrations were 240±5ppmv (Tzedakis et al., 2012)."  [Emphasis is mine.]

    That latter citation is of "Determining the Natural Length of the Current Interglacial," which says "No glacial inception is projected to occur at the current atmospheric CO2 concentrations of 390 ppmv. ... The end of the current interglacial would occur within the next 1500 years, if atmospheric CO2 concentrations did not exceed 240±5 ppmv." [Emphasis is mine.]

    Of course there is no chance at all of CO2 falling that low for the next several hundreds and probably not for the next several thousands of years (see Figure A in another post), so we're not getting a new "Ice Age" for a really, really long time.

  29. Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    FYI, about exchange rates.  The donation form is in terms of Australian dollars (AUD).  If one googles "exchange rate", there is a handy converter at the top of the results page.  It shows, for example, that 1AUD = 1.03 USD (or 1 USD = 0.97 AUD), and 1 AUD = 0.79 Euro.  However, Paypal adds a 2.5% currency conversion fee, so the end result today through Paypal is that 1USD = 0. 945830 AUD (or 1 AUD = 1.057272 USD).

  30. Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

    Ah, I'd been expecting a special "donations" form. The only spot I could find to leave a note was under "Add special instructions to the seller". At the time I decided "nope, that can't be it" so I've left no message. Is that where you want people to indicate anonymity or otherwise? Or have I missed the point altogether?

  31. Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham

    Congrats, Dana; love the title ;)

    CBDunkerson @1, sadly, when I just checked "global warming" in Google News, the top link is a denier article from the so-called "Washington Times Communities" with a big Washington Times logo at the top, and you have to read the fine print to see that "The opinions of Communities writers do not necessarily reflect nor are they endorsed by the Washington Times."  

    Then, the biggest, boldest headline is a James Taylor column in Forbes talking about how the "warmists" are resorting to their "last line of defense" - that the warming has gone to the "Bermuda triangle," i.e., the deep oceans, "you know, that part of our planet where we really can’t measure or find anything" . . . that is, unless you count the more than 3,000 Argo floats that have been recording data up to 2 kilometers deep in the ocean for the past six years!    

    Reminds of Bill O'Reilly's repeated mantra on TV, "tide comes in, tide goes out, no one can explain the tides..."  The Daily Show nailed him on that with a guest appearance by Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is admittedly perhaps just a little overqualified to explain the concept that the tides are caused by the moon's gravitational pull...  

  32. Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham

    Great news. We were thinking of changing our Sunday paper in any case. This might just tip the balance.

  33. The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years?

    While we are awaiting KK Tung's second post, it may be worth considering what the thesis presented by Tung & Chou 2013 ought to be establishing.

    Here in this post, the consequence presented by the thesis was that of the 'flat' forcing profile. Although no supporting evidence for such a 'flat' profile has been offered, our inability to quantify negative forcings with any useful accuracy does not preclude such 'flatness'. Perhaps the strongest argument that it may be 'flat' is the rise in global temperatures 1910-1940. Attributing natural or human forcing to this rise has not been entirely convincing leaving the door open for T&C13 to suggest natural variation as a cause while pointing at the AMO as chief suspect.
    Myself, I am tempted to suggest that the human input remains yet to be fully researched. For instance, 1910-40 was overwhelmingly fuelled by coal yet it also saw the rise of the electrical grid which as today must surely have greatly impacted the levels of pollution per ton of coal burnt. Such consideration I have not seen mentioned for early 20th century climate forcing.

    The second post we eagerly await will presumably lead to discussion of the proportion of AGW present within the AMO signal (and the flip-side of that - how much AMO is present in the global temperature record). This does need to be fully addressed to prevent accusations of curve-fitting.
    Yet I don't think that is the primary requirement for T&C13. The thesis stands more strongly than say Asakofu (which is simple curve-fitting). T&C13 does more than just assert that the global climate, as exemplified by the AMO, is ringing like a bell and that it has done so for the last few centuries. T&C13 presents evidence for this 'ringing bell'. If compelling evidence for the 'ringing bell' exists, it doesn't really matter if it is driven by AMO, PDO, ENSO, AO or smelly BO.
    It is thus evidence of the 'ringing bell' that I consider the most important question, be it within AMO reconstructions or the CET record.

  34. Malaria: biting into the climate change debate

    Very good point, Tom Curtis. Thank you.

  35. Philippe Chantreau at 23:14 PM on 25 April 2013
    Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham

    Congrats Dana and John, I'm looking forward to reading more from you. I was not following the Guardian much before and that might change.

  36. Malaria: biting into the climate change debate
    Mark Bahner wrote: "I think he's [Reiter] "polemical" for the same reason Roger Pielke Jr. is "polemical" about climate change and weather disasters (in particular hurricanes) and Jesse Ausubel is "polemical" about trends in carbon dioxide emissions."Yep, sounds about right. All three staked out a position and have continued to hold to it despite solid evidence to the contrary. Global warming is already increasing malaria infections and weather disasters, and Ausubel's insistence that we don't need to worry about AGW because the global economy is decarbonizing is perhaps the most insane of the three in the face of ever rising CO2 emissions.Also, for the record, the only 'science' Pielke Jr has studied is political science. He's more a political commentator on science than a 'scientist'.
  37. Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham

    Great work Dana et al.

    Am looking forward to the publishing of the Australian edition of the Guardian -but I understand that won't happen before October.

    A market penetration opportunity  is being lost in not publishing before/during Australia's pre-election period. 

    Australia desperatley needs some honesty and integrity in news media- lets hope the Guardian can provide this. 

  38. 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #16

    If you live in Australia, you might be happy looking at the title of recent smh article:

    Electricity prices set to drop in OZ

    But you will be disappointed if you read inside:

    The main driver of the decline in 2015-16 is linking the carbon price with the European price...

    ...which crashed. I expected the reason would be rather due to renewables successfuly competing with coal, rather than cheaper C tax. What a joke: a bad news transformed for good news for greedy people who cares about their pockets only rather than a big picture.

    We are long way from fixing the planet and after this article, the way becomes longer. If C trading scheme does not work on the long run, why not replace it with Jim Hansen's fee and dividend scheme? I guess people are not ready to accept such scheme.

     

     

  39. Cornelius Breadbasket at 18:45 PM on 25 April 2013
    Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham

    Excellent - as a UK resident and a Guardian reader myself I'm thrilled with your appointment.

    A considered and intellegent response to the UKIP document <a href="http://ukip.org/media/policies/energy.pdf" target="_blank">Keeping the Lights On</a> woulkd be of great interest to readers.

    UKIP are the UK Independence Party - the UKs only real party in denial about Climate Change.

  40. Doug Hutcheson at 17:28 PM on 25 April 2013
    Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham

    ... and I'm delighted that the denier swarm has not succeeded in derailing the conversation over there! The few who push the denier agenda have been sent packing with sensible, logical argument. Good to see.

  41. Doug Hutcheson at 16:39 PM on 25 April 2013
    Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham

    Well done, Dana. Keep up the good work.

  42. Announcement: New Guardian Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and John Abraham

    Congrats indeed on a gig at the Graun! That's impressive!

    And riling up the CiF trolls is a sure sign you're on the right track...

  43. Bruce Caithness at 13:01 PM on 25 April 2013
    Rogues or respectable? How climate change sceptics spread doubt and denial

    Some thoughts triggered by Garth Paltridges "The Climate Caper" (2010):

    Hermann Hesse wrote a poem that is included in his novel "The Glass Bead Game. It is called "A Compromise" and it opens:

    "The men of principled simplicity

    Will have no traffic with our subtle doubt.

    The world is flat, they tell us, and they shout:

    The myth of depth is an absurdity!"

    The goal of science is to find satisfactory explanations for whatever we feel needs explaining. Whatever explanations we come up with in science are regarded as permanently open to criticism and refinement, but the holding of doubt is subtle, for not even the philosopher Karl Popper would suggest that theories that have survived severe testing should be readily discarded without serious consideration.

    The closing sentence of Hesse's excerpt raises the issue of who are the flat-earthers, the denialists of human accentuated climate change or the proponents? It is obvious in matters of conjecture and refutation that exaggeration and dogmatism can stain all sides of the debate. If Garth Paltridge's text highlights the dangers of an excess of dogmatism, the inertia of normal science, and the dangers of herd mentality, yes even in the IPCC, it is perhaps a worthy aim, if however it subtly reinforces denialist claims that have already been falsified in peer-reviewed testing then it would be a sad legacy for his eminent and long fought career. A forward by The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is not a good way to start a work of serious intent. Sad career finales are not without precedent, Sir Ronald Fisher, arguably the greatest statistician of the twentieth century naively stained his legacy in the final years of his life in questioning the impact of smoking for public health. Science has implications that are far from neutral or saintly in their disinterest. Do shrill, and politically correct, warnings about the dangers of tobacco look so misguided now?

    Moving to specifics, Garth Paltridge in this short book does question the hockey-stick model of climate change - later studies do seem to have falsified Garth's stance or at least have made it questionable.

    It is all well and good to comment on the sociology of science, to stress situational analysis and piecemeal engineering rather than big budget government social engineering. The price of liberty is indeed eternal vigilance but even piecemeal solutions can turn toxic if out of context. Climate change does present complexities of a new scale that require a diversity of opinion and robust debate, but denialism is not scepticism.

  44. Malaria: biting into the climate change debate

    Mark Bahner @5, like Pielke Jnr (who has built a career on the assumption that improved building codes have no effect on the risk of destruction by hurricanes), it appears to me that Reiter is pulling a swifty.

    Specifically, consider the following two maps:

    (Source)

    The bottom map shows the historical distribution of malaria, while the upper map shows the frequency distribution of sickle cell anemia alleles.

    Sickle cell anemia is very interesting for the study of evolution.  It is invariably lethal without intensive modern medical care (and often with it) if it is inherited from both parents.  If inherited from one parent, however, it confers a large degree of immunity to malaria.  It follows that high frequencies of sickle cell anemia will only occur where there are high frequencies of malarial infection (also normally fatal without modern medical care).  We can infer from the map above that the distrubtion of malaria in the second map leaves out an important component - the frequency of infection:

    (Source)

    Buggirl provides the following translation for the medically illiterate:

    "To translate: the different colors relate to the level of infection in the general population (PR, or Parasite rate). ”Endemic” means that the infection is maintained in a community at a more or less steady state.

    Epidemic/Unstable means that infections break out periodically in these regions
    Hypoendemic: less than 10% of the population is infected with malaria
    Mesoendemic: between 10% and <50% is infected with malaria
    Hyperendemic: Between 50% and75% is infected with malaria
    Holoendemic: over 75% of the population is infected with malaria"

    As can be seen from map a in the second figure, the historical distribution of malaria is just as Reiter says; but the frequency of infection in London and lapland was very low, only occuring in occasional outbreaks.  In constrast, in warm hot regions in Africa where sickle cell anemia is frequent, over 75% of the population was infected; or more correctly, 75% of the population without a sickle cell anemia allele.

    High altitude, high latitude or ariddity significantly reduce rates of infection.

    That picture is not complete.  There is a far more extensive distribution of Thalassemia, another frequenlty fatal blood disease that is endemic in populations because it confers a partial immunity to malaria:

     

     

    (Source)

    You will note the complemental distribution with sickle cell anemia in areas of frequent endemic malarial infection.

    So, will global warming push malaria into areas it has not occurred before?  No, certainly not with modern control methods.  Reiter is correct about that.  But will it expand the area in which malarial infection is endemic and so frequent that having a genetic disorder that gives a 25% chance of each child dying makes good genetic sense?  Absolutely.  No scientist merely trying to correct the record would fail to mention the important factor of frequency of infection.  Ergo Reiter's interventions are not in the interests of accuracy, but of politics.

    Hopefully modern control measures can keep up with that risk, although global warming has a kicker there as well.  The warmer the climate the greater the number of generations per year, and hence the quicker they will evolve immunity to various control measures.

  45. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline

    Synapsid:

    Recommend that you acquaint yourself with the Sierra Club's Beyond Caol Campaign which began in 2002. Here's a breif overview from the Sierra Club's website.

    Not only is coal burning responsible for one third of US carbon emissions—the main contributor to climate disruption—but it is also making us sick, leading to as many as 13,000 premature deaths every year and more than $100 billion in annual health costs.

    The Beyond Coal campaign’s main objective is to replace dirty coal with clean energy by mobilizing grassroots activists in local communities to advocate for the retirement of old and outdated coal plants and to prevent new coal plants from being built.

    Our goals include:

    Retiring one-third of the nation’s more than 500 coal plants by 2020

    Replacing the majority of retired coal plants with clean energy solutions such as wind, solar, and geothermal

    Keeping coal in the ground in places like Appalachia and Wyoming’s Powder River Basin

    Click here for more details.

    In the interest of full disclsure, I am an active member of the Sierra Club.

  46. 2013 SkS News Bulletin #8: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline

    John Hartz:

    Yes, Albertans would be better off--we'd all be better off--if development of the oil sands were slowed, no question about it.  I'd like to be a fly on the wall when the provincial government tries to bring that about, not that that is likely.  As a colleague in the Alberta oil patch put it:  Albertans like oil companies, and they don't like taxes.  His view may be slanted, of course.  For that matter, North Dakotans would be better off if oil production from the Bakken were slowed; aside from the societal strains, 30% of the natural gas that comes off with the oil is being flared because the infrastructure to collect it and transport it to a market doesn't exist. The state government of North Dakota could stop that tomorrow:  No more oil production until NG can be collected and sent to market--no more flaring.  That's Alberta's approach.  North Dakota doesn't do that, I expect because of lost tax and severance income.

    I'm no fan of Keystone XL or of any pipeline or hydrocarbon project.  We'd be much better off if we got off fossil fuels altogether, and one useful step would be to substitute NG for coal wherever possible on the way to that fossil-fuel-free garden we can see in our dreams.  That won't happen in a hurry, particularly because as NG becomes more expensive and more is produced it will become, once again, more expensive than coal.  (There are markets for NG, and demand, but it will take higher prices than current ones to make drilling for it in the US economic again.)  My point is that Keystone XL is not the game changer / end of the world as we know it that it all too often seems to be thought to be.  Stop coal.  Put the effort being directed at Keystone XL into stopping coal.  There's great demand for coal in this world, and its production could be increased several fold as that demand grows (China; India for starters)--and that is not the case with oil.  There's a reason that more and more effort and money have been expended in more and more difficult settings (deep offshore; below the salt off Brazil) to obtain oil that is more and more expensive:  that's what is left.  All the new production we hear about is just about matching decline in production from the really big fields that have been yielding for years.

    jyushchyshyn (Kirgiz?):  An interesting idea, that of not allowing Keystone XL to be built except with the condition that products refined from the crude it would carry not be allowed to be exported.  I don't know how it would work.  The crude would belong to whoever bought it from the producing companies in the oil sands, who might be refiners or companies that will sell it to refiners.  That would happen in Canada.  The US can't interfere with internal business in Canada, and the US would not own the pipeline, either.  Besides, US Midwest refiners are doing that very thing right now, as they buy Canadian crude backed up at Cushing, Oklahoma where prices are very low because of the glut, and sell gasoline and diesel refined from it in Latin America and the Carribean at prices comparable to products refined from $100 / barrel crude available on the world market.  They're coining money at the moment.

    Recall that approval from the White House applies to the part of the pipeline that actually crosses the US / Canada border.  The White House has no control over the part of the pipeline within the country, and I mentioned earlier that the southern part of the overall plan, from Cushing, OK to Texas Gulf-Coast refineries, is under construction right now.  President Obama gave his approval but that carries no weight--he has no power to approve or disapprove that stretch.

  47. Peter Sinclair interview with Michael Mann

    I'm trying to keep this in the right topic bin, which appears to be here since this post is the most recent referring to Wegman.

    In the current (May-June 2013) issue of American Scientist, Andrew Gelman documents serial plagiarism by Wegman.  Gelman on Wegman  Wegman's behavior with Mann is part of a chronic problem of academic misconduct (apparently).

  48. Malaria: biting into the climate change debate

    Malaria researcher Paul Reiter has a different take on this issue: The Malaria Myths of Climate Change.

    His tone in that article strikes me as more polemical than objective, but it would be useful to see a point-by-point response - if there is one.

    I think he's "polemical" for the same reason Roger Pielke Jr. is "polemical" about climate change and weather disasters (in particular hurricanes) and Jesse Ausubel is "polemical" about trends in carbon dioxide emissions. 

    They are men who have actually studied the science of the particular issues and are annoyed to see it misrepresented for the purposes of quickly reducing emissions of CO2.

    I can understand why Paul Reiter would be particularly annoyed, because the focus on global warming actually turns attention *away* from measures that actually reduce malaria mortality, and thus promotes more malaria deaths than would otherwise occur.

  49. Hockey stick is broken

    The Tamino 'Not Alike' link also goes nowhere (not found).

  50. Hockey stick is broken

    The link for the 'NOAA Paleoclimatology Reconstructions Network' returns a 'forbidden' message.

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