this group is definitely interested in moving the science forward.
"The video operators are under strict instructions from FIFA not to replay controversial calls on the stadium screens, but they have done so on numerous occasions during this tournament."
-- NY Times
A reception featuring local wine and beer preceded a public lecture by Sean B. Carroll, winner of the second annual Stephen Jay Gould Prize.
Acknowledging the embattled times evolution faces, Carroll got big laughs when, asking non-biologists to raise their hands, he quipped, “You’re all going to hell.”
“The good news,” he continued, “is hell is full of smart, interesting people."
There is no unique fingerprint of AGW. Since it is a "radiative forcing" (radiative energy imbalance of the climate system), it cannot be distinguished from circulation-induced changes such as a decrease in albedo of the Earth (e.g. a decrease in cloud cover) or an increase in atmospheric water vapor or high cloud cover
The AGW crowd either do not believe these changes occur, or they do not know enough to realize that is what they are implicitly assuming.
Some will claim stratospheric cooling IS a signature of increasing CO2, which indeed is possible, but the stratosphere is much simpler in behavior than the troposphere, where clouds and other moist processes have such a huge influence.
So, I do not believe there is any way to recognize AGW...short of global temperatures increasing another 5 deg. C. That would probably make even me a believer. :-)
It has occurred to me that it is possible this debate -- and all the ancillary junk that goes along with it -- will never end. Think about it: suppose we drastically refurbish society and get all of our future energy from renewable, non-carbon sources. It's the year 2080 and temperatures are the same as they are today.
Advocates will argue that it was the switch to non-C energy sources that saved the day. Skeptics will argue that CO2 was not such a big problem all along and we spend $5T for nothing.
Hopefully 2080's science will be advanced enough to distinguish between these two scenarios. But I'm not sure that's a given.
(PS: If you're reading this in the year 2080 AD, PLEASE leave a comment.)
(and I recommend it, if you can find it in paperback), you'll be astonished to see how much was already known about man's influence on the climate in the 1980s -- clearly enough to even then take the subject very seriously, viz., enough knowledge to take action.
If you're a graduate student physics, you have to buy it. It now costs $123, at least on Amazon. I think I got mine for $40, and I still read it a few times a year. Someday I hope to even understand it.![\[ T_ M = (2 c/g) [exp(gT_ F/4c)- exp(-gT_ F/4c)]. \]](http://plus.maths.org/MI/plus/latestnews/sep-dec09/timetravel/indexhtml2/images/img-0001.png)
If Florence's clocks and aging report a round trip time of 10 years, Methuselah will have aged by 25 years. If Florence aged 30 years, Methuselah will have aged 4,500 years. If Florence aged 88 years, Methuselah will have aged 14 billion years, which is the current age of our Universe! Unfortunately, no known rocket fuel, not even thermonuclear fusion, is capable of producing the sustained multi-year-long acceleration required for such a trip.
...it is time for the media to stop listening to, quoting, and enabling those who spread anti-science and anti-scientist disinformation.
Romm can stuff it.
While there is little doubt that humans are influencing today's climate -- even Lindzen, Spencer, Lomborg, and others admit that -- and that our methods of generating energy are, over the time-scale of decades, a huge future crisis -- there are still some very important and legitimate questions about climate science and rational skeptics have a role to play in answering them.
For example: just how much of recent temperature increases are due to man's influence (GHGs + land use changes) and how much a natural or random fluctuation -- is it 2/3rds, or 1/3rd, or what?
In the ten years or so that I've been following and covering climate science, there have been a lot of changes in the state of various questions, in both directions. The overall case for AGW seems stronger (compare the IPCC 4AR to the 2AR), and the Arctic is melting faster than was predicted ten years ago, but there are also issues that have been dialed back as further study was done, such as:
...sea level rise could hit 4 to 6 feet by century's end and then continue rising a foot or more a decade, until all the land-based ice on the planet is gone and seas are more than 200 feet higher. How will our children's children and their descendants adapt to that?
A foot a decade? For 2 millenia? Where does he possibly get that?
These kind of claims don't help. At all. Except to get you on Fox News (as the liberal target). Which sometimes I think is his major goal.
Of course you can put aside the climate change argument — even if you believe in climate change, America could be in full compliance with Kyoto and then some, and it wouldn't make much of a difference in the amount of CO2 pumped into the world's atmosphere, because the rest of the world won't be switching from fossil fuels any time soon. Meanwhile, as Bjørn Lomborg and others have long argued, there are some far more pressing environmental problems that could use the trillions of dollars that would be thrown away on slightly reducing CO2 emissions by the end of the century (and delaying computer modeled predictions of warming by a few years).
This is an extremely weak argument -- a mere recitation of the age-old Tragedy of the Commons.
First of all, it assumes that the 1997 Kyoto Treaty was intended to be the final word on fixing the climate problem. Of course, it was not, but just a beginning.
Secondly, it assumes the world and its citizens and governments cannot deal with more than more than one problem at once. You never make that assumption in your own life. If you have a heart problem and your roof leaks, you deal with them both -- medications, diet, exercise, and you hire someone to patch the roof.
By Goldberg's argument, one need never pay one's taxes, since it's only a few thousand dollars and the government would never miss it. You don't need to get vaccinated, as you're just a single individual and won't make any difference among the vast number of others who also aren't getting vaccinated.
And, of course, if the US were to cut their GHG emissions, it would serve as a strong example to the world. We also have plenty of political clout to "encourage" other countries to do the same.
Goldberg's arguments are trivial rather disappointing (not to say embarrassing). Real, intelligent arguments against action on AGW are welcome, but merely repeating age-old platitudes that obviously make no sense serve no purpose.
But now Aspen's own season is getting shorter: "More balmy Novembers, more rainy Marches," Schendler [Auden Schendler, executive director of sustainability for the Aspen Skiing Company] says. "That's what we're seeing, and that's what the science suggests would happen. If you graph frost-free days, there are more and more in the last 30 years." Climate-change models also predict warmer nights. Aspen Skiing has noticed that happening too, and the problem here is that nighttime is when ski lodges use their water-spraying technology to make snow—"and if you make it when it's warmer it's exponentially more expensive." The increasing volatility of weather overall—another prediction of climate change—poses a particular danger for ski resorts, because they operate in the red most of the year, making up their deficit during the ultra busy spring break in March. So if the weather is terrific for the entire winter but suddenly balmy during March break, that can ruin the whole fiscal year.
Schendler has also learned firsthand a point that climate scientists have been making for some time: With climate change, "warming" isn't the only—or even the most serious—challenge. The sheer interdependence of complex ecosystems systems can grease you. For example, recent droughts in Utah have kicked up red dust clouds that settle on Aspen's snow. This makes the snow melt more quickly (because the red absorbs more heat from the sun) while also making it too gritty to ski on.
Minimum temperature was most influenced by urbanization with the mean minimum temperature during the urban period exceeding that of the pre-urban period by 4.4°C (2.4°C) in June (January). A significant urban heat sink in January maximum temperatures was evident as the mean maximum temperature during the pre-urban period exceeded that of the urban period by 1.5°C....
-- Svoma BM, Brazel A (2010) Urban effects on the diurnal temperature cycle in Phoenix, Arizona. Climate Research 41:21-29
I suspect this depends a lot on local geography, but it just shows that UHIs do not necessarily make the region warmer. (And, just to be complete, their influence on global temperature averages is very small.)
...knowledge that is claimed by its producers to have universal authority is received and interpreted very differently in different political and cultural settings. Revealing the local and situated characteristics of climate change knowledge thus becomes central for understanding both the acceptance and resistance that is shown towards the knowledge claims of the IPCC. It is a task for physical and human geographers to take seriously, and to do together.OK, sure.
...human behavior isn't always driven by fear of long-term consequences, as anyone who's ever had a hangover knows. We've been doing as we please for centuries; it's a lot to expect us to change our consuming, polluting ways enough to make a difference.
Sounds should ebb and flow like tides with the fortunes on the field. That adds to the drama. Fans reacting with their voices to action on the pitch, to events in the stadium and to each other's sounds, songs and chants are part of football's theater.
A sudden crowd silence can also tell a story - perhaps of the heartbreak of a late, defeat-inflicting goal or of the collective shock of seeing a player horribly injured by a bad tackle. Sometimes, you should even be able to hear a coach bark orders from the touchline or players shouting at each other for the ball.
There are stadium sounds other than vuvuzelas at this World Cup - just not enough of them. They are being bullied into submission by the trumpets' never-ending screech....
In Rustenburg there were scattered unison chants of "In-ger-land, In-ger-land," a few bars of "God Save the Queen" and the occasional "USA! USA!" when England played the United States on Saturday night. But vuvuzelas ultimately won the battle of the bands. They and the result - a disappointing 1-1 tie - silenced England's fans, who usually are among the best-drilled noisemakers in football.
They take their singing seriously, with chants that are cheeky, taunting and often just insulting. But at least they are inventive, too.
The same cannot be said of vuvuzelas. They are simply mindless. Their pitch doesn't change, just the intensity. Blow hard. Blow soft. The only range is from horrifically loud to just annoyingly so. Because of that, we absolutely could not hear the rich African voices of Ghana fans who sang lustily Sunday at the Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria, vibrantly clothed in their national colors of green and red. What a shame.
"Scientists and academic institutions need to expand definition of what their “real work” is: “The work is not done, in my opinion, until it’s communicated in a way that citizens understand.
Scientists are lousy communicators.BFD. A scientist's job is not to "communicate" -- his/her job is to do science. Period. If that does not satisfy mere journalists like Begley or Mooney (or me), tough shit.
Perhaps some foreign country will have the guts that America lacks, and arrest him when he next sets foot on their soil....
, I highly recommend it. They made a 
