Let's Review....

Let's review where this whole debate is at:

1) Let's first note that it really doesn't matter whether the hockey stick shows that the late 20th century is warmer than any period in proxied history.

That's because climate today cannot be compared to climate then. Today's climate is subject to new, anthropogenic forcings that did not exist 1000 years ago. It's like comparing apples to oranges, and it has always been like comparing apples to oranges.

What really matters are today's forcings, and not those of a millenia ago.

2) Still, if you want to go there, we have been through years of suggestions (false, but suggestions) that PCA analysis is flawed and is statistically flawed. I have yet to have any real scientist tell me this, and everybody I've ever asked dismisses the M&M critique. In fact, nearly a dozen other independent analyses have found the same result.

The Tingley & Huybers result shows that the even a completely independent analysis shows the same result.

3) Now that skeptics have lost that front, we're supposed to believe that, no, it's the data that is flawed. The Yamal controversy, we know now, was manufactured all along, and in any case a few trees on a far northern peninsula could never have much of an effect on the conclusions.

Science is not about "auditing," and it has never been about auditing. It's about replication. IF skeptics like McIntyre want to be taken seriously, they need to go out and collect their own data, instead of writing endless letters to government officials complaining that someone won't play nice with them.

Of course, they never do that. They don't even try and apply for grants and explain why it's (purportedly) necessary. It's much easier to sit in your warm house in Toronto and send email all over the world than put your boots on and get to work.

And even if they could find no problems with the data, you can be sure that they would find plenty of other reasons to complain about it. After spending 8 years demanding that scientists give them their personal calendars, they would start dismissing any data taken on a Monday or Friday, because, you know, scientists were in a hurry to get back to their tents and make satellite calls home. Tuesday data would be rejected because the scientists ate chili that night, and we all know what that does to the intestinal tract.

On Thursdays, the phase of the moon was wrong.

There is, of course, no end to it, ever. That's important, because it's the first clue that ought to set off your bullshit detector, if you are intellectual honest.

And the reason, of course, is that none of the complaints are about science, or science would recognize them. (There has never been a contrary scientific idea in history -- ever -- that did not prevail -- and sooner rather than later -- because scientists are the ultimate skeptics and the scientific method promotes that.) It is, instead, about applying a Drudge-like approach to creating doubt by every and any means necessary.

Accents

You know, if there is a better accent in this world than Irish or Scottish (speaking English), I have yet to encounter it. No matter what anyone has ever said to me in either of these dialects, I have never taken it harshly, or thought the speaker might be twisting me, or anything like that -- even if they were (and, surely, sometimes they were). It always seems out of the Old Worlde, innocent and pure, as if they are still plowing the dales with bright green grass or staring in an Irish Spring soap commercial. (Yes, I know that's ridiculous.) The Irish guys I knew in graduate school (and, if you're an undergraduate reading this, a full half the reason you should go to graduate school is to expose yourself to people from other countries, especially if you're a cloistered American) were all universally loved, even if their personal hygiene was not always up to American standards. They just had the knack. I've always wanted to have that knack, but I've never had it, and I never will. I should forget about it, but such fantasies die hard.

Me, on summer vacation near the end of my graduate education, with my grandparents in Pennsylvania:

Press Release of the Day

Via Eurekalert:

Tsunami evacuation buildings: another way to save lives in the Pacific Northwest

"Unless we do this, we will have lots of people dying in a tsunami," Wang says. "That's not how we want our people to die."

More on this New Result

Let's be clear: this Tingley/Huybers paper is a proof-of-principle of an entirely new method of reconstructing past climate. It is not intended to be a "confirmation" of the MBH hockey stick, which Martin Tingley was very clear to tell me, though the preliminary results obtained so far have many similar features. Nor is it intended to solve every problem in the field of paleoclimatology, let alone purported problems in the data. (From my reporting, I think scientists believe that that data is pretty good, though data in any scientific field can _always_ be improved, and _is_ always being improved). In any case, this new result ought to, I think, damp criticism that the PCA approach was somehow unsound or flawed, as some have implied.

By the way, I asked Wegman for his thoughts on this new method, but he did not respond.

There's Still a Blade

I have an article in the November issue of Scientific American, "Still Hotter Than Ever," that I think is important. It's about a new mathematical method by Martin Tingley and Peter Huybers that reconstructs past temperatures from proxy data, using a Bayesian statistics approach rather than the traditional principal component analysis. Calculating up until the year 2000, it finds... a hockey stick-like result.

Focusing on 600 years of proxy data between 45 and 85 degrees north latitude, Tingley's initial result...finds that the 1990s were the warmest decade of the period and that 1995 was the warmest year.... He also found that the 20th century had the largest rate of warming of any century and that the 1600s had the largest rate of change overall...albeit in the cooling direction due to the Little Ice Age.

It's not a "confirmation" of the hockey stick per se, but a completely different method that points to a very similar result.

$300K/day

This op-ed says that the fossil fuel industry is spending $300,000/day lobbying Congress.

Another Meaningless Dust-up

This week's climate dust-up is apparently about something Joseph Romm said about what Ken Caldiera didn't really say about something the new book SuperFreakonomics wrote and whether that means global warming skeptics rape children in the name of the devil or whether those who support the hypothesis of anthropogenic climate change serve in the name of the Lord and actually channel arrows of goodness into the dark, evil heart of the universe.

Blah, blah, blah. I can't get interested anymore, it is getting so ridiculous -- "I didn't say this about what he said I said, and they said you didn't say that, but she did and since she once said that about him it's clear you think he meant this."

It's worse than a soap-opera, and why are you wasting your time on it?

Look, Romm has stretched the truth before. I can't see why any intelligent person would take him seriously. My instinct is to dismiss him.

Of course, this entire debate will get him lots of hits, and probably an appearance on Fox News or something, and somehow add to his credibility that will sell more of his next book. What a fucked-up society we have become.

He's little different than Glenn Beck doing whatever it takes (including crying like a baby) to draw attention to himself.

PS: Where, still, is McIntyre's apology for the Yamal accusations?

A Very Bad Idea

This is a bad idea (and, as usual, Chris Mooney plays a part):

Hurricane Katrina Victims Have Standing To Sue Over Global Warming

For years, leading plaintiffs’ lawyers have promised a legal assault on industrial America for contributing to global warming.

So far, the trial bar has had limited success. The hurdles to such suits are pretty obvious: How do you apportion fault and link particular plaintiffs’ injuries to the pollution emitted by a particular group of defendants?

Today, though, plaintiffs’ lawyers may be a gloating a bit, after a favorable ruling Friday from the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, which is regarded as one of the more conservative circuit courts in the country.

The suit was brought by landowners in Mississippi, who claim that oil and coal companies emitted greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming that, in turn, caused a rise in sea levels, adding to Hurricane Katrina’s ferocity.

For a nice overview of the ruling, and its significance in the climate change battle, check out this blog post by J. Russell Jackson, a Skadden Arps partner who specializes in mass tort litigation. The post likens the Katrina plaintiffs’ claims, which set out a chain of causation, to the litigation equivalent of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

The central question before the Fifth Circuit was whether the plaintiffs had standing, or whether they could demonstrate that their injuries were “fairly traceable” to the defendant’s actions. The defendants predictably assert that the link is “too attenuated.”

But the Fifth Circuit held that at this preliminary stage in the litigation, the plaintiffs had sufficiently detailed their claims to earn a day in court.

In so holding, the court notably quoted a recent Supreme Court opinion that “accepted as plausible the link between man-made greenhouse gas emissions and global warming” along with the fact that “rising ocean temperatures may contribute to the ferocity of hurricanes.”

Why is this a bad idea? Let us count the ways:

1. There is, as of now, no clear link between the global warming that has taken place and hurricanes. Indeed, global ACE numbers (Accumulated Energy) are near 30-yr record lows.
2. There is, and can never be, any direct proof that Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming, or that any particular storm was.
3. Hurricane Katrina wasn't even that bad of a storm -- just a very well-aimed one. It was a Cat 5 while out in the Gulf of Mexico, but only a Cat 3 when it hit land.
4. The dumb civil engineering around New Orleans contributed heavily to the ultimate destruction that occurred.
5. US gas and oil industries are hardly the ones one in this country -- or the world -- responsible for the global warming that has occurred. You and I and every resident of New Orleans are both partly responsible for our use of fossil fuels in our cars and in heating our homes. As is every car owner around the world, or almost anyone who heats their home, or eats food grown from forest-cleared land.

Equal Rights

This is an amazing clip. This 86-year old man plainly and eloquently says everything that needs to be said about equal rights.




Someday, and sooner than anyone thinks, those who now oppose same-sex marriage will appear no less bigoted that those of the antebellum south or pre-WW2 Germany.

"All men are born equal." How much more plainly can it be said?

Did Hansen "Fudge" Data?

From skeptics you often read that James Hansen "fudged" climate data. What is their evidence? Lately I've been asking them.

For example, someone named John Brignell wrote:

James Hansen, notorious among global warming critics as a ruthless fudger of data. . .

(as of 10/18/09 4:06 pm PDT). I asked him for proof that Hansen actually substituted bad numbers for real numbers, and his rather unconvincing reply was:

No, I did not mean that. It should not be difficult to find links to the critiques on the web via Google, but if you want somewhere to start you can try: http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/2008%20June.htm#twenty"

That is (he claims), Hansen made the horrible heresy of making a prediction that (he thinks) didn't come true, which makes him a "liar." Not just that he might have been wrong -- no, there has to be an evil attached to it, a maliciousness.

And, in fact, Hansen wasn't that far off, really, for a projection (not a prediction) that occurred 21 years ago -- a lifetime or two, in scientific terms.

10/20 CORRECTION: corrected the spelling of Brignell's name.

Routine El Nino causes Unexceptionally High Temps

We are really just entering an El Nino -- in fact, the latest SOI is actually in the opposite direction -- but already we are seeing strong September temperatures and, now, a very strong hurricane in the eastern Pacific, Hurricane Rick, a Cat 5.

In a recent press release, John Christy of the Univ of Alabama at Huntsville says:

A relatively routine El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event shouldn't cause the hottest tropical September in the past 31 years, but it did, according to Dr. John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. On top of a record-setting month in the tropics, September 2009 was also the second warmest September on record both globally and in the Northern Hemisphere.

"Who would have predicted those temperatures in the atmosphere when the sea surface temperature has been bumping along so nonchalantly?" Christy asked.

Normally, warming in the atmosphere during an El Nino is somewhat linked to rising sea surface temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific. Atmospheric temperatures in September, however, were significantly warmer than might have been predicted based on sea surface temps.

Sea surface temps for September in a key region of the Pacific were on the order of 0.83 C warmer than average, and the tropical atmosphere was 0.51 C warmer than seasonal norms," Christy said. "We've seen water temps about this warm twice in the past decade (2004-2005 and 2006-2007) without seeing this surge in the atmosphere.

"If you go back to the big El Nino of 1997-1998, sea surface temps (SSTs) in September 1997 in that same part of the Pacific were about 2.29 C warmer than normal, but the tropical atmosphere was only 0.4 C above average.

"Other things drive atmospheric temperatures in addition to SSTs, so it seems this would have been a warm September even without the El Nino."

Rick seems to be weakening a little, but it will probably still have the strongest ACE of any eastern Pacific hurricane this year.

Globally, though, ACE values are at a 30-yr low, a bit of a puzzle.

The Paradoxes of Time Travel

In an article in last week's NY Times which, IMO, doesn't belong in the realm of science journalism, Dennis Overbye writes:

While it is a paradox to go back in time and kill your grandfather, physicists agree there is no paradox if you go back in time and save him from being hit by a bus.

Is this really true? I can't see how.

Suppose your (saved) grandfather goes on to sire a child who grows up to be Hitler (or, to the good, FDR). By intervening you have clearly changed history -- Hitler/FDR would not be born if you hadn't intervened, but will be born if you had. How can there be no paradox, in either case?

UM. . . Okaaay

An open letter to Obama: NASA's bombs are a threat

By Letters to the editor

October 18, 2009, 4:00AM

Dear President Obama,

I am deeply saddened to say that I live in a country that protests -- from ocean to ocean -- when Coca Cola changed the flavor of classic coke, but seems to remain silent when NASA bombs the moon.

I am 58-years-old and have lived through the trails of destruction of many presidents, hoping that one day there will come a president that truly is spiritually aware -- a president that truly cares about the planet and its people forsaking neither for the almighty dollar.

I believe you are that president. However, I am appalled that you did not or could not prevent this horrific action by NASA.

This planet and women, in particular, are connected to the moon in a very spiritual and physical ways. Our bodies run with the moon's phases. The cycles of a woman, our oceans' tides and the food that we grow is affected by the moons' phases.

The effects of the moon on this planet are endless. If the moon is destroyed or altered in any way, then so is every woman and so is every living thing on this planet.

It is amazing to me that in today's world, where so many people are enlightened, that this country still works out of the dark ages. We go nowhere in peace and without destruction.

Why is it so impossible to clean up our mess here on this planet, instead of looking for another planet to destroy? Can we not walk lightly and carry the torch of peace and hope and freedom? Instead, we are thought of as ignorant barbarians where we were once leaders. I implore you, Mr. President, to please stop NASA from further destroying the moon and what would in turn be the destruction of planet Earth.

MARA COHN
Northeast Portland

Baseball

"That’s right, kids, they used to play World Series games in the sunlight, which is why those times are called the Good Old Days."

-- George Vecsey, NY Times.

Was the "Balloon Boy" a Hoax?

I definitely hope so.

If you watch this kid's parents (especially his father) on CNN this morning, when the little kid said "we did this for the show," his father isn't very convincing that it wasn't. But who knows.

If you read comments about the story yesterday, such as on MSNBC, you can read hundreds of people saying out outraged they are, how much this cost the taxpaper, how the parents should be billed and jailed and practically whipped and beaten, and the little kid consigned to a foster home.

Where is our sense of humor? What has our delight in a good story gone?

We all did something like this as a kid, just a million times smaller. We're all lucky we didn't get carted off to jail at least once, and frankly if we had grown up in this crappy, overly strict, humorless, unforgiving society we probably would have.

Frankly, I hope this IS a hoax. Furthermore, I hope that the Colorado authorities were in on it, to draw attention to their region or something in order to attract, who knows, skiers, and I hope high-level executives at the cable stations had been tipped off, and had instructed their confused minions to hawk it no matter what, and that the father turns out to be a consultant for DARPA and the Russian mob is trying to steal him away to get his knowledge about extraterrestials, who he and only he will admit are being kept in a hollow mountain outside Colorado Springs.

If the balloon were made of the previously unknown 243rd element, that'd be even better. If it were discovered by graduate students working in a large cellar beneath the Colorado governor's mansion, great. Perhaps there will even be an H1N1 connection.

We need more good stories in this world, not less.

On Not Watching TV

Ta-Nehisi Coates blogs about not having a TV, and he's right -- you usually come off as a prick when you go there. But he's also right about the benefits of not having one.

I gave up television over two years ago, and it was one of the best things I've ever done. I can't imagine every subscribing to it again.

• First of all, you save about $600/yr.
• Second of all, you get a tiny bit of joy out of the knowledge that you are not paying for the salaries of Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly and Christian televangelists.
• Third of all, you don't watch the machine just because you have one. It's so easy to plop down in front of the damn thing and just sit there rushing through channels. And so much of it is outright crap.
• Fourth: I do watch a few shows, over the Internet -- just the shows I want to watch, which are namely Breaking Bad and Weeds. Sometimes Curb Your Enthusiasm, though usually weeks later. Yes, there are places to get all these shows for free, although sometimes (not usually) you have to put up with Chinese subtitles.
• Fifth, I have upped my watching of DVDs, which I watch on my laptop (an unlimited supply from Blockbuster for $16/month), and am catching up on a lot of great movies I missed: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Bishop's Wife, Citizen Kane, Christmas in Connecticut, How Green Was My Valley, The House of Yes, Angels in America, Rumpole of the Bailey, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Caprica, Blindness, The Iceman Cometh, and more. There are no commercials. You watch them when you want, not when they are "on." Sometimes you watch the Director commentaries, which are usually even better than the movies themselves and nothing you'd ever see on TV.
• I read more than I ever have.
• There are now a great many Webcasts and podcasts and lectures and college courses and conference talks online, more than you can ever watch -- and from real experts, not the kind of "experts" you find in the vapid DC punditry circles.
• I simply like the peace and quiet. Stop and listen -- really listen -- to a TV from a distance -- it's a horrible thing. I am convinced that our country, our society, and our civilization started to go downhill when TV became widespread. It warps our values, our perceptions, and is, I think, responsible more than anything else about why society is getting coarser as times goes by rather than (as you would expect) more polite and considerate. Television emphasizes the 6-sigma people and the 6-sigma mindset (soon to be 7, or 8, as our population inevitably grows). It makes people think they need to be past the 6-sigma mark to be anyone. Hence you have people like Kate and John Gosselin.

I can't recommend enough that you try it.

Nobel Prize Dispute

A few days ago I wrote about a controversy that arose when I was assigned to profile Williard Boyle and George Smith, but I was rather circumspect about it.

Since then the story has advanced, via IEEE Spectrum (the original magazine I was working for then). Here, here and here are their blog posts about claims from Boyle and Smith's Bell Labs co-workers (and supervisor) that their idea for the CCD were not entirely theirs and others weren't given proper credit.

I still don't see any solid, documented evidence that they were (or they weren't) unfair to others. And at this point the Nobel Prize isn't going to be unrewarded or re-rewarded. It's hard to say what to make of it all.

By the way, here is the article I ended up writing for IEEE Spectrum back then, after we gave up on the controversy: "Seeing Stars With Digital Eyes," IEEE Spectrum, July 2001, p. 62. It's no longer online as far as I know.

"The long reach of cold hard cash"

I just wanted to link this op-ed piece by Marie Cocco, "The long reach of cold cash."

The corruption of our government is, I think, the most important story of our time, bar none, and one of the most underreported. And no citizens seem to care -- they keep electing the same old corrupt politicians (on both sides) who all take large amounts of money from special interests. And no one ever seems to ask about it. The few groups who do track it don't get much attention. More data than ever is now available via the Internet and no one seems to care.

Supposedly 45K Americans a year die for lack of health insurance. That's 15 times 9/11, and not just one year, but every year. But the country isn't going to get much reform, even though most Americans support it. The only reason is special interests -- any plan has to satisfy the health insurance industry and the hospital industry and the AMA and all kinds of other special interests, and then if anything is left it will be presented to the public.

It's the same on all kinds of other issues -- climate change, energy legislation, even campaign finance reform itself.

It's a vast corruption and those visions of America -- and probably the world -- turning into a corporatocracy have already come true. Have you read any of the recent articles lately about the close, close connections between Goldman Sachs and the financial arm of the federal government?

Mark Morford on. . . Everything

Mark Morford:

The real truth is, we are not immune to those very things we were essentially convinced we were immune from. It's the lesson we try to avoid at all costs: the more you think you can control even a fraction of the system and the more you try to block out at least a few of the potential calamities, the more the system reveals that it's no system at all, and is actually a slapdash madhouse tinderbox of careening laws and makeshift rules and barely controlled chaos no one really understands. Neat!

No matter. We do it anyway. We carefully set up all these mechanisms, all these banking systems and savings plans and financial strategies, all these cartoonish religious beliefs and social contracts and ridiculous tribal allegiances, all to give us the illusion of stability, the false sense of security and place. How cute we are.

And we grip these illusions more and more tightly, absolutely refusing to believe what we already know, deep down: that when you finally open up your hand, there's actually nothing there. Ain't it grand?

Airline toilets

There is a serious misunderstanding out there about climate change.

The misunderstanding is that it can be addressed by installing compact fluorescent light bulbs and driving hybrid cars. I'm sure Paris Hilton (who, let's face it, we would all like to be involved with for about 6 hours, but no longer) meant well when she said, bless her heart:

I changed all the light bulbs to energy safe light bulbs and I'm buying a hybrid car right.

Although Paris Hilton is divine, the climate problem is not going to be solved by changing out light bulbs or driving hydrid cars.

Nor, frankly, is it going to be solved by asking airline passengers to piss before they board an airplane.

Now, ten years or so when I did a lot of long-distance hiking, I would always take a piss at the base of a large mountain -- and sometimes even a shit -- partly to lighten my load, but mostly because it is really fun to piss outdoors wherever you wanted.

I tricked myself into thinking it made a difference. Whatever gets you up the hill. But then I tricked myself into thinking that after I ate a high-calorie Snicker's bar, I shouldn't spit because I'd lose a few calories. (When you're burning 8000 calories a day, you need all the nourishment you can get.)

Anyway.... now some airlines are now suggesting that their passengers should take a piss before they board, to lessen the flight's carbon expenditures. Really.

Does this matter? Obviously not. The Daily Mail says:

Based on an average human bladder capacity of 15oz, if 150 passengers relieved themselves on board an aircraft, this would amount to 63.7kg of waste.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1218473/Airline-goes-green-asking-passengers-use-toilet-boarding.html#ixzz0TlNmysO5