For the Steyniacs, a Webcast

NAS and The Royal Society to Release Joint Publication on Climate Change Science

On Thursday, February 27th from 10:00-11:30 EST, you're invited to join the US National Academy of Sciences and the UK's Royal Society for the release of Climate Change: Evidence & Causes . Written by a UK-US team of leading climate scientists and reviewed by climate scientists and others, the publication is intended as a brief, readable reference document that addresses some of the questions that continue to be asked. Miles O'Brien of the PBS Newshour will moderate a discussion between some of the authors and the audience. Participants can join in person at the NAS building on Constitution Avenue & 21st Street, NW, or by webcast. Coffee service begins at 9:00 a.m. Register today to attend in person or view the webcast. Special Discount To celebrate the release of this publication, the National Academies Press is offering a 25% discount off the list price of the reports in our climate change collection. Just enter discount code CHANGE at checkout. These reports are also available as free PDF downloads at NAP.edu.

Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises (2013) $59.95 $44.96 Climate is changing, forced out of the range of the past million years by levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases not seen in the Earth's atmosphere for a very, very long time. Lacking action by the world's nations, it is clear that the planet will be warmer, sea level will rise, and ... [read more] Buy This Book Download Free PDF

America's Climate Choices (2011) $29.95 $22.46 Climate change is occurring. It is very likely caused by the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities, and poses significant risks for a range of human and natural systems. And these emissions continue to increase, which will result in further change and greater risks. ... [read more] Buy This Book Download Free PDF

Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis (2013) $54.00 $40.50 Climate change can reasonably be expected to increase the frequency and intensity of a variety of potentially disruptive environmental events--slowly at first, but then more quickly. It is prudent to expect to be surprised by the way in which these events may cascade, or have far-reaching ... [read more] Buy This Book Download Free PDF

Sea-Level Rise for the Coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington: Past, Present, and Future (2012) $54.00 $40.50 Tide gauges show that global sea level has risen about 7 inches during the 20th century, and recent satellite data show that the rate of sea-level rise is accelerating. As Earth warms, sea levels are rising mainly because ocean water expands as it warms; and water from melting glaciers and ice ... [read more] Buy This Book Download Free PDF

Himalayan Glaciers: Climate Change, Water Resources, and Water Security (2012) $49.00 $36.75 Scientific evidence shows that most glaciers in South Asia's Hindu Kush Himalayan region are retreating, but the consequences for the region's water supply are unclear, this report finds. The Hindu Kush Himalayan region is the location of several of Asia's great river systems, which provide ... [read more] Buy This Book Download Free PDF

Climate Change: Evidence, Impacts, and Choices: PDF Booklet (2012) What is climate? Climate is commonly thought of as the expected weather conditions at a given location over time. People know when they go to New York City in winter, they should take a heavy coat. When they visit the Pacific Northwest, they should take an umbrella. Climate can be measured as ... [read more] Download Free PDF

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NCDC: 4th-warmest January

Last month was the 4th-warmest January globally, said NOAA, after 2007, 2002 and 2003. Cold in Russia and eastern North America, but warm nearly everywhere else. Look at Greenland.

 

Meteorologist Apologizes to Mann

Tom Russell, meteorologist for WHP CBS 21, apologized Wednesday after he tweeted a comment about Penn State Climatologist Michael Mann which apparently upset some residents of the twitterverse.

Russell tweeted “Oh no, Mann and his fabrications are safe!” after Twitter user Joe Stepansky quoted incoming Penn State President Eric Barron as saying “human-induced climate change is underway.”

Stepansky and other Twitter users took exception to Russell's comment, who later issued – via Twitter – an apology to Mann.

In a separate tweet, Russell said "My intention wasn’t to question his credibility, only to express that there is a range of opinions on this topic. "

Mann accepted Russell's apology, thus ending the short-lived discussion.

via The Patriot News

There are No 'Dogged Contrarians' In Science

It is too bad that the Michael Mann v Mark Steyn case doesn't involve Shirley Temple or Buddy Epsen -- where clearly Steyn's real passions lie. Steyn might then actually have a chance of winning.

Unfortunately for him, it's about defamation and it's about science, about which Steyn knows little. And he demonstrates this with every post he makes on scientific topics.

For example, the other day he wrote

Science advances through dogged contrarians testing the "settled science", not through glassy-eyed consensus acolytes prostrating themselves before "one proven answer".

This is just wrong. Worse, it's silly.

Science does not advance by testing "settled science." There are no scientists today testing Newton's laws with ever more precise micrometers. Geologists do not repeatedly do analyses to confirm or deny the theory of plate tectonics. No one is yet again measuring the mass of the electron, to be sure it's isn't wildly different from the consensus number.

Science advances by testing the edges of knowledge, where things are still not settled. Scientists -- real scientists -- accept the existence of, say, he greenhouse effect -- because that's what the evidence shows. They aren't endlessly verifying its existence or replicating the evidence for it -- what would be the point, any more than doing endless lab bench experiments on colliding marbles to see if energy is conserved.

In fact, there are essentially no "dogged contrarians" (Steyn's term) in science, because they invariably look like poseurs and fools and real scientists don't have time for such people. Because such people aren't intellectually serious.

Being a good scientist is, to a very significant degree, about knowing where to look for problems -- about understanding what has been proven, and then going to its edge to test and probe for weaknesses, deviations, and new phenomena. But these only occur at the edge of scientific knowledge, never at the middle of scientific knowledge.    

This is a very real and very large part of why science has been so successful for the last 400 years -- when it knows something, it knows it. It doesn't spend endless time repeatedly confirming old knowledge, as if the second law of thermodynamics is true only by opinion, like what is the best Frank Sinatra song. Opinions change. Bodies of scientific knowledge don't.

This is something contrarians usually get wrong. Michael Crichton liked to say that consensus had no place in science. Wrong! There is consensus all over science -- about Newton's Laws of Motion, the Laws of Thermodynamics, the existence of quarks, the basics of radiative transfer, and countless other things.

If there is new knowledge to be found, it will be at the edges of existing knowledge, not at its middle. Maybe Newton's laws don't hold over scales larger than galactic. Maybe quarks behave unusually at very high densities of quark-gluon plasmas. Maybe internal climate variablity occurs a little more rapidly than models simulate.

But the basics are sound. Ken Caldeira said recently,  "...we have as much confidence in the basic climate science as we have in the fundamental science of plate tectonics or biological evolution." Go to any science conference, and you will hear what scientists are talking about -- it certainly isn't an endless rehashing of the basics.

There is consensus about the basics: CO2 is a strong greenhouse gas. It causes at least 2 C of warming when doubled. 2 C is a lot of warming.

This is the "settled science." And what's unsettled -- perhaps, as many lines of evidence suggest, equilibrium climate sensitivity is more like 3 C, or even larger -- isn't necessarily reassuring. Uncertainty cuts both ways, and its error bars are far more serious than those on Shirley Temple's greatness.

Submit Questions Now for March 19 Webcast: "Tracking Carbon In A Warming World"

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Upcoming Webcast Ralph Keeling Britton Stephens "Tracking Carbon In A Warming World" As carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere continues to rise, a historic monitoring program is threatened with funding cuts. How do we track the carbon cycle today, and what would the loss of the Mauna Loa record mean for our ability to track our changing climate? On March 19 at Noon Pacific Time (3pm Eastern), tune in with climate scientists Ralph Keeling from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., and Britton Stephens from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., on these important topics. You can submit questions now! [Learn more] In Case You Missed It "The Challenges of Climate Change Communication" "2014: The Year Ahead in Climate Change News" visit our youtube channel | follow on twitter | like on facebook SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE POLICY Journalists, scientists, researchers, educators, and others can subscribe to this listserve by visiting us online at The Yale Forum. If you wish to unsubscribe, send an e-mail with "UNSUBSCRIBE ME" in the Subject line. PRIVACY POLICY Your e-mail address will be used for purposes of this listserve only. We do not distribute, sell, or provide any customer information to third parties without your prior consent. The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media is published by Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, 195 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511. Copyright © 2014 Yale University School of Forestry & Environmental Studies All rights reserved.

Grinderman

It's from the end, here, of this already famous 6-minute tracking shot from True Detective:

"Meet the Press" Avoids Real Scientists When Discussing Science

This country funds lots of very good scientists to analyze and understand climate change. So who does a purported journalistic outfit like Meet the Press have on to debate the subject? An entertainer and a know-nothing Congresswoman.

Bill Nye is a good guy who I'm sure means well, but he's not a climate scientist. Marsha Blackburn is someone actually proud of her ignorance:

Dan Satterfield calls it "a perfect example of false balance and of course lousy journalism."

The Huffington Post reports that a Media Matters study found that the Sunday morning shows on NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox "spent a combined 27 minutes on the topic in the whole of 2013."

That time presumably counts minutes like those Nye and Blackburn will be talking at one another.

What a sad commentary on our society.

Another Crazy Shows Up Here, Wearing Bells

You know Mann's lawsuit is going well when the crazies seek to copy him.

This from someone who uses the name "Fred Douglass" (freddoug2009@gmail.com), though here he goes by "Unknown," and claims he's a paleogeneticist in Gainesville, Florida, and didn't like being warned not to use ad hominem comments in his discussion of science -- which, of course, he couldn't avoid.

David:

I notice that you have censored four comments of mine on your “Quark Soup” blog, alleging that these contained "ad hominems".

For someone who calls those who disagree with him members of the "denial community" (indeed in your very post at issue), your concern with "ad hominems" is, shall we say, more easily understood as a concern that someone might persuasively present science that contradicts your political positions. “Denier” is, of course, a comparison between those who understand climate science and those who have denied the existence of the Holocaust. It is, of course, intrinsically more libelous than the comments that our friend Mr. Steyn is being sued over. Especially since no one has ever shown that Richard Lindzen, Judith Curry, Jim Dellingpole, Ross McKitrick, or any of the others in this community have actually denied the Holocaust.

Perhaps you believe that “denier” is an “epithet” rather than an “ad hominem”. Fine. I certainly agree, so I am not going to sue over being labeled with that epithet.

My problem now is that you did more than censor and refer to me by epithet. In addition, you presented to the public allegations that my posts contained "ad hominems". Then, you connected those allegations to my name. Therefore, you have libeled me, since the reputation of “Fred Douglass” as a scientist is based in part on public knowledge that “Fred Douglass” comments with authority on matters of science without using ad hominems.

Further, it is a fact that the comments of mine that you censored contained no ad hominems.

Thus, this IS a more serious libel than the comments that have brought our friend Mark Steyn into the courtroom.

I do not frequently blog, for the simple reason that it seems that most in the bloggosphere who seek to suppress actual climate science are uneducable crazies. You, on the other hand, attempt to earn a living as a “science writer” for publications that I actually subscribe to.

Thus, I was astonished that you would not concede simple features of science when it was presented forthrightly.

Now, I am even more astonished that you would risk further damaging your reputation (and your ability to write for Scientific American, Physics World, and others) by censoring, then libeling, someone who did nothing more than seek to present climate science on your page.

We can let the matter drop if you re-post what you have censored. No need for an apology. Let’s just say that you made a mistake.

There are more emails after this, but you get the drift. For some reason I seem to get one of these obsessive weirdoes about every three to six months here. Barry Bickmore got him too, though apparently without the faux legal threats.

Update (8:40 pm): When I told "Mr. Douglass" to "get lost," he sent me the following:

Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2014 14:01:17 -0500
Subject: Re: Your censorship and libel
From: Frederick Douglass
To: David Appell

Not so easy, David.

Below is the letter that will be sent to Scientific American on Monday. Tuesday something similar will go to all of the other professional mags that you write for.

And civil action against you for libel is still a possibility.

Sandra Upson
Managing Editor
Scientific American
75 Varick Street #9
New York, NY 10013

Dear Sandra:

It is good to hear from you again. We appreciated the article that you published by Alonso Ricardo that covered his (and our) work on the origin of life, and have gotten a considerable amount of positive feedback on it.

On a separate matter, David Appell, who has in the past written for you, has been breaking journalistic standards on his blog “Quark Soup” by censoring people who post hard science to further the discussion. Obviously, blog censorship is a common thing in this field, but we do not expect it from people who write for Scientific American.

We think that the readers of Scientific American would appreciate a lively discussion not so much on climate, but rather the science-in-society perspective, especially as it appears in blogs.

Unctuous.

California's Missing Rainfall

California's annualized precipitation, in inches, from NOAA data. Click to enlarge:

It's a big state, so a single monthly number doesn't do justice to areas especially hard-hit by the drought. Here's the U.S. Drought Monitor from February 11th:

Peak Copper

From this week's Science magazine:

The article, by Richard Kerr, also contains predictions for Peak Coal production in 2034, Peak Fossil Fuels in 2030, and notes that "Gold production has been flat for the past decade despite a soaring price."

GISS: 4th-warmest January

GISS's temperature anomaly for January is +0.70°C above baseline, 4th-warmest of any January in their records (after 2007 and 2002 & 2003 (tie)).

15-year trend = 0.10°C/decade
30-year trend = 0.17°C/decade

The northern hemisphere was 3rd-warmest (+0.94°C), despite all the noise about the polar vortex.

National Review, Humbled

National Review, then:

National Review, now:

Amazing how one court decision across the bow has knocked the piss and vinegar out of them. Or, as Samuel Johnson said, "Nothing focuses the mind like a prospect of a hanging."

Once Geoengineering is Out of the Bag

In his book, David Keith writes that "geoengineering gives humanity new powers to shape the planetary environment; history suggests it's unlikely that this power will be used only to limit the environmental impacts of other human actions," and gives this quote from three decades ago:

"Interest in CO2 may generate or reinforce a lasting interest in national or international means of climate and weather rmodification [geoengineering]; once generated, that interest may flourish independent of whatever is done about CO2."

-- Thomas Schelling, economist and Nobel Laureate, in the 1983 National Academy of Sciences study of climate change

A few people were thinking about geoengineering even then.

And no, Keith isn't advocating we do this. Not at this time. His book is, I think, very intellectually honest on the subject of climate engineering, examining it from all angles. He doesn't give only the pros while leaving out the cons.

Nor does he suggest we begin geoengineering soon. But he does think we should immediate begin serious and comprehensive research into the idea(s), leading to small-scale experiments, and that the world should establish international governing bodies that would make decisions and regulate any geoengineering experiments or full-scale projects.

Keith doesn't even think we should do enough geoengineering to competely stop global warming -- he advocates only enough to halt half the warming, with emissions cuts doing the other half. Ultimately, he says, the world must transition to a carbon-free economy.

It's an interesting little book. Keith has thought about this subject as much as anyone, and makes arguments I hadn't seen anywhere else.

Is the Hockey Stick a Surprising Result?

Is the hockey stick a surprising, unexpected, or obviously false result, with its sharp upward swing in surface temperatures about 1850 A.D.?

I don't think so. There are lots of other hockey sticks around -- for population, for energy use, for emissions. So how do they add together and what do they imply for temperature?

The hockey stick isn't a climate model, so it doesn't predict anything, but it's not really a surprising result, since the last few centuries had seen a super-exponential increase in human population, and at least an exponential increase in carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide (N2O), etc.:

"Evidence for super-exponentially accelerating atmospheric carbon dioxide growth," Andreas D. Hüsler and Didier Sornette, http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.2832

Surface temperature change is proportional to the rate of forcing change

ΔT_s = λ ΔF 

where λ is the climate sensitivity, or, for the change in time

Human population (log-scale)

dT_s/dt = λ dF/dt

CO2's forcing varies like the logarithm of the atmospheric concentration, and for CH4 and N2O it varies like the square root of the concentration.

If you do the derivatives

dF/dt = ∂F/∂C * ∂C/∂t + ...

and so on, with the past concentration (C) of CO2 changing super-exponentially (so the rate of forcing changes approximately exponentially), then surface temperature would have been changing exponentially too, seen over a couple of centuries.

Given these, the hockey stick's exponential rise in temperature, viewed over the last few centuries, is not especially surprising or unexpected.

Radiative forcing is now rising linearly with time

And with CO2 is no longer rising super-exponentially with time, but just exponentially (the Keeling Curve), and methane and nitrous oxide also now rising less than exponentially, radiative forcing is now rising linearly with time, so -- with climate feedbacks still relatively small -- surface temperature should be too.

Of course, this is just a heuristic argument. Doing the Mann et al. calculation is the only way to get the real function T_s(t). But it seems to me the sharp upward rise of the hockey stick circa 1850 - 1980 is not really surprising from a heuristic point of view. Given the laws of physics and the world's history of energy use, it would probably be more surprising if the hockey stick wasn't true.

Arctic Sea Ice at Record Low

I don't usually like bringing up this kind of picayune chickenshit detail, but since so many deniers do, perhaps it's worth pointing out: as of today, Arctic sea ice extent is at a record low for this day of the year, as measured by JAXA; a full 425,000 km² below last year's value:

 The Arctic has been incredibly warm lately (take it away, Cowtan & Way):

But move along -- it's surely just an upward blip in a globally cooling world, don't cha know?

A Crow Smarter Than Me

Steyn Outsources His Defense to the Blogosphere

Since he has no lawyers, Mark Steyn has to rely on bloggers (yikes).

Who are dutifully compiling a "case," if you want to call it that, against Mann.

Has any other defendant ever come up with the genius idea of crowdsourcing his defense, letting his opponent watch the entire time?

I can't think of any. {Brilliant! It's got all of one comment, itself useless.} 

And like Mann can't immediately smack down amateurish complaints like these, about data adjustments, which are a competely legitimate and necessary part of science (or else you don't get the right answers).

Or that the denial crowd thinks this case is about Mann's "screw-ups." My impression is that the new judge will see right through that, and fast.

Let's hope Mark continues to rely on fake people like "Steve Goddard," someone too ashamed to blog under his/her real name, and whose only real publication was immediately shot down in flames (be sure to see the Editor's Note).

There may not be a sporting chance here after all.

Jobs Lost in Ski Industry

From the Department of We-Will-Pay-for-Climate-Change-One-Way-or-the-Other:

The effect on the ski industry has already been significant. Between 1999 and 2010, low snowfall years cost the industry $1 billion and up to 27,000 jobs. Oregon took the biggest hit out West, with 31 percent fewer skier visits during low snow years. Next was Washington at 28 percent, Utah at 14 percent and Colorado at 7.7 percent.

The winter sports industry contributes $66 billion annually to the nation’s economy, and supports more than 960,000 jobs across 38 states, according to the Outdoor Industry Association. A surprisingly large sector of the United States economy appears to be teetering on the brink.

From the NY Times.

Still Another Beautiful Ice Growth

I received another wonderful ice spikey structure from a scientist in the UK, whose neighbor saw this and asked him for an explanation. The internal structure adds a beautiful touch:

Earlier: When Ice Grows Up, Physics World, Feb 2014.

The Definition of Homophobia

When I read about NFL players worried about how gay players will look at them in the shower, I can't help thinking of this cartoon's defintion of homophobia: The fear that gay men will treat them the same way they treat women:

Via: Imgur

Piously Using the Poor as an Excuse

On his blog, Roy Spencer wrote:

I am growing weary of the variety of emotional, misleading, and policy-useless statements like “most warming since the 1950s is human caused” or “97% of climate scientists agree humans are contributing to warming”, neither of which leads to the conclusion we need to substantially increase energy prices and freeze and starve more poor people to death for the greater good.

This an an atrocious red herring that does nothing but pollute and polarize the debate.

It shouldn't even have to be said -- no one wants to “freeze and starve” poor people to death. It’s ridiculous to even imply such a thing.

But you and I and Dr. Roy Spencer are rich — there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be paying for clean energy. No excuse at all — and coal-generated power is so filthy it needs to go even before climate considerations. And much of that burden, especially to health, falls on the poor.

A carbon tax-and-dividend, where all revenues are distributed back on an equal per capita basis, would, in fact, help the poor — 60% of Americans would receive more back in dividends than they pay in taxes, according to James Hansen. It would help alleviate poverty while at the same time cleaning up the environment.

Piously using the poor as an excuse for the lack of actions by the rich is immoral.

"The Bitter Truth Is..."

"The bitter truth is that the world's efforts to cut emissions have (with a few exceptions) amounted to a phony war of bold exhortation and symbolic action. It's tempting to assert emissions cuts are impossible and that we must look to alternatives like geoengineering. This is doubly wrong. First, solar geoengineering may reduce risks in the short term but it cannot get us out of the long-term need to cut emissions. Second, to assert that emissions cannot be cut is to take human agency--and responsibiity--out of the picture as if emissions were coming from some species other than our own."

-- David Keith, A Case for Climate Engineering

Snow Here

We're getting snow here; about 7 inches yesterday, and 2-3 inches the day before. Chains or traction tires are required if you want to drive in the city of Salem. But by Monday it's supposed to be 51°F and rainy....

UAH: Last 5 Years Still the Warmest

Despite the polar vortex in the U.S., UAH found last month was the 6th-warmest January in 36 years. The last 5 years are again the warmest in their records:

RSS looks quite different lately:

Steyn Can't Tell...

"...even I can't tell when I'm joking anymore."

-- Mark Steyn, today (who is subbing on the Rush Limbaugh show today, where he just said "You can't win fights until you pick them" -- about politics, not the hockey stick)

Imminent CAGW is "an attempt to play a trump card..."

Imagine how effectively the world might collaborate if we discovered a massive asteroid inbound for a 2050 impact. But, this is not what we face. The claim that climate change threatens an imminent catastrophe is an attempt to play a trump car of (seemingly) objective science in order to avoid debate about the trade-offs at the heart of climate policy and about the role that values play in driving each of our personal judgements of the moral weight we accord to competing interests. But climate change is one of many problems, so there is no substitute for realistic assessment of our risks and open debate about the trade-offs between them, for we cannot avoid all risk or solve all problems.

-- David Keith, A Case for Climate Engineering

Arctic Ice Daily Rankings, for William

This is for William Connolley, who comments, "What someone should do (I vote for you) is to take, e.g., the IJIS sea ice...and draw a nice pic of "what rank does the current year have at each date". It wouldn't be science but it would be fun."

I didn't do it for every year, but here's a quick plot for 2012, 2013 and this year:

It would seem impossible to have predicted 2012's low rankings, even before the summer cyclone tore the ice up.

A Novel Ice Spike

After my article, I received some interesting pictures of a large ice spike from a retired physicist in the UK, who didn't know about ice spikes previously and was baffled. He says the internal diameter of the bird bath is 33 cm, so the length of the spike is about 16 cm. I haven't seen any that flare out like this at the top.... Wonderful.

January Antarctic Sea Ice Extent

Average January Antarctic sea ice extent (data from NOAA, but it may have a problem.....)

Click to...well, you know.

January Sea Ice Gets Bronze Medal

Average January Arctic sea ice extent (IARC-JAXA data):

Click to enlarge.