Another warming contrarian who can’t/won’t shoot straight

February 12, 2010

Joanne Nova is, I gather, a former television personality in Australia now blogging away against science and the study of climate change at JoNova.  Here’s how far off the track she is:  She’s been sucked in by Monckton,  as some great scientist and hero — he whose biggest achievements are to call scientists “bedwetters” and attack the reputations of famous dead women (what is it about Monckton and dead women?).

Her latest post is a hoot. She’s claiming that the case for global warming is coming apart.  She illustrates it with this PhotoShop™ masterpiece (note the “JoNova” in the lower lefthand corner, and note it well):

JoNova's PhotoShop of Glen Canyon Dam for an article on wildly inaccurate claims about climate change; original photo copyright by Wild Nature Images.

JoNova defaces photo of Glen Canyon Dam. Original photo copyright by Wild Nature Images.

Glen Canyon Dam poses problems for serious advocates of environnmental protection for many reasons, not the least being the death of Glen Canyon.  This dam represents one of the greatest losses of the environmental movement.  That’s not why Nova chose the photos, I’m sure — I’d be surprised if she could find Glen Canyon on a map, and I’m all but certain she’s clueless about the controversy about the dam (don’t even wonder whether she’s ever read Ed Abbey).

Regardless where one stands on the issues around Glen Canyon Dam, one cannot look at this photo without seeing the white stripe from the water behind the dam, running about 50 feet up the canyon walls.

Check out the original, copyrighted photo here, at WildNatureImages.com (and maybe buy a copy — it’s a great photo of the dam, Lake Powell and the area; no bluer sky anywhere).  I presume that, even with the huge “JoNova” on it, Nova will allow free duplication of her original work; but why didn’t she credit the guy who took the photo (Ron Niebrugge) and the people who put it on the internet for her (WildNatureImages.com)?  Update:  Nova is giving credit, now.

The original, without comment, is at once more beautiful, more awe-striking, and more accurate a portrayal of the effects of climate than Nova’s doctored version:

Glen Canyon Dam - photo by Ron Niebrugge, at WildNatureImages.com

Glen Canyon Dam, photo by Ron Niebrugge, at WildNatureImages.com. Displayed here with express written permission.

See, climate change is thought to be one of the culprits for that white line. Glen Canyon Dam is in straits right now, as is the Colorado River Compact that created the legal justification for constructing the dam, because precipitation in the mountains where the Colorado River is born has fallen dramatically in the past couple of decades — and Lake Powell has shrunk to a vestige of its former self, of its planned extent, of the extent hoped for in cooler times.

Lake Powell's drop, circa 2008, photo by Marco Ammannati via National Parks Traveler

Lake Powell's drop, circa 2008, photo by Marco Ammannati via National Parks Traveler. Caption from National Parks Traveler: "At Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, years of drought, possibly an indicator of climate change, have revealed Lake Powell's bathtub walls. Spring runoff, however, could soon make those bathtub walls vanish."

JoNova uses a photograph showing the harms of climate change, to claim that climate change does not occur.

Is this the stupidest anti-climate change statement ever made?

Offer your candidates for dumber or stupider claims below.  It’s time we started counting and cataloging.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Just in case you thought any climate contrarian remains sane . . .

February 2, 2010

Which of these would be accurate in showing the insanity, but not so sharp as to raise the hackles of the climate contrarians?

  • “Contrarians think Antarctic unworthy of protection”
  • “Denialists criticize efforts to keep Antarctic clean”
  • “Climate change critics’ brains have left the building”

Read these stories, and tell me.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted the delicate condition of the Antarctic with regard to its two main industries, fishing and tourism.  IPCC AR4 noted that the tourism industry takes steps to protect Antarctic environments made more vulnerable by melting.  (Footnote here; actual flyer here, assessment document here in Microsoft Word .doc format)

Contrarians come unglued, here at ClimateQuotes.com, and here at Air Vent.

It’s clear that the contrarians don’t have much experience in heavy documentation.  If you follow the links they provide, you quickly get to the paper provided by the tourist industry noting their precautions to prevent contamination, provided to meet a request by scientists from the Australian team, and based on information well vetted to the point that it includes substantial excerpts from what appears to be a peer-reviewed journal on the types of solutions suitable for decontaminating foreign boots in the Antarctic (Polar Record, vol. 41, no. 216, Jan. 2005, p. 39-45; it is actually the official journal of the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge, UK).  There is astounding and commendable attention to detail, much more than the contrarians can grok, it appears.

More troubling to the Boy Scout in me is the contrarians’ contempt for what is, really, Leave No Trace Camping carried to an Antarctic tourist stop.  This is part of the environment protection credo of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and it is sound policy that everyone should be teaching their children.

What is wrong with that?  Why do the contrarians mock wise policies?  Why do they make false claims against what amounts to good Scouting?

Leave No Trace logo

Contratians disapprove of the ethics of environmental stewardship?

One implicit complaint is that the footnote does not provide evidence of damage from climate change, in the Antarctic.  It’s clear that the critics have not followed the footnote path to see why the boot cleaning poster and directive were issued, nor to see what is the research or official government action that prompted the tourist companies to implement the procedure.

It appears in a section of the IPCC reports on effects of warming on industries in affected areas.  Only two industries are noted in the Antarctic, fishing and tourism.  After establishing the increased chance of problem organisms, including micro-organisms, showing up in Arctic and Antarctic areas as the areas warm, and after noting two plagues that killed penguins recently, from micro-organisms, the IPCC paper notes that concern to prevent such tragedies have so far required only boot decontamination, and it offers a link to the flyer provided by an Antarctic tour operators group.

Got that?  To show that the tour operators are affected, IPCC cited the flyer put out by the tour operators showing how and why they were changing their operations.  It’s a minor, almost trivial point.

At no point did IPCC’s report claim this procedure as evidence of warming, or the effects of warming.  So the claims of the contrarians and denialists are completely off base, as they’d recognize except for their own shouting for the lynching of science to proceed.

Criticism of IPCC for noting the good stewardship techniques used in the Antarctic comprises more political smear than scientific enlightenment, by a huge factor.  Voodoo science from the contrarians begets voodoo criticism.

Contrarians lack wisdom in posing this complaint of theirs.  This is one more point IPCC got right, factually and ethically.  IPCC should be commended for that.

Wall of Shame (update added on February 7)

Outlets that cite the boot reference, falsely or stupidly, as some sort of flaw in the IPCC report, and thereby demonstrate malevolent intentions, and not scientific (“malice” for you Times v. Sullivan fans):

4 Comments | Boy Scouts of America, Climate change, climate_change, Ethics, Girl Scouts, Global warming, Hoaxes, Natural history, Natural resources, Political Smear, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

MSM understand dangers of warming

February 1, 2010

Editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, another of America’s great legacy of great newspapers:

The decade that ended in 2009 was the warmest on record, NASA reported earlier this month. It displaced the decade of the 1990s as the warmest ever. The 1990s displaced the 1980s.

Last year was the second-warmest since 1880, when modern temperature measurements began. The warmest year on record was 2005. All of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1998. Perhaps you’re starting to see a pattern.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Open Mind, who also notes that the last decade was the warmest ever.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Wattsupgate: Denialists claim all knowledge is wrong

January 31, 2010

It really is that bad.  Climate science denialists now attack any information simply for not being what they want it to be.  Lysenko’s Ghost smiles broadly.

Anthony Watts is just the most prominent of the bloggers making hoax charges of error and worse in the fourth report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), because of a footnote that cites a rock climbing magazine.

Here’s the trouble for Watts:  There is no indication that the citation is in error in any way.  Watts’s move is more fitting of King George III’s campaign against Ben Franklin’s lightning rods, the prosecution of John Peter Zenger, the pre-World War II campaign against Einstein’s work because he was born a Jew, or the hoary old Red Channels campaign against Texas history told by John Henry Faulk.  It’s as bad as the Texas State Board of Education’s attack on Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Watts’ and others’ complaint is simply that Climbing magazine’s story on the worldwide retreat of glaciers suitable for climbing is not published in a juried science journal.

In other words, they indict the science, not because it’s wrong — they have no evidence to counter it — but because it’s too American Patriot correct Jewish left Texan mistakenly thought to be political well-known, too accessible, (small “d”) democratically-reported.

And of course, any comment that points that out at Watts’s blog goes into long-term “moderation,” keeping it from the light of day in the best tradition of the Crown’s defense of Gov. Cosby’s misadministration of New York (see “John Peter Zenger”).  Watts said in a quote that should have been attributed to the Daily Telegraph:

The IPCC’s remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change.

In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global warming, citing two papers as the source of the information.

However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.

The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a master’s degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.

The revelations, uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph, have raised fresh questions about the quality of the information contained in the report, which was published in 2007.

It comes after officials for the panel were forced earlier this month to retract inaccurate claims in the IPCC’s report about the melting of Himalayan glaciers.

By those standards, Watts’s own readers should eschew his blog — it’s not peer reviewed science by any stretch, and Watts isn’t an established authority in climate science (he’s not even working for an advanced degree).  Consistency isn’t a virtue or concern among climate change denialists.  Watt’s entire modus operandi is much more anecdotal than the story in Climbing, which was written by a physicist/climber who studies climate change in the world’s mountains.

And did you notice?  They’re whining about research done by a scientist in pursuit of a degree, complaining about the second citation.  That’s the exaclty kind of research that they claim the magazine article is not.  Their complaint is, it appears, that a scientist in pursuit of education is not the right “kind” of person to do climate research. It’s the chilling sort of bigotry that we spent so much time in the 20th century fighting against.  In the 21st century, though, it appears one can still get away with demonizing knowledge, education and research, part of the campaign to indict “elitism,” the same sort of elitism aspired to by America’s founders.  Too much of the criticism against scientists involved in documenting global warming is the cheap bigotry the critics claim to find in science, falsely claimed in my view.

Topsy-turvy.

And the glaciers?  Yeah, the evidence tends to show they are in trouble.  Those Himalayan glaciers?  The IPCC report was accurate in everything except the speed at which the glaciers decline — they should be with us for another three centuries, not just 50 years, if we can reduce warming back to 1990s levels (oddly, denialists rarely deal with the facts of accelerating warming, preferring to point to a local snowstorm as a rebuttal of all knowledge about climate).

Oh, and the research?  The author of the story in Climbing magazine is Mark Bowen.  Dr. Bowen’s Ph.D. is in physics from MIT. He’s a climber, and he researches climate change on the world’s highest mountains.  His 2005 book, Thin Ice, focused tightly on what we can learn about climate from the world’s highest mountains.   Bowen is the expert Anthony Watts would like to be.

Cover of Mark Bowen's book defending climate science, "Censoring Science."

Cover of Mark Bowen’s book defending climate science, “Censoring Science.”

Bowen’s newest book:  Censoring Science:  Inside the political attack on James Hansen and the truth of global warming. Watts doesn’t want anyone to read that book.  It is easy to imagine Watt’s s attack is, he hopes, pre-emptive, against Bowen’s book.

I’ll wager Watts hasn’t read the article in Climbing, and didn’t know who Bowen was when he launched his attack, though.  The denials of bias coming out of the denialists’ camp will be interesting to watch.

Let the denialists roll out the rope far enough, they’ll inevitably hang themselves.

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35 Comments | Accuracy, Climate change, climate_change, Ethics, Geography - Physical, Glaciers, Global warming, History, Journalism, Physics, Political Smear, Politics, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

No climate change denialists will apply

January 28, 2010

Australia is looking for a scientist to head up the next round of Australia’s reports to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

But who would want a job that pays nothing and brings a great deal of grief?  Crikey notes that scientists, especially Australian scientists, get slandered and libeled daily by climate change denialists.  Not to mention the death threats.

That fat pay the denialists keep claiming comes to the scientists, and urges them to misreport the data?

The only remuneration IPCC scientists get – as a quick check of last week’s ad would have made clear — is travel costs and living expenses while they are at IPCC meetings.  The IPCC work is on top of their day jobs as academics and researchers.

That’s right, ladies and gentleman:  Climate Denialist Extraordinaire Christopher Monckton profits from his obnoxious and error-filled lectures more than the guys who do the heavy lifting.

You know that denialists won’t apply to do the job.  Most of us suspect they don’t have the courage of their convictions to do it, but there’s another problem:  Very few of them are qualified.  They don’t do science.

Bookmark the story. Remind the denialists of it from time to time.

IPCC art, on AR5 process

(New year’s greetings from the IPCC.)

5 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, denialism, Global warming, Green Politics, History, Political Smear, Politics, Research, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Astounding manipulation of data — from the climate denialists

January 26, 2010

Especially since they purloined the e-mails from the Hadley Climate Research Unit (CRU), climate change denialists get bolder and bolder about making wilder and wilder statements of disinformation.

For example, our old friend Anthony Watts now makes criminal charges in his headlines, that scientists altered data to reflect the opposite of what their research found and then lied about it — but read the story, about Himalayan glaciers.  Watts quotes a story with a bad headline from The Daily Mail, in which a scientist tells how important scientisits consider the situation in the Himalayas, with glacier decline. There is no confession of any wrongdowing, but Watt’s headlines it “Scientist admits IPCC usied fake data to influence policy makers.”  There’s no confession.  Were it so wildly inaccurate, wouldn’t Watts post the science that rebuts the IPCC claim?

Anyway, Dale Husband takes a harder look at some of the denialist claims.  Nils-Axel Morner claims that, contrary to all measures and the actual submersion of islands, sea level rises do not occur.  Morner testified to that point to the British government in 2005, according to Dale Husband.

Can you detect the “trick” Morner used to deny sea level rise in his graph?

Morner's "data trick" to show no sea level rise, 2005

Morner's "data trick" to show no sea level rise, 2005

Morner’s work is the basis of Anthony Watts’ and Christopher Monckton’s claims that the Maldives are not sinking, and probably the “science” basis for almost all claims that the oceans do not rise.  You gotta follow the footnotes.

The intellectual execution, drawing and quartering of Morner’s claims is worth a read, at Dale Husband’s Intellectual Rants.

Good heavens.  Is Morner really the intellectual basis of this part of the denialists’ denial?  This isn’t an area I’ve followed closely.  My experience is that if Monckton cites him, he’s probably wrong.  But Morner is the major author on sea levels in the denialist compilation of what they claim is not crank science.

Maybe the denialists should just take up yoga.  If you stand on your head to look at the charts, they all look different, and the charts showing the temperature rising aren’t quite so scary.

28 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, denialism, Global warming, History, oceans, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Where’s that global cooling the denialists promised?

January 20, 2010

Forgetting that the planet has seasons, climate denialists for months have been hoo-hooing  about snowfalls and cold weather.  Some of the more serious propagandists among them claim that the Earth is now in a cooling cycle, and that temperatures have been falling since the record hot year of 1998.

Really?

Head on over to Open Mind, and take a look at the facts.

NASA GISS [Goddard Institute for Space Studies] has released the estimated monthly temperature for December 2009, which closes out the year 2009, which closes out the decade of the 2000s. The result: 2005 is still the hottest calendar year, 2009 is the 2nd-hottest year ever, although it’s really in a statistical tie with 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007.

They’ve confused weather with climate.  They’ve failed to keep score.  Perhaps they’ve spent wasted their time hacking e-mails instead of measuring climate.

RealClimate carries the news in a post by some of NASA’s top scientists, including James Hansen:

The past year, 2009, tied as the second warmest year in the 130 years of global instrumental temperature records, in the surface temperature analysis of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). The Southern Hemisphere set a record as the warmest year for that half of the world. Global mean temperature, as shown in Figure 1a, was 0.57°C (1.0°F) warmer than climatology (the 1951-1980 base period). Southern Hemisphere mean temperature, as shown in Figure 1b, was 0.49°C (0.88°F) warmer than in the period of climatology.

How will the critics treat this news?  And, what were they doing during the past decade when all those warm days rolled into weeks, rolled into months and years, and finally, to the warmest decade ever?

Global land temperature mean for the decade ending 2009, plus hemispheric comparisons

Caption from RealClimate: Figure 1. (a) GISS analysis of global surface temperature change. Green vertical bar is estimated 95 percent confidence range (two standard deviations) for annual temperature change. (b) Hemispheric temperature change in GISS analysis. (Base period is 1951-1980. This base period is fixed consistently in GISS temperature analysis papers. . . Base period 1961-1990 is used for comparison with published HadCRUT analyses in Figures 3 and 4.)

Heat things up a bit, and spread the alarm:

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14 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, Cost of Green, denialism, Global warming, Green Politics, History, Politics, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Monckton’s profiteering: Climate denialists rake in the money

January 19, 2010

Bizarre as it may seem, the imagined profiteering of environmentalists has becoma favorite complaint of global warming deniers.  Ignoring the fact that he’s on the board of Apple Computers and a very savvy investor, and ignoring the facts of his donation of proceeds he gets from lectures, deniers claim Al Gore has gotten rich off of warning people about global warming.

They even complain when researchers get grants to study the stuff, as if the researchers were buying Maseratis and taking vacations to the Caribbean on the money.

How could they think that?

Might it be because the deniers really are pulling in high dollar, luxury fees to campaign against the science?  Christopher Monckton, warming denialist extraordinaire, is touring Australia.  Comes this little slip of public relations:

During this tour, Lord Monckton will be chaperoned by wealthy mining consultant and geologist Professor Ian Plimer. Lord Monckton will also be getting a fee of $20,000 and all his travel and accommodation – somewhere in the region of $100,000 – will be paid for.

Who might be paying for Monckton’s tour?* China?  India?  We don’t know, but following Monckton’s lead, we might hope that the western intelligence agencies are investigating Monckton to see just what he’s up to.

$120,000 to make up political smears that damage national policies and science?  Mencken would be ashamed.

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_____________

* It’s a paraphrase of Monckton, who evilly worried about funding for climate research and ill-funded environmental groups, “Goodness knows where they get it from!  Foreign governments, possibly!  I don’t know!  I haven’t looked.  But it’s certainly an alarming question:  Are the environmental movements being backed by China or India so they won’t have to compete with us for natural resources because we will have shut our industry down.  It’s a question that the security services, I hope, are looking at, because it certainly worries me.”

7 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, denialism, Environmental protection, Global warming, Green Politics, History, Hoaxes, Political Smear, Politics, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Annals of Global Warming: Black soot and glaciers in Tibet

January 5, 2010

Another in a series on the history of global warming; this comes from the Earth Observatory at NASA (visit that site — the image is more stunning, larger):

tibet_geos5_2009269

Black Soot and the Survival of Tibetan Glaciers

Posted December 15, 2009
Black Soot and the Survival of Tibetan Glaciers

Color bar for Black Soot and the Survival of Tibetan Glaciers
download large image (677 KB, JPEG) acquired September 26, 2009
download large animation image (9 MB, M4V) acquired August 1, 2009 – November 9, 2009

On the Tibetan Plateau, temperatures are rising and glaciers are melting faster than climate scientists would expect based on global warming alone. A recent study of ice cores from five Tibetan glaciers by NASA and Chinese scientists confirmed the likely culprit: rapid increases in black soot concentrations since the 1990s, mostly from air pollution sources over Asia, especially the Indian subcontinent. Soot-darkened snow and glaciers absorb sunlight, which hastens melting, adding to the impact of global warming.

NASA climate scientists combine satellite and ground-based observations of soot and other particles in the air with weather and air chemistry models to study how the atmosphere moves pollution from one place to another. This image is from a computer simulation of the spread of black soot (“black carbon” to climate scientists) over the Tibetan Plateau from August through November 2009. It shows black carbon aerosol optical thickness on September 26, 2009. (Aerosol optical thickness is scale that describes how much pollution was in the air based on how much of the incoming sunlight the particles absorbed.) Places where the air was thick with soot are white, while lower concentrations are transparent purple.

The highest concentrations of black soot are in the right-hand side of the image, over the densely populated coastal plain of China. But high concentrations occur over India, as well, and the black soot spreads across the southern arc of the Tibetan Plateau, which is defined by the towering peaks of the Himalaya Mountains. (Note: Topography has been exaggerated to highlight features that influence air movement). The animation shows how the black carbon pollution from India often circulates at high concentrations for several days against the base of the Himalaya, periodically “sloshing” over the rim of the mountains and spilling northward over the plateau, before being carried away over the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian Sea.

Writing about the implications of the study for the Goddard Institute for Space Studies Website, NASA climate scientist and study co-author James Hansen said, “[C]ontinued, ‘business-as-usual’ emissions of greenhouse gases and black soot will result in the loss of most Himalayan glaciers this century, with devastating effects on fresh water supplies in dry seasons. The black soot arises especially from diesel engines, coal use without effective scrubbers, and biomass burning, including cook stoves. Reduction of black soot via cleaner energies would have other benefits for human health and agricultural productivity. However, survival of the glaciers also requires halting global warming, which depends upon stabilizing and reducing greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide.”

NASA image by Gregory Shirah, Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio, based on model simulations from the Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5). Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Annals of Global Warming: Warming in the middle troposphere, cooling in the lower stratosphere, 1995-2007

January 2, 2010

This is a post out of history, from the good people at NASA’s Earth Observatory, on July 6, 2007.  For those of who are not climate scientists or particularly advanced in our acumen in dealing with the large datasets and complex mathematics of global warming, this Earth Observatory Image of the Day may improve understanding.

Atmospheric Temperature Trends, 1979-2005

Posted July 6, 2007

Atmospheric Temperature Trends, 1979-2005

Climate models predict that the build up of greenhouse gases should warm the lower layer of the atmosphere, called the troposphere, and cool the layer above it, the stratosphere. Greenhouse gases accumulate in the troposphere where they absorb energy radiated from the Earth and re-emit energy back to the surface. Because the gases trap heat in the lower parts of the atmosphere, the stratosphere cools down. This pattern of warming in the lower atmosphere and cooling in the stratosphere is a hallmark of greenhouse gas warming in global climate models.

These images show temperature trends in two thick layers of the atmosphere as measured by a series of satellite-based instruments between January 1979 and December 2005. The top image shows temperatures in the middle troposphere, centered around 5 kilometers above the surface. The lower image shows temperatures in the lower stratosphere, centered around 18 kilometers above the surface. Oranges and yellows dominate the troposphere image, indicating that the air nearest the Earth’s surface warmed during the period. The stratosphere image is dominated by blues and greens, indicating cooling.

Globally, the troposphere warmed, and the stratosphere cooled during this period. Local trends varied. The greatest tropospheric warming was in the Arctic, where warming is amplified as snow and ice melt. The Antarctic, on the other hand, showed cooling. Some researchers have explained the localized cooling as a side effect of the ozone hole on atmospheric circulation over Antarctica. Loss of ozone cools the stratosphere, a change which intensifies the vortex of winds that encircle the continent. The stronger vortex isolates the air over the continent, cooling the stratosphere even further. At different times of the year, the unusually cold air dips down from the stratosphere and into the troposphere.

The cooling trend in the stratosphere was probably not solely due to greenhouse gas warming at lower altitudes; loss of ozone also cools the stratosphere. In the stratosphere, two warm spots over Antarctica and the Arctic appear to defy the overall cooling trend. One explanation for these warm spots is that polar stratospheric temperatures can fluctuate widely. The poles, especially the Arctic, experience periodic events known as sudden stratospheric warmings, during which the vortex of winds that circles the poles breaks down. When this happens, the stratosphere can warm several tens of degrees Celsius in a few days. Although these events are more common in the Arctic, a significant sudden stratospheric warming also occurred in the Antarctic stratosphere in 2002 and may help explain the apparent warming trend. Whether the localized warming trend is significant is still uncertain.

The measurements were taken by Microwave Sounding Units and Advanced Microwave Sounding Units flying on a series of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather satellites. The instruments record microwave energy emitted from oxygen molecules in the atmosphere. Warmer molecules release more energy than cooler molecules, so scientists can measure the temperature of the atmosphere by recording the amount of microwave energy being emitted. Early analyses of these measurements showed little or no warming in the troposphere, where models predicted that warming should be occurring. For a time, these measurements caused some people to question the validity of global climate models and greenhouse gas warming. Scientists discovered, however, that the satellites carrying the microwave instruments had drifted in their orbits over time, so that more recent measurements were taken at a different time of day than older measurements. Once scientists accounted for this bias and other differences between the individual instruments, the measurements showed a warming trend in the troposphere, consistent with surface observations of rising global temperature.

Re-analysis of the satellite measurements answered one of the frequently asked questions about global warming: why didn’t the early satellite data show warming in the lower layer of the atmosphere? To read more on this topic, see Global Warming Questions & Answers, which addresses this and other common questions about global warming.

    Further reading

  • Global Warming Questions & Answers on the Earth Observatory.
  • Global Warming, a fact sheet published on the Earth Observatory.
  • Fu, Q., Johanson, C.M., Warren, S.G., Seidel, D.J. (2004, May 6). Contribution of stratospheric cooling to satellite-inferred tropospheric temperature trends. Nature, 429, 55-58.
  • Johanson, C.M., Fu, Q. (2007 June). Antarctic atmospheric temperature trend patterns from satellite observations. Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L12703.
  • Karl, T. R., Hassol, S. J., Miller, C. D., and Murray, W. L., editors. (2006). Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences. A Report by the Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, Washington, DC. Accessed June 8, 2007.
  • Ramaswamy, V., Schwarzkopf, M.D., Randel, W.J., Santer, B.D., Soden, B.J., Stenchikov, G.L. (2006, Feb 24). Anthropogenic and natural influences in the evolution of lower stratospheric cooling. Science, 311, 1138-1141.
  • Remote Sensing Systems. (2007, June 12). Description of MSU and AMSU Data Products. Accessed July 5, 2007.

NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data provided courtesy of Remote Sensing Systems. Caption information courtesy Carl Mears, Remote Sensing Systems, and Paul Newman and Joel Susskind NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Spread the historic word:

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2 Comments | Clean Air Act, Climate change, climate_change, Cost of Green, Global warming, Green Politics, Science, Technology, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Chinese government behind “climategate” hacking?

January 1, 2010

Conspiracy fans — a category which appears to include almost all climate change denialists — won’t like the news from Planet Green’s “Planet 100.”  This little news show claims evidence that China was the source of the hacking of the University of East Anglia’s climate related e-mails.

Why won’t the denialists like it?  They won’t like it because it makes sense:  Who stood to profit from embarrassing scientists just before the Copenhagen meetings?  China, who wished to avoid any binding agreements, would gain simply by sowing confusion.

Evidence is pretty thin, but for the first time since the hacked e-mails were published, there’s a plausible motive.   Also, the source is also not wholly pristine or reputable in science stuff — the Daily Mail of London, which specializes in gossipy tabloid news.  Watch that space.

P.S.  — Don’t miss the squid invasion story in the same newscast.

Resources:

3 Comments | China, Climate change, climate_change, Cost of Green, Ethics, Global warming, Green Politics, Political Smear, Politics, Technology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Global warming politics: ‘Blame the teachers first’

December 29, 2009

Note to teachers: They hate you out there global warming denial land.

Watt’s Up denizens ramble in a state of confusion about how the planet can be warming while local records fall in cold weather.  [Note to Anthony Watts:  Have you explained to your readers that seasons are not governed by CO2 levels, but instead by the tilt of the Earth?]

How to clear up the confusion? Blame it on the teachers.  No kidding.  Here’s the comment from “r”:

r (08:12:32) : [about 62 comments down]

Forget the main stream media. The real roots of this movement, strangely enough, are in grade school and collage teachers.

College teachers are out of touch with the real world. They live in the insulated bubble of academia. They go to school for so long, all they know is school. They never get any experience in the real world of any industry. Therefore, they preach the socialist agenda because it sounds good on paper. The young people they teach do not protest because they don’t know any better yet. Their parents continue to give money to these colleges because they have no idea what their children are actually learning.

Grade school teachers despite having increased course work on classroom management are not required to take many classes in science. They cannot teach science because they don’t understand it themselves. Global warming was introduced to my children through Scholastic Magazine given out at school. The magazine is used as part of the curriculum. The teachers never questioned it. The children were frightened by it and peer pressure keeps anyone from dissenting. The parents are learning about global warming from their children as in 1984.

In fact it is harder for me to protest the fraud of global warming at my own school than it is to protest in the media. I run the risk of alienating myself and my children at school.

If anybody would like to send my schools a note telling them to stop teaching the global warming fraud with reasons why, I would be grateful.

Here are the principal’s emails: Vince.DiGrandi@WappingersSchools.org
Tom.Stella@wappingersschools.org

Perhaps I can do the same for someone else.

Thanks in advance.

Here’s what I recommend:  Send an e-mail to the two people listed above, and congratulate them for offering real science to their students.  Tell them you’ve heard that there is a national campaign to stop them from teaching good science, and that you support them and hope the campaign fails.

Anyone who lies to his kids about science, about the environmental issues we face, about life in general, will indeed alienate themselves from their children, if the children are lucky.  “r” wishes his kids to be taught voodoo science.  Shame on him.

I wonder what “r” thinks of his own teachers.

5 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, Cost of Green, Education, Global warming, History, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science, Teachers, Voodoo science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

The unbearable lightness of climate denialist thought

December 28, 2009

Maybe “emptiness” would be a better description.

Carbon dioxide’s greenhouse gas functions were discovered in the 19th century.  The physics are beyond dispute by rational people.

But that doesn’t stop the hard-core denialists from searching for a way to deny the undeniable.  Anthony Watts hosts a guest post from a guy who says that because the atmosphere is complex, the physics of global warming do not apply.

The guest poster is Willis Eschenbach.  His argument?  Well, rivers don’t run straight to the sea; they meander.  Ergo, water doesn’t run downhill in a complex system.   Consequently, no global warming.  In another place he argues that humans are not metal, therefore, no global warming.

I mean — sweet Mother of Pearl! —  this guy even denies the existence of the Army Corps of Engineers, and river straightening:

The results of changes in such a flow system are often counterintuitive. For example, suppose we want to shorten the river. Simple physics says it should be easy. So we cut through an oxbow bend, and it makes the river shorter … but only for a little while. Soon the river readjusts, and some other part of the river becomes longer. The length of the river is actively maintained by the system. Contrary to our simplistic assumptions, the length of the river is not changed by our actions.

No wonder they place all their bets on stealing e-mails from scientists.  Somebody show that man the South Platte River through Denver, Colorado, or the Los Angeles River through Los Angeles, or the Mississippi from Arkansas to the Gulf.  Somebody give that man a paddle!

Here are a couple of clues:  First, water always runs downhill — capillary action being the exception.  Eschenbach doesn’t propose capillary action as a driver of river meandering.  Any hydrologist will tell  you, however, that even a meandering river runs downhill.  Second, human beings don’t conduct heat like metal blocks.  Even a dead human won’t conduct heat like a copper block, but especially a living human will radiate heat away through several different paths, so that heating the feet of a human will not cause a concomitant rise in temperature of the head.  But, heck, if you soak the human’s head in hot water, it won’t warm like a block of steel, either.  The examples offered in this piece get pushed past the brink of absurdity.  It’s impossible for me to believe that Eschenbach — or Watts — fails to understand the physics so greatly.  I can only imagine that they are driven by a fanatic devotion to an idea of the result they hope to see, and that blinds them to the errors they make.

Finally, water’s flow, downhill or up with capillary action, doesn’t negate global warming.  Human conductivity affects warming not at all, also.

(No, “constructal theory” doesn’t have much to do with it.  Constructal theory generally doesn’t apply to atmospheric conditions, since the air is, technically, not alive, but a dynamic fluid system already highly evolved for these purposes.  Even for those cases in which contructal ideas apply to non-living systems, constructal theory does not claim that laws of physics are suspended or held in abeyance, as Eschenbach claims at Watts’s blog.  The idea of constructal theory is that systems not in equilibrium, will, over time, figure out (evolve) more efficient means to get into equilibrium.  This has nothing to do with the fact of CO2 acting as a greenhouse gas.  Constructal theory would only suggest that, over time, the atmosphere would develop systems to get heat distributed better despite CO2, which means that warming would not be held in abeyance at all, but spread out further and farther.)

Watts is already hot that I posted science links at his place on another post.  Go see what other commenters can get away with.  Can the camel’s nose of real science push into the WUWT tent?

Share the lightness:


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5 Comments | air pollution, chemistry, Climate change, climate_change, denialism, Global warming, Green Politics, Paranoia, Physics, Rampant stupidity, Research, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Anthony Watts: ‘Don’t bother me with the sarcastic facts’

December 27, 2009

Somebody needs to come up with new corollaries of Poe’s Law to cover climate skeptics.

Anthony Watts posts a series on polar bears, with Grandpa Bear kvetching about what his grandson is learning in public polar bear school about climate change.

I commented, posting a link to the press release of the Polar Bear Study Group, the world’s longest-established and most-respected organization on polar bear populations and population health.  It’s a rather dull press release, really, on the last meeting of the group last summer:

The PBSG renewed the conclusion from previous meetings that the greatest challenge to conservation of polar bears is ecological change in the Arctic resulting from climatic warming.  Declines in the extent of the sea ice have accelerated since the last meeting of the group in 2005, with unprecedented sea ice retreats in 2007 and 2008. The PBSG confirmed its earlier conclusion that unabated global warming will ultimately threaten polar bears everywhere.

The PBSG also recognized that threats to polar bears will occur at different rates and times across their range although warming induced habitat degradation and loss are already negatively affecting polar bears in some parts of their range. Subpopulations of polar bears face different combinations of human threats.  The PBSG recommends that jurisdictions take into account the variation in threats facing polar bears.

The PBSG noted polar bears suffer health effects from persistent pollutants.  At the same time, climate change appears to be altering the pathways by which such pollutants enter ecosystems. The PBSG encourages international efforts to evaluate interactions between climate change and pollutants.

The PBSG endorses efforts to develop non-invasive means of population assessment, and continues to encourage jurisdictions to incorporate capture and radio tracking programs into their national monitoring efforts. The members also recognized that aboriginal people are both uniquely positioned to observe wildlife and changes in the environment, and their knowledge is essential for effective management.

All I posted was the link.

The response at Watts’ What’s Up With That?

Censored:

Ed Darrell (20:50:48) :

[snip – pointless sarcasm]

Is that emblematic of the state climate “skeptics” are in these days, that a dull recitation of the facts is “sarcasm?” “Don’t confuse us with the facts,” they seem to be saying.  And, if they really think they’re making headway with stolen e-mails, why are they so crabby?

More politics than science, more bluster than discussion.

This cartoon scares them, too.  Maybe they know something’s up:

Chris Riddell cartoon, December 20, 2009, The Observer

Chris Riddell cartoon, December 20, 2009, The Observer

Follow up: Gail Zawacki at Wit’s End neatly captures the tell-tale signs of denialism at work.  Carol Kane had a great line in Annie Hall: “I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype.”  Denialists everywhere appear to share that emotion.

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15 Comments | Cartoons, Climate change, climate_change, Cost of Green, denialism, Global warming, Green Politics, Natural history, Politics, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Investigative report: Climate science e-mails ugly, science is correct; “skeptics'” response even uglier

December 14, 2009

Associate Press put a team of five reporters on the e-mails purloined from the Hadley climate science group in England.  AP sought advice on interpreting the messages from other scientists involved in ethical science issues.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the only group that has gone through the entire mass to see what is really shown — more than a million words, the AP story estimated.

Veteran climate issue reporter Seth Borenstein wrote up the story:  Scientists in the heat of research and interpretation, on deadline with government policy makers, often attacked unfairly — one received death threats for his work on climate change.  Under those conditions, one might understand that the scientists were defensive and rude, in private, about their critics.  One of the critics harassed scientists with repeated FOI requests, then didn’t use the data.  In one case, a critic published a paper based on bad data — what the critics accused the scientists of doing.

But in the end, there was no pattern of data fixing.   Independent reviews today confirm that independently-generated studies confirm the warming the scientists wrote about.

Of course, that doesn’t stop the hecklers of the scientists from complaining, either about the science or the way it’s reported.  Rather than deal with the material AP reported, for example, warming blogger Anthony Watts attacked the reporter who wrote the story, complaining that he is “too close” to the story, since he seems to have been covering the story long enough that his e-mail appears in the purloined e-mails.

‘You can’t report the news because you know too much,’ is Watts’s complaint.

In the e-mail cited, Seth Borenstein wrote to some of the world’s best scientists in the field and asked their opinions about a paper making some contrary claims.

To Watts, seeking information from the experts is beyond the pale.  He calls it an ethical infraction.

Watts is unbound by such ethical rules, however, and so can make up stuff like this with abandon.  Watts’ charge is hooey, foul play, and stupid.  In the headline to his post, Watts wrote, “AP’s Seth Borenstein is just too damn cozy with the people he covers – time for AP to do something about it.”

That’s right, AP — it’s time Borenstein got a promotion for doing the legwork, honestly, that critics of the science have refused to do.  Borenstein’s reporting is important.  The story goes beyond mere repeating of press releases, beyond the mere “he-said/he-said” norm.  Borenstein, in unemotional, clear and cool terms, indicted the critics of warming, by factually reporting the events.  Give that man and his team a Pulitzer Prize.

Why shouldn’t reporters go to the experts?  Why shouldn’t they ask the opinions of all sides in a science debate?

Think about it for a moment:  Watts’s complaint is that Borenstein sought fairness in reporting on Watts’s side’s claim.  Because Borenstein refused to show the bias Watts wants, Watts went after Borenstein.

Could there be a more clear and dramatic illustration of why the scientists’ ire is raised by such silly criticism?

Watts quotes at length from the Associated Press Statement of News Values and Principles, slyly implying by doing so that Borenstein violated the rules somewhere.  Not so.

Watts worries about “getting too cozy with sources.”  Read his blog.  Watts prefers to be the source — but he also reports on the debate.

Watts would do well to read that AP ethical statement again, and take it to heart.

His charges are groundless, scurrilous in the light of the AP team’s going to great lengths to be fair to all sides.  Watts and other critics bank on people being shocked that scientists get angry.   Watts and his colleagues have campaigned across the web, on television and in print, to have these scientists tarred and feathered, and their science dismissed — though there is not handful of feathers to weigh against the mountains of evidence the scientists accumulated and published over the past 50 years.

Do not take my word for it.  Read the AP story.  Read Watts’s rant.  Read the e-mails, if you wish (you can find them from my opinionated take on the flap).  Check with the scientists you know and trust on their views of the science done and reported.

I won a couple of minor investigative journalism awards in college.  I have been a member of the Society of Professional Journalists off and on since 1974 (not much since I quit doing that stuff full time).  I have worked with some of the best investigative journalists and Congressional investigators in my duties with the Senate.  I’ve been a member of the FOIA committees in Utah and Maryland.  I’ve lobbied in three states for freedom of information.  I know a little bit about investigative reporting and fairness.  And yes, IAAL.

Borenstein’s piece is solid and good.  In light of the firestorm Watts hopes to bring down on it, Borenstein’s article is a shining example of high ethics in journalism.  It deserves your reading.

If the critics had data denying warming, or denying human causation of warming, why are they hiding it so well?  If they have the data to prove the scientists are in error, why not publish it, instead of sniping at a wire service reporter who merely tells the story?

Critics don’t have the data to contest the hard work of the scientists.  They don’t have the data to make a case against either warming or human causation.  And now we all know.

Post Script:  Um, and , you know, it’s not like Borenstein hasn’t done some stuff over the years to make it look like he’s been on Watts’s side:  Stoat, Mooney’s Intersection, Island of Doubt.  Watts’ fit may put a gloss on Borenstein’s work that wasn’t there to begin with.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/14/tech/main5977430.shtml

Help others investigate the facts:

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14 Comments | Accuracy, air pollution, Climate change, climate_change, Cost of Green, Environmental protection, Ethics, Global warming, Green Politics, History, Political Smear, Politics, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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