Monthly Archives: April 2015

Lomborg in Oz

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I’ve written here about some of Bjorn Lomborg’s work, generally critical of it. But the Abbot Government in Australia apparently likes what Lomborg is doing well enough to have earmarked $4 million (in some currency or another) to ensconce a version of his academically questionable enterprise right in the middle of Australian academics.

I would like to write this up for you so you can learn all you need to learn about it, but Graham Readfearn has already done an excellent job reporting this. I strongly urge you to go and read: Australian taxpayers funding climate contrarian’s methods with $4m Bjørn Lomborg centre.

…

What are you doing here, you are supposed to have left by now to read this. Go.

How To Demolish Climate Denial

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John Cook, of the University of Queensland, and his colleagues, have created a MOOC … Massive Open Online Course … called “Making Sense of Climate Science Denial.”

Why does this matter? How does it work? What can you do?

All of these questions are answered here: University offering free online course to demolish climate denial.

Fight sticky myths with even sticker sticklier facts.

Do go check it out. See you in class!

Check out: The First Earth Day, an epoch journey into politics, explosions, folk music, and old boats floating on stinking rivers.
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Avian Influenza in the Mississippi and Pacific Flyways

Birds, Health and Medicine

What is H5N2 Avian Influenza?

H5N2 is a bird influenza virus that is making news. This mainly affects domestic fowl, and in this sense is not a topic central to 10,000 Birds. But, wild birds are part of the story, and the virus itself has changed and has been known to make wild birds ill. And, of course, the reputation of certain species of birds as troublemakers for humans is a problem in bird conservation, so this is worth watching. Here I have a quick summary which I’m afraid lacks a lot of information that we’d like to have but just don’t….

Please click through to read my latest post in 10,000 Birds.

How Bad is the Minnesota Turkey Epidemic?

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Unless you are living in a chicken coop, you have probably heard about the Turkey Crisis in Minnesota and surrounding upper plains/midwestern states. Every few days we hear more news: Millions of farmed turkeys are being put down in one turkey farm after another, because the farm’s turkeys are infested with the H5N2 bird flu.

I should say right away, that according to the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association, there is no significant risk of a turkey shortage. While it is always bad to count your chickens before they hatch, apparently this is not a big problem with the larger fowl.

See also: Avian Influenza H5N2 In The Mississippi And Pacific Flyways

The flu is probably carried to the turkeys by migratory birds. Once it is established at a turkey farm, the birds are generally put down. So far this has cost Minnesota turkey farmers millions, probably tens of millions, of dollars.

There are two reasons to be concerned about this, but it is also important to keep the epidemic in perspective.

The first reason to be concerned is, of course, because turkey farmers are taking it in the neck, a distinction usually reserved for the turkeys themselves. Anything that badly affects farmers is bad for the local or regional economy. The second reason is the small possibility that emerges any time there is a lot of bird flu activity. This, of course, is the possibility that a new version of a virus will emerge that will affect humans. The chances of that are very small, but the possible consequences are of course great, as new viruses in a population can be highly virulent. There have been no known cases of humans being affected and it is highly unlikely that this will happen.

I should also note that the turkey virus does affect chickens as well, but according to experts, less so. The virus spreads easily from turkey to turkey, but has a harder time spreading among chickens.

I checked with Lara Durben of the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association to see how much H5N2 is affecting the turkeys and turkey farming here. She told me that so far about 26 farms have been affected, which is just under 5% of the total number of farms statewide (about 600). “In Minnesota, about 1.6 million birds have been destroyed because of this strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza. That compares to a total number of birds raised in Minnesota of 46 million annually – so about 3.5% of the total number of turkeys raised in our state will not enter the marketplace because they have been destroyed,” she told me.

Durben also anticipates that the number of new cases will go down shortly, as Spring passes into Summer, but possibly pick up again in the Fall. “The virus does not thrive in heat, and the spring migratory bird season will be over. However, we do assume that cases will pick up again in the fall with migratory birds heading back south and cooler weather. USDA researchers are telling us that we should expect to see this particular strain around for the next 3-5 years in all four flyways of the U.S.”

So that is good news. Less good news is that this s the first time that the US has seen H5N2, and it is highly virulent. This is the worst pathogenic avian influenza Derben has seen.

Since we are talking turkey, please have a look at these related posts:

<li>A two part interview on the history of the Turkey: <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/12/02/a-partial-history-of-the-turkey-podcast/">Part I</a> | <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/12/15/a-second-helping-of-turkey/">Part II</a></li>

<li><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/11/22/the-feast-a-thanksgiving-day-story/">The Feast (A Thanksgiving Day Story)</a></li>

<li><a href="http://10000birds.com/history-of-the-turkey-and-the-first-thanksgiving.htm">The Domestic Turkey and the First Thanksgiving</a></li>

Photo from here.

Climate Science As A Second Front for Biology Teachers

Climate Change, Uncategorized, , , , ,

The American Biology Teacher has hosted a guest editorial by Glenn Branch and Minda Berbeco of the NCSE. The editorial points out that climate science is under a similar sort of anti-science attack as evolution has been for years, though generally with different (less religious) motivations. Also noted is the problem of fitting climate change into the curriculum, especially in biology classes. Indeed, biology teachers are already having a hard time getting the standard fare on the plate. In recent years, for example, the AP biology curriculum has jettisoned almost everything about plants, which were previously used as examples of physiology owing to both their relevance and the relative ease of using plants in biology labs. Branch and Berbeco note that climate change has not made its way that far into the biology classrooms, but there are already anti-science efforts to keep it out.

… a backlash against the inclusion of climate science – and anthropogenic climate change in particular – in the science classroom is under way. For example, when West Virginia became the thirteenth state to adopt the NGSS in December 2014, it was discovered that beforehand a member of the state board of education successfully called for changes that downplayed climate change… Nationally, according to a survey of 555 K–12 teachers who teach climate change, 36% were pressured to teach “both sides” of a supposed scientific controversy, and 5% were required to do so.

Minda_BerbecoI interviewed Minda Berbeco, who is the Programs and Policy Director at the National Center for Science Education, about climate change in the classroom.

Question: Should Earth System Science (which would include climate change) become one of the core areas of science teaching in high schools? If so, are there efforts underway to move this along?

Answer: Absolutely, Earth systems are a core concept in the Next Generation Science Standards, which are being adopted across the country right now. Understanding Earth systems is central to understanding the world around us, and intersects every other type of science from biology to chemistry to physics. Climate change is, of course, an important piece of understanding Earth systems, as it too intersects these other topics and is a compelling topic that relates directly to how humans can impact the planet.

Question: My background is more in biology but as a palaeoanthropologist I’ve studied several areas of what would might be classified as “Earth Science” or even “Physical Science” so I’m more comfortable with a cross disciplinary approach. Since climate change is normally considered a physical science (in college or advanced studies) and high schools tend to stick with the silos (clearly defined disciplines), shouldn’t we expect climate change be taught in physical sciences or geology rather than biology?

Answer: As a biologist, I’m always really surprised by this question, as there are many people who think that climate change only intersects the Earth sciences. This is a very one-dimensional view and completely ignores not only how climate affects organisms and ecosystems, but also how organisms and ecosystems in turn affect climate. It turns out that many biology teachers across the country agree with me, since we are finding that a significant number of them are teaching about climate change, even when it is not in their state’s science standards.

Question: I think it might be true that among high school science teachers, we see denialism of evolution to a higher degree among physical science teachers than biology teachers. This may not matter too much since evolution is rarely taught in physical science classes, though it certainly can be disparaged or denied there. Since climate change might fall under the preview of physical sciences in some curricula (as would geology and earth systems), will we see a larger amount of, or a new kind of, conflict among the teachers themselves as climate science is more widely addressed? (and by extention among administrators whom we need to support teachers under fire)

Answer: I’m not sure who challenges evolution more, physical science teachers or biology teachers – obviously because evolution is more often covered in biology classes, that is where we tend to hear about it. As for climate change, the challenges that we see actually have less to do with outright denial, and more with teachers genuinely not realizing what the evidence shows or trying to bring in “both sides” as a critical thinking exercise, knowing that the evidence clearly demonstrates that humans are largely responsible for recent climate change. We don’t have students debate “both sides” of whether mermaids exist or that viruses cause disease, so why would we do it with climate change? Plus there are far better questions to ask about climate change, like how it will impact animal migration or the spread of disease, that scientists are actually asking. Why not have students study that?

Question: You note that the motivations for denying evolution vs. for denying climate change are different. But given that there is a link between certain political affiliations and things like secularism (or anti-secularism) there is some overlap in who is involved and to some extent why they deny science. (Denying science is convenient for a lot of reasons.) Are you concerned about future alliances forming in the anti-science world that may strengthen attacks on climate science in public schools?

Answer: Certainly there is cross-over between different groups who disagree with what the scientific consensus shows on climate change and evolution, and alliances can form as a result of that. This can backfire as well though, as many people who deny climate change would bristle at the thought of working with a creationist. They have somehow convinced themselves that with regard to climate change they know better than the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, but when it comes to evolution, of course the scientists are right. It’s a little mind-boggling to imagine, but it is something that we’ve seen quite a bit.

Question: Both evolution and climate science are brought into social sciences (or other non-hard science areas) in schools in the form of debate topics. (see below) Typically these approaches involve the presumption of there really being a debate. Which there isn’t. Is NCSE monitoring this, or addressing this problem in any way?

Answer: We definitely pay attention to these sorts of things, and we are not fans of students debating “both sides” of the science, as it elevates non-science to the same level as science. Although having students debate the science of climate change is clearly counterproductive, having students debate issues in climate change policy is fine. There are a lot of options, from energy efficiency to carbon taxes, making it an ideal topic for a social studies or government class. Climate change is an issue that students will have to deal with as adults, so it makes sense to try to give them practice in a government class on how they will navigate the policy decisions that will need to be made. We’ve seen science teachers connect with social studies teachers to address this issue, where the students learn the actual scientific evidence in their science class and then debate the policy options in their social studies class. This is a totally appropriate approach and is an interesting way of showing students how science can inform policy.

Question: I think nearly all biology teachers know that the official line is that evolution is for real, so even if a biology teacher is a creationist they know that they are going off script to deny (or avoid) evolution. Is this true for climate change? Are teachers who have classes that might include climate science all aware of the fact that climate change is not a scientific issue (it is mainly well established science)? Or are many of these teachers under the impression that there is a debate?

Answer: Unfortunately, there have been many groups who have spent a lot of time and money attempting to undermine the science in the public’s eye, and teachers are just as susceptible to these efforts as anyone else. We’ve rarely run into a teacher who has malicious intent when teaching incorrect information about climate change. What we find more often is that they are not familiar with the evidence or take it on as a critical thinking exercise, having students debate “both sides”. Like I said earlier, we are not big fans of this approach.

For those interested in resources that might be useful to science teachers, or the parents of kids in public schools, see THIS PAGE. For those who wish to know more about the activities of the NCSE, or who are concerned about anything going on in your local school or your child’s classroom, visit the NCSE web site. Also, please not that the NCSE Climate Change Bumper Sticker contest is still seeking submissions!

An Improved Classification And Explanation For El Nino (New Research)

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A new study seems to provide a better way to categorize El Nino climate events, and offers an explanation for how different kinds of El Nino events emerge.

El Nino is part of a large scale, very important climate phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean, generally referred to as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Over time (years) wind and water currents move heat into the upper levels of the Equatorial Pacific (La Nina). Then, over time (months) the heat comes back out – that is an El Nino. The effects can be dramatic. During El Nino years, trade winds and monsoons may behave differently than normal. How much precipitation falls and where it falls can change over large regions. Deserts become lakes, good croplands are drought stricken, sea levels change across large portions of the coast.

It is interesting to contemplate the following thought experiment (sorry, a bit of a digression). Imagine if all of the conditions associated with El Nino happened all the time, and had been happening for centuries. An El Nino that is always there is not really an El Nino. It is normal. Those parts that are dry would be dry; Plants and animals, including people, would be dry adapted there in physiology, ecology, and behavior. Same for wet places. It wouldn’t be a desert covered with a lake, it would just be a lake. It wouldn’t be a drought, but just a desert. Etc. The point of this is to underscore the real meaning of El Nino: change. It isn’t so much what it does, but rather, that this climate event’s effects are sudden, dramatic, and occasional.

El Nino has been off and on in the news over the last year or so because it looked like there was going to be a really big one in 2014, but it never materialized. (Even without an El Nino, which warms the surface of the Earth, 2014 was still a record breaking warm year.) Now, El Nino is in the news again because finally we kinda sorta are having one, and a future (this year and next) super double El Nino is being predicted.

Why is El Nino prediction so difficult, and why, when an El Nino happens, it may be very different from some other El Nino that happened before in its overall intensity and in the details of what it causes to happen elsewhere in the world?

You can hear them screaming. The climatologists. “Why? Why? WHY?!?!?” Because this is a really a big thing and it would be really nice to be better at predicting it.

A new study has taken an important step in understanding, and ultimately, predicting El Nino. “Strong influence of westerly wind bursts on El Nino diversity” by Chen et al, published in Nature Geoscience, makes two related points. First, the authors presupposed the existence of three kinds of El Ninos. It has long been thought that El Ninos can be classified into different categories, but the number and nature of those categories varies across groups of researchers. I asked the author if they tried using other a priori numbers for the El Nino categories. “Yes, we did try using other cluster numbers,” Dr. Chen told me. “If it’s set to 2, we would have the extreme El Nino and a broad cluster that include both the canonical and the warm-pool El Nino. If it’s set to 4, we would still see the 3 types we identified but with a 4th type that’s not well separated from the canonical El Nino. In any case we had only one type of La Nina. These discussions will be included in a long paper to be submitted to Journal of Climate.”

Chen et al used a method of modeling El Nino that is different than what is usually done and with this method successfully classified all of the El Nino events over a 50 year time period into these three categories. Second, Chen et al show that the main variable that determines what kind of El Nino happens is the intensity and location of westerly wind bursts (WWBs). I also asked if other variables used in their model (discussed below) were changed to see what would happen. Dr. Chen noted, “we did play with different model settings and parameters, and the outcome turned out to be fairly robust. We are very confident with our results.”

First a brief note on the method. The usual way of managing the complex phenomenon of El Nino … of measuring stuff and stuffing the measurements into a mathematical model … is called empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis. This involves measuring key variables across a grid covering the Pacific Equatorial region. Then you take the measurements and simplify how they are organized and turn a multidimensional time-space problem in to a one with fewer dimensions. There are different ways to do this but they all fall into the widely used methodology that included principle component analysis and other things you may be familiar with. You take something really complicated and derive simplified (somewhat) data that is more usable for characterizing a phenomenon or predicting the phenomenon’s behavior while at the same time not throwing away too much of the meaningful variation in the system. This method, however, if fairly linear and deterministic. A bunch of variables are thought to cause outcome A (which has variants), and this bunch of variables are combined so you have only X and Y causing A.

Chen et al applied a different (but well established) technique that presumes less about the linear nature of the model’s components and allows for complex interrelationships that may vary across conditions to remain. It is called fuzzy clustering method. In this method, the data are allowed to decide on their own (more or less) how they should be organized, and (this is the fuzzy part) individual bits of data are actually allowed to occupy more than one cluster. For many systems, the two methods would result in similar outcomes, but when a system is less linear the second method may be more realistic.

When this method is used, the role of WWBs turns out to be very important. This is not entirely new because we already knew that westerly winds across the Equatorial Pacific were important in ENSO cycles. The ENSO cycle involves, to simplify a bit, heat at the surface of the Pacific moving westward and then into the deep (but not to deep) ocean where it builds up. This process is maintained by currents and winds moving from east to west. It is a little like the air near your ceiling growing ever hotter if you burn wood in your stove; In that case the property of warm air rising causes the upper few feet of your living room to get much hotter than the floor. The Western Pacific gets hotter over time because winds and currents push the heat there.

This build up in heat (and other factors) eventually cause a change in the movement of heat and we see warm water moving east, surfacing, and transferring heat energy into the air. That is an El Nino.

From the abstract of the paper:

We propose a unified perspective on El Nin?o diversity as well as its causes, and support our view with a fuzzy clustering analysis and model experiments. Specifically, the interannual variability of sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean can generally be classified into three warm patterns and one cold pattern, which together constitute a canonical cycle of El Nin?o/ La Nin?a and its different flavours. Although the genesis of the canonical cycle can be readily explained by classic theories, we suggest that the asymmetry, irregularity and extremes of El Nin?o result from westerly wind bursts, a type of state-dependent atmospheric perturbation in the equatorial Pacific. Westerly wind bursts strongly affect El Nin?o but not La Nin?a because of their unidirectional nature. We conclude that properly accounting for the interplay between the canonical cycle and westerly wind bursts may improve El Nin?o prediction.

The authors demonstrate that accounting for WWBs does a better job of retroactively predicting the different kinds of El Nino events that have happened over the last fifty years. They conclude that El Nino may result from a combination of the built in see-saw effect of build up of ocean heat in the west and the reversal of movement of warm water on one hand and WWB perturbations, with the pattern of westerly winds affected by the oscillation itself. (I am over simplifying ENSO here, see below for resources on how it works.) Whether or not an El Nino happens is predicted by the classic oscillation model, but which kind of El Nino results is better predicted by the WWBs. From the study:

Such a scenario is appealing because it reconciles hotly debated issues related to the classification and genesis of various El Nin?o events, by killing three birds — diversity, asymmetry and extremes — with one stone. But one must not dwell on the simplicity of the picture painted here. Our intention is to emphasize the strong influence of WWBs on El Nin?o diversity, but not to downplay other processes that may play significant roles in El Nin?o dynamics and thus contribute to the complexity of its diversity.

The research reported here does not address, but may relate to, a set of questions that have been on my mind as I’ve watched El Nino and the discussion surrounding it develop over the last year or so. Is El Nino (or ENSO, more broadly) changing because of climate change? Since El Nino was already hard to predict, we can chalk up this last round of lousy predictions as El Nino being El Nino. But we might also ask the question, is it possible that as more surface and upper ocean heat enters the system, are there changes? Chen et all actually do note that “… real-time El Nin?o forecasting remains an elusive and formidable goal. This is probably because predictability estimates were mainly based on models dominated by a single mode of El Nin?o variability or on hindcast skills of relatively large El Nin?o events, whereas in reality El Nin?o has a variety of flavours, especially in the past decade” (emphasis added). So, these folks, referring to other research, note that El Nino has changed. Is this random variation with no important linear time dimension, or is it a “new normal” for the already normal-defying El Nino, or, perhaps, is it the first part of a period during which ENSO changes dramatically to a climate controlling phenomenon that acts differently in important ways?

Michael Tobis, an expert on atmospheric and ocean systems, suggested to me that “…the real action in climate change is where the warm water goes, not what the wind does. The wind will respond, and may reinforce or mitigate what the ocean does, true. But as the ocean water mass gets further from its recent near-equilibrium, eventually wind stress coupling becomes a smaller deal and the water will go where it will go.” Tobis also notes, and Chen et al acknowledge this may be important, that “the most salient feature in the oceans right now is the large and persistent warm blob in the eastern North Pacific.” This implies (i.e., causes me to speculate or, really, guess) that a warming ocean may shift the balance of what is important in driving, or resulting from, ENSO dynamics. That does not detract from Chen et al’s apparent ability to both classify and explain the differences between El Nino events with WWBs being the key factor.

I asked Dr. Chen to go out on a limb a bit to discuss what the future may hold as climate changes.

Question: With global warming, ocean heat (both at some depth and SST) has increased. Since heat in the ocean is a key variable in ENSO cycles, is it possible that El Nino dynamics would change in some important way, for example, of the three flavors of El Nino, the relative likelihood of which flavor manifesting changing? Is there evidence that such a change may have already occurred, thus the dismal level of predicability of 2014/5? Or, would you expect such a change in the future? My gut feeling is that El Nino dynamics is a barely stable metastable system that is in sufficiently weak equilibrium that it could change to a different equilibrium if important inputs are changed a lot.

Answer: I think your gut feeling is right, in the sense that El Nino is changing under global warming. The questions are how and why. Observations over the last 15 years seem to indicate that the system is now dominated by the warm-pool El Nino, while some people use IPCC model projections to argue that in the future the extreme El Nino will become more frequent. These are still open questions.

Second version of the same question: I’ve heard El Nino/ENSO described as a quasi equilibrium. The essential feature of this system is shifting back and forth between recharge and discharge of ocean heat. Is a different system imaginable where this is not a cyclic system, but rather, a steady state system (such as we see with the Atlantic Conveyor or other climate systems) with heat going in (somewhere) and coming out (somewhere else) more or less steadily? Since we are entering global temperature levels not seen in a long time (and thus only represented in ancient paleo records of lower quality) it seems like it can’t be ruled out (other than it being a rather extreme idea)

Answer: In the recent history and perhaps also during many periods in the past, ENSO did behave like a self-sustaining oscillation. However, it is quite possible that the system might enter a steady state — a permenant El NIno or La Nina state — when external forcing changes.

Question: Figure 4 (see top of post) seems to show something rather astonishing (aside from that figure’s use to demonstrate WWB and WWV association with different kinds of El Nino): WWB in 2014 was very high and uniquely so. Why? Other than the apparent fact that this WWB was not followed by a strong El Nino (a key point of your paper) is there anything else interesting about this?

It all depends on the interplay between the WWB and the basic cycle (measured by WWV). Only when the former occurs at the right phase of the latter a large El Nino will take place. It is true that WWBs were very strong in 2014, but only in the early year, not over the entire spring season. Further experiments will be needed to clarify whether or not the relationship between WWB and WWV will change under global warming.

It will certainly be interesting to see, over the next 24 months or so, if we end up having a strong El Nino, a double El Nino, or if we have lapsed into an extended period of what some are calling El Annoyingo.

For more information about El Nino:

Is a Powerful El Niño Brewing in the Pacific Ocean?

Fishing in pink waters: How scientists unraveled the El Niño mystery

El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Technical Discussion

El Niño: How it works, how we observe it

Check out: The First Earth Day, an epoch journey into politics, explosions, folk music, and old boats floating on stinking rivers.

Climate Change Is Not A Scientific Problem

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DESCRIPTION

Hunter Cutting, Director of Strategic Communications at Climate Nexus, talks about the upsides of the issues surrounding climate change. “One of the very interesting things I think about this whole issue is it’s actually not a scientific problem. Thanks to work of scientists we’re actually pretty clear what causes global warming,” said Cutting. “What we’re really talking about is moving our economy from a fossil fuel economy to renewable energy economy and the cost to that is marginal at best.”

From here.

Finally, TV Meteorologists On Board with Climate Change

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There was a time when I picked which local TV news station to watch based on the way the TV meteorologist addressed global warming. There were two stations in the running. One of them had a guy who frequently disparaged climate science, and the other had Paul Douglas, who no longer does TV meteorology (I no longer watch local TV news) but who has become a major spokesperson for reason and science (see: Paul Douglas on Climate Change and A Q&A with Paul Douglas, the evangelical Christian Republican poster boy for climate change). Paul and I have become colleagues and friends.

In 2011, George Mason University produced a survey of TV meteorologists demonstrating that more than 50% did not understand or accept that climate change was happening as a result of human caused greenhouse gas pollution. Just now, George Mason University has looked at this again and their results demonstrate a dramatic shift. Today, something close to 9 in 10 TV meteorologists in the US are on board with the science.

The dismal results of the 2011 survey resulted in the development of the Forecast the Facts project. Today, Forecast the Facts’ Deputy Director Emily Southard released the following statement:

Forecast the Facts is excited to learn that the number of meteorologists who accept that humans plays a role in climate change has increased from 50% to nearly 90% according to a recent GMU study. With viewers facing unprecedented climate-change induced heat waves, droughts, and flooding – it’s more important than ever that meteorologists, as some of the most trusted communicators on climate, accept the facts and present them to their audiences accordingly. We hope all meteorologists will follow suit and commit to broadcasting the truth on climate change.

The 2011 study is here (PDF), and this graph summarizes the results:
2011GMU_Study_Meteorlogists_Climate_Change

I’ve not seen the new study yet, just the press release, but if I get a copy of it I’ll post a link or show some pretty pictures or something …

ADDED: I’m still trying to get a copy of the report (there are technical problems at the site) but I did find this graphic summarizing it:

Screen Shot 2015-04-16 at 11.16.01 AM

Meanwhile, here is an interview I did with Paul Douglas a while back, demonstrating that TV meteorologists can have some very important things to say about climate change!

March 2015 Was A Very Warm Month

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The last 12 months have been the warmest one year period in the NASA database since records began in 1880. According to the just released NASA GISS Global Temperature Data, March, 2015 is estimated to have been the fifth warmest month on record. Here are the top 20 months in rank order:

2007 JAN 93
2002 MAR 88
2010 MAR 87
1998 FEB 86
2015 MAR 84
2010 APR 82
2014 SEP 81
2015 FEB 78
2014 MAY 78
2014 OCT 77
2005 OCT 76
2015 JAN 75
2013 NOV 75
2010 NOV 75
1998 JUN 75
1995 FEB 75
2010 FEB 74
2006 DEC 74
2014 DEC 73
2014 AUG 73

Here is the monthly data covering the entire period of the instrumental record (1880 – present)

Screen Shot 2015-04-14 at 4.59.29 PM

And, most importantly, here is the 12 month running mean (showing only since 1940 to make it easier to read):

Screen Shot 2015-04-14 at 4.59.08 PM

And a couple more graphics showing the last few months up close:
Screen Shot 2015-04-15 at 12.37.31 AM

Screen Shot 2015-04-15 at 12.33.49 AM

And this is just looking at January through March for each year in the database:

Screen Shot 2015-04-15 at 9.47.47 AM

Dinosaurs Biting Other Dinosaurs In The Face

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The number one rule of the Taphonomy Club is don’t talk about marks on bones … without placing them in context. Many marks on bones could have multiple causes, such as putative cut marks caused by stone tools on animal bones found on early hominid sites. In that case, hard sharp stony objects in the ground can cause marks that are hard to tell apart from stone tool marks. But when you find almost all the possible stone tool marks in the exact locations they would be if a hominid was butchering or defleshing the animal, then you can assert that that butchery or defleshing with stone tools was highly likely to have happened.

A similar logic has been applied by paleontologists DWE Hone and DH Tanke in their study of the fossil remains of a dinosaur from Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada. The dinosaur exhibits numerous bite marks, and apparently (unlike stone tool cut marks) identification of these marks as caused by carnivorous dinosaur teeth is not in question. But the location of the marks and other features allowed these scientists to argue that some sort of combat regularly occurred between members of members of the same species, or similar species, during the animal’s life. Given what is known about animal behavior and the kinds of dinosaurs around at the time, they claim that it is most likely combat between members of the same species.

The dinosaur in question is a juvenile Daspletosaurus. This is a genus of dinosaur extant in western North America between 77 and 74 million years ago (Late Cretaceous).

Since everyone knows all about Tyrannosaurus, it is helpful to compare Daspletosaurus to Tyrannosaurus. Daspletosaurus was smaller and older. Daspletosaurus ranged around 8 or 9 meters long and 2.5 tonnes, while Tyrannosaurus could be over 12 meters long and 10 tonnes. Tyrannosaurus also lived later (68 million years ago up to about the time of the great extinction). Both had short arms but Daspletosaurus’s arms were longer. Note that this kind of dinosaur, suborder Theropoda, gave rise to birds.

This particular juvenile Daspletosaurus was well preserved. Many of the bones are present, and their position in the matrix that bore them is not too far off from anatomical location. A good number of the missing bones may have actually eroded away after this part of the bone bed was exposed by erosion. There are marks on some of the bones that indicate post-death scavenging. But, most of the tooth marks are of the kind one would expect if a theropod dinosaur was biting it, and most interestingly, most of these marks show evidence of healing, and all but one mark indicating damage is on the head. Normally, theropod inflicted bite marks are found on various different bones of their prey. It appears that this individual was engaged in combat with other individuals of the same sort … other theropods. And, since this is probably the only theropod of this size at the time in the area, it is reasonable to conclude that this is evidence of infraspecific combat or competition.

From the study’s abstract:

Trace marks on the bones of non-avian dinosaurs may relate to feeding by large carnivores or as a result of combat. Here the cranium and mandible of a specimen of Daspletosaurus are described that show numerous premortem injuries with evidence of healing and these are inferred to relate primarily to intraspecific combat. In addition, postmortem damage to the mandible is indicative of late stage carcass consumption and the taphonomic context suggests that this was scavenging. These postmortem bites were delivered by a large bodied tyrannosaurid theropod and may have been a second Daspletosaurus, and thus this would be an additional record of tyrannosaurid cannibalism.

I contacted lead study author Dave Hone with a few questions and he was kind enough to give me answers.

I asked him if he had any guess as to the sex of this individual. While it is possible to sex some dinosaurs, he told me that this was not possible in this case.

I asked Dr. Hone to comment further on the suggestions that the most likely species to have inflicted the pre-mortum wounds was another Daspletosaurus, even though another similar dinosaur, Gorgosaurus, was around at the time. He told me, “We favour Daspleto for the premortem as we think (and based on previous papers) this is a more likely case with more intra than interspecifc aggression leading to these kinds of interactions,” similar to what we see in modern animals that exhibit this behavior. I also wondered if the size of the teeth could indicate the size of the offending beast, and thus confirm the species. He told me they did not look at this too closely because there are various problems with that approach. “We did look at the patterns of tooth distribution briefly but between different sizes of animals (juveniles vs adults) different sizes of teeth within the jaws (front vs back) and then things like missing teeth etc. there’s no way of separating them out. There’s just way too many variables and they are only leaving limited marks. It’s mostly hard to tell even very different animals apart from bite marks let alone two similar and close relatives like this.”

I asked how common Daspletosaurus is in the fossil record and if this was one of the more common tyrannosaurids. He told me that “Actually it’s not that common. The Albertan Tyrannosaurs are generally pretty common but we do for example have more Gorgosaurus and Albertosaurus than Daspleto,” though Daspletosaurus is well represented.

Daspletosaurus is distinct in part because of various extra bony bits in the face and around the eyes, which could be for any of a number of functions. I asked if it is possible that Daspletosaurus was more involved with usually-but-not-always non-lethal infraspecific combat than other tyrannosaurids, if these features are related to what might have been extra protection (or signaling features that might arise from sexual selection). If so, would this indicate something about social structure? He told me, “I’m very wary of making these kinds of extrapolations as some things that look like certain classic signals turn out not to be. My personal opinion is that these hornlets in various Tyrannosaurs likely did function in sociosexual signaling (at the very least I suspect they wouldn’t do much to protect the eyes since that would be tricky place to bite) but it’s hard to say much. Sociality is misleading here as some things can be very social and fight lots and others almost never and vice versa for solitary animals.”

I also wondered about how infraspecific combat square with the individual being relatively young. Would this imply it was fighting off adults intent on cannibalism? Or, were juveniles fighting it out like hyenas do (new born hyena males from the same litter engage in deadly combat)? Or fighting over food? Or engaged in ritual fighting behavior that precedes, as preparation/practice, adult fighting behavior? I wondered if this would say anything about life history development of behaviors in this dinosaur. Dr Hone told me that “it is really hard to say. This isn’t an adult, but then nor is it really a juvenile. We know that some dinosaurs at least can reproduce before they are fully grown (so they are sexually mature when they are not osteologically mature – actually rather like humans, though obviously rather unlike most mammals, and certainly birds). So things get complex fast. This animals was certainly old enough to have been fully independent (though of course they may or may not have been gregarious / social etc.). I doubt cannibalism was normal, I’m sure there were the odd fights that resulted in deaths or adults killed the odd small juvenile (just like crocs do) but it’s a rare behaviour to go after other big carnivores for food – they are rare and dangerous, so stick to baby herbivores. After that it gets even harder so I’d prefer not to speculate too much, though I’d guess that IF solitary, smaller individuals would probably not be holding territories, since they are not big enough to defend them, and obviously immature animals would not be competing for mates or breeding sites or IF in a group to be an alpha of some kind (though that’s not to rule out some aggression to maintain even a lower rank), but it’s not much to go on – just too many unknowns.

What we need, obviously, is some way to bring these creatures back to life so we can observe them alive!

Caption for the figure at the top of the post: Figure 1: Skull in right lateral view showing numerous injuries indicated with black arrows and the relevant code letter (see the text for details).

The rise of Skeptical Science

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The site, not the thing. From the YouTube site:

Everyone at Skeptical Science spends a lot of their time reading the scientific literature and listening to experts. Without that we wouldn’t be able to write all the material that’s published on Skeptical Science. It’s a lot of work, especially when you do this with a critical eye. Our goal, after all, is to ensure that what we write reflects the scientific literature on the subject as accurately as possible.

The materials created by Skeptical Science are used by teachers, politicians, and of course by users on the internet to rebut climate myths. Thanks to this a lot of people have seen materials produced by us, even though they might not know that they have.

The website Skeptical Science wasn’t created overnight, nor was the team behind it assembled instantly. It started small with John Cook starting the website and publishing the first rebuttals to climate myths. As I wasn’t familiar with the story of how Skeptical Science evolved to the website it is today I had the idea to interview John about this. Despite John constantly saying “I’m just not that interesting” I eventually managed to get him in front of the camera to tell the story behind Skeptical Science.

The article released with this video can be found here:

The transcript, used resources, and citations for this video can be found here:

You can support me and the content that I create through Patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/collinmaessen

Interviews filmed in collaboration with University of Queensland, Skeptical Science, and Peter Sinclair. Full interviews available April 2015 in ‘Making Sense of Climate Science Denial‘.

The Coming Food Crisis And What To Do About It

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According to the best available research, we are going to have to double food supplies, globally, by 2050. Think about that for a moment. Children born today will be in their 40s at a time that we need to have already doubled food production, yet during the last 20 years we have seen only a 20 percent increase in food supply. Assuming a steady rate of increase in production (which might be optimistic) we should expect to fall far short of demand over the next few decades. This is a problem. The problem is expected to most severely affect poorer people, people in less developed nations, and poor farmers, but if the entire world is double digit percentage points short of food, almost no one is going to get by unscathed. And, at some point, when nearly everyone is seeing some sort of food shortage or extraordinarily high prices, the totally unscathed are going to start looking pretty tasty to the rest of us.

eat-the-rich_11-26-11Also, agricultural production, whether for food or biofuel, has a fairly large Carbon footprint, both by reducing natural Carbon sinks and by using fossil fuels at a fairly high rate. Doubling production of food would presumably involve increasing these effects, unless alternative approaches are developed. So even if we solve the problem of production, we might exacerbate the problem of human caused climate change. Let us not even speak of sea level rise; Over the coming century we expect sea levels to rise sufficiently to flood, either regularly or permanently, some of the most productive agricultural areas in the world, which would seriously dampen efforts to increase productivity.

And water. This will all require more water, when we are facing increasing shortages of water.

How do we address this problem? Will Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) save the day? Are there other approaches to quickly increase agricultural output? Can we eat different foods that are less difficult or costly to produce?

See: The Hydraulic Hypothesis and the End of Civilization

See: GMOs Are Interesting

Emily_CassidyEmily Cassidy knows some of these answers. Emily is a scientist with with over five years of experience working on land use, agriculture, and the impacts of growing biofuels vis-a-vis developing food crops. She is currently a research analyst with the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Earlier she worked as a scientist with the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, measuring impacts of coastal activities. Her Master’s degree at the University of Minnesota involved detailed modeling of global food availability, which involved developing a new index to quantify the number of people fed per hectare of cropland. This research was widely disseminated in mainstream media.

Recently, Emily produced a report for EWG that looks at the role of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in addressing the world’s food supply. You can get the report here. I had a few questions, so I interviewed Emily about this report as well as the larger issue of humans running out of food during the present lifetime of so many of us.

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Question: The amount of space, energy, and other resources dedicated to the production of meat is enormous. According to your EWG report, producing meat requires three-quarters of the agricultural land in use. For every one calorie of meat we produce we displace about 10 calories of plant based food. You also note that there is a huge amount of waste in the food stream, with about a third (by weight, about one quarter of the calories) lost. The US tosses closer to 40 percent, and of all the forms of food, a disproportionately large percent of meat is wasted. Having recently purchased, twice in a row (apparently you can fool me twice) “fresh” chicken at my local not-very-good grocery store that was rotten the next day, I was wondering where the waste in the food stream, especially for meat, was concentrated, and if we could help solve this problem by distributing meat primarily in frozen form.

On food waste in the US, especially meat, do you have a breakdown of where the meat is wasted? I wonder if a switch to having almost all meat frozen and sold in frozen form would reduce a lot of waste.

Emily: Meat production takes a massive environmental toll, and when we waste meat, we’re wasting all the resources used to produce it. About half of the meat wasted in the U.S. and Europe is tossed at home. Better meal planning and freezing meat could be a big step to reducing household waste. Although supermarkets have an important role to play in reducing waste, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, only about 15 percent of meat waste in the U.S. occurs at supermarkets.

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Emily’s report pretty much slams GMOs. The report states:

Proponents of GE crops claim that they are essential to “feed the world,” but recent evidence indicates that so far, GE crops have How to feed the world. [GMOs have] not increased crop yields enough to significantly contribute to food security…In recent decades, in fact, the dominant source
of yield improvements has been traditional crossbreeding, and that is likely to continue for the
foreseeable future. Relying on genetic engineering to double food supplies by 2050 would require a huge leap in biotechnology and doubling the recent yield trends of crops.

Question: Are there any examples of GMOs being developed that will help with this that are not just vague promises? In other words, is there any tangible namable project or potential project you know of that would contribute to that “giant leap in biotechnology”?

Emily: “Roundup Ready” corn and soybeans represent over 80 percent of the acreage growing GMOs, so it’s clear that the industry’s focus since the 1970s has been on genetic modification for herbicide tolerance. These crops haven’t improved yields because there are inherent biophysical trade-offs between productivity and pest resistance. This is why I wouldn’t bet the farm on biotechnology generating massive yield improvements. It’s similar to the live-fast die-young principle in evolutionary biology; plants are limited by their resources and can’t be good at everything at once.

Not all forms of genetic modification are created equal. There are some projects which could be promising and aim to modify a plant’s genome to improve the efficiency photosynthesis. But it seems to me that most genetic modifications only see benefits in the short term, until evolution catches up to the new genome. For example, insects have evolved tolerance to Bt crops, and U.S. Farmers have been told to lay off of them.

Where I do see exciting research that could really improve food security is the cross breeding of often ignored “orphan crops.” Just recently a new kind of drought-tolerant bean was bred by combining a modern bean with a variety traditionally grown by communities in the American Southwest. We should focus efforts and funding on improving the yields of nutritious food crops, not crops that mostly go to animal feed and biofuels.

See: The Case for Vegan Hot Dogs

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Question: On a related matter, how much does the the nature of the research itself ruin GMOs as a potential source of a modest or even minor agricultural revolution? It seems to me that helping poor farmers to be less poor will always lose to helping big corporations make more money, and the big corporations seem to be doing or funding most of the research. Is this a general pattern for ag research in general? In the old days big government money went into public universities to develop crops, technology, and methods that were available to all. The current system seems different. Is this a problem?

Emily: Universities are increasingly reliant on private industry for agricultural research funding, and companies are a lot more interested in making money than improving the lives of poor people. Private spending for agricultural research is more than twice the public expenditures. Unless public research funding for agriculture improves, the future of our food system will be heavily influenced by companies seeking to make a profit.

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Question: I think a lot of people assume that technology will solve many of our big problems, such as food shortages and climate change. People are divided mostly into two groups: GMO Frankenplants will rise out of the ground and take us in the dead of night (I exaggerate slightly), or they will fix the future. You are suggesting, it seems, that neither of these scenarios is likely. Bottom line, what does your report tell us about GMOs and the medium term problem of people, the poor farmers first, not having enough food?

Emily: There’s a myth that I often hear in Washington, that GMOs help the world’s poorest. If you really look into the evidence though, there’s no support for it. That’s why I wrote EWG report, to address ways to help small farmers, which is the real key to helping the world’s poorest. I’m not anti-GMO but I think we should be honest about their contribution to global food security and improving the livelihoods of poor people.

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The_Population_Bomb

Question: Current research suggests we need to double our food supply by 2050. But we’ve heard that before. In every decade there are predictions about future population growth or future agricultural productivity that suggest catastrophe, and we’ve passed many of those due dates for an expected Malthusian apocalypse. Is this projection different?

Emily: Malthus assumed population growth would continue without limits. We know now that as people have more income, they generally have less children. Another result of people being wealthier us that they demand more meat and dairy. Recent research has shown that population will increase by about 30 percent by 2050, yet demand for crops is estimated to increase by 100 percent. This difference means that demand for meat and dairy is a bigger driver of crop demand than population.. We also have to keep in mind that many countries are starting to adopt biofuels mandates. Tim Searchinger recently estimated that if all countries met their food-based biofuels targets, it would be the equivalent of removing about 30 percent of calories out of the food system. So depending on biofuels mandates, crop production may have to more than double to meet demands.These policies clearly threaten global food security.

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Emily’s report makes a series of specific recommendations that will close some of that huge gap in productivity vs. demand. She doesn’t mention eating the rich, but she does have a few other worthy suggestions. Eliminating food waste, shifting away from biofuels, and changing diets are all on the menu. So far, GMOs are not. I recommend that you read it and get working on this right away.

Check out: The First Earth Day, an epoch journey into politics, explosions, folk music, and old boats floating on stinking rivers.
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