Monthly Archives: June 2015

New Research On Global Warming Hiatus

There is no such thing as a “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming.

There is, however, variation as the earth’s surface temperature steadily rises as the result of the human release of greenhouse gas pollution. Every now and then that variation results in a period of several years when the rise in global temperature is relatively slow, and a recent such period has been termed a “hiatus” or “pause.” But that signifier mainly comes from those who deny the reality of global warming, and is often used by them as an argument that global warming is somehow not real. It is real, and they are wrong.

Looking at an upward shift in global surface temperatures, seeing some variation, and claiming that this variation obviates the long term and rather startling trend can only mean one of two things. One possibility is that the person making that observation is ignorant of both the nature of the Earth’s climate system and of the nature of measurements of this kind. The other possibility is that the person making that observation is willfully obfuscating the science, in an effort to distract from the reality of human caused climate change. Neither speaks well of the individual making this observation.

Having said all that, variations in the upward trend of surface temperatures are both interesting and important. There are several possible causes, and understanding these causes is important in understanding the overall system. Part of this variation may be difficult to quantify or track natural variation in the system. Part of this variation may be issues with the measurement system. After all, the long term trend is derived from the stringing together of different data sets collected with different methods, so we would expect some measurement effects. A good part of this variation, maybe most of it, is thought to be the shifting of heat between the global surface (the sea surface and the bottom of the atmosphere) and the deeper ocean, through a variety of mechanisms. A long term trend has recently been nailed down by several studies including work by Michael Mann and his colleagues, and has to do with the ocean-air interaction as well. From a post by Mann on Real Climate:

In an article my colleagues Byron Steinman, Sonya Miller and I have in the latest issue of Science magazine, we show that internal climate variability instead partially offset global warming….

[That] natural cooling in the Pacific is a principal contributor to the recent slowdown in large-scale warming is consistent with some other recent studies, including a study … showing that stronger-than-normal winds in the tropical Pacific during the past decade have lead to increased upwelling of cold deep water in the eastern equatorial Pacific. Other work by Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) shows that the there has been increased sub-surface heat burial in the Pacific ocean over this time frame, while yet another study by James Risbey and colleagues demonstrates that model simulations that most closely follow the observed sequence of El Niño and La Niña events over the past decade tend to reproduce the warming slowdown.

I discussed that research here.

And now, there is a paper just out in Science that explores the measurement part of the variation in increasing global surface temperature. Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus by Thomas R. Karl, Anthony Arguez, Boyin Huang, Jay H. Lawrimore, James R. McMahon, Matthew J. Menne, Thomas C. Peterson, Russell S. Vose, and Huai-Min Zhang looks at changes in various measurements used to generate the basic data to track global surface temperatures. From the abstract:

Much study has been devoted to the possible causes of an apparent decrease in the upward trend of global surface temperatures since 1998, a phenomenon that has been dubbed the global warming “hiatus.” Here we present an updated global surface temperature analysis that reveals that global trends are higher than reported by the IPCC, especially in recent decades, and that the central estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th century. These results do not support the notion of a “slowdown” in the increase of global surface temperature.

An example of a measurement issue has to do with how sea surface temperatures are obtained. In the old days, most temperature measurements taken from boats involved the “bucket technique” which involves directly sampling the surface water. Later, this shifted to using thermometers measuring water temperature at intakes on board ship. The two methods measure the same thing, but because they are slightly different measurements, produce results slightly biased in relation to each other. Adjustments to these measurements apparently assumed that all the ship measurements had gone to the intake method, while in fact, some had not. This requires a small adjustment in how the numbers are used in the surface temperature estimate. The authors assert that similar small changes in the data are required for some other measurements as well.

The new analysis produced in this paper shows a consistant difference between the data as previously adjusted and how the authors feel it should be adjusted, with the older methods generally resulting in lower temperatures than the newer adjusted data. The difference between the two is especially large during the so-called “Hiatus” period. Here is the fancy graphic from the paper that shows this:
Screen Shot 2015-06-04 at 2.10.53 PM

This is important and valid work. But, with respect to the public and policy-related conversation about anthropogenic global warming, this is really dotting of i’s and crossing of t’s. The difference between a temperature curve without this new adjustment and with it is very small. This graphic at the top of the post is the top part of the paper’s Figure 2, comparing the proposed new corrections and the previous corrections for the instrumental record from 1880 to the present. You can see that the better estimate of temperatures is in fact higher for the so-called hiatus, and varies from the older method noticeably here and there, but there is nothing in this new curve that changes anything important.

Michel Mann has discussed this research on his Facebook page, here. John Abraham writes at The Guardian,

The end result is that the temperature trends over the past 17 or so years has continued to increase with no halt. In fact, it has increased at approximately the same rate as it had for the prior five decades. But the authors went further by trying to cherry-pick the start and end dates. For instance, they stacked the cards against themselves by purposefully picking a very hot year to start the analysis and a cool year to terminate the study (1998 and 2012, respectively). Even this cherry-picked duration showed a warming trend. Furthermore, the warming trend was significant.

Sou at HotWhopper has it here. See also this and this and this.

I’ve heard about a number of commentaries from the denialist community. See the Hot Whopper link above for some of that. But really, who cares what a bunch of science deniers say about science?

Which Verizon Smartphones Have Android Lollipop?

Android Lollipop is the new Android OS, and it is a good one. If you want to get a new Android phone, you will probably be happier choosing a one with Lollipop already installed.

This is not to say that phones with the older Android OS, KitKat, won’t or can’t be upgraded to Lollipop. Nor do I suggest they will be. It is a bit of a mystery. At some point, I assume, some older models will not be upgraded. One might assume that if you get a new model phone that still runs KitKat that you’ll be upgraded eventually, but that is not 100% certain.

We are looking into a new phone, we use Verizon, and I just spent several minutes looking through all the Verizon phones to see which ones have Lollipop already on them. The number of Verizon phones with Lollipop has gone up quickly over the last few weeks, and I assume that will continue. But as of now, early June 2015, this is the list:

Google Nexus 6™
HTC One® M9
LG G3
LG G4™
Motorola Moto X™ (2nd Gen.)
Motorola Moto X™ (2nd Gen.) – Designed by You
Samsung Galaxy Note® Edge??????? Maybe not
Samsung Galaxy S®6
Samsung Galaxy S®6 edge

This is based on what Verizon specifies on their web site in the US. I don’t know if this will apply to what you find in stores (many Verizon stores have only a subset of the total number of available phones, though I assume you can order these phones either at a store or on line). Again, the situation is changing rapidly, but this is what I found today, and having gone through the trouble, I thought I’d save you the time!

If you know of any additions or corrections, or information from other services, please feel free to indicate this in the comments below.

Also of interest:

  • Does Cell Phone Use Cause Cancer? No.
  • <li><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/06/14/does-keeping-a-cell-phone-in-your-pocket-reduce-male-infertility/">Does keeping a cell phone in your pocket reduce male fertility?</a></li>
    

    Does global warming destroy your house in a flood?

    Joe and Mary built a house.

    They built it on an old flood plain of a small river, though there’d not been a flood in years. This was a 500-year flood plain. Not a very floody flood plain at all.

    The local zoning code required that for a new house at their location the bottom of the basement needed to be above a certain elevation, with fill brought in around the house to raise the surrounding landscape. But Joe’s uncle was on the zoning board, and it wasn’t that hard to get a variance. This saved them thousands of dollars, and they built the house without the raised foundation or the fill.

    Over the previous fifty years much of the hilly wooded land up river from Joe and Mary’s house had been converted to agriculture. This changed the nature of the flow of rain across the land surface and into the groundwater. It caused the streams to rise more quickly when it rained, rather then slowly over several days fed by springs linked underground to the forest. Downstream, a century ago, engineers built a bridge for the new road, and they put the pilings closer than would be done in modern times. This caused flotsam from spring floodwaters to accumulate at the bridge, backing up water quite a good distance upstream. A large marsh that fed into the river, upstream from Joe and Mary’s house, normally flooded during high water, holding much of the excess. But about a decade ago, Joe’s uncle built a large housing development there, filling the marsh. There was controversy, and it was even covered in the local Pennysaver, but he got the variance. All these things would have made flooding near Joe and Mary’s house to be much worse than otherwise, but that never happened. The 500-year flood zone hadn’t had any 500-year floods in a long time, maybe 500 years.

    Meanwhile, while the forest was being cleared, the road and its bridge built, the housing development constructed over the marsh, and Joe and Mary’s house erected, everybody was putting CO2, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. By the last decade or so of the 20th century, there was significant global warming. The increase in global surface temperature was not even; The Arctic warmed more than the rest of the planet. This caused a change in the behavior of the polar jet stream. Instead of occasionally becoming curvy and kinky and slow moving, the jet stream started to do this all the time. Then these waves went “quasi resonant” meaning that the large curves and loops would sit in one place for a long time, weeks or months. Meanwhile the heated up atmosphere started to take on more water vapor. Air that was wet enough to rain in the old days held the vapor longer because of the warmth, but when the super saturated air let the water out in the form of rain or snow, there was a lot of it. Since the weather systems follow the jet stream, they slowed down and would hang around for a long time in one region, raining and raining and raining while elsewhere there would be short term droughts.

    One day, at Joe and Mary’s house, it started to rain. It rained four or five inches in a week. The basement got wet. The tomatoes were overwatered, and their leaves cringed. Everybody’s shoes started to smell. The dark, cloudy, wet days produced a sense of ennui.

    Then, on the eight day, it really rained. It rained four inches in one day. The groundwater had been saturated, the streams and the river were already high. The torrential rainstorm raised the river to the 100 year flood level. Then to the 500 year flood level. Then a few feet more. Joe’s uncle’s housing development flooded. The bridge with its jam of flotsam became a dam. The water flowed around Joe and Mary’s house, filling the first floor with three feet of dirty water. Snakes took refuge on their roof. Their car floated away.

    Eventually the water receded and Joe and Mary’s home was a total loss. The insurance guy had come by to give them the good news. They would receive a full payout for replacement cost of the home. While they were chatting, the insurance guy noted that the flood was caused by the dam of tree branches and house parts down at the bridge. Joe remembered his uncle’s housing development, the controversy about the flood basin, and noted that may have been a problem. The insurance guy agreed. Mary said she had read about how replacing forest with corn fields made runoff worse, so the streams and rivers would flood more. Joe and the insurance guy nodded. Yes, yes, that was a factor too. Nobody mentioned the fact that Joe and Mary had failed to build their home to code, but they were thinking it. They didn’t mention it because, really, they would only have raised the whole house by about two and a half feet, and the flood was higher than that, so what did that matter?

    A few days later Joe and Mary were down at the coffee shop to meet a contractor to talk about using their insurance money to build a new house. They were sitting with the contractor going over preliminary plans, but were distracted by two graduate students form the nearby university sitting at the table next to them. They were talking about the flooding. They were talking about how global warming, caused by that CO2 being released into the atmosphere all these years, had caused the flooding. They were talking about the amplification of warming in the Arctic, the jet streams getting curvy and slowing down, the quasi resonant waves and the extra moisture in the atmosphere.

    The contractor became annoyed. He had heard about global warming and all that, everybody had. But he also knew that the last four winters were unusually cold and snowy. His cousin had bought a Tesla electric car a few months earlier, and his cousin was an annoying tree hugging hippie. And, he remembered, he had heard an actual climate scientist on the TV the other day saying something about global warming and storms. In fact, he remembered quite clearly what the scientist had said. And now he wanted to say it too.

    The contractor turned to the two graduate students, and got their attention. “Couldn’t help overhear your conversation,” he said to them. “But you know, you can’t attribute a single flood, or other weather event, to global warming. This was just a flood.”

    Global warming. Dancing backwards and in high heels for more than 20 years.*

    ScienceDebate.org: Interview with Sheril Kirshenbaum

    In 2008, I was visiting the Nobel Conference held annually at Gustavus Adolphus college in Minnestoa. The conference was on Human Evolution. The college provided space in a large room for people to have their lunch, and while I was having lunch on the first day, I noticed a table off to the side staffed by a serious looking man with a clipboard. The front of his table was adorned with a large “Science Debate 08” banner. Seemed interesting. So I wandered over and had a chat.

    It turns out the man was Shawn Otto, one of the co-founders of Science Debate. Shawn, a Minnesota resident, is the author of Fool Me Twice: Fighting the assault on science in America (and more recently this award winning novel). I’ve been closely following ScienceDebate ever since. (Though I certainly heard about ScienceDebate 08 earlier than that since it first launched on Scienceblogs.com … that long afternoon conversation with Shawn really drew me in.)

    Science Debate was, and still is, a project intent on making the debate over science policy issues a normal part of the American presidential election process. We typically see candidates debate a few times during the election cycle, first within parties then after nominations are made between the major candidates. The debates are often divided up among a set of topics such as “The Economy” or “Foreign Policy.” Sometimes the topics pertain to an entire debate, other times, a single debate is parceled out into a few different topics. Given the importance of science to so much policy, it seems to be a good idea to have a debate, or part of one or more debates, on science and science policy.’

    This does not mean a debate about the science. It means a debate about the relationship between science and policy. A good question about science might be, “What do you think is the best estimate of climate sensitivity, the global surface temperature increase produced by a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from pre-industrial levels, given what we know about the Earth’s climate system?” But that would be a bad question for politicians running for US President. A good question about science policy might be “Most climate scientists are concerned that if we see a global surface warming of about 2.0 degrees Celsius by mid century, there would be severe negative consequences. What are the first policies you would try to implement and support to keep us under this 2.0 degree target?”

    273105Many candidates, especially Republicans this year, like to note that they are not scientists, and therefore can’t really talk about science. But members of the Congress and the President pass or enforce laws that address science related issues. Saying “I am not a scientist” is similar to saying “I am not an economist” or “I am not a doctor” or “I am not a political science professor” in order to avoid questions about the economy, health care, or foreign policy. It doesn’t wash, and seems to not have been an effective way of dodging scientific issues.

    ScienceDebate, the organization, has made a statement and asked people to sign on to it. The statement reads:

    “Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we call for public debates in which the U.S. presidential and congressional candidates share their views on the issues of science and technology policy, health and medicine, and the environment.”

    Screen Shot 2015-06-02 at 1.34.26 PMOne of the key organizers of ScienceDebate is energy policy expert and writer Sheril Kirshenbaum. Regular readers of this blog will know of Sheril from my review of her book on the history of kissing. I recently contacted Sheril and asked her a few questions about ScienceDebate. Here is the interview.

    Question: Election season is underway already. What are the goals for ScienceDebate.org for this US presidential election cycle?

    Answer: Our first priority right now is raising awareness of ScienceDebate, especially beyond the science community. ScienceDebate is an initiative working to get Presidential candidates on record about what their policies would be on a variety of science topics like human health, climate change, food security and more. These issues affect everyone, no matter what party we’re affiliated with. And they are not “science” challenges, they are humanity’s challenges.

    Question: What have you learned from the previous iterations of ScienceDebate’s efforts that will change what you do this time around?

    Answer: During the past two presidential elections, all three major candidates (President Obama, Senator McCain, and GOP-candidate Romney) responded in writing to 14 questions cultivated and reviewed by our team on science and technology policy. Results were widely distributed in print and online prior to the elections through media partnerships with popular magazines and journals. President Obama formed a science policy team to help him respond, which helped him arrive in office with a clear idea of how science fit into his overall strategic objectives.

    Now we are scaling up our efforts. We are working on a PSA campaign, bringing new media experts and community leaders into the initiative, and focused on the long-term sustainability of ScienceDebate.

    "I'm not satisfied when the Soviet Union is turning out twice as many scientists and engineers as we are."
    “I’m not satisfied when the Soviet Union is turning out twice as many scientists and engineers as we are.”
    Question: Do you see changes in the public’s view of science policy over the last few years that give you hope? That give you concern?

    Answer: Definitely. For example, back in 2008, Just six of nearly 3000 questions posed to then Senator Obama and Senator McCain by prime time interviewers even mentioned “climate change” or “global warming.”

    In 2015, candidates are already talking about climate change regularly in their campaigns. Hillary Clinton is the first major candidate to make climate and energy policies central in her campaign. So we already know science will play a larger role in the election for 2016 than in previous years.

    We’ve also seen science percolate out into mainstream culture in a big way over the past eight years. Television shows like The Big Bang Theory and Breaking Bad feature science as major themes. Cosmos came back with with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Bill Nye makes headlines regularly. There is a greater cultural appreciation of science than before.

    Question: Science is, or should be, behind good science policy. Currently, what major areas of science do you see as central to a science debate for 2016?

    Answer: With more severe droughts, storms, and floods, climate change is critical to address – as well as many related topics like food security, water availability and energy. Innovation and the economy are inherently related to science and technology so those are important too. Global leadership, research funding, biosecurity, pandemics, mental health, space exploration, ocean health, cybersecurity – there are a lot of areas to discuss and most aren’t mutually exclusive. We invite everyone to submit their topic ideas at our website for consideration.

    *Question: The US effectively has a two party system. Is it fair to say that one of the parties has actually taken on anti-science as central to its dogma and approach? How does this impact on efforts to develop a science debate?

    Having said that, is it true that anti-science attitudes exist across the political spectrum, and if so, how are the various issues structured across the parties? In other words, are there science policy issues that Democrats are bad at and different issues that Republicans are bad at? What are they?

    Answer: To be clear, ScienceDebate does not weigh in on how candidates respond to questions on science policy – we leave that for other groups and media outlets. Our primary goal is to get all candidates on record on a variety of science topics before Election Day so we can be more informed as voters when we go to the polls.

    Question: What can an interested person do for Sciencedebate? How can individuals get involved?

    Answer: Visit our website, www.sciencedebate.org and add your name to show your support that science matters and should be discussed along the campaign trail. Help us share the message with your social networks and encourage friends to sign on as well. By increasing our numbers – now well over 42K including Congresspeople, Nobel laureates, over 100 university presidents, and many organizations – we are making the case that science cannot be treated as a special interest in politics, and should be a central part of the decision making process. Readers interested to get more involved in their communities can also contact me at sheril [at] sciencedebate.org.

    Eastern Pacific Hurricane Season: Carlos tours the coast?

    Blanca is the second named tropical storm in the Eastern Pacific. I’m pretty sure Blanca was originally a disturbance with a low probability of becoming a named storm, but I may have missed something. Blanca is intensifying rapidly and will reach hurricane status shortly if it has not already, and will likely develop to become a major hurricane. The storm is heading towards the Baja, but may weaken before it hits anything big.

    Meanwhile, the first named storm of the season, Andres, is still a hurricane. Over the next few days, Andres will make a sharp turn almost in place and weaken.

    Nothing of note is happening in the Atlantic, though the season officially started yesterday. Not much is expected this year as El Nino is usually associated with attenuated tropical storm activity in the Atlantic basin.

    Of course, “not much” can still include a major landfalling hurricane. Just not a whole bunch of them.

    Update:

    While Blanca is now a tropical storm in the Baja region, a new disturbance is forming as of June 8, which is highly likely to become a named storm by the end of the week. If that happens it will be called Carlos.

    Here is embryonic Carlos:

    Screen Shot 2015-06-08 at 12.50.57 PM

    UPDATE (June 10 2015): Tropical Depression Three E is likely to become Hurricane Carlos in about two days. It is going to do something a little odd, moving north as it forms into a hurricane, then staying off the coast of Mexico for a couple of days. While the eye may not make landfall, the hurricane itself may scrape the coast for a good long ways. Or, it could move farther from the coast. Or it could move closer to the coast. Kind of up in the air right now.
    203724W5_NL_sm
    A fair number of storms do this, but most go off farther into the Pacific. (See the image at the top of the post.)

    UPDATE June 14th PM

    Carlos is back to being a tropical storm hugging the coast of Mexico. Carlos is likely to reach hurricane strength over the next several hours and will stay right off the coast for a couple of days then move inland and down grade to a messy rainy storm.

    233335W_NL_sm

    Bad Climate Science Debunked

    Recently, a paper published in a Chinese journal of science by Monckton, Soon and Legates attracted a small amount of attention by claiming that climate science models “run hot” and therefore overrepresent the level of global warming caused by human greenhouse gas pollution. The way they approached the problem of climate change was odd. The Earth’s climate system is incredibly complex, and climate models used by mainstream climate scientists address this complexity and therefore are also complex. Monckton et al chose to address this complexity by developing a model they characterize as “irreducibly simple.” I’m not sure if their model is really irreducibly simple, but I am pretty sure that a highly complex dynamic system is not well characterized by a model so simple that the model’s creators can’t think of a way to remove any further complexity.

    The same journal, Science Bulletin, has now published a paper, “Misdiagnosis of Earth climate sensitivity based on energy balance model results,” by Richardson, Hausfather, Nuccitelli, Rice, and Abraham that evaluates the Monckton et al paper and demonstrates why it is wrong.

    From the abstract of the new paper:

    Monckton et al. … use a simple energy balance model to estimate climate response. They select parameters for this model based on semantic arguments, leading to different results from those obtained in physics-based studies. [They] did not validate their model against observations, but instead created synthetic test data based on subjective assumptions. We show that [they] systematically underestimate warming … [They] conclude that climate has a near instantaneous response to forcing, implying no net energy imbalance for the Earth. This contributes to their low estimates of future warming and is falsified by Argo float measurements that show continued ocean heating and therefore a sustained energy imbalance. [Their] estimates of climate response and future global warming are not consistent with 29 measurements and so cannot be considered credible.

    The Monckton model does not match observed temperatures, and consistently underestimates them. We don’t expect a model to perfectly match measurements, but when a model is wrong so much of the time in the same direction, the model is demonstrably biased and needs to be either tossed or adjusted. However, you can’t adjust an “irreducibly simple” model, by definition. Therefore the Monckton model is useless. And, as pointed out by Richardson et al, the basic values used in the model were badly selected.

    Figure 2 from Richardson et al demonstrate the problem with bias. The pink band in the upper figure and the red/pink line in the lower figure show the Monckton model tracking across time from 1850, compared to several sets of actual observations. The irreducibly simple model may not be irreducibly wrong, but it is irreducibly useless.

    Richardson_Hausfather_Nuccitelli_Rice_Abraham_2015_On_Monckton_EtAl

    Monckton et al rely on the assumption that the Earth’s surface temperature varies by only 1% around a long term (810,000 year) average. This “thermostasis”, they argue, means that there are no positive feedbacks that move the Earth’s temperature higher. This ignores the fact that for that entire record one of the main determinants of global surface temperature, greenhouse gases, has also not varied from a fairly narrow range. But now human greenhouse gas pollution has pushed greenhouse gas concentrations well outside that long term range, and heating has resulted.

    The Monckton model is contradicted by observation of global ocean heat content. However, recent Argo measurements of ocean heat content indicate significant warming over the last decade.

    During recent years, the rate at which global mean surface temperatures have gone up has been somewhat reduced, and various factors have been suggested as explanations. Of these explanations, Monckton et al. assume only one of these to be true, specifically, that the climate models used by all the other climate scientists are wrong. They ignore other very likely factors. Monckton et al state that models used by the IPCC “run hot” without any reference to the fairly well developed literature that examines differences between observed temperatures and model ranges. They also misinterpreted IPCC estimates of various important feedbacks to the climate system.

    I asked paper author John Abraham if it is ever the case that a simpler model would work better when addressing a complex system. “While simple models can give useful information, they must be executed correctly,” he told me. “The model of Monckton and his colleagues is fatally flawed in that it assumes the Earth responds instantly to changes in heat. We know this isn’t true. The Earth has what’s called thermal inertia. Just like it takes a while for a pot of water to boil, or a Thanksgiving turkey to heat up, the Earth takes a while to absorb heat. If you ignore that, you will be way off in your results.”

    I also contacted author Dana Nuccitelli, who recently published the book “Climatology versus Pseudoscience,” to ask him to place the Monckton et al. study in the broader context of climate science contrarianism. He told me, “In my book, I show that mainstream climate models have been very accurate at projecting changes in global surface temperatures. Monckton et al. created a problem to solve by misrepresenting those model projections and hence inaccurately claiming that they “run hot.” The entire premise of their paper is based on an inaccuracy, and it just goes downhill from there.”

    This is not Nuccitelli’s first rodeo when it comes to the Monckton camp. “It’s perhaps worth noting that these same four authors (Legates, Soon, Briggs, and Monckton) wrote another error-riddled paper two years ago, purporting to critique the paper my colleagues and I published in 2013, finding a 97% consensus on human-caused global warming in the peer-reviewed climate science literature,” he told me. “The journal quickly published a response from Daniel Bedford and John Cook, detailing the many errors those four authors had made. There seems to be a pattern in which Monckton, Soon, Legates, and Briggs somehow manage to publish error-riddled papers in peer-reviewed journals, and scientists are forced to spend their time correcting those errors.”

    Monckton et al cherry-picked the available literature, thus ignoring a plethora of standing arguments and analysis that would have contradicted their study. They get the paleoclimate data wrong, ignore over 90% of the climate system (the ocean), selected inappropriate parameters, and seem unaware of prior work comparing models and data. Monckton et al also fail to provide a useful alternative valid model.

    Monckton et al failed in their attempt to demonstrate that IPCC estimates of climate sensitivity run hot. Their alternative model does not perform well, and is strongly biased in one direction. They estimate future warming based on “assumptions developed using a logically flawed justification narrative rather than physical analysis,” according to Richardson et al. “The key conclusions are directly contradicted by observations and 450 cannot be considered credible.”

    Also of interest

    Aside from the obvious and significant problems with the Monckton et al paper, it is also worth noting that the authors of that work are well known as “climate science deniers” or “contrarians.” You can find out more about Soon here. Monckton has a long history of attacking mainstream climate science as well as the scientists themselves. To be fair, it is also worth noting that two of the new paper’s authors have been engaged in this discussion as well. John Abraham has been eDebating Monckton for some time. (See also this conversation with me, John Abraham, and Kevin Zelnio.)

    Author Dana Nuccitelli is the author of this recent book on climate science deniers and models.

    Bernie Sanders’ Essay

    Bernie Sanders’ famous essay is below. I will reserve comment but I’d like your opinion on it. I will say that the press is handling this rather badly, at least at present, taking quotes with zero context, not addressing the meaning of the essay as a whole. Sanders says it was poorly written. Is it?

    Man and Woman

    by Bernie Sanders

    Mid-February, 1972

    A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy. A woman on her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused.

    A woman enjoys intercourse with her man – as she fantasizes being raped by 3 men simultaneously.

    The man and woman get dressed up on Sunday – and go to Church, or maybe to their “revolutionary” political meeting.

    Have you ever looked at the Stag Man, Hero, Tough magazines on the shelf of your local bookstore? DO you know why the newspapers with the articles like “Girl 12 raped by 14 men” sell so well?

    Women, for their own preservation, are trying to pull themselves together. And it’s necessary for all of humanity that they do so. Slavishness on one hand breeds pigness on the other hand. Pigness on one hand breeds slavishness on the other. Men and women – both are losers. Women adapt themselves to fill the needs of men, and men adapt themselves to fill the needs of women. In the beginning there were strong men who killed the animals and brought home the food – and the dependent women who cooked it. No more! Only the roles remain – waiting to be shaken off. There are no “human” oppressors. Oppressors have lost their humanity. On one hand “slavishness,” on the other hand “pigness.” Six of one, half dozen of the other. Who wins?

    Many women seem to be walking a tightrope now. Their qualities of love, openness, and gentleness were too deeply enmeshed with qualities of dependency, subservience, and masochism. How do you love – without being dependent? How do you be gentle – without being subservient? How do you maintain a relationship without giving up your identity and without getting strung out? How do you reach out and give your heart to your lover, but maintain the soul which is you?

    And Men. Men are in pain too. They are thinking, wondering. What is it they want from a woman? Are they at fault? Are they perpetrating this man-woman situation? Are they oppressors?

    The man is bitter.

    “You lied to me,” he said. (She did).

    “You said they loved me, that you wanted me, that you needed me. Those are your words.” (They are).

    “But in reality,” he said. “If you ever loved me, or wanted me, or needed me. (all of which I’m not certain was ever true), you also hated me. You hated me – just as you have hated every man in your entire life, but you didn’t have the guts to tell me that. You hated me before you ever saw me, even though I was not your father, or your teacher, or your sex friend when you were 13 years old, or your husband. You hated me not because of who I am, or what I was to you, but because I am a man. You did not deal with me as a person – as me. You lived a lie with me, used me and played games with me – and that’s a piggy thing to do.”

    And she said, “You wanted me not as a woman, or a lover, or a friend, but as a submissive woman, or submissive friend, or submissive lover; and right now where my head is I balk at even the slightest suspicion of that kind of demand.

    And she said, “You’re full of ___.”

    And they never made love together (which they had each liked to do more than anything) or never saw each other one more time.