Monthly Archives: April 2014

Ubuntu One Is Closing Shop

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Hey, wait! Ubuntu One was the next big thing. It was better than dropbox and iTunes and everything! I never personally got it to work for me, though I did sign up for it. Just now, I got an email from The Ubuntu One team telling me the file service system would be gone effective June 1, 2014.

Ubuntu has this blog post about it. This news is a few days old, so you probably already knew about it, but just in case, have a look: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services.

Today we are announcing plans to shut down the Ubuntu One file services. This is a tough decision, particularly when our users rely so heavily on the functionality that Ubuntu One provides. However, like any company, we want to focus our efforts on our most important strategic initiatives and ensure we are not spread too thin.

Our strategic priority for Ubuntu is making the best converged operating system for phones, tablets, desktops and more. In fact, our user experience, developer tools for apps and scopes, and commercial relationships have been constructed specifically to highlight third party content and services (as opposed to our own); this is one of our many differentiators from our competitors. Additionally, the free storage wars aren’t a sustainable place for us to be, particularly with other services now regularly offering 25GB-50GB free storage. If we offer a service, we want it to compete on a global scale, and for Ubuntu One to continue to do that would require more investment than we are willing to make. We choose instead to invest in making the absolute best, open platform and to highlight the best of our partners’ services and content.

Etc. Etc.

Interesting. Seems to me a convergent system like they want to build would have a kick-butt cloud. On the other hand, having an open source operating system not married to a particular cloud may be a good way to go. Less Microsofty.

Climate Trends in the Arctic as Observed from Space: It's melting. Fast.

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Earth’s northern ice cap is heating up and melting down at an alarming, not previously predicted, rate. A paper just out in Wiley Interndisciplary Reviews: Climate Change, by Josefino Comiso and Dorothy Hall looks at recent historic transformations in the Arctic using satellite imagery, mainly from 1979 to the present. The decline of Arctic ice is so extreme that ice thought to have existed for over 1450 years is melting now. (None of the sea ice is really ancient, even the “old” ice recycles over geologically short time periods. But in the near future there will be virtually no “old” ice left in the region.)

According to author Josefino Cosimo, of NASA, “The Arctic region has been warming faster than anywhere else in the globe from 1981 to 2012. Such warming is manifested strongly in all components of the cryosphere in the Northern Hemisphere.”

The following list of chilling, or rather, not chilling, facts is paraphrased from the paper:

  • Warming in the region has been amplified … with the rate of warming observed to be ~0.60±0.07 o
    C per decade in the Arctic (>64 oN) compared to ~0.2 o C per decade globally during the last three decades.
  • sea ice extent has been declining at the rate of ~3.8% per decade,
  • while the perennial ice (represented by summer ice minimum) is declining at a much greater rate of ~11.5% per decade.
  • Spring snow cover [is] declining by –2.12 % per decade for the period 1967 to 2012.
  • The Greenland ice sheet has been losing mass at the rate of ~123 Gt per year (sea level
    equivalence of 0.34 mm per year) during the period from 1993 to 2010
  • for the period 2005 to 2010, a higher rate of [Greenland ice sheet] mass loss of ~228 Gt per year has been observed.
  • the average area of mountain glaciers has declined by as much as 10% per decade during the period from 1960 to 2000.
  • Increases in permafrost temperature have also been measured in many parts of the Northern
    Hemisphere while a thickening of the active layer that overlies permafrost and a thinning of
    seasonally-frozen ground has also been reported.

Here is the movie version of this review paper:

The review looks at clouds, albedo, and the Arctic Oscillation for insight as to how this is all happening. The Arctic Oscillation is one of those medium-term climate variations (like ENSO) which involves a large scale shift in the movement of air masses from one perennial pattern to another, often accompanied by effects having to do with sea surface temperatures or sea currents.

The Arctic Oscillation (AO), often referred to as Northern Annular Mode (NAM), has been regarded as among the most dominant modes in the [Northern Hemisphere], affecting atmospheric circulation and climate in the Arctic. Its direct impacts on the sea ice cover and wind circulation patterns have been evaluated using AO indices as presented for the entire year on a monthly basis in Figure 9a and for the winter period in Figure 9b. The plots show that the indices for both monthly and for the winter season are mainly positive since 1988 although there are years (e.g., 2010) when they become strongly negative. It has been previously reported that negative AO indices are associated with extensive ice cover while positive indices would correspond to a reduced sea ice cover. However, the indices have become nearly neutral in the recent decade while the sea ice cover continued to decline.

Screen Shot 2014-04-07 at 6.37.41 PM

The authors conclude that the link between the Arctic Oscillation and recent changes in the Arctic is unclear. This is hard to interpret without further research but it may be bad news: The recent changes seen in the Arctic and possibly effects not covered in this paper (but discussed frequently on this blog) on global weather don’t seem to be associated with “natural variation.”

The graphic at the top of the post is figure one from the paper, and has this caption: Location Map of the Arctic Region including average sea ice extent (yellow line), sea ice cover during record minimum in summer of 2012 (shades of white), continuous and discontinuous permafrost (shades of pink), glacier locations (gold dots) and snow cover (average location of 50% snow line in black and maximum snow line in green as inferred from MODIS data).

Josefino C. Comiso, Dorothy K. Hall, Climate trends in the Arctic as observed from space, WIREs Climate Change, DOI: 10.1002/wcc.277

"There has been no global warming since 1998" – Or has there?

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The title of this post is actually the title of a post I want to point you to. It is HERE.

The post is the outcome of a bit of a competition a couple of us have going to make an effective meme (in this case, the girl with the thermometer in her hair) to underscore the fact that “global warming” is different than “surface warming” (or at least, that’s how I’d put it). The former includes the oceans, sea surface, air, ice. The latter includes all that but not the deeper oceans. Since the VAST majority of the excess heat building up because of AGW is in the deeper oceans (below the SST), this should not be forgotten. But it also is. Anyway, so far this is the winning meme. I admit defeat. Temporarily.

Dear President Obama and Secretary Kerry: An Open Letter on Keystone XL

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An Open Letter on the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline from Scientists and Economists

April 7 , 2014

President Barack Obama
The White House 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Secretary John Kerry
U. S . Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear President Obama and Secretary Kerry,

As scientists and economists, we are concerned about climate change and its impacts. We urge you to reject the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline as a project that will contribute to climate change at a time when we should be doing all we can to put clean energy alternatives in place.

As you both have made clear, climate change is a very serious problem. We must address climate change by decarbonizing our energy supply. A critical first step is to stop making climate change worse by tapping into disproportionately carbon – intensive energy sources like tar sands bitumen. The Keystone XL pipeline will drive expansion of the energy – intensive strip – mining and drilling of tar sands from under Canada’s Boreal forest, increasing global carbon emissions. Keystone XL is a step in the wrong direction.

President Obama, you said in your speech in Georgetown last year that “allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest. And our national interes t will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”

We agree that climate impact is important and evidence shows that Keystone XL will significantly contribute to climate change. Fuels produced from tar sands result in more greenhouse gas emissions over their lifecycle than fuels produced from conventional oil, including heavy crudes processed in some Gulf Coast refineries. As the main pathway for tar sands to reach overseas markets, the Keystone XL pi peline w ould cause a sizeable expansion of tar sands production and also an increase in the related greenhouse gas pollution. The State Department review confirmed this analysis under the scenario that best meets the reality of the opposition to alternativ e pipeline proposals and the higher costs of other ways of transporting diluted bitumen such as rail. The review found:

“The total lifecycle emissions associated with production, refining, and combustion of 830,000 bpd of oil sands crude oil is approximately 147 to 168 MMTCO 2 e per year. The annual lifecycle GHG emissions from 830,000 bpd of the four reference crudes examined in this section are estimated to be 124 to 159 MMTCO 2 e. The range of incremental GHG emissions for crude oil that would be transported by the proposed Project is estimated to be 1.3 to 27.4 MMTCO2e annually.”

To put these numbers into perspective, the potential incremental annual emissions of 27.4 MMTCO 2 e is more than the emissions that seven coal – fired power plants emit in o ne year. And o ver the 50 – year expected life span of the pipeline, th e total emissions from Keystone XL could amount to as much as 8.4 billion metric tons CO2e . These are emissions that can and should be avoided with a transition to clean energy.

The contribution of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to climate change is real and important, especially given the commitment of the United States and other world leaders to stay within two degrees Celsius of global warming. And yet, the State Department environmental review chose an inconsistent model for its “most likely” scenarios, using business-as-usual energy scenarios that would lead to a catastrophic six degrees Celsius rise in global warming. Rejecting Keystone XL is necessary for the United States to be consistent with its climate commitments. Six degrees Celsius of global warming has no place in a sound climate plan.

Secretary Kerry, in your speech in Jakarta, you said, “The science of climate change is leaping out at us like a scene from a 3D movie – warning us – compelling us to act.” Rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would be a decision based on sound science.

The world is looking to the United States to lead through strong climate action at home. This includes rejecting projects that will make climate change worse such as the K eystone XL tar sands pipeline .

Sincerely,

John Abraham, Ph.D. Professor University of St. Thomas

Philip W. Anderson, Ph.D. Nobel Prize (Physics 1977) Emeritus Professor Princeton University

Tim Arnold, Ph.D. Assistant Project Scientist Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego

Kenneth J. Arrow, Ph.D. Nobel Prize (Economics 1972) Professor emeritus of Economics and of Management Science and Engineering Stanford University

Roger Bales, Ph.D. Professor of Engineering University of California, Merced

Paul H. Beckwith , M.S. Part – time professor: climatology/meteorology Department of Geography University of Ottawa

Anthony Bernhardt, Ph.D. Physicist and Program Leader (retired) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Damien C. Brady, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Marine Science Darling Marine Cent er University of Maine

Julie A. Brill, Ph.D. Director, Collabo rative Program in Developmental Biology, and Professor, De partment of Molecular Genetics University of Toronto Senior S cientist, Cell Biology Program The Hospital for Sick Children

Gary Brou hard, Ph.D. Department of Biology McGill University

Ken Caldei ra, Ph.D. Senior Scientist Carnegie Institution for Science

Grant Cameron, Ph.D. Coastal Data Information Program (CDIP) Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego

Shelagh D. Campbell, Ph.D. Professor, Biological Sciences University of Alberta

Kai M. A. Chan, Ph.D. Assoc iate Prof essor & Tier 2 Canada Research Chair (Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services) Graduate Advisor, RMES Institute for Resources, Environment & Sustainability University of British Columbia

Eugene Cordero, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Meteorology and Climate Science San Jose State University

Rosemary Cornell, Ph.D. Professor, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Simon Fraser University

Gretchen C. Daily, Ph.D. Bing Professor of Environmental Science Stanford University

Timothy Daniel, Ph.D. Economist U.S. Federal Trade Commission

Miriam Diamond , Ph.D. Professor Department of Earth Sciences Cross – appointed to: Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Sciences D alla Lana School of Public Health School of the Environment Department of Physical and Env ironmental Sciences University of Toronto

Lawrence M. Dill, Ph.D., FRSC Professor Emeritus Simon Fraser University

Simon Donner, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Department of Geography University of British Columbia

Roland Droitsch, Ph.D. President KM21 Associates

Nicholas Dulvy, Ph.D. Professor, Canada Resear ch Chair in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation Biological Sciences Simon Fraser University

Steve Easterbrook, Ph.D. Professor of Computer Science University of Toronto

Anne Ehrlich, Ph.D. Biology Department Stanford University

Paul R. Ehrlich, Ph.D. Bing Professor of Population Studies and President, Center for Conservation Biology Stanford University

Henry Erlich, Ph.D. Scientist Center for Genetics Children’s Hospital Research Institute

Alejandro Frid, Ph.D. Science Coordinator Central Coast Indigenous Resource Alliance

Konrad Gajewski, Ph.D. Laboratory for Paleoclimatology and Climatology Department of Geography University of Ottawa

Eric Galb raith, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Earth and Planetary Science McGill University

Geoffrey Gearheart, Ph.D. Scientist, Center for Marine Biodiversity and Biomedicine Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego

Alexander J. Glass, Ph.D. Emeritus Associate Director Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

John R. Glover, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Biochemistry University of Toronto

Ursula Goodenough, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Biology Washington University in St. Louis

Stephanie Green, Ph.D. David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow Oregon State University

Steven Hackett, Ph.D. Professor of Economics Associated Faculty, Energy Technology & Policy Humboldt State University

Joshua B. Halpern, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Chemistr y Howard University

Alexandra Hangsterfer, M.S. Geological Collections Manager Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego

James Hansen, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions Columbia University Earth Institute

John Harte, Ph.D. Professor of Ecosystem Sciences Energy and Resources Group University of California, Berkeley

H. Criss Hartzell, Ph.D. Professor Emory University School of Medicine

Danny Harvey, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Geography University of Toronto

Rodrick A. Hay, Ph.D. Dean and Professor of Geography College of Natural and Behavioral Sciences California State University Dominguez Hills

Karen Holl, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental Studies University of California, Santa Cruz

Robert Howarth, Ph.D. The David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology Cornell University

Jonathan Isham, Jr., Ph.D. Professor of Economics Middlebury College

Andrew Iwaniuk, Ph.D. Associate Professor University of Lethbridge

Mark Jaccard, Ph.D. , FRSC Professor School of Resource and Environmental Management Simon Fraser University

Louise E. Jackson, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Land, Air and Water Resources University of California Davis

Pete Jumars, Ph.D. Professor of Marine Sciences Darling Marine Center University of Maine

David Keith, Ph.D. Gordon McKa y Professor of Applied Physics School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS); and, Professor of Public Policy , Kennedy School of Government Ha rvard University

Jeremy T. Kerr, Ph.D. University Research Chair in Ma croecology and Conservation Professor of Biology University of Ottawa

Bryan Killett, Ph.D. Jet Propulsion Lab

Keith W. Kisselle, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Biology & Environmental Science Academic Chair of Center for Environmental Studies Austin College

Janet E. Kübler, Ph.D. Senior Research Scientist California State University at Northridge

Sherman Lewis, Ph.D . Professor Emeritus of Political Science California State University Hayward

Michael E. Loik, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Environmental Studies University of California, Santa Cruz

Michael C. MacCracken, Ph.D. Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs Climate Institute

Scott A. Mandia , M.S. Professor/Asst. Chair, Department of Physical Sciences Suffolk County Community College

Michael Mann, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor and Director of Earth System Science Center Penn State University

Adam Martiny, Ph.D. Associate Professor in Marine Science Department of Earth System Science University of California, Irvine

Damon Matthews, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Concordia University Research Chair Geography, Planning and Environment Concordia Univers ity

James J. McCart h y, Ph.D. Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography Harvard University

Susan K. McConnell, Ph.D. Susan B. Ford Professor Dunlevie Family University Fello w Department of Biology Stanford University

Dominick Mendola, Ph.D. Senior Development Engineer Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego

Faisal Moola, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor, Faculty of F orestry University of Toronto; and , Adjunct Professor, Fa culty of Environmental Studies York Univer sity

William Moomaw, Ph.D. Professor , The Fletcher School Tufts University

Jens Mühle, Dr. rer. nat. Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego

Richard B. Norgaard , Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Energy and Resources University of California, Berkeley

Gretchen North, Ph.D. Professor of Biology Occidental College

Dana Nuccitelli , M.S . Environmental Scientist Tetra Tech, Inc.

Michael Oppenheimer, Ph.D. Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs Princeton University

Wendy J. Palen, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Earth to Ocean Research Group Simon Fraser University

Edward A. Parson, Ph.D. Dan and Rae Emmett Professor of Environmental Law Faculty Co – Director Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment UCLA School of Law

Raymo nd T. Pierrehumbert, Ph.D. Louis Block Professor in the Geophysical Sciences The University of Chicago

Richard Plevin, Ph.D. Research Scientist NextSTEPS (Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways) Institute of Transportation Studies University of California, Davis

John Pollack , M.S. Meteorologist; and , National Weather Service forecaster (retired)

Jessica Dawn Pratt, Ph.D. Education & Outreach Coordinator Center for Environmental Biology University of California , Irvine

Lynne M. Quarmby, Ph.D. Professor & Chair Molecular Biology & Biochemistry Simon Fraser University

Rebecca Rolph, M.S. Max Pl anck Institute for Meteorology Hamburg, Germany ; and , Kl imacampus, University of Hamburg

Thomas Roush, MD Columbia University School of P u blic Health (retired)

Maureen Ryan, Ph.D. Research Associate , Simon Fraser University ; and , Postdoctoral Researcher , University of Washington

Anne K. Salomon, Ph.D. Assistant Professor School of Resource and Environment al Management Simon Fraser University

Casey Schmidt, Ph.D. Assistant Research Professor Desert Research Institute Division of Hydrologic Sciences

Peter C. Schulze, Ph.D. Professor of Biology & Environmental Science Director, Center for Environmental Stud ies Austin College

Jason Scorse, Ph.D. Associate Professor Monterrey Institute of International Studies Middlebury College

Jamie Scott, MD, Ph.D. Professor and Canada Research Chair Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry Faculty of Science and Faculty of Health Sciences Simon Fraser University

Michael A. Silverman, Ph.D. Associate Professor , Department of Biological Sciences Simon Fraser University

Leonard S. Sklar, Ph.D. Associate Professor Earth & Climate Sciences Depa rtment San Francisco State University

Jerome A. Smith, Ph.D. Research Oceanographer Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of C alifornia, San Diego

Richard C. J. Somerville, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Research Professor Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego

Brandon M. Stephens, M.S. Graduate Student Researcher Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego

John M. R. Stone, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor Carleton University

David Suzuki, Ph.D. Emeritus Professor Sustainable Development Research Institute University of Brit ish Columbia

Jennifer Taylor, Ph.D. Assistant Professor University of California, San Diego

Michael S. Tift, M.S. Doctoral Student Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego

Cali Turner Tomaszewicz, M.S. Doctora l Student, Biological Sciences Department of Ecology, Behavior & Evolution University of California, San Diego

Till Wagner, Ph.D. Scientist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego

Barrie Webster, Ph.D. Professor (retired) University of Manitoba

Richard Weinstein, Ph.D. Lecturer University of Tennessee, Knoxville

A nthony LeRoy Westerling, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering and Geography University of California, Merced

Mark L. Winston, Ph.D., FRSC Academic Director and Fellow, Center for Dialogue Simon Fraser University

George M. Woodwell, Ph.D. Member, National Academy of Sciences, and Fou nder and Director Emeritus The Woods Hole Research Center

Kirsten Zickfeld, Ph.D. Professor of Climatology Simon Fraser University

A Conspiracy And Dunces? Journal Frontiers Tosses Authors Under Bus.

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Recently, the OpenAccess journal Frontiers retracted a paper written by Stephan Lewandowsky, John Cook, Klaus Oberauer, and Michael Marriot Hubble called “Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation.” The paper discussed conspiracist ideation as implicated in the rejection of scientific work …

A recent study involving visitors to climate blogs found that conspiracist ideation was associated with the rejection of climate science and the rejection of other scientic propositions such as the link between lung cancer and smoking, and between HIV and AIDS (Lewandowsky, Oberauer, & Gignac, in press; LOG12 from here on). This article analyzes the response of the climate blogosphere to the publication of LOG12. We identify and trace the hypotheses that emerged in response to LOG12 and that questioned the validity of the paper’s conclusions. Using established criteria to identify conspiracist ideation, we show that many of the hypotheses exhibited conspiratorial content and counterfactual thinking. For example, whereas hypotheses were initially narrowly focused on LOG12, some ultimately grew in scope to include actors beyond the authors of LOG12, such as
university executives, a media organization, and the Australian government. The overall pattern of the blogosphere’s response to LOG12 illustrates the possible role of conspiracist ideation in the rejection of science, although alternative scholarly interpretations may be advanced in the future.

Professor of Psychology Stephan Lewandowsky.
Professor of Psychology Stephan Lewandowsky.
Since the retraction it has become clear to me that the journal Frontiers has acted inappropriately. One could argue that the journal has been unethical or possibly libelous and left itself open to very legitimate civil action, but I’m not a lawyer. More importantly for the academic community, Frontiers has demonstrated itself to be dangerous. Academics who publish with this journal in any area where there exists, or could emerge, a community of science denialists or other anti-academic activists risk having their hard work ruined (by retraction) and, astonishingly, risk being accused by the journal itself of unethical behavior that they did not commit. For these reasons, I urge members of the academic community to pressure Frontiers to change their policies and issue appropriate apologies or other remediation. Academics considering submitting material to Frontiers should consider not doing so.

Here are the details.

As stated, “Recursive Fury” paper was retracted by the journal in association with this statement:

In the light of a small number of complaints received following publication of the original research article cited above, Frontiers carried out a detailed investigation of the academic, ethical and legal aspects of the work. This investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study. It did, however, determine that the legal context is insufficiently clear and therefore Frontiers wishes to retract the published article. The authors understand this decision, while they stand by their article and regret the limitations on academic freedom which can be caused by legal factors.

According to the authors, this statement was the outcome of negotiations between them and Frontiers and was part of a legal agreement. The authors tell us that they did not agree with the decision, and were disappointed with it. The Australian Psychological Society and other organizations, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists shared their disappointment with Frontiers’ decision with the authors. Other than that, the authors have had very little to say publicly until now (See: Revisiting a Retraction by Stephan Lewandowsky). In fact, Lewandowsky has continued to serve as a volunteer co-editor for an upcoming issue of the journal, and continues peer reviewing work for them. Furthermore, Lewandowsky and as far as I can tell the other authors have not supported any particular action regarding this screw-up by Frontiers, opting, rather, to let things play out for a period of time.

Then, Frontiers got weird.

The journal released a second, longer, and very different statement about the retraction. When I read the statement I felt it accused the authors of at least two counts of unethical conduct, and the statement indicated that this is why the paper was retracted. So, at this point, Frontiers clearly had lied once or twice (depending on which, if any, of the contradictory statements is true). Also, the assertions made in the second retraction were clearly wrong. As far as I can tell the authors used correct and proper methods for obtaining their data, reporting the data, and reporting the results. Yet, the journal makes an almost explicit statement that the authors acted unethically.

Since the second retraction incorrectly, in my view, accused four well established academics of unethical behavior, the journal had become dangerous. The second retraction statement notes,

Frontiers came to the conclusion that it could not continue to carry the paper, which does not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects. Specifically, the article categorizes the behaviour of identifiable individuals within the context of psychopathological characteristics.

The source data for this paper was information fully available in public view on the Internet. The data was collected using widely available search engines such as Google. From the methods section:

An on-going web search in real time was conducted by two of the authors (J.C. and M.M.) during the period August-October 2012. This daily search used Google Alerts to detect newly published material matching the search term “Stephan Lewandowsky.” If new blog posts were discovered that featured links to other relevant blog posts not yet recorded, these were also included in the analysis. To ensure that the collection of hypotheses pertaining to LOG12 was exhaustive, Google was searched for links to the originating blog posts (i.e., rst instances of a recursive theory), thereby detecting any further references to the original hypothesis any derivatives

The search for data was later narrowed to focus on a subset of highly active internet sites, but still, all public (even if removed, as per the usual methods of finding blog posts and comments using “wayback machine” like technologies).

I’m not sure if an analogy is really needed here, but this is a bit like a peer reviewed paper that studies statements made by Winston Churchill in public contexts during World War II. Except the conspiracy-ideationalizing anti-science internet trolls aren’t Winston Churchill.

The bottom line regarding Frontiers: If you publish there, and some people don’t like the work you did, they may manipulate Frontiers into throwing you under the bus. If you are an editor there or on the board, you may find yourself unwittingly part of an academic scandal that leaves you liable in part, or simply associated with, extremely questionable behavior. Rather than enhancing careers at the same time it enhances knowledge, this particular journal has become radioactive. My suggestion: Run away.

In order to fully document and underscore the problem, Stephan Lewandowsky has posted a full description of what transpired between the authors and the journal. It is posted HERE.

A few bullet points taken from the text and modified slightly (to be bullet points):

  • In the second statement, the journal seemed to state that the paper was retracted because it “did not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects.”

  • In the contractually-agreed retraction statement, signed by legal representatives of both parties, that Frontiers “…did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study.”

  • In the second statement the journal said that it had received no (presumably legal) threats.

  • There exist public statements of individuals who explicitly stated that they had threatened the journal or had launched defamation complaints (see Lewandowsky’s post for links). Also, this claim contradicts the contractually-agreed retraction statement, which ascribed the retraction to an “insufficiently clear” legal context.

  • This legal context involved English libel laws in force prior to 2014. Those laws were sufficiently notorious for their chilling effect on inconvenient speech for President Obama to sign a law that makes U.K. libel judgments unenforceable in the U.S.

  • Frontiers revealed the existence of a new paper that we submitted in January 2014 and that according to their latest statement “did not deal adequately with the issues raised by Frontiers.”

In his post, Lewandowsky provides a detailed summary of events behind the scenes. Read his post to get these details. The crux of it is this: Frontiers had told the authors that there were no ethical issues with the paper, but a few changes might be made to reduce legal risks. Further back and forth happened, and during this time the legal liability context changed because of changes in English libel law. A second “replacement” article was produced, apparently going beyond and above what was necessary, but for some reason Frontiers chose not to use it. (They give a reason but the reason seems weak given what we know about the article and about what Frontiers was asking for.)

Lewandowsky sums up as follows:

Throughout the entire period, from March 2013 until February 2014, the only concern voiced by Frontiers related to the presumed defamation risk under English libel laws. While the University of Western Australia offered to host the retracted paper at uwa.edu.au/recursivefury because it did not share those legal concerns, Frontiers rejected an anonymized replacement paper on the basis that non-identifiable parties might feel defamed.

No other cause was ever offered or discussed by Frontiers to justify the retraction of Recursive Fury. We are not aware of a single mention of the claim that our study “did not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects” by Frontiers throughout the past year, although we are aware of their repeated explicit statements, in private and public, that the study was ethically sound.

This brings into focus several possibilities for the reconciliation of Frontier’s contradictory statements concerning the retraction:

First, one could generously propose that the phrase “did not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects” is simply a synonym for “defamation risk” and that the updated statement therefore supports the contractually-agreed statement. This is possible but it puts a considerable strain on the meaning of “synonym.”

Second, one could take the most recent statement by Frontiers at face value. This has two uncomfortable implications: It would imply that the true reason for the retraction was withheld from the authors for a year. It would also imply that the journal entered into a contractual agreement about the retraction statement that misrepresented its actual position.

Third, perhaps the journal only thought of this new angle now and in its haste did not consider that it violates their contractually-agreed position.

Or there are other possibilities that we have not been able to identify.

I just noticed that Frontiers has struck up some sort of arrangement to work with the internationally known and usually (but not always) venerated Nature Publishing Group. I wonder if this means that Nature Publishing Group has lowered its ethical standards, or if Frontiers will be made to make amends to these authors and the rest of the academic community.

Very Important New Documentary: Years of Living Dangerously

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This is an amazing series of nine episodes looking at climate change. Here’s an FAQ on the series by Joe Romm.

It’s the biggest story of our time. Hollywood’s brightest stars and today’s most respected journalists explore the issues of climate change and bring you intimate accounts of triumph and tragedy. YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY takes you directly to the heart of the matter in this awe-inspiring and cinematic documentary series event from Executive Producers James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub and Arnold Schwarzenegger. YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY premieres Sunday, April 13 at 10PM ET/PT – only on SHOWTIME®.

Each correspondent delves into a different impact of climate change – from the damage wrought by Superstorm Sandy in the New York tri-state area to political upheaval caused by droughts in the Middle East to the dangerous level of carbon emissions resulting from deforestation. The project will portray the current and intensifying effects of climate change on everyday Americans and demonstrate how they can take action and be part of the solution.

YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY will combine the blockbuster storytelling styles of Hollywood’s top movie makers, including James Cameron and Jerry Weintraub, with 60 Minutes ’ Joel Bach and David Gelber’s reporting expertise, to reveal critical stories of heartbreak, hope and heroism as the race to save the planet continues.

I don’t get showtime but I might be able to get a free episode to show you tomorrow, Monday. Watch this space:

This will activate at midnight. Problem is I’m not sure which midnight and I hear there are 24 of them:

How to fix the anti-vax problem.

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I just watched a report on ABC news about anti-vaxers causing the current and alarming measles outbreak. It was a reasonable report for MSM though I missed large parts of it because I was multitasking ineffectively. But an idea came to me that would go a long way to manage this problem of anti-vaxers threatening everyone else’s health and well being. Lives, even. They are threatening our lives.

Here’s the deal. Most public schools have a mealy-mouthed policy that allows people to send their kids to school unvaccinated because they are dumb asses. That’s a problem and that should be addressed, but I don’t expect it to be because school administrators are usually easily managed by whackaloon parents if the whackaloon parents organize sufficiently. Unions are already organized as entities and have the potential to change policies. So lets look at the union route.

In states with teachers’ unions, here is what I recommend. The health and well being of the teachers is a workplace thing. They should be protected against disease, injury, death, etc. in the workplace. The anti-vax supporting policies of the school — i.e. that students must get vaccinated unless their parents are morons — place teachers in danger.

So set up a system of appropriate compensation. I recommend the following.

1) If any teacher comes down with a communicable disease covered by vaccines for which there are any students who have opted out, the teacher gets $10,000. Proof of a link is not needed, and there need be no identified “case zero.” Parents are too good at hiding sickness in their families, and the necessary investigation into sickness would be very costly and highly problematic.

2) If a death occurs in that teacher’s family owing to said disease, the teacher is compensated by $100,000,000.

3) This would apply as well to all staff, and visitors.

4) If a student in the school comes down with any of the communicable diseases and this is known to the union, every teacher and staff member gets an extra $1,000 per week in salary during the period of possible infection, to be determined by reference to a lookup table developed by health professionals.

This seams reasonable given that that school administrators clearly feel that their students and faculty are at risk. They should agree to this demand by the union because there will never be a payment. Right?

Talk on Climate Change and Religion

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April 27th, I’ll be giving a talk hosted by Minnesota Atheists at the Maplewood Library, 3025 Southlawn Dr, Maplewood, Minnesota. Details are here.

Details:

You may attend any part of the meeting you wish, here’s the schedule:

1:00-1:15 p.m. – Social Time
1:15-1:45 p.m. – Business Meeting
1:45-2:00 p.m. – Break
2:00-3:30 p.m. – Talk by Greg Laden
4:00-whenever – Dinner at Pizza Ranch (1845 County Road D East, Maplewood MN)

This will be a talk about climate change focusing on current and challenging research questions that everyone needs to know about, as well as the relationship between climate change and religion.

Most of the important events in the Bible are linked to climate change. Genesis describes the creation of a planet with a rapidly changing climate. Noah helped all the animals and his family escape an epic case of sea level rise. We can guess that the seven years of lean following the seven years of abundance associated with the early days of the sons of Israel were a climate effect. The plagues and some of the other major events were a form of “weather whiplash.” Indeed, during the days of Moses, wildfires may have been more common, given the number of burning bushes reported for the time!

After all this you would think that mainstream Abrahamic religion would be on the forefront of climate change. And, since humans were in one way or another responsible for most of those Biblical events, one would expect to see widespread acceptance of Anthropogenic Global Warming in religious communities. The reality, however, is more complex than that.

There is a reason that the National Center for Science Education addresses both evolution and climate change curriculum in public schools. But don’t expect the link to be simple or straightforward. Historically, there has been almost as much denial of climate science from the secular community as from the religious community, a situation that has been changing only in recent years. We’ll look at the links, some overt, some more subtle, between efforts lead by the religious right to damage science education and parallel efforts to deny climate science, as well as efforts by Christian fundamentalists to support climate change science.

This talk will also address the most current thinking–in some cases rapidly changing thinking–about climate change. In particular, how does global warming affect weather extremes? Are the California Drought, recent major floods, and the recent visitation of the Polar Vortex acts of a vengeful god, random events, or the effects of climate change? While climate science is not sure, these are probably the result of one of the last two. And, increasingly, thinking among climate scientists is leaning strongly towards the global warming – weather whiplash link.

Another area of concern, and timely given that summer is (supposedly) on the way, is the problem of sea level rise caused by melting large masses of ice currently trapped in glaciers. Sea level rise is one of the issues many feel has not been adequately addressed by the well known IPCC, partly because of the discordance between the timing of important research and the production cycle of the IPCC reports.

Greg Laden writes about climate change, evolution, science education, and other topics at National Geographic Science Blogs and other venues. He is a trained biological anthropologist and archaeologist who has taught at several colleges and universities. Today he mostly engages in climate-change-related science communication. He has done a number of interviews and talks on these various topics for Minnesota Atheists and other groups in the area.

I visit tropics, tropics visit me.

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I grew up (and beyond) in the US northeast. There, the weather was pretty good at coming at us from the West, though a nor’easter blowing in from the North East (unsurprisingly) was not uncommon in New England. Although I had studied sea level rise and some Pleistocene climate reconstruction, when I first went to the field in Central Africa I was pretty unschooled in areas of climate and weather. I remember the first several days in the Ituri Forest. I though I knew which way was North, South, East, etc. but then I would get turned around because the big storms — that came in every single day in the afternoon — were confusing me. It turns out that on the equator (which I was, almost, 3 degrees north of it) the “trade winds” come in from the east, not the west. So now you know.

I recently spent a few days on the Yucatan and some of that was spent watching clouds. For the first few day, the clouds came from the west and headed east though the surface winds never stopped being from the east-southeast (the direction of the sea). After two days of this, a nice big set of storm clouds formed, not supercells but big cloud formations. One of the clouds dropped a couple of wall clouds, and then a handful of twisters, the non-supercell type that sometimes become water spouts. They existed as thin threads hanging from the clouds for just a few minutes, then disappeared. By the next day, cumulus clouds were coming from the East, not the West, and did so thereafter.

I checked satellite images each day, and I believe this is what was happening: At first I was within the zone where the trade winds blow mostly from West to East, but the line between the meteorological tropics and the sub-tropics shifted past my location at about 20 degrees N. Latitude, so I ended up in the tropics. I’m not going to claim it got warmer, but it might have. I did switch from Beer to Tequila at about that time, so there’s that.

Idealized Trade Winds
Idealized Trade Winds

Comment on El Nino Post on 538

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The 538 comment system appears to not be working, probably because of my current highly suspicious location, so I figured I’d put my comment here (since I spent a whole minute writing it):

“Long-range forecast models have come to a consensus recently that a minor to moderate El Niño pattern may develop six to nine months from now.

That just isn’t true. Forecasts suggest a 50-50 chance of El Nino, but this is hard to predict. There is no consensus that an El Nino will develop among forecasters who are always super cautious about this prediction and there is only a 50-50 chance.

Also, I see no one saying it would be a moderate El Nino. Do yo have a reference for that? Some, in private, are putting their money on a strong El Nino if one happens, but not saying so publicly because the uncertainty is so high it would be irresponsible (or embarrassing if wrong!)

Regarding California’s lack of water, this may be harder to predict. An El Nino may or may not bring “drenching rains” but it is snow pack that probably matters more, and a single year of El Nino heavy rains may do nothing, so you may have that right. Overall, I agree that the earlier statements about ho El Nino will fix everything were somewhat bogus because, in part, they were being made when ENSO forecasts woul dhave been very tricky and they aren’t much better now.

Finally what is the behavior of a longish term oscillation like ENSO under dramatically changing climate, an the effects of that pattern on other patterns? ENSO affects climate by altering things like jet stream behavior and trade winds. But the Arctic is kicking butt in that area these days. Will we be seeing a major face-off between ENSO oscillation and Arctic Amplification???

Here’s the post that comment goes with.

I haven’t said much a out 538 and recent forays into climate and weather, but at the moment I’d classify 538 as a Junk Science site, which is highly disappointing. Let’s hope Nate Silver decides to fix that. Taking on an area of science and totally woo-ing out is reputation destroying stuff. It’s not like there isn’t a plethora of talent out there he could tap into.