Meanwhile, I call on Legislators in Minnesota to pass a law stating that we can not add any more fossil fuel sources into our energy mix, in utilities within or overlapping with the state of Minnesota. We need that bill passed during the next legislative session, to stop this plant and similar ideas in the fiture.

The building of this particular natural gas plant is not inevitable. It still has to be approved on the Wisconsin side of the border. From NPR:

If Wisconsin regulators approve the plan, the new power plant would produce at least 525 megawatts of electricity. Minnesota Power and its ratepayers would be on the hook for half the $700 million cost.

Minnesota Power covers roughly a third of the state, mostly in the northeastern quadrant of Minnesota, from Little Falls in the south to International Falls in the north and over to Duluth and up to Canada. Its customers include large taconite mines and power plants.

PUC regulators heard final arguments in the case earlier this month. Commissioners also decided Monday that the plan did not need to undergo additional environmental analysis, a decision that paved the way for its approval vote.

Methane is not a bridge fuel. It is a fossil fuel, and a greenhouse gas.

But even tough climate change science denialism is now being moved aside (rightfully so) it is still out there an you may encounter it. Many of the active denialists can’t really back down because they are so invested in the denialism that doing so would require that they admit that the effects of denialism on policy have been deadly. Science denialists do, in fact, kill people indirectly whether it be in the form of anti-vax denialism, climate change science denialism or some other form.

There is a web site that specializes in addressing the various questions denialists raise in order to cast doubt on the real science. We are no longer at the point where pro science people need to have the answers ready when the denialsts show up, because that just gives them more credit than they deserve. Rather, the appropriate response is to point them to this site: Skeptical Science

Oh, and guess what. There’s an app for that! Here: Skeptical Science on the iPhone or iPad
. If you want the app for Android or some other platform, click through to the site and look in the sidebar.

More information on global warming and climate change HERE.

Nightmare Storms

First the nightmare scenario. Years ago, my first long distance trip anywhere not involving aircraft was a road trip from Albany, NY to the Southeast, the Southwest, California, and back. This was in the 1970s, and it took months. On the way out, I encountered a storm in Texas that stranded me there, in Big Spring, for several days. The state was covered with a layer of ice, and there was no way to handle it. Months later, on the way back, I drove through the aftermath of that storm and a very long time after the storm had passed though, there were still wrecked semis littering Routes 30 and 40.

I did not live in Boston at the time, but that was the year Boston was hit with a very severe storm, was part of the same system that iced the Lone Star State. In Boston, so much snow fell during rush hour that the cars on the major beltways that go around the urban core were trapped in situ. People died of exposure in their own cars, or en route on foot to “safety” from more remote parts of the road. Hundreds of homes and cabins along the coast were destroyed.

That was one of several storms leading to changes in zoning and regulation along the north Atlantic coast in the US which led to no more building and in some cases the aggressive removal of structures on the open coast or barrier islands. A couple of years later I did move to the coast, and spent a fair amount of time on the shores of Cape Cod, Plumb Island and elsewhere. As an archaeologist, I fully enjoyed encountering the remains of homes or small settlements. There would be nothing standing, but the remains of houses and their contents would be poking up here and there. It was always interesting to try to figure out based on the position and location of the largest bits where the home may have originally sat, and based on the degree of deterioration of the remains, which of the recent storms had destroyed the home or cabin.

One of the great historical events one learns of while working, in historic preservation and archaeology in New York and New England is the Great Storm of 38. The big storm in the 70s happened 35 years ago, and 35 years or so before that a storm came up the Atlantic, crossed Long Island, slammed into Rhode Island and Southeast Massachusetts, and generally made a mess of the interior, destroying lots of homes and killing lots of people. We now think it was a hurricane, but the people of New England at the time, including fisherfolk who’s lives and livelihood depended on the sea and on knowledge of the weather, had not even heard of a “Hurricane” before. Surely, hurricanes had come up the coast before, but with such infrequency that they were not a named phenomenon. Just another (big) storm. Years after the Storm of ’38, when I was busy climbing all the High Peaks in the Adirondack Mountains, I was often challenged by “slides” and blowdowns caused by that storm. Anyone who knows the ADK’s of the 1960s and 1970s or earlier knows of the big slides on Giant and the other steep sloped mountains, and the blowdowns on the Dix range. Those features of hiking and climbing are mostly courtesy of the big storm of ’38.

Here’s the thing. Imagine that a storm like Sandy came along in either of two years; 70 years ago or 35 years ago. Sandy is much larger and contains much more energy than the ’38 storm, or for that matter, of any known storm of the North Atlantic (we’ll get to that below). If Sandy hit the region in the 1930s, it would have been without warning, and it would have been prior to the reconstruction of seawalls and the development of flood mitigation measures inland that have happened in recent decades. Sandy, in ’38, would kill tens of thousands and destroy thousands of structures. That would be an average Sandy, a Sandy not being as bad as the most dire predictions we are considering today as the storm begins to take a grip on the eastern seaboard.

A Sandy of 35 years ago would have been predicted. The ability to see hurricanes coming was in place, but not as well developed as it is today. We would have seen Sandy coming, but her massiveness and extent, and her exact trajectory, would probably have been unknown. But at least there would be warning. Many of the seawalls and flood mitigation systems would have been in place, but the overbuilding on barrier islands and other vulnerable coastal regions would have been at or near a peak. With evacuations, Sandy would not kill 10s of thousands… probably only hundreds. But the number of buildings destroyed would be unthinkable. Most of those buildings are now gone or shored up. A Sandy in 1975 would have left some very interesting coastal archaeology for me to have observed during my trips to the shore in the 1980s. Very interesting indeed.

Do you remember the October storm of 1991, a.k.a., the Halloween Nor’easter a.k.a. The Perfect Storm? I do. I was living in Somerville, Ma. After the storm raged for hours and finally calmed down a bit I went out for a walk. Power lines and large tree fragments littered the landscape. There would be no driving for a day or two in many neighborhoods. I was able to get out the next day, and I drove right up to Cape Anne, near Gloucester (Bass Point to be exact), where the Andrea Gail had sailed from never to return. I had not heard about the Andrea Gail yet but I went down to Glouscter to see the waves.

Is Sandy Caused By Global Warming?

I remember parking the car along side the road, and climbing over a granite riprap structure to get to the shore. I stood on that high point, and from there could see a few dozen people milling around at a much lower elevation, taking pictures of the waves that were rolling in. I did a rough calculation. How far inland would a wave wash if it was double the size of those I could see now? Double and triple size waves … rogue waves … would not be unlikely after a storm like this. When I realized that my shoes would probably get wet, and all the people down at a lower elevation would probably get washed away, if that happened, I went back to the car and drove to the clam shack in Ipswich for lunch. Later that day, I hear, the authorities cleared the beaches. The waves I was watching were 10 meters if they were a centimeter. Indeed, 30 meter waves were recorded asea in Nova Scotia, and high waves killed a couple of looky-loos on Staten Island. That storm was one of several that hit New England since the big storm of the 1970s. Everybody who lives in the region knows that the storms have become more common and more severe, and probably lager, wider, in extent.

But is there any evidence to support that?

Well, yes, actually, there is. Here’s the abstract from a recent paper:

Detection and attribution of past changes in cyclone activity are hampered by biased cyclone records due to changes in observational capabilities. Here we construct an independent record of Atlantic tropical cyclone activity on the basis of storm surge statistics from tide gauges. We demonstrate that the major events in our surge index record can be attributed to landfalling tropical cyclones; these events also correspond with the most economically damaging Atlantic cyclones. We find that warm years in general were more active in all cyclone size ranges than cold years. The largest cyclones are most affected by warmer conditions and we detect a statistically significant trend in the frequency of large surge events (roughly corresponding to tropical storm size) since 1923. In particular, we estimate that Katrina-magnitude events have been twice as frequent in warm years compared with cold years (P < 0.02).

So, over the years, it gets warmer and colder and in warmer years there is more stormosity, as it were. Warm=storm. At the same time, the amount of warm (number of warm years and how warm they are) has been going up. More storms over time, just as any honest Salt can tell you. Here’s a nice graph from the same paper:

Now, here is what you’ll hear a lot of people say. People will tell you that “you can’t attribute any given storm to global warming.” There is a certain way in which that is true, but there is also a certain way in which it is wrong, and the importance of recognizing the relationship between global warming and storminess is now so important that the former has become little more than a pedantic nuisance and we’d better start focusing on the latter.

One of the reasons why this statement is true is a little unfair to those saying it, or for that matter to the phrase itself, and is extrinsic to the logic of the statement itself, yet is still a valid reason. Here’s the thing. People often say “Well, you can’t attribute a given weather event to climate change” or, more importantly, people often hear that said, and then in their brains a disconnect between climate and weather is established or verified. In other words, people use that phrase to give themselves permission to not worry about climate change vis-a-vis storminess. One might argue that it does not matter that people use this phrase incorrectly, it is still true. But it does matter a great deal because the bigger, overwhelmingly important issue is the lack of social and political will to tackle global warming as a problem. Phrases that are a) technically true but b) miss the point and c) contribute to the end of civilization do not deserve our protection. Just. Stop. Saying. It.

The other way to look at it, the way in which we might fairly and logically say that warming weather can be said to be the cause of a particular storm, is best viewed in a thought experiment first. Suppose there were no Nor’easters, like Sandy. Suppose hurricanes were never, ever known to travel north of Georgia and were not that common. Now, imagine that we warm the world up a bit and this warming causes Nor’easters to start to form, and it causes hurricanes to start heading farther north, and then, some of those Nor’easter low pressure systems combine with some of those hurricanes and cause Frankenstorms.

Those Frankenstorms were caused by global warming.

In a world in which storms generally are more severe, more common, bigger, go farther north, or do some other nasty trick (any subset of this list may pertain, it is not necessary that all are true), one might well ask the question: “Is there any way to say that a given North Atlantic Frankenstorm emerged from the sea and the atmosphere without any of the added energy of global warming contributing to the severity, size, and northerly track of that storm?” And the answer is, “No, of course not, don’t be a bonehead.”

It is often said that storms are going to happen anyway, but global warming ramps up the probability, which is akin to saying that there is always going to be variation in temperature or some other weather related factor but global warming raises the baseline. That’s true. But the corollary to that is NOT that you can’t link climate change to a given storm. All storms are weather, all weather is the immediate manifestation of climate, climate change is about climate. Before we started talking about global warming, storms were caused by … things. Climate things. Did we ever say, back in the 1950s when a hurricane hit Florida, “Oh, ya, that was some hurricane, but the thing is, you can’t really attribute a given hurricane to the Intertropical Convergence Zone’s relationship to warm Mid Atlantic currents. The former is a weather event and the latter is a climate system.” Why did we not ever say that? Because it would have been irrelevant, even dumb.

The truth is, we experience more Atlantic severe storms because of global warming, though we are still working out the details of which features of which kinds of storms are affected most. Beyond this, it may well also be possible that something I hinted at above is true: We may be experiencing kinds of storms today that were very rare in recent centuries, because of global warming.

In any event, there’s more. From the paper:

We detect a statistically significant increasing trend in the number of moderately large surge index events since 1923. We estimate that warm years have been associated with twice as many Katrina-magnitude events compared with cold years in the global average surface temperature record.

I recommend this recent piece by Neela Banerjee on the link between climate and weahter, as well as Storms of my Grandchildren by James Hansen.

What is Sandy Going To Do?

Jeff Masters, at The Wunderblog, has an excellent post on Sandy, what’s going on now, and what might happen. It is here. Keep in mind that by the time you click through to that he may have put up a newer post, so check for that. Meantime, here’s a few salient items you may want to know about:

• Sandy, the storm, is of record size, larger than any storm ever seen before. It is over 1,000 miles wide, with 12 foot seas covering that entire area. There’s been a couple of storms with this or that dimension exceeding Sandy, but in some other way they fell short. Sandy wins.
• You already know about the whole “landfall” problem with storms, so I won’t go into this here. The thing is, even while Sandy’s worst rains and winds are no where near the coast, she is putting up storm surges already, and roads are being washed away as we speak with days of storminess ahead of us. (This is the thing about “Nor’easters… they go on for much longer than mere hurricanes!)
• Sandy will generate modest storm surges from South Carolina to Canada, with severe storm surges from Delaware to Massachusetts.
  The storm surge in New York City may be higher than ever seen before, and has about a 50-50 chance of flooding the subway system in the vicinity of the Battery. That has never happened before.
• Tropical force winds will batter 1000 miles of coast on Monday and Tuesday, with hurricane force winds covering a 500 mile section of coast.
• Remember all the flooding associated with Irene in 2011? Sandy will also cause major inland flooding, but not as much rain overall will fall, so overall the flooding will be less. However, what “less” means is relative. If you are in a hilly region of Pennsylvania or some other part of the northeast, you may well experience worse flooding with Sandy than you did with Irene. Or not. Overall, there will be less, but it will still be bad.
• And yes, there will be snow. The usual places that get snow during Nor’easters are at risk. Any place with a high elevation or that is up north has a good chance of getting a few inches, or in some cases, a couple of feet.

Go to Jeff’s post for more details.

Indeed, the end of civilization is near! Ish!

I found it very interesting that the Maya recently came out to ask people to stop suggesting that somehow their cyclic calendar was going to cause the end of civilization, or the world, or whatever, at the end of the present year. This is a case of a traditional people well versed in their own indigenous technology (in this case, time tracking technology) noticing that the “civilized Western world” was making a major fool of itself, as usual, and then helpfully suggesting that certain people STFU. At the same time, we are doing it wrong for real and truly putting the future at risk, and not just with climate change, but how we address climate change. We are not making it part of the conversation in national elections, we are not making it part of our budget considerations, we are not making it part of our shovel-ready-stimulus activities. We are not even letting ourselves keep track of what we are ruining. The number of satellites that will be available to track storms like this will probably fall off in the near future to the extent that we won’t be able to do it. Talk about the end of civilization! Even if we didn’t simply screw up plans for putting up more satellites, we have this other growing problem with space junk. Our technology is warming our planet and at the same time blinding us, hampering our ability to manage the problem we are creating.

Stay safe.

Grinsted, A., Moore, J., & Jevrejeva, S. (2012). Homogeneous record of Atlantic hurricane surge threat since 1923 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1209542109

Click here to get more background from Peter Sinclair’s site.

The post refers to this book: The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines

Well, just a few hours ago, members of the climate change science, journalism, and blogging community received an interesting Valentine’s Day gift from someone who must be a Heartland Institute insider: The institute’s budget, fundraising plan, climate related strategy, and numerous other things. The story broke here on Desmog Blog.

Here’s the details:

The 2012 fundraising plan ((1-15-2012) 2012 Fundraising Plan.pdf) claims that Heartland will raise $7.7 million in 2012, up by 70% from 2011. One of the most interesting revelations of this document is an “anonymous donor” who gave just under one million in 2011 and who plans to give 1.25 million for 2012.

The budget ((1-15-2012) 2012 Heartland Budget (2).pdf) gives an idea of the institute’s activities (lots of communications and lobbying). Most interesting are the funds that will be spent on fighting science in schools and other venues. $75,000 is set aside for:

K-12 Climate Education Project
Payments to David Wojick for K-12 Global Warming Lesson Plan modules plus a Website featuring the same. Estimate quarterly payments of $25,000 in June, September, and December.

We know this to be an effort to fight the teaching of good climate science in schools, much like efforts we’ve seen before to force creationism into science classes in order to damage science teaching. It is probably in the interest of those who donate to Heartland to have a poorly informed populace when it comes to science.

The documents include an agenda for a January 17th 2012 meeting of the directors of the Heartland Institute (2 Agenda for January 17 Meeting.pdf), a 2010 Federal IRS Form 990 (2010_IRS_Form_990 (2).pdf) and a Janurary 2012 document addressing the 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy (2012 Climate Strategy (3).pdf)

In that document we learn about efforts to increase climate related fundraising, noting the “key Anonymous Donor” and additional support from the Charles G. Koch Foundation. The afore mentioned K-12 Classrooms project is outlined. Specifically, the document states:

Development of our “Global Warming Cirriculum for K-12 Classrooms” project.
Principals and teachers are heavily biased towards the alarmist perspective. To counter this we are considering launching an effort to develop alternative materials for K-12 classrooms. We are pursuing a proposal from Dr. David Wojick to produce a global warming cirriculum for K-12 schools. Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science. His effort wil focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain — two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science. We tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $100,000 for 20 modules in 2012, with funding pledged by the Anonymous Donor.

There is a larger document that appears to be supporting materials for the January 17th meeting (Binder1 (2).pdf). One of the more interesting parts of this document is the discussion of decreased funding to the institute (on page 15 of the PDF file).

The details of the board of directors of the Heartland Institute are provided in one document (Board Directory 01-18-12.pdf). That includes their emails and phone numbers in case you want to contact any of them and ask why they hate the Planet Earth or something. And finally, a cover memo for the entire package for the January 17th meeting (Board Meeting Package January 17.pdf)

(And, yes, I did just give you all these links is approximate reverse order that the documents were probably originally passed out originally.)

I have no idea who the individual is who passed these documents on, nor do I have an idea who the Anonymous Donor with all the money to spend on ruining the planet and messing with the education of our children. The former is something of a hero, the later, a villain.

Here are a few other blog posts on the material:

• Heartland Institute Exposed: Internal Documents Unmask Heart of Climate Denial Machine
• INTERNAL DOCUMENTS: The Secret, Corporate-Funded Plan To Teach Children That Climate Change Is A Hoax
• Heartland Institute budget and strategy revealed
• How is Joe Bast Like Joe Camel? Looks Like We’re Going To Find Out..
• Is Turnabout Fair Play?
• Leaked insider docs from Heartland Institute goal: “dissuading teachers from teaching science” #climate #Heartland #ScholarlyKitchen
• Leaked Heartland Institute documents pull back curtain on climate scepticism
• Leak exposes how Heartland Institute works to undermine climate science
• Heartland?
• The Heart(land) of the Denial Campaign
• Zachary Shanan, Fossil-Fuel-Funded Think Tank, Heartland Institute, Exposed (Deniergate? Heartlandgate? Pick a Name), Clean Technica
• Phil Plait, Breaking news: A look behind the curtain of the Heartland Institute’s climate change spin, Bad Astronomy
• Christian Hunt, Undermining the IPCC, keeping opposing voices out, dissuading the teaching of science – Heartland in its own words?, The Carbon Brief
• Canucks On Heartland Institute Payroll

I’m have a hard time stifling the “bwahahaha.”

Disclaimer: The Heartland Institute is now claiming that these documents have likely been altered or faked, and are threatening to pursue criminal and civil charges against all bloggers who posted comments on them or links to them.

I can not prove that these documents are real or fake. I will certainly pass on to you any information that comes along about this. Have a look at the documents and make up your own mind (before I am forced by guys in suits to take down the links).

.

The Tipping Point approach works like this: As the percentage of qualified scientists that hold a particular view diminishes, when it reaches about 25 percent or so, the view should continue to be references but as a minority view. Many points of view have been around that range in the past and we are glad we did not eliminate them. For instance, the role of Archeopteryx in bird evolution has moved in and out of favor such that what may well be the correct view may have been close to that sort of minority at various times in the past. As plate tectonics started to develop as a theory, it was held at about this level of minority for a while. The idea of particulate inheritance lost favor for decades prior to the New Darwinian Synthesis, and may have been in that range for a while. Minority vies should be maintained, but labeled clearly as such, in science reviews or in policy development.

But when that view goes to single digits, something else happens. We remember that the percentage of people who think that they’ve been abducted by aliens, or that are certain they’ve seen ghosts, or other impossible things, is around there. If 90 percent of scientists in a given field thing that A is likely correct and B is not, then is time to start ignoring B.

The second aproach, “Clues that Something is Wrong Here,” works quite differently. Some people are going to not like this approach because it rings of ad hominem argumentation or argument from authority. And it is. But note that this is the second approach being suggested for a reason, and I think once you see how it works you’ll agree that it is valid.

There are many possible clues, and I suggest only a few here:

• The main proponents of the minority opinion are not part of the mainstream science.
• The most vocal proponents of the minority opinion are often politicians who are linked to a party or political movement with a priori reasons to hold this point of view.
• The main arguments being made at the policy level are non-scientific, and often include accusations of unfairness or bias.
• The main arguments made at the policy level about the validity of a certain interpretation of the available evidence is that it should be given more consideration because no one believes it any more. In other words, the argument is made that a particular point of view is right because the vast majority of practitioners in the field are certain that it is wrong.
• The victimization of the minority point of view starts to come into play.
• The appeal to support the fading minority point of view shifts primarily from the scientific community to easily swayed politically motivated members of the public.
• The appeal to support the fading minority point of view shifts primarily to those calling for investigative agencies to intervene on behalf of the view that is widely seen as wrong.
• And finally, the primary argument against the fading, by now fully discredited point of view is reference to the idea that there must be a conspiracy afoot against it, otherwise why would it appear to be completely wrong. And therefore it must be correct

You can see now why this is not a simple argument from authority or ad hominem. What has happened in the typical case is that those still stumping for the incorrect view are no longer valid experts, but rather, biased political entities or crazy people (or some combination of the two). There isn’t a single zoologist who thinks Bigfoot is real. Today, bigfoot “exerts” are either charlatans or disturbed individuals. There is not a single evovlutionary biologist who things the earth is 6000 years old. Today, each and every Young Earth Creationist is a preacher or a con artist or, again, disturbed. There are almost no climate scientists who think that Global Warming and other related climate change is not a) real and b) human caused in the majority. Those who defy this point of view these days are either in the employ of energy companies or, perhaps, Tea Partiers or biased Senators. It is not an ad hominem argument because the validity of the science is not being questioned on the basis of qualities (or lack thereof) of those supporting the views, but rather, the minority view is being ignored because those still professing it are not qualified to even enter the debate to begin with.

CloudGate: Denialism Gets Dirty, Reputations Are At Stake

Please go have a look and leave any questions you have. If I can’t help you with the questions, I’ll find someone who can.

Meanwhile, this latest event, which involves the resignation of the Editor-in-Chief of a peer reviewed scientific journal, has created a lot of discussion in a very short period of time. Thus, the link farm to help you keep track:

The Original Paper is here.

Wolfgang Wagner’s resignation … is here (pdf).

Blog posts and press reports about the resignation:

• Remote Sensing Editor Resigns Over Spencer/Braswell Paper
• The Guardian: Journal editor resignes
• Climate Progress: Science Stuner: Editor of Journal … Resigns, Slams Spencer …
• BBC: Journal editor resigns ofer “problematic” climate paper
• Another one bites the dust… Editor of Remote Sensing Resigns Over Spencer-Braswell Pal Review

Let me break it down for you

The paper, by Spencer and Braswell, was called “On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance” and it made the claim that the Earth’s atmosphere releases more heat into space than climate scientists had estimated, thus removing concern about the warming effects of fossil CO2 being released into the atmosphere. The following things were also true:

1) The paper was published in a journal, Remote Sensing, that normally does not address climate science, although there were some atmospheric scientists on the editorial board.

2) The authors, in particular Spencer, had a reputation for being “climate change denialists” which is not a kind of scientist, but rather, a politically motivated contrarian pretending to be a scientist, in this case with some scientific credentials.

3) Author Spencer was known to have made major mistakes in his research in the past.

4) The research in the paper had glaring errors, discussed in more detail below.

At the time, I wrote in a Research Blogging review of the paper:

“On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance” is a big ol’ bunch of hooey. I eagerly await an explanation from the journal’s editors, Dr. Wolfgang Wagner and Mr. Elvis Wang and the editorial board as to what they are up to with this paper.

Dr. Wagner’s resignation as Editor-in-Chief, which is available in print here (pdf), is a rather startling and definitive explanation! In short, the paper should never have been published.

What was wrong with the paper?

There were two major things wrong with the paper. First, the conclusion that the Earth’s atmosphere could not heat up with extra CO2 contradicted the very important facts that the Earth’s atmosphere has heated up and this heating up correlates to increases in atmospheric CO2 very much in the manner expected if the “greenhouse model” was correct. In addition, the basic idea of a greenhouse effect is pretty simple, solid, and well understood science. If something other than the greenhouse effect was happening, that would be major news.

But that sort of “flaw” — a claim that contradicts what we are very certain of — could be a virtue. A paper contradicting what everyone knows to be true would be brilliant, an amazing discovery, the stuff of awards and accolades. But, unfortunately for the paper’s hapless authors, there were other things wrong with it as well.

The numerical results presented in the paper lack statistical significance, but this is hard to detect because error bars or estimates of statistical uncertainty are presented poorly or left out. The methods used in the paper are not described well enough to verify that they could work.

When these results were examined more closely they were found to be not replicable.

The statistical strangeness of the results are explained in part by looking at the scale at which the work is being done. Standard climate models look at climate variables over various time scales from less than a decade to centuries of time. The Spencer and Braswell research inappropriately mixed time scales in a way that seems to have given them results they were looking for rather than a valid finding.

What they did, essentially, was watch a car veering towards the curb because it was trying to avoid hitting a cat, extrapolating the direction that car was moving at that moment to predict a long term pattern (which would put the car in a neighbor’s back yard rather than grocery store, where it was actually going).

In this case, Spenser and Braswell used observational data from a short time period (veering around the cat) in a model involving long term variation (the whole drive to the grocery store averaging out all the little backs and forths one effects while driving anywhere).

Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo exposed this aspect of the work’s flawed nature in an essay posted here on Real Climate. The flaws of the paper are also discussed here and here.

Clearly the research was flawed. Likely, it was intentionally flawed to support an unscientific politically motivated denialist view. This would make the paper a scientific fraud. As Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Dr. Wolfgang Wagner might have seen himself a little like a bank manager who accidentally left the vault open so crooks could steal the gold, thus his resignation. But how much of a failure of the peer review process was this?

There is another element at work here, I think, that should be considered. Remote Sensing is one of a new breed of journal, called “Open Access” which has a very different model for how journals should work. It is, frankly, the much preferred model over the traditional way things are published, but the fight between “closed” and “open” styles of publishing has been rather vitriolic. Indeed, the term “Open Access” uttered in some academic settings will produce sneers and disgusted looks among those who don’t understand what it is or how it works. And, to make things worse, it may even be the case that there are some commercial Open Access journals that are over-commercialized (though I have no credible evidence of this at hand … it is just something that “people say” as far as I know).

Had a major well established traditional “Closed Access” journal published this paper, it is possible that the Editor-in-Chief of that journal would not have resigned just because of a major dust-up over one paper. However, in this case, it may have been necessary because of the somewhat tenuous nature of this sort of publishing venture. Dr. Wagner does not explicitly state this in his resignation but he does make direct reference to the challenges of earning a good reputation in the scientific publishing field and the qualities of the two and a half year old journal.

In the end, the peer review processed worked because a paper clearly recognized as something that should not have been published has been rather spectacularly identified as such with this resignation, which is published in the very same journal in the form of an editorial. It could make sense to also withdraw the paper but it may be the case that there is no mechanism for this. And, this is the scientific literature after all. The paper is a testament to the efforts, worthy or not, of its authors. It should stay there amid the literature surrounding it, for posterity.

There is an explanation for why this paper was published that applies generally to all bad papers as well as to good papers. The peer review process is designed to meet several different objectives. Relevant to the present case are two of them: 1) Filtering out true drek — A zoology journal would not even consider the latest summary of bigfoot sightings from the north woods, and a medical journal would not even consider a study comparing different ways to make healing solutions from homeopathic crystals; and 2) Ensuring the quality of the research itself, methodologically, logically, substantively, and so on with carefully done and thoughtfully managed peer critique.

The first objective is sometimes summarily met by editors who simply do not consider manuscripts that are inappropriate, or by reviewers to whom the manuscripts are sent. When one receives a manuscript there is the option to return it unreviewed or with a note that it is out of range for the publication being considered. (This step is often avoided by sending potential reviewers an abstract, asking if they would be able and available to conduct a review.) The second objective is met by having appropriate reviewers … people who know the relevant specialty and literature very well … carefully go over the paper and critique it, and along with the detailed critique, provide a recommendation about publication.

In this case, according to Dr. Wagner’s resignation letter, three reviewers looked at the paper and had only minor criticisms. Given that this paper is deeply flawed, this means that either the reviewers did not really look closely at the paper (meaning, frankly, that they did not do their jobs) or they are also climate denialists and this was all some sort of conspiracy. I can think of no other alternatives to explain this pattern.

How likely is it that a given reviewer would simply glance at a paper, pretend to have read it carefully, and send back a poorly done review having ignored the details? This is not likely but I would guess that it does happen. What are the chances that three reviewers would do the same thing, by random chance? Very very unlikely, but it is also possible that all the oxygen molecules in a room could randomly migrate to one corner, suffocating everyone present. Well, OK, the latter is significantly more unlikely, but the chance of three poorly done reviews happening at once for a paper is not large.

If there happen to be three bogus reviews from slacker reviewers, one would expect the editor managing the paper to notice this. There would be signs. The editors read the papers and must have some idea of the quality of the reviewers’ critiques when they come back.

However, there is another way that this could happen, if an editor is not really on top of the game, a way that reviewers (or some subset of them) end up providing an inappropriately positive ranking for a paper on purpose. The authors could have submitted the paper to an inappropriate journal but made a reasonable argument that the journal should publish it anyway. That leaves open the possibility of the authors writing their own ticket for passage through the peer review process.

Many journals allow, or even encourage, authors to submit names of potential reviewers. For that matter, authors can submit names of people who either should not review a paper, or if they do, should be watched closely by the editors because of potential bias against the authors. This is a reasonable and even necessary part of the peer review process because there are factions and there is infighting in science, and there are historical quibbles or institutional rivalries or other similar cultural phenomena that should not stand in the way of science, and need to be worked around by sensitive and thoughtful editors.

It is quite possible that this paper was submitted to a journal that wouldn’t quite know how to handle it, along with “helpful” information of the kind that in other cases might have been, well, helpful, but in this case served to derail the normally earnest and honest process of peer review. That something like this happened was certainly on my mind when I first saw this paper in this journal. Since certain parts of the process of review are kept confidential (for good reasons) we may never know this. Ultimately, though, Dr. Wagner may have felt that the gate-keeping (in a good way) function of the editorial staff was inadequate, and thus his very powerfully symbolic resignation.

It is possible, I suppose, that the research in Spencer and Braswell’s “On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance“, way down deep beneath the trickery, the bad methodology, and the scandalous politically motivated lack of scientific rigor has in iota of scientific merit. If so, this paper is on the table and available for examination, and the hypotheses embodied there could be further considered by climate scientists.

As you know, I’ve just started blogging at a second venue, called “The X Blog.” I’m going to use this opportunity to put a list of links related to Wagner’s resignation and the demise of Spencer and Braswell’s credibility over there.

Sources:

Spencer, R., & Braswell, W. (2011). On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance Remote Sensing, 3 (8), 1603-1613 DOI: 10.3390/rs3081603

Wagner, Wolfgang. (2011). Taking Responsibility on Publishing the Controversial Paper “On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance” by Spencer and Braswell. Remote Sensing 2011, 3, 2002-2004; doi:10.3390/rs3092002

Here goes:

In recent months we have experienced the largest fire on record in Arizona, the largest fire in the history of New Mexico, the most extreme precipitation in the US ever, the hottest day in hell aka the Texas Panhandle,

The most expensive severe storm period, in terms of insured losses in US history was the US Severe THundrstorm Outbreak of May 20-27th according to the insurance industry. If you pay home owners insurance in the US midlands, your insurance went up (or your coverage went down) over the last few years because of unprecedented damage due to storms over the previous decade. You can probably expect a similar or greater increase in insurance over the next couple of years as the insurance industry struggles to keep up (and maintain a high profit, of course). In one severe storm event (or series of events, really) 11,000 people were evacuated in North Dakota due to fooding. (See also this.)

the 6th warmest may on land and 11th by sea according to NOAA including the third lowest extent of Arctic Ice which appears to be in record retreat. Overall we have experienced, globally, the most exterme weather since the early 19th century. June was also extremely hot and stormy, and may have been the seventh warmest June on record.

Here’s the NOAA summary for June:]

• The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for June 2011 was the seventh warmest on record at 16.08°C (60.94°F), which is 0.58°C (1.04°F) above the 20^th century average of 15.5°C (59.9°F).
• June 2011 was the 316^th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20^th century average. The last month with below-average temperature was February 1985.
• The June worldwide average land surface temperature was 0.89°C (1.60°F) above the 20^th century average of 13.3°C (55.9°F)—the fourth warmest on record.
• The global average ocean surface temperature was the 10^th warmest June on record, at 0.47°C (0.85°F) above average. Neither El Niño nor La Niña conditions were present during June 2011. According to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, these ENSO-neutral conditions are expected to continue into the Northern Hemisphere fall 2011.
• The first half of 2011 (January–June) was the 11^th warmest on record for the combined global land and ocean surface temperature. Separately, the worldwide average ocean temperature was also the 11^th warmest January–June and the worldwide average land temperature was the 12^th warmest such period.

Multiple Hollywood epic film size sandstorms engulfed Phoenix and some are now predicting that this sort of massive sandstorm will become more common in the future. Famine in Somalia. Deadly US heat wave. And look at this. This is just the records set on July 22nd!

Most climate scientists agree that a chaos model for atmospheric heat and humidity could work over short time scales, but no serious climate scientist things that key forcing factors such as greenhouse gasses, solar radiation, or dust and other albedo related factors are unimportant. In fact, Spencer’s earlier writings on this topic were soundly debunked when they were first published (see this and links therein for a full accounting of that debunking).

Here’s the difference between Spencer’s model and what climate scientists think in the form of an analogy. Suppose you want to understand the process by which Great Aunt Tillie and her husband Roy get from their place in Hicksville New York to your Ma’s house in Terrytown for Thanksgiving. The analogous approach used by climate scientists might be this: Observe the direction in which Great Aunt Tillie turns at each intersection, and also note that Uncle Roy is giving her instructions based on a map he’s looking at. That may not be a perfect model … construction related detours, misunderstandings between navigator and driver (Roy and Tillie have a thing going about driving and directions and have for years!) and the need to stop at Carvelle’s for an ice cream cake all make the trip seem somewhat chaotic, but really, it isn’t. Various factors directly or nearly directly determine the path from Hicksville to Terrytown. Spencer, in contrast, would look at the seemingly random variations in the path the car takes as it mostly stays in a particular lane but occasionally wanders to one side of the road or another, or slows and speeds up in accordance with squirrels running across the road or Tillie’s state of mind or other factors. Spencer’s model claims to explain how Tillie and Roy manage to get from Hicksville to Terrytown on the basis of the accumulation of short term, random, and largely averaged out movements of the car on the roads.

Spencer and Braswell’s paper is actually a pretty good example of academic fraud. The authors clearly understand enough climate science to know that what they are suggesting is impossible, absurd, and simply wrong. The editors of Remote Sensing must have been very clever with their choice of peer reviewers to let this one past, and one wonders what their intentions are.

“On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance” is a big ol’ bunch of hooey. I eagerly await an explanation from the journal’s editors, Dr. Wolfgang Wagner and Mr. Elvis Wang and the editorial board as to what they are up to with this paper. Of those on the board, Prof. Dr. Ralph Dubayah, Dr. Mekonnen Gebremichael, Prof. Dr. Alfredo R. Huete, Dr. Richard Müller, Dr. Dale A. Quattrochi, and Dr. Prasad S. Thenkabail seem to have the clearest connections with atmospheric sciences. Perhaps they should be queried!

Spencer, R., & Braswell, W. (2011). On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance Remote Sensing, 3 (8), 1603-1613 DOI: 10.3390/rs3081603