Tag Archives: Lies and Denial

Anti-Science NRO and CEI File New Briefs, Get It Wrong Again

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This is about the law suit filed by Michael Mann against the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the National Review, Mark Steyn, and Rand Simberg because of accusations they made that were actionable. Michael Halpern summarized:

Competitive Enterprise Institute’s space technology and policy analyst, Rand Simberg, recently wrote a blog post in which he compared Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann to former university football coach and convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky. CEI published the post on its own blog, and the National Review decided it was appropriate to pass along. Michael Mann has rightly demanded that the National Review retract the blog post and issue a public apology.

The most offensive section of the CEI post, which has since been scrubbed:

“Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science.”

There has been a lot of back and forth in the legal proceedings, and the latest is summarized by Aaron Huertas:

The latest round of legal briefs have been filed in climate scientist Michael Mann’s lawsuit against the National Review (NRO) and Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). …

NRO makes a distinction between calling Dr. Mann’s work “fraudulent” and alleging that he had, for instance, embezzled funds or fabricated raw data.

Indeed, there are gradations of accusations one can make against a researcher. Stating that a scientist is wrong in their analysis is a far cry from saying their work is shoddy, but both are normal parts of public discourse about science. It’s another thing entirely to accuse a scientist of manipulating data or knowingly using faulty methods to reach a pre-determined conclusion. …

The worst thing one can do to a scientist professionally is to accuse him or her of fraud. More commonly, scientists refer to fraud as “scientific misconduct” or “research misconduct.” …

While the original research Dr. Mann’s and his colleagues conducted 15 years ago was certainly subject to criticisms and scrutiny, it held up to that scrutiny, and nobody ever made the case that it was fraudulent.

…

CEI’s legal brief rehashes investigations of scientists after a hacker (or hackers) stole emails from them in 2009. …

Dr. Mann’s lawyers cite all the investigations in their brief. That makes sense since all the investigations are related and none found that Dr. Mann—or his colleagues—were guilty of scientific misconduct or fraud.

But CEI attempts to argue that these investigations were somehow insufficient. Regarding the two investigations that did focus specifically on Dr. Mann, CEI tries to downplay how serious they were. They write that Penn State’s committee looked at whether or not Dr. Mann “falsified data” and claimed that the “inquiry committee simply reviewed some of the [stolen] emails, spoke with Mann, and then dismissed it.” They also write the National Science Foundation “did not conduct an investigation of Mann’s data practices or research because it determined that ‘no direct evidence has been presented that indicates the Subject fabricated the raw data he used for his research or falsified his results.’”

…In reality, these investigations were far more thorough than CEI suggests. …These latest filings only reinforce my view that attacks against Dr. Mann are ideological and political in nature, not based on an actual assessment of his work.

You can read the rest, and more detail, here.

As you may know, we have been having a lengthy discussion here about the original work done by Mann and his colleagues. Feel free to join in! Regarding the research itself, this is very simple. Mann and his colleagues attempted to look simultaneously at some “paleorecords” … indications from ancient sources of temperature … and the modern “instrumental record” (i.e., from thermometers) to see if the already observed increase in temperatures thought to be linked to anthropogenic global warming really does stick out like a sore thumb among temperatures going back longer in time. The result of that study was, essentially, a graph combining ancient data and modern data that looked like a hockey stick laying on its back:

The original northern hemisphere hockey stick graph of Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1999, smoothed curve shown in blue with its uncertainty range in light blue, overlaid with green dots showing the 30-year global average of the PAGES 2k Consortium 2013 reconstruction. The red curve shows measured global mean temperature, according to HadCRUT4 data from 1850 to 2013. From Wikipedia.
The original northern hemisphere hockey stick graph of Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1999, smoothed curve shown in blue with its uncertainty range in light blue, overlaid with green dots showing the 30-year global average of the PAGES 2k Consortium 2013 reconstruction. The red curve shows measured global mean temperature, according to HadCRUT4 data from 1850 to 2013. From Wikipedia.

There are three ways in which this research could be questioned. First, it was only of the Northern Hemisphere, not global. Second, it is possible that the particular observations of modern temperature, the instrumental record, was somehow incorrect or biased. Third, it is possible that even though this graph shows the modern increase in temperatures as extreme, maybe the older data is bad, or maybe if you went back further in time (and globally) you’d find pre-industrial (prior to the release of so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere) periods that are warmer than today, suggesting that the underlying assumption of how greenhouse gases might be wrong.

Even at the time, though, these objections were weak. While the Norther and Southern Hemispheres may (and do) act somewhat differently from each other, they are not as out of sync as they would have to be for the basic hockey stick graph to be wrong. The instrumental data was certainly not as perfect as one might like, but it was pretty darn good data. For the last few million years, during the course of human evolution and the evolution of our current ecology, there was no reason to believe that there were periods much warmer than today, if at all.

But subsequent research was done, of course, and several findings support, refine, and expand on the hockey stick model. Additional studies of modern temperatures showed results very similar to the data used by Mann and colleagues. At least two studies look at biases (one looked at the possibility of false warming caused by urban heat island effects, another looked at areas of the Earth that are under-sampled by direct observation). Both found that the hockey stick curve was either pretty much correct for instrumental data, or actually possibly a bit lower in temperature than reality.

Of course, the entire study was extended globally, confirming this as a global pattern.

Work on paleo information extended the range of the hockey stick graph way back in time, and showed that during the Holocene (last 10,000 years) there was not a period warmer than today. Further work seems to indicate that even during among interglacial periods (we are in an interglacial now) things are warmer now than usual. It turns out that you almost certaily have to go back in time several hundred thousand years, possibly several million years, to get a time period as warm as today.

Most importantly, per has, as time has passed since the original hockey stick curve was produced, the globe has gotten warmer. The air and sea surface are warmer, though the amount of warming has been modest compared to what we would expect for a simple model where greenhouse gasses only warm the atmosphere. But a lot of heat is being absorbed by the ocean, it turns out. The true surface temperature of the planet has to include both the atmosphere and the ocean (both surface and at depth) and we think over 95% of the extra heat from global warming goes into the deep ocean, but it is not well measured.

Meanwhile the whole “Hockey Stick” controversy continued and developed. This isn’t just a couple of people and a major conservative publication falsely accusing Michael Mann of fraudulent behavior (scientific misconduct). Anti-science forces have spent millions of dollars attempting, usually very clumsily, climate science, and one or more individuals went so far as to steal emails among climate scientist, falsifying using cherry picking what was said in those emails. It is an all out war between anti-science and anti-environment groups and individuals on one hand vs. scientists and rightfully concerned citizens on the other. A great description of how these “Hockey Stick Wars” played out can be found in this book.

Steve McIntyre Misrepresents Climate Research History

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Who is Steve McIntyre?

From DeSmogBlog.com:

Stephen McIntyre has been a long-time mining industry executive, mostly working on the “stock market side” of mining exploration deals. He published a blog called Climate Audit where he attempts to analyse in sometimes long and extensive detail the work of climate change scientists where he documents “statistical mistakes” in peer-reviewed scientific literature. …

McIntyre has been described as a “persistent amateur who had no credentials in applied science before stepping into the global warming debate in 2003” and has been a prominent critic of temperature records that suggest increasing global temperatures over the past 1000 years.

As of 2003, McIntyre had worked in the mineral business for 30 years and he has been an officer or director of small public mineral exploration companies for over 16 years…

In February, 2014, he put up four blog posts attacking Dr. Michael Mann in relation to Mann’s defamation suit against Mark Steyn et al, claiming in those posts that Mann had “misrepresented the findings of reports and inquiries into his work and the work of other climate scientists in relation to the so-called “climategate” affair, when the emails of scientists at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were illegally hacked and then published.” (desmogblog.com)

Today, McIntyre’s blog posted a lengthy “fisking” (sort of) written by Jean S, of the climategate emails. The focus is on the famous “Hockey Stick” curve produced by Mann and others just prior to 2000. This graph is an assembly of carefully vetted climate records including proxies and the modern instrumental record. The different sources of information used to show dramatic 20th century warming are well documented in Mann’s publications and further documented in freely distributed supplementary information. Two objections seem to have been raised by climate science denialists such as McIntyre and others. One is that one of the proxies, certain tree ring data, show cooling or at least a lack of warming. The other is that the graphic representation of 20th century warming uncritically combined proxy data and instrumental data.

Denier Complaints About Climate Proxies Are Based On Ignorance Of The Science

A proxy, or proxyindicator, is a natural system that leaves a recoverable residue that varies in some measurable or observable way, such that the variation may correspond to a natural variation happening in the world at the time the proxy was being formed. For example, the ratio of Oxygen-16 and Oxygen-18, two stable isotopes of that element, in Oxygen incorporated in stable form (in biogenic tissues, for example) indicates the ratio of these isotopes in the ambient environment, which in turn, indicates the amount of each element available at the time, which in turn, indicates how much of each type of oxygen is trapped in glacial ice (which tends to have more Oxygen-16 because glaciers are ultimately made of vapor, which is isotopically light). Oxygen isotope ratios of materials recovered from deep sea cores indicate the march of glacial formation and melting over long periods of time.
The first of these two objections to Mann’s work, and other work, relies on naiveté among potential readers about proxyindicators. As is the case with all scientific data, all proxies are suspect, and all proxies have the potential of varying in sensitivity over time. Scientists must always evaluate the quality of the data they use, and not accept it uncritically.

For example, say you wanted to estimate the flow of a major river over time. You could measure how much silt is deposited on the river’s flood plain by taking Carbon-14 samples at numerous depths in the floodplain. A greater depth between samples separated by similar amounts of time might mean more flooding. But, as the flood plain matures and raises in elevation, the frequency of floods year to year may decrease, causing a decline in the rate of siltation, and thus, apparent water flow in relation to the actual water flow. Furthermore, at some point, the flood plain is essentially filled up, and flooding overbank happens elsewhere along the river, and no longer (or infrequently) at your sample site. This is a decline in the usefulness of the proxy to the point that you have to simply stop using it.

Another example. Say you want to use pollen counts form layers found in mud at the bottom of a lake, the layers having been recovered from cores sunk in the lake. Assume your lake is in a region that started out as grassland but slowly became more forested. Trees act as pollen filters. Pollen wafting across the landscape is caught in the trees. In the early part of the lake core data, pollen may be introduced from many kilometers away from wind blown plants (grasses, some trees) and from similar distances from plants that do not distribute pollen via wind, but in small quantities (such plants produce way less pollen than wind pollenated plants) via streams that enter the lake. Over time, however, trees will grow up first around the lake, then over a larger area of the landscape. Windblown pollen from grasses is less likely to get into the pond, and there may be less of that pollen because trees are replacing grassland. Meanwhile, the longer distance stream carried pollen may continue to represent the original catchment of pollen. But, if there are changes in rainfall patterns, that could change too. People looking at pollen in lake cores may use an independent measure, such as the amount of iron in the sediment, to indicate how much water comes in from longer distances via streams vs. how much comes in from groundwater and as direct rain. They will use studies of pollen taphonomy, which look at changes in “pollen rain” as forests develop, to calibrate the effects of trees on the wind blown grass pollen representation. At some point, near the top of the core, the tree pollen may be suddenly and dramatically reduced and the wind blown grass pollen may switch to mostly corn or wheat. This is farmers coming in and completely changing the environment. The core from that point on up may become useless. In sum, the entire core has to be analyzed as a dynamic, changing proxy where some of the changes are important information about the changing environment, while other changes are indicative of an increase or a decline in sensitivity of the proxy as an indicator of what is being studied.

Something similar is going on with the tree ring data Mann used. At around 1960 the ability of the tree ring data to represent regional temperature declines and the tree rings become useless. Prior to that time the data should be used. After that time the data should be discarded.

A proxy is not a pre-calibrated consistent source of information. It is a method that uses measurements of recovered material that allow the reconstruction of an ancient process. But that requires understanding the process well enough to develop a way of determining when the proxy is being helpful and when it is providing noise. A good amount of the research on ancient paleoclimate and paleoecology is about how the proxies work. With this research it is possible in many cases to evaluate the utility of a proxy at a given location, and furthermore, to assess which parts of the proxy can be used, which parts need to be further calibrated, and which parts need to be ignored because of a decline in their usefulness.

We see climate science deniers claiming, for example, that the tree ring proxy used by Mann needs to be used “all or nothing.” This is nothing more than ignorance of how paleoclimatology works.

(See also: Clearing up misconceptions regarding ‘hide the decline’)

Complaints About The Hockey Stick Graph Are Not Valid

McIntyre’s arguments (along with others) about the graph are middle-school level obfuscation of the point. The scientists who published the original Hockey Stick graph went through pains to be clear about what information was going into which part of the overall curve. Subsequent renditions of the same data, or similar sets of data with new information added, range across the board from highly complex constructs showing the different sources of the data, error ranges, etc. to those that simplify by drawing a simple curve of combined information. I wrote about this here, showing how this practice, of sometimes making a very complex thing simpler in a way that makes the point accurately, is done all the time.

The latest post on McIntyre’s site, completely misrepresented what happened with the Hockey Stick curve. Nowhere in the quoted emails is there any suggestion or approval or any indication by Michael Mann of seamlessly merging proxyindicator data and instrumental data. The original documents clearly show that this is not what happened at any stage.

Why Do McIntyre And Others Fabricate These Objections?

If you read JeanS’s post closely, s/he seems to be simultaneously implying that Mann created a falsified representation of how the data come together, while at the same time admitting he did not. This is an increasingly common tactic among climate science denialists. They can no longer totally make up what they are saying because they are too easily called on it, yet want to provide other denialists with fodder, and confuse anyone involved in policy, or who just wants to learn, with more confusion and less clarity.

The only way to accept or even seriously consider the arguments that climate scientists developing the Hockey Stick curve or similar research were involved in inappropriate shenanigans is to anchor oneself deeply in a mire of intentional ignorance. There seems to be only one reason to do that (other than simply being very, very ignorant): a commitment to anti-science activism, with the likely intention of damaging the translation of good science into useful policy.

This is something a mining industry executive might do out of self interest and to represent the interests of that industry. Is that the case here? There is a trick to help determine if that is the case. Follow the money.

The graphic depicted above is from here. It is a 2007 version o the often replicated and used “Hockey Stick.”

There is now a Tumblr for stuff like this.

More on Steve McIntyre:

RealClimate on McIntyre
Skeptical Science on McIntyre
Rational Wiki on McIntyre

Anthony Watts Starts Up Cloud Based Anti-Science Organization

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The Open Atmospheric Society

Climate science pseudo-skeptic Anthony Watts recently bought and registered the domain “theoas.org” and has just announced the formation at that Internet address of a new society explicitly designed to organize people in meteorology and related areas intent on opposing the scientific consensus on climate change. And yes, there is a scientific consensus on climate change.

Dr. Roy Spencer once said to me that trying to organize climate skeptics would be like “trying to herd cats”. While this Society is not trying to “herd” anyone, nor is it specifically focused on climate skepticism, it will serve to represent a group of people and ideas that up until now has been essentially ostracized because the ideas and viewpoints are counter to “consensus”.

Secret Society, Just Like The Illuminati?

Membership in the society will be secret. The eventual plan is to be a non-profit. There will not be a board of directors initially but eventualy one will be formed of five members plus Anthony (ex-officio) and representation from among non-full members. The process of electing board members has not yet been determined.

Associate membership will be $45, with additional membership categories designed on one hand to allow student members and on the other hand to raise more funds (lifetime membership, etc.).

A Scientific Society Designed To Oppose Science?

This organization, explicitly designed as a group opposing scientific consensus, will operate a peer reviewed scientific journal, the editor of which will be initially appointed by the board apparently from a short list provided by Executive Director Anthony Watts. From the Charter:

Article IX: Scientific Journal

Section 1. The OAS shall have an official publication, to be known as The Journal of the Open Atmospheric Society. (JOAS). An ISSN number will be applied for and assigned to the publication.

Section 1.1 Members of the OAS as well as others of expertise outside of the OAS may serve as peer review referees for potential publications for inclusion in JOAS.

Section 1.2 A collaborative and open peer-review process will be conducted using an Internet publishing platform. Reviewer comments will be published along with the publication itself so that the process is transparent.

Section 1.3 Digital Object Identifiers (DOI’s) will be assigned by the JOAS Editor to each approved publication.

Section 2. An editor to JOAS shall be appointed. During the first six months of operations, the Executive Director will solicit candidates to present to the board of directors. The Board of Directors shall conduct online video interviews and appoint a qualified editor for JOAS by a majority vote from the candidate pool. The editor may be a compensated position, with any compensation schedule to be determined by the Board of Directors

Section 3. Initially, JOAS will be a quarterly publication. As membership and interest grows, the Board of Directors may opt to make it a bi-monthly or monthly publication.

Section 4. The goal of JOAS is to promote and publish reproducible Atmospheric and Earth science papers. To that end, all technical submissions to JOAS must be accompanied by all manner and means of materials to enable such reproduction during peer review. This includes all data, equations, software code, examples and supplementary materials. Rebuttals to technical submissions must also meet the same requirements. Editorial submissions such as opinion or commentary that don’t have such technical elements may be excepted from reproducibility requirements, but the JOAS has the option of asking for any additional materials that may be required.

Science or Fundraising?

So far the effort has raised $330. But Watts has high hopes:

Right now, membership is the most important goal. I encourage everyone who reads WUWT to become a member, or an associate member. Like any organization, it starts out small with an idea, and grows as momentum builds. As the momentum builds, so will the organization. My role is to put all the pieces in place, and help it grow.

Another Anti-Science Stab at Peer Review?

This new organization is well timed, in that there have been significant setbacks to the science denialist community’s efforts in wedging into the peer reviewed process. I am reminded of a quote by Winston Churchill:

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

And another quote made famous by Rita Mae Brown:

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.

The announcement for the new society is here.

Judith Curry Scores Own Goal in Climate Hockey

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Did you ever read a textbook on economic history, or an in-depth article on the relative value of goods over the centuries expressed in current US dollars? Have you ever encountered a graphic that shows long term trends in rainfall patterns or other climate variables, using a couple of simple lines, designed to give a general idea of relative conditions during different eras? Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about.

This is a graphic made by a major investment firm culling information from dozens or perhaps hundreds of sources into a single graphic. This is the graphic as it was initially provided by the researchers

The value of gold in US dollars since the 14th century, from the Bank of England, Goldman Sachs Global ECS Research. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/charting-price-gold-all-way-back-1265
The value of gold in US dollars since the 14th century, from the Bank of England, Goldman Sachs Global ECS Research. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/charting-price-gold-all-way-back-1265

This is a graph of oxygen concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere. It is culled from a large number of different sources. This is the graphic, based on numerous proxyindicattors, as published in a peer reviewed paper:

From: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/361/1470/903.full.pdf
From: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/361/1470/903.full.pdf

This is a compilation from many different sources of stock market values assembled to show waves in stock market behavior over the last few centuries:

Long term look at stock market waves. From: http://www.elliottwave.com/affiliates/featured-commentary/bear-market-formation.aspx?code=91715
Long term look at stock market waves. From: http://www.elliottwave.com/affiliates/featured-commentary/bear-market-formation.aspx?code=91715

This is a set of climate related variables show in relation to human “civilization” over 18,000 years (n.b.: the term “civilization” is reserved in archaeology and prehistory for specific phenomena which did not occur before about 10,000 years ago).

Various climate variables in relation to human civilization (sic) over the last 18,000 years, from: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/17/climate-and-human-civilization-over-the-last-18000-years/
Various climate variables in relation to human civilization (sic) over the last 18,000 years, from: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/17/climate-and-human-civilization-over-the-last-18000-years/

In all these cases complex sources were culled in the peer reviewed literature 0r professional research literature, and turned into summary views of something happening over time. The graph itself is meant to show a derived variable, not the underlying complexity of the data. The graph is the sausage. The making of the sausage is laid out in the original documents, in some case in the peer reviewed paper the graphic appears in.

Here, Judith Curry makes the argument, in an excessively tl;dr blog post, that climate scientist Michael Mann acted inappropriately, perhaps fraudulently, or perhaps as a matter of scientific misconduct, when the IPCC published a version of his famous Hockey Stick Graph that instead of looking like this:

The famous Hockey Stick Graph with pretty colors and labels indicating which part of the data come from instrumental records and which parts come from proxies.
The famous Hockey Stick Graph with pretty colors and labels indicating which part of the data come from instrumental records and which parts come from proxies.

Looked like this:

Dumb old black and white version of the Hockey Stick Graph that shows the key point of the graph but does not indicate the different origins of the numeric values being plotted. Like the graphs above.
Dumb old black and white version of the Hockey Stick Graph that shows the key point of the graph but does not indicate the different origins of the numeric values being plotted. Like the graphs above.

For the record, here is the original version of that graphic from the peer reviewed paper. Note that it indicates where the data come from but that was back in the late 20th century when in order to have color graphics in your paper you had to hire monks to draw them and there weren’t any monks available.

Screen Shot 2014-09-12 at 7.09.15 PM

And here is the same graph in a similar updated paper a year later, looking much better:

From Mann, M., Bradley, R and Hughes, M. Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 26, NO.6, PAGES 759-762, MARCH 15, 1999.
From Mann, M., Bradley, R and Hughes, M. Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 26, NO.6, PAGES 759-762, MARCH 15, 1999.

And, at the time of the publication, owing to the costs of monks and such, color versions of the graphics were made available. This is what anyone who wanted to could look at at the time:

Screen Shot 2014-09-12 at 9.19.50 PM

Mann’s graphic representation of climate change, the Hockey Stick, is not fraudulent. But it is verified, real, and important. There are people in the climate discussion who make up graphs, of course (see this) but Mann is not one of them.

So Judith Curry and the flock of winged monkeys and child molesters that comment on her blog are arguing that Mann carried out scientific misconduct when he did something that is normal to do, and in fact, that he didn’t actually do. This is an “own goal” for Curry because it is a clear cut case of making up a version of reality in order to denigrate a fellow scientist and discredit his research on the basis of color coding rather than the science. Curry has credentialed herself a denialist.

(Related: Curry’s Credibility Crumbles by Climate Hawks.)

That. Is. Science. Denialism. Welcome to the list, Judith.

By the way have a look at this image:

wp32765e9f_0f

If you ever see an image like this used by a climate science denialist, ACCUSE THEM OF FRAUD AND MISCONDUCT because this graph shows NOTHING about the multiple sources used to create the single black line squiggle therefore it is ILLEGAL.

Sorry… I get carried away sometimes. Anyway, I have a pro tip for those who are following along with the climate change discussion: Individuals who study climate change from any perspective (as a climate change scientist, some other kind of scientist, policy maker, communicator, interested citizen) should realize that some depictions or summaries are underlain by extensive and complex literature. A proper scholarly approach, even by an avocational scholar or journalist, requires keeping that in mind and digging beneath the surface where needed. So if you see a monochromatic hockey stick like curve, or any climate squiggle, hopefully there is a reference to where it comes from and then you can dig around and reconstruct the scholarship, if you are reasonably smart, reasonably diligent, not lazy, and well intentioned.

Or you can be one of Judith Curry’s followers and just whine about it.

Finally, here’s a recent version of the Hockey Stick Graph showing the many ways it has been verified. Checkmate, denialists.

HockeyStickOverview_html_6623cbd61

Added: Judith Curry Picks A Cheery…

Ken Cuccinelli's appalling behavior.

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Ken Cuccinelli posted a highly offensive cartoon on his facebook page in which Hillary Clinton is depicted in a position where she is about to be beheaded by a caricature of a Middle Eastern terrorist. That was posted on the even of the anniversary of 9/11.

You will know of Ken Cuccinelli as the anit-climate-science activist, who was involved in the fake scandal known as “Climategate.”

Lowkell at Blue Virginia writes:

…this is appalling even by Ken Cuccinelli standards. First off, he links to a climate science “skeptic” website. Then, he channels Rand Paul’s insane criticism of Hillary Clinton that she can’t say that BOTH global warming AND terrorism are threats to the world (and that global warming poses by FAR the greatest threat to the future of mankind, 1000s of other species, the oceans, life on earth in other words). Then, he posts this disgusting, repulsive “cartoon” …. remember, this lunatic was elected Attorney General of Virginia in 2009, then spent four years waging war against climate science (and climate scientists like Michael Mann), then came within a few points of being elected GOVERNOR of Virginia!…

I’m not going to post the cartoon. Go to Blue Virginia if you want to see it.

Electronic Frontier Foundation Messes Up

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I just realized that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a brief with the court in relation to Mann vs. the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the National Review, Mark Steyn, and Rand Simberg (variously). This is disappointing and will probably color my opinion of EFF going forward on whatever else they do. Their brief isn’t just ethically wrong, or something I disagree with. It is unintelligent and poorly considered. They simply got it wrong, as though they did not know anything about the law suit. It is embarrassing.

I wonder how they got talked/roped into this? I would really like to know that.

Anyway, I wrote them a letter and here it is:

To whom it may concern,

I’m generally a supporter of the things Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) stands for, but I object strenuously to your amicus brief and it’s meaning in relation to the suit brought by Michael Mann against the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the National Review, Mark Steyn, and Rand Simberg.

Your brief makes the argument that open discussion of important public issues should not be fettered by law suits of this type. You are correct in principle but you have erred in this case. Mann’s suit is not about open public debate, and he has as a scientist been involved in open public debate in far more ways than most individuals have ever been. I’ll add that Mann’s research is all open source or open access with respect to data, methods, software, and results.

The suit is not about debate. It is about defamation. This is not a matter of interpretation. While one might (incorrectly) feel defamed when someone disagrees, Mann’s suit is not about that sort of reaction. It is about actual defamation.

Perhaps Mann is wrong. Perhaps the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the National Review, Mark Steyn, and Rand Simberg have not engaged in defamation with specific statements they have made. But that can be determined in court. Mann has the right to sue for this. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, the National Review, Mark Steyn, and Rand Simberg have engaged in plenty of other forms of debate and public discourse regarding climate change and Mann’s research, but that is not at issue in this suit. You have failed to make that important distinction.

And please don’t make the mistake, or should I say, perpetuate the mistake you have already made (collectively with others), that opposition to Mann’s science is part of that defamation. It is not. Nor is science denialism or the seemingly nefarious distribution of false information about climate change by science skeptics or supporters of the fossil fuel industry part of this defamation. The National Review and other parties in this suit have lied, misrepresented, and also, simply gotten the science wrong. That is not what this is about, that is not the subject of Mann’s suit. This suit is about specific defamatory statements made as a much smaller subset of the communication and rhetoric among these parties.

It is a little embarrassing that EFF, usually much more thoughtful and intelligent about its decisions and activism, has somehow been roped into signing on to essentially support this defamatory practice. Shame on you.

I urge you do withdraw your support of the appeal as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Greg Laden

More information here.

This is also relevant, from here:

“The Court finds that there is sufficient evidence in the record to demonstrate that Plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits,” said a DC Superior Court judge in her latest procedural ruling in the defamation case of Michael Mann v. National Review, et al. “The evidence before the Court indicates the likelihood that ‘actual malice’ is present in the [National Review’s] conduct.”

…

The Court clearly recognizes that some members involved in the climate-change discussions and debates employ harsh words. The NR Defendants are reputed to use this manner of speech; however there is a line between rhetorical hyperbole and defamation. In this case, the evidence before the Court demonstrates that something more than mere rhetorical hyperbole is, at least at this stage present. Accusations of fraud, especially where such accusations are made frequently through the continuous usage of words such as “whitewashed,” “intellectually bogus,” “ringmaster of the tree-ring circus” and “cover-up” amount to more than rhetorical hyperbole. …

The evidence before the Court indicates the likelihood that “actual malice” is present in the NR Defendants’ conduct. …

The court clearly understands the difference between people whinging about science details, science denialism, etc. on one hand and what may be categorized as defamation.

Mann Vs. National Review: National Review Floundering

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The National Review is a political magazine, and Mark Steyn, I think, writes for them (I really don’t keep track). A while back Steyn and/or the National Review made some seemingly very defamatory statements about Michael Mann, the climate scientist. Career-damaging really icky accusations of fraud and such. They were bogus accusations, but they were also not just trollish yammering of the type we see all the time from the science denialist gaggle. So, Mann sued them.

NationalReviewHyperboleMemeI prefer the Law and Order version of law. Something happens on Monday, on Tuesday everything is confusing, on Wednesday there is a car chase or something, on Thursday everyone is in court and on Friday the whole maneno is done with and everyone is back to eating donuts. Real legal stuff drags on forever. If you want to catch up, here are a few blog posts and other items that might help. (That was a search using the Climate Science Search Engine, which is on the right side bar of my blog!)

Anyway, there is a new development. National Review has filed a long and boring legal document that appears to be some kind of whinging about how the case against them should go away. Eli Rabbit has made two comments about it that I agree with. First, he notes that the document states that the prior yammering by National Review is not officially “malice” because they really believe the things they say. But, in the same document, they claim that “Read in context, Steyn’s commentary was protected rhetorical hyperbole, not a literal accusation of fraud or data falsification.” See meme.

The second point also stuck out as a sore thumb when I looked at it, and it is so obvious that I assumed I was reading the legal document incorrectly. But Eli confirms. From the legal document:

…critics have argued that the hockey stick is misleading because it splices together two different types of data without highlighting the change: For roughly the first nine centuries after the year 1000 A.D., the graph shows temperature levels that have been inferred solely from tree-ring samples and other “proxy” data. But from about 1900 onward, the graph relies on readings from modern instruments such as thermometers.

I’m pretty sure the technical legal term for this is taurus craps puris*. The hockey stick graph in its original form and most early incarnations has color coding or other appropriate line style differences to distinguish between the records. Some people have taken both the hockey stick graph and other similar graphics and merged the data into a single squiggle for presentation purposes, an acceptable if not always wise method. The National Review legal document also makes mention of shifting between proxies and instrumental data. They suggest that a broken instrumental record should have been used instead of simple temperature measurements with thermometers and stuff. This harks back to the time the climate science denialists stole a bunch of scientists’ email and made stuff up about it (a complicated story but one you can read about in detail in Mann’s book).

This filing by the National Review is a lame defense against a very well argued and appropriate law suit. I’m sure this won’t last until Wednesday in court. (Law and Order time.) Not only are their claims wrong, but they have been known to be long for a very long time.

*Translates roughly as Complete and Utter Bullshit.

How to talk to your uncle who thinks global warming is a hoax?

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So, you accept the science of climate change and global warming as legit. But you often encounter people, at family gatherings, on your Facebook page, on Twitter, at social events, etc. who don’t. Do you keep your mouth shut when someone says something clearly wrong that brings the science into question illegitimately? If you do, and others are listening, then one voice, a denialist voice, is influencing people. Probably better to say something.

The problems is that the denialist schtick involves having a lot of different arguments, with absolutely no regard as to legimacy, against the science. You’ve heard of the Gish Gallop. You make an argument that seems to invalidate your opponent’s position, and it does not matter how well that argument is demolished, no problem, you just make another argument. This is sometimes what happens when you find yourself in these conversations. “But what about ….” is probably the most common retort to a counterargument to a denialist claim.

I’m frequently asked what resources people can use to learn about the arguments, both the denialist arguments themselves and how to counter them. If I provide information on one resource, it is always skepticalscience.com. That web site is very nicely organized, it includes all of the denialist arguments (if you know of a denialist argument skepticalscience.com does not cover, let them know, or if you like, let me know and I’ll pass it on). The primers that address the arguments are often provided at multiple levels, so you can get the non-technical tl;dr, or you can go into the details.

But, not every body relates to web sites. Sometimes you like to take a book to bed with you for the evening, or to the beach, or to some other place where you like to read, and just learn stuff. Or, while you will certainly find skepticalscience.com or other web sites (including my blog, I hope) useful, you may want to explore a few other perspectives, or other ways of saying things.

Well, now there’s a book for that. “How to Change Minds about Our Changing Climate” is slightly misnamed. This book, by scientists Seth Darling and Douglas Sisterson, does not really go into the science of mind changing. But it does provide a litany of denialist claims and the scientific answer to them, in a way that you will find useful. You will not only learn the arguments but you will gain confidence in making the arguments at that family dinner or school board meeting or cocktail party.

Seth Darling is a scientist at the Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory, and a fellow at the Institute for Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. Doug Sisterson is a senior manager at Argonne National Laboratory, US Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility. They know the science and have done a very nice job putting the argument on paper (or eBook). From the publisher:

One by one, the authors debunk all the most pernicious myths surrounding climate change and offer talking points that readers can use to do the same, in chapters such as “There is no consensus” and “There’s no link between warming and extreme weather.” In fact, there is consensus, and the time to take climate change seriously is well past. As Darling and Sisterson cogently explain, “We are poised to compress an amount of global warming that historically has occurred over the course of thousands of years into a single century”—and the menacing effects we’ve already seen only hint at what’s to come…

You can get the book here.

Also, do me a favor. If you get the book on Amazon and read it, please go to Amazon and leave an honest review. Anti science denialists like to swarm books on amazon with bogus awful reviews, and you can help counter that.

ADDED: An important criticism of this book, that I agree with, is the authors’ use of the actual myths to be debunked as titles. This is not good communication strategy and is discussed, vis-a-vis this work HERE.

While you are at it, check out Michael Mann’s book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines and, again, if you read that please consider giving an honest review on Amazon; Mann’s book is frequently attacked on that site.

(Speaking of books being attacked, my book, which is a novel and not on climate change, is here. I got badly attacked by Mens Rights Activists who hate me because I’m against rape. The book isn’t even about that, but they are organized and have been in the habit of harassing me and other people who speak out for women’s rights.)

In any case, you can also up vote reviews you like and down vote reviews you don’t like, on Amazon.

Finally, a while back I put together a list of climate change related books, HERE. You might find that useful.

Humans accepting climate change vs. Jell-O: The Coastal Effect

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There is an old theory in psychology that characterizes humans as a bowl of Jell-O (Jelly for some of you). Life pokes at the Jell-O, the Jell-O jiggles. Eventually the jiggles begin to change the Jell-O, so certain kinds of pokes result in certain kinds of responses. The Jell-O gurgles, babbles, notices things, learns, develops, and eventually becomes self aware.

That is a great oversimplification of a theory that was, in turn, a great oversimplification of human development, yet it does seem to apply in many ways to human behavior. When it comes to climate change, people seem more accepting of the reality of Anthropogenic Global Warming when it is hot out, less so when it is cool. Nature pokes, or fails to poke, and the Jell-O responds. Sadly, this seems to be how our Big Brains work.

Climate Change has had, and will have, a very wide range of effects across the entire planet, and most of them have had or will have significant impacts on humans. Imagine a world that is warmed by an average of 3.0 degrees C. This is likely given our current and expected release of fossil Carbon into the atmosphere. That is a warming significantly more than we have experienced so far. One could take the effects that have already occurred and simply extrapolate into the future, and that may work for some effects. But other effects may be fundamental qualitative changes in climate systems that will be more difficult to characterize or predict. For example, 30 years ago it may have been difficult to predict changes in the jet stream that would cause widespread changes in weather patterns, threatening agriculture, water supplies, and causing frequent floods or other disasters. But that seems to have happened. Maybe in a couple of more decades, that effect will go away and something else will happen.

So, imagine this world with 3.0 degrees greater average heat, and try to estimate what the worst effects will be. Clearly, this is a complicated question. One change in climate may strongly affect people in one part of the world and a different change may strongly affect people in another part of the world, and those different groups of people may have different levels of adaptability owing to economic or infrastructure differences. It is really hard to say what will happen. In a warmer world, high-humidity super-heat waves may happen in which large populations will find themselves experiencing temperatures well above body temperature for several days in a row. People in those areas, not all of them but a noticeable number, will simply die of the heat. Severe continental storms could become more common, so the chances of a community being wiped out by tornadoes or derechos may become extraordinarily high. Perhaps people will truly consider the costs and benefits of living in a “tornado ally” rather than simply knowing that tornado alley is a thing and otherwise more or less ignoring it. Arid regions may become hyper-arid for the long term, so water management simply becomes impossible. Even if California is inundated every few years with repeated pineapples express, if extreme drought becomes the norm a significant breadbasket may simply be a place we no longer grow food. And so on.

One change that is inevitable is the rise of sea level. The current level of CO2 in the atmosphere has been associated in the past with sea levels significantly higher than they are now. The sea hasn’t risen to that level yet simply because it takes time, though we really don’t know how much time it takes. If we stopped adding fossil Carbon to the atmosphere today, the sea will still rise, significantly, perhaps several meters. We have accomplished this and we can’t un-accomplish it. But we are very likely to not stop using fossil fuels tomorrow, or any time soon, so it is likely that the maximum amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will will eventually achieve will be associated with even higher sea levels. Coastal cities will be inundated. Small Pacific nations will cease to exist. All of that is going to happen, pretty much no matter what. When you imagine all of the different bad things that may happen in the future, sea level rise may or many not be on the top of your list, and it may in fact not be the worst thing that occurs. But at present, sea level rise is probably the biggest single effect that can be easily identified, won’t not happen no matter what, and can be understood the best; how heat waves, drought, flash floods, etc. work, and what their effects will be is hard to grasp. Losing land to the ocean is not hard to grasp. (Though I quickly add most people still don’t get the level of magnitude of sea level rise that we will experience, eventually.)

So, where does the bowl of Jell-O fit in to all of this? A recent study, in PLOS One, examines attitudes about climate change in relation to distance from the sea. The study takes place in New Zealand, but references other studies that look at similar things elsewhere. The bottom line is this: The farther a human lives from the sea, the less likely the human is to accept the reality of climate change science. Putting this another way, the father a bowl of Jell-O is from that which may poke it, the less poked it is, and thus, the less it develops, learns, evolves, gets smart.

Psychologists have examined the many psychological barriers to both climate change belief and concern. One barrier is the belief that climate change is too uncertain, and likely to happen in distant places and times, to people unlike oneself. Related to this perceived psychological distance of climate change, studies have shown that direct experience of the effects of climate change increases climate change concern. The present study examined the relationship between physical proximity to the coastline and climate change belief, as proximity may be related to experiencing or anticipating the effects of climate change such as sea-level rise. We show, in a national probability sample of 5,815 New Zealanders, that people living in closer proximity to the shoreline expressed greater belief that climate change is real and greater support for government regulation of carbon emissions. This proximity effect held when adjusting for height above sea level and regional poverty. The model also included individual differences in respondents’ sex, age, education, political orientation, and wealth. The results indicate that physical place plays a role in the psychological acceptance of climate change, perhaps because the effects of climate change become more concrete and local.

Another study done in 2011 indicated that Americans are more willing to alter their behavior related to climate change depending on an number of factors. In that study, distance to coast was a significant factor predicting willingness to change, but only one of several factors. Interestingly, knowledge of climate change science and distance to coast had similar levels of effect in that case. Another study done in 2013 “showed in [the] U.S. … that risk from climate change is perceived to be significantly lower for respondents located farther away from the coastline. Indeed, among the other geo-physical variables considered in this study (e.g., relative elevation, sea-level rise/inundation risk, temperature trend), distance to the coast had the strongest association with climate change risk perception.” cited here.

I live and work in the Upper Midwest. There are no coasts nearby. I imagine the people around me as bowls of Jell-O that are unlikely to be poked by concern over sea level rise, and thus unlikely to accept climate change as real.

Or are they?

I frequently give talks on climate change, in the Upper Midwest, and I always talk about sea level rise, partly because I think it is very important and partly because I think there is more certainty about sea level rise (aside from the timing, we are not very certain about that) compared to many other effects of climate change. People get this. Even though we live far from the coast, it is possible to show people how important sea level rise is.

Do you like rice? Do you have any idea how much of the global supply of rice is grown in regions that will be inundated by even a couple of meters of sea level rise? Do you ever go to Mexico during the winter? Did you ever notice how close to the sea, vertically, the Maya Riviera is? The region is built on coral, essentially, a vast “inland sea” risen temporarily out of the ocean for your pleasure. Temporarily. Are you, or is anyone important to you, in the agricultural business? (Many are around here.) Did you notice that New Orleans is the most important sea port for bringing fertilizer into the region, and bringing produce out? NOLA will not survive even a very modest, not too far in the future, rise in sea level. Were you thinking that a few meters of sea level rise will not happen for centuries, so who cares? Well, first, you don’t know how long it will take any more than anyone else does. Scientists who study these things have been shortening the time scale with almost every study. But forget about that. Are you a patriotic American? Did the founding fathers work out a Constitution that would only apply in their lifetimes, or during the lifetimes of their children? Did god tell Moses that the 10 commandments have an expiration date? Did Jesus die for the sins of people who he knew, AND NOT YOU???? I should mention that a lot of people around here are religious, though frankly, half the talks I give are to groups of godless heathens of which I am a member. But the point still stands. Timing is not everything. Timing is just an excuse.

I don’t think the goal of climate activists should necessarily be to convince everyone to get on board and stop being dumb about global warming. For one thing, that will never happen. Rather, the goal of climate activists should be to make addressing climate change – which primarily means keeping the fossil Carbon in the ground – normal, part of our social and governmental responsibility, and to do so soon. Most people these days are pretty ignorant about the Ozone Layer, yet somehow we are mostly taking care of the ozone layer, not because we got everyone on board, but because we made taking care of the ozone layer national and international law and set up systems to do that. Climate change is a much bigger challenge, or really, a large number of individual challenges many of which are very big. But we have to meet those challenges with methods and approaches that work and changing human psychology – making humans be something other than bowls of Jell-O – is not going to work in time to matter, if at all. But, getting some more people on board by addressing the psychology of belief, as it were, in the science, needs to happen to bring certain communities and factions to a tipping point.

Maybe everyone should move to the coast for a few years. Get their feet wet.

Roger Pielke Jr no longer with FiveThirtyEight?

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Roger Pielke Jr, who is some form or another of climate change contrarian … his main schtick is that global warming has no negative effects and he uses questionable analyses to “prove” this … was brought on to the well respected FiveThirtyEight run by Nate Silver, blog site a while back. Soon after joining the team he seems to have stuck his foot deeply into his mouth a few times and got called on it. One could say that FiveThirtyEight’s fame and respect has been earned by being straight forward and methodologically rigorous and professional in its handling of predictions about such important things as elections and sporting event outcomes. One could say that Roger Pielke Jr. is not. One might assume that he was quietly sidelined (let go or just removed as a main contributor, we don’t know) because of this.

RL Miller (@RL_Miller) tweeted that he noticed that Roger Pielke Jr was no longer on the FiveThirtyEight main contributors page.

And Roger MT’s the tweet in the affirmative:

So, this is what happens when you play fast and loose with the fancy statistical methods. You are seen as an outlier and removed. As it were.

Mann, UVA, Win Lawsuit: ATI Will Pay

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The American Tradition Institute a.k.a. ATI a.k.a. Energy & Environmental Legal Institute is a “think” tank that supports or engages in climate science denialism. You can read about it here and here. Michael Mann is a climate scientist, famous for bringing to the world’s attention the alarming problem of hockey-stick style global warming. According to Wikipedia:

The IPCC acknowledged that his work, along with that of the many other lead authors and review editors, contributed to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize…

The ATI, Michael Mann, and the University of Virginia have been engaged in certain legal activities and a decision was made a couple of days ago about one aspect of this.

From Southern Studies:

Virginia’s highest court has ruled that the American Tradition Institute (ATI), a free-market think tank that promotes climate science denial, must pay damages to the University of Virginia and … Michael Mann for filing a frivolous lawsuit against them. The decision comes in a case that has sparked controversy about the abuse of public records laws to harass climate scientists.

Mann … has been a target of climate science deniers for his research .. ATI had connections to fossil-fuel interests…

On July 8, the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the ruling by the Circuit Court of Prince William County on appeal, ordering ATI to pay $250 in damages….

The case can be traced back to 2010, when then-Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) filed investigative demands ordering UVA to produce documents related to Mann as part of a widely criticized investigation into whether the scientist violated the state’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act by allegedly falsifying data — a charge that has been discredited by several investigations by Penn State and other institutions. …

Meanwhile, in January 2011, ATI submitted a Freedom of Information request to UVA for emails sent by Mann… In September 2012, the Virginia circuit court ruled against ATI [upheld by the VA supreme court].

EXCLUSIVE

National Geographic Scienceblogs Greg Laden’s Blog has obtained exclusive information pertaining to the aftermath of this Virginia Supreme Court decision.

Climate_Science_Legal_Defense_Fund_tshirt1We have learned what Dr. Michael Mann intends to do with the windfall that comes from this judgement against the Koch funded science denialist group ATI a.k.a. Energy & Environmental Legal Institute. Mann tells us, “I intend to donate to the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, of course!”

Climate Science Legal Defense Found is HERE on the internet. Readers of this blog will want to donate to the fund, of course. Also consider buying one of their very cool shirts.

I’ve got one of these shirts and it is very nice. I intend to buy a new one soon. It is a great conversation starter at family gatherings, but it is important to always have a spiffy looking new one.

Who Founded Greenpeace? Not Patrick Moore.

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Who are the founders of Greenpeace? Not Patrick Moore.

Patrick Moore is a Hippie for Hire. He makes the claim that he co-founded Greenpeace, and charges a fee to show up at conferences or other venues, or sit on boards, to provide a story that anti-environmentalists, global warming deniers, and others, like to hear. The part where he takes your money to lie, as far as I can tell, is true. The part about how he co-founded Greenpeace is apparently not true.

Here’s what Greenpeace has to say about Patrick Moore:

Patrick Moore. Did Patrick Moore found Greenpeace? Greenpeace says no. They have evidence. So no, he probably did not.
Patrick Moore. Did Patrick Moore found Greenpeace? Greenpeace says no. They have evidence. So no, he probably did not.

Patrick Moore, a paid spokesman for the nuclear industry, the logging industry, and genetic engineering industry, frequently cites a long-ago affiliation with Greenpeace to gain legitimacy in the media. Media outlets often either state or imply that Mr. Moore still represents Greenpeace, or fail to mention that he is a paid lobbyist and not an independent source…

For more than 20 years, Mr. Moore has been a paid spokesman for a variety of polluting industries, including the timber, mining, chemical and the aquaculture industries. Most of these industries hired Mr. Moore only after becoming the focus of a Greenpeace campaign to improve their environmental performance. Mr. Moore has now worked for polluters for far longer than he ever worked for Greenpeace.

Most importantly, given Patrick Moore’s insistence that he is a founder of Greenpeace, is this statement by the organization:

Patrick Moore Did Not Found Greenpeace

Patrick Moore frequently portrays himself as a founder or co-founder of Greenpeace, and many news outlets have repeated this characterization. Although Mr. Moore played a significant role in Greenpeace Canada for several years, he did not found Greenpeace. Phil Cotes, Irving Stowe, and Jim Bohlen founded Greenpeace in 1970. Patrick Moore applied for a berth on the Phyllis Cormack in March, 1971 after the organization had already been in existence for a year.

Greenpeace even kept a copy of the letter Patrick Moore sent to them asking for a birth on a boat to engage in a nuclear protest, dated to long after the founding of Greenpeace. Here it is:

patrick-moore-s-application-le_000001
patrick-moore-s-application-le_000002patrick-moore-s-application-le_000003
patrick-moore-s-application-le_000004

How could Patrick Moore have founded Greenpeace if he wrote this letter?

Media Matters addressed the question “Who is Patrick Moore?” and “Who Founded Greenpeace?” and “Did Patrick Moore Found Greenpeace?” here. In that piece they discuss Patrick Moore’s anti-science and anti-environment stand on climate change. They note:

Moore has repeatedly claimed that he left Greenpeace because their policies shifted to the radical left, saying for instance in his testimony, “I had to leave as Greenpeace took a sharp turn to the political left, and began to adopt policies that I could not accept from my scientific perspective.” But Greenpeace has a different view of the situation, saying “what Moore really saw was an opportunity for financial gain. Since then he has gone from defender of the planet to a paid representative of corporate polluters.” [U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, 2/25/14; Greenpeace, 10/10/08]

This refers in part to the Greenpeace Statement on Patrick Moore:

Patrick Moore often misrepresents himself in the media as an environmental “expert” or even an “environmentalist,” while offering anti-environmental opinions on a wide range of issues and taking a distinctly anti-environmental stance. He also exploits long-gone ties with Greenpeace to sell himself as a speaker and pro-corporate spokesperson, usually taking positions that Greenpeace opposes.

While it is true that Patrick Moore was a member of Greenpeace in the 1970s, in 1986 he abruptly turned his back on the very issues he once passionately defended. He claims he “saw the light” but what Moore really saw was an opportunity for financial gain. Since then he has gone from defender of the planet to a paid representative of corporate polluters.

Patrick Moore promotes such anti-environmental positions as clearcut logging, nuclear power, farmed salmon, PVC (vinyl) production, genetically engineered crops, and mining. Clients for his consulting services are a veritable Who’s Who of companies that Greenpeace has exposed for environmental misdeeds, including Monsanto, Weyerhaeuser, and BHP Minerals.

And so on.

So, on answer to the question “Who Founded Greenpeace?” one accurate and truthful answer is “Not Patrick Moore.” In answer to the questions “Did Patrick Moore found Greenpeace?” or “Is Patrick Moore a co-founder of Greenpeace?” the answer is “no” to both.

The Amazing Decelerating Acceleration of Velocity Curve Of Global Cooling! #FauxPause

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In 2009 someone wrote a blog post about climate change that made all the usual science denialist claims. Hurricanes have reduced therefore global warming is not real. In this case, hurricanes are one of the main threats of climate change (a straw man) and since they are not as common these days in the Atlantic as alarmists claimed the would be (cherry picking) global warming is not a concern. There were stronger storms in the past. Katrina wasn’t really all that bad. Etc. etc.

The Ice Caps (he called sea ice “Ice Caps”) are not really melting that bad and besides we don’t really know what they were doing before 1970 so we can use anecdotal evidence that sea ice was less extensive and ignore anecdotal evidence that sea ice was more extensive in the past.

El Nino was supposed to do somehting rather specific and unusual (that El Nino researchers were never very sure of) and instead did something else rather unusual therefore there is no global warming. Climate models don’t really work, Carbondioxide is a plant food, global temperatures are experiencing a hiatus in increase, it’s really the sun, etc. He called concern over climate change hysteria and called discussion of changes to climate alarmism.

This was Matt Rogers, who at the time, and who is still now, with the Capitol Weather Group. Perhaps Matt was confused five years ago. Perhaps he was a climate change skeptic in the days when it was reasonable to question the mainstream science, before the consensus formed and climate scientists started working more on details. But no, that doesn’t really explain what he was saying then because consensus was already established. He was, in truth, spouting denialist creed. But still, perhaps these days Matt, who is actually a trained meteorologist, has shaken off the denialism.

Maybe. But just the other day he came out with a post that is very much worhy of admonishment, in part because of a graphic it uses. Have a look at the graphic, which is about Global Temperature Change in recent years. Tell me what you think this graph shows?

climategroupgraph

Decrease, decline, flatness, hiatus. Cooling. Climate getting cooler. Global warming must be wrong.

Nope.

This is a change in the rate of acceleration of the velocity of global temperatures. We’ll get back to that in a moment.

Matt starts his post with:

The recently-released National Climate Assessment (NCA) from the U.S. government offers considerable cause for concern for climate calamity, but downplays the decelerating trend in global surface temperature in the 2000s, which I document here.

No it doesn’t. The NCA addresses the topic in the FAQ and in the body of the report rather prominently.

Matt then notes:

Many climate scientists are currently working to figure out what is causing the slowdown, because if it continues, it would call into question the legitimacy of many climate model projections (and inversely offer some good news for our planet).

This is a misstatement. This verbiage implies that many climate scientists accept the idea of a “slowdown” and are trying to figure it out. This is simply not true. There is secular variation in the commonly used surface temperature measures, which are an incomplete estimate of global temperature and warming/cooling over time, ignoring the largest heat reservoir on the planet (the ocean) and highly dynamic changing effects such as the Arctic. It is like an index, useful but nothing like perfect. Imagine using only one of several indexes of the economy to stand in for all of them? You wouldn’t Actually, these temperatures series are much better measures of global warming than any of those economic indexes are of the economy, but you get the point; it is a good estimate. Emphasis on both “good” and “estimate.” Anyway, most of this variation has been explained in the past. A few studies recently explained more of the variation. But overall the march of global surface temperatures have tracked with expectations and gone up over time. Scientists are not scrambling to explain a thing that is not happening. Matt should know this.

Now about his graph. Matt first tells the people reading his post that they could create their own graph of global temperatures and make one, but no, Mat will do it for you:

You can see the pause (or deceleration in warming) yourself by simply grabbing the freely available data from NASA and NOAA. For the chart below, I took the annual global temperature difference from average (or anomaly) and calculated the change from the prior year.

He’s referring to the chart I show above, but implying in the text that this is a chart of global temperature anomalies (differences above or below a baseline) just like any other temperature change over time chart. He doesn’t exactly lie, but he made a very obscure graph of a very obscure measure with questionable statistical validity or usefulness and seems to do everything he can to pass it off to the unwary as a graph showing global temperature decreases over the last several years.

More subtly, why did he smooth the line? It makes it look like a mathematical function (giving it undue credence?) when it is really multi-cause variation from year to year in a derivative.

Also, by setting the start of the graph at a recent arbitrary point, the graph can not show the long term trend. That would probably be a more or less flat line with short term up and down trends. It would be a very uninteresting graph. Only by focusing on this close up does it look like it is showing something. At the moment I’m writing this blog post from the middle of the Great North Woods so I don’t have access to the data but maybe I’ll make that graph for you and show you at a later time.

The “sign of data validation” he refers to in his post, that both data sets have the same trend, is bogus. They are not two separate data sets. They are two overlapping sets of data measuring the same thing. So, here, “Data Validation” means that no one accidentally inserted their checkbook balancing data into the wrong spreadsheet cells.

Matt notes “…the warm changes have generally been decreasing while cool changes have grown.” This is not a graph of warm or cool changes. It is a graph of the rate at which changes have happened. So by stating it this way, the essence of the graph is lost. This is a graph of change in rate of change.

Then, “To be sure, both sets of data points show an mean annual change of +0.01C during the 2000s. But, if current trends continue for just a few more years, then the mean change for the 2000s will shift to negative.”

Wut?

Nice to admit that the trend is an increasing temperature, but suggesting that this could shift to negative (for more than a brief moment) is insane. This is like looking at the increase in maximum rate of human travel over a century, from horse to car to aircraft to space ship and predicting that at some point we will be going faster than the speed of light. You can’t go faster than the speed of light. You can’t add greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere and cool off the planet short of a very serious negative feedback mechanism which apparently does not exist. Warp drives in the news lately notwithstanding, we will not cool the planet by, effectively, turning up the effects of the sun’s energy.

Then, “The current +.01C mean increase in temperatures is insufficient to verify the climate change projections for major warming (even the low end +1-2C) by mid-to-late century.”

There is not a “current +.01C increase.” There is a poorly made graph combined with an apparently poor understanding of the science possibly made with the intent of minimizing concern over global warming covering only a short period of time being misinterpreted as a valid measurement. This is like cold fusion or faster than light neutrinos invalidating the Standard Model in physics. But less interesting.

The rest of Matt’s post is him tossing softballs at himself in the form of the usual objections people make when someone advocates for the #FausPause. Like that Matt or his friends might be cherry picking. Like they do. Or noting that it is warmer now than ever. Like it is.

In the end, literally, Matt notes that the slow down is not real, is only temporary, and will go away. But this is only after a majorly misleading graphic and a lot of verbiage with an entirely different message. Is this a new kind of denialism and what do we call it?

Climate-Contrarian Research: Rebutted by Peer Review, Soaked Up by MSM

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Given recent attention to the issue of consensus in climate change research, this is a good time to mention a paper that came out recently by John Abraham, John Cook, John Fasullo, Peter Jacobs, Scott Mandia and Dana Nuccitelli called “Review of the consensus and asymmetric quality of research on human-induced climate change.”

I’ll paste the abstract below but first I’ll summarize it in a sentence. The few papers that explicitly deny the basic science of climate change are rightfully rejected by the peer review process because they are crap. Bit they do find more attention by main stream media, presumably because main stream media is inadequate to the task of addressing actual important issues.

Here’s the abstract for the paper published in Cosmopolis.

Climate science is a massively interdisciplinary field with different areas understood to varying degrees. One area that has been well understood for decades is the fundamental fact that humans are causing global warming. The greenhouse effect has been understood since the 1800s, and subsequent research has refined our understanding of the impact of increased concentrations of greenhouse gases on the planet. Also increasing has been the consensus among the world’s climate scientists that the basic principles of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) are correct. This has been demonstrated by multiple reinforcing studies that the consensus of scientists on the basic tenets of AGW is nearly unanimous. Nevertheless, the general public in many countries remains unconvinced not only of the existence of AGW, but also of the degree of scientific consensus. Additionally, there remain a few high-profile scientists who have continued to put forth alternative explanations for observed climatic changes across the globe. Here, we summarize research on the degree of agreement amongst scientists and we assess the quality of scholarship from the contrarian scientists. Many major contrarian arguments against mainstream thinking have been strongly challenged and criticized in the scientific literature; significant flaws have often been found. The same fate has not befallen the prominent consensus studies.

Dana Nuccitelli, one of the authors, wrote a summary of the paper here, in which he notes:

Despite the 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming supported by peer-reviewed research, expert opinion, the IPCC reports, and National Academies of Science and other scientific organizations from around the world, a large segment of the population remains unconvinced on the issue. A new commentary by Edward Maibach, Teresa Myers and Anthony Leiserowitz in Earth’s Future notes that most people don’t know there is a scientific consensus about human-caused climate change, which undermines public engagement on the subject.

This ‘consensus gap’ is in large part due the media giving disproportionate coverage to climate contrarians. In our paper, we sought to evaluate whether that disproportionate media coverage was justified by examining how well contrarian hypotheses have withstood scientific scrutiny and the test of time. The short answer is, not well.

The consensus gap in public opinion is mirrored by, and relates to, an expertise gap among the researchers. Abraham et al note in their paper:

Insofar as these contrarian themes are representative of other contrarian viewpoints, our findings reinforce those of Anderegg et al., (2010) who found lower expertise and prominence among the contrarian scientists and those of Doran and Zimmermann (2009) who found that as scientific expertise increased, so did certainty in the main premises of AGW. Here we find case study evidence that the science representing major contrarian views is less robust than the counterparts that reflect the AGW consensus.

I remember Jerry Rubin once saying “The masses are asses.” Wikipedia does not, and claims it was Karl Rove. Other sources cite Alexander Hamilton, but apparently it is an old Yiddish proverb. In any event, it is true, of course, but it is not really their fault. The fact that the vast majority of the public arrive at scientific conclusions as a matter of enculturation and not actually replicating the science is exactly what we expect; people are busy and simply want to be informed from reliable sources. The problem is, the sources … are not so reliable. But within climate science it is interesting to see that the non-consensus positions are expressed in the form of low quality research which tends to not pass mustard in the peer review process because it just isn’t good enough. In other words, globally, the more you actually know the more likely you are to accept the realities of climate science; within the sciences, the smarter you are the more likely you are to understand the realities of global warming.

This explains a lot of what we see in Twitter and other social media. Just sayin.

I refer you again to Dana’s post for a more detailed discussion of the paper.