Tag Archives: Climate Change

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

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

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

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

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

Here is the movie version of this review paper:

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

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

Screen Shot 2014-04-07 at 6.37.41 PM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

April 7 , 2014

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

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

Dear President Obama and Secretary Kerry,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roland Droitsch, Ph.D. President KM21 Associates

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

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

Anne Ehrlich, Ph.D. Biology Department Stanford University

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bryan Killett, Ph.D. Jet Propulsion Lab

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the details.

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

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

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

Then, Frontiers got weird.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lewandowsky sums up as follows:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very Important New Documentary: Years of Living Dangerously

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

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

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

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

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

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

Talk on Climate Change and Religion

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

Details:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pro Tip for James Dellingpole, Eric Owens, Anthony Watts, and Other Science Denialists.

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STFU.

Seriously. For your own good.

Every time you make a move you seem to create your own pile of dog do and step in it. The latest own-goal for those who deny climate science was scored after an unreasonable and obnoxious attack on Professor Lawrence Torcello, of RIT. Details here and here.

Those mentioned above, and others such as the Drudge and Infowars, lied. They lied knowingly, blatantly, obnoxiously. They willfully misconstrued Lawrence Torcello’s word and his research in order to make climate scientists look like Hitler. This is not a new tactic and it didn’t work before.

And now, the Rochester Institute of Technology has issued a statement in direct response to these unwarranted and inappropriate attacks on Professor Torcello. Here is the statement:

The search for truth is the animating force of a university, and it behooves those who support open and respectful discussion of controversial issues to get the facts right. Recently the views expressed by a member of our community, Professor Lawrence Torcello, have been misrepresented by some in the media. The misrepresentation follows a pattern similar to other incidents of misrepresentation involving academics that work on topics related to climate change. We encourage people to carefully read Professor Torcello’s article itself rather than rely on distortions of its contents circulating on the web.

The Institute wishes to acknowledge, with Professor Torcello, that a strong scientific consensus exists in support of anthropogenic global warming. Otherwise, RIT takes no official position on the views independently expressed by its faculty members in the course of their research. Faculty members speak for themselves, not for the institution or the institution’s leadership. The university does endorse our faculty members’ rights to free speech and recognizes our faculty’s academic freedom to express their views.

“Colleges and universities, of all organizations, must remain forums for open and respected discussion of controversial issues,” said RIT President Bill Destler. “We are part of a learning community, and much of our learning comes from each other. Respect for the opinions of others, even when we strongly disagree with them, must be a cornerstone of our campus community.”

This is to my knowledge the first time that a major university has ever issued a statement acknowledging the consensus on climate change. I am more than willing to be corrected on that, please supply any other cases in the comments. But in any event, this can’t be common.

But it is a direct result of the nefarious efforts of the denialists. Nice going, guys.

Arctic Sea Ice Extent In Perspective [UPDATED May 1 '14]

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I’m going to update this graph every now and then.

There are 12 lines on this graph.

The colorful squiggles up along the top are the first ten years of Arctic Sea ice extent for the period for which we have really good data. So this is 1979 – 1988. There is reason to believe that this is the “normal” sea ice extent track over the year from which we have seen significant deviation over recent decades.

The dark thick line is the average of all of the years from 1979 to 2010. Notice that the first ten years are all above the average except for a few little bits.

The partial line below all of the other lines is the current year, ticking along. I think this graphic provides a good perspective on Arctic Sea ice because we can watch the current state of the ice in comparison to what is reasonably described as “normal.” (I discuss this more here.)

I’ll replace this graphic now and then and re-tweet and re-facebook the post so it all stays in one place. If I’ve not done that in a while and you want me to do it, just let me know.

Data and graphic are from here.

Alarming Rates Of Climate Change Caused Alarming Change in Salamanders

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Salamanders can be a proxyindicator for climate change. Changes in salamanders have been linked to climate changes during ancient times, and in a very recent study, salamanders in the US Appalachians seem to have changed in relation to anthropogenic global warming. In fact, the changes observed in these Appalachian salamanders is quite large, very rapid, and thus, alarming. I’m going to describe this study in some detail, and as a bonus for sticking with me on this, I’ll throw in some entertaining Climate Science Denialism near the end. As an additional bonus prize, you’ll get a nice new shiny Internet Meme to print out and attach to your refrigerator.

Salamanders (Order Caudata) are ectothermic, meaning that they get most of their heat from the environment in which they live. There are over 650 species of them and for the most part they are temperate, with none living in Africa and not too many species in Central or South America. The greatest diversity is in the United States. They are opportunistic predators.

Salamanders are diverse in their life histories and behavior. There are species that live all their time in water, and some that spend some of their life cycle in water and some on land, and some that actually never live in the water. Of the former some only shift to land living under certain conditions. Most salamanders are small, but there is an American species that grows to about 75 cm and a Chinese salamander that is abut 1.8 meters long and eats Pandas. OK, I’m only kidding about it eating Pandas. But it is that big. And, of course, people of the region eat them so they are nearly extinct.

There is a paper just out, “Widespread rapid reductions in body size of adult salamanders in response to climate change,” by Nicholas Caruso, Michael Sears, Dean Adams, and Karen Lips, that looks at 20th century changes in body size of 15 species of Plethodon salamanders from the 1950s to the present. This study has a lot of very interesting features (other than the findings). First, it incorporates a huge collection of data (and salamanders) made by a now emeritus researcher, Richard Highton, who had an interest in the beasts and collected piles of information on them. I love it when these old collections are a) usable and b) used. In this case, only a small percentage of the 140,000 salamanders Highton collected (that we know of) were part of the study.

(I would like to pause for a moment and say that I feel much better now. When I was a kid, my friend Kirk and I would collect salamanders and put them in a bait bucket, and put the bait bucket under the cabin. In these hot and dry conditions up in the Adirondack park in August, the salamanders would mummify and become tiny toys we would play with. Until I read this paper I felt partly responsible for the decline of the salamanders. Now, I realize that our small contribution to this was, well, small. But I digress….)

Second, the huge amount of data collected by Highton was supplemented by additional data. This helps anchor the data to current conditions and methods, and, frankly, it probably helps anchor the researchers to the old data as well.

Third, and I think this is the most important part, the researchers did not simply observe changes in key variables over time but they developed a sophisticated model of the biology underlying the data. Here’s the thing. If you observe change in some variable across time, space, or conditions you can speculate about the process underlying the change. But unless you have a sensible biological model to explain (and in some cases develop) the links, you’ve got bupkis. Here, the researchers looked at several possible underlying causal variables and were able to narrow down the list of suspects to two, which, in turn, are affected by climate change (and vary across elevation as well, which is nice because prior studies have shown elevation to be a key factor in recent changes in salamander biogeography).

This study looked at salamanders in West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The source of the samples is complex and involved multiple sampling efforts combining, as mentioned, the old samples taken by Highton and newer samples. I’ll let you read the original paper if you really want all those details. The key measurement of the salamanders was the SVL, which as you know means Snout-Vent-Length. Also recorded were temperature, humidity, elevation, and all sorts of other variables about the study sites.

Here is the key result in pictures:

Shifting size distributions over time for Plethodon cheoah (a), P. cinerus (b), P. cylindraceus (c), P. jordani (d), P. ventralis (e), and P. yonahlossee (f). The number of sites sampled in each decade is represented by the number in parentheses above the sample size of animals measured for that time period.
Shifting size distributions over time for Plethodon cheoah (a), P. cinerus (b), P. cylindraceus (c), P. jordani (d), P. ventralis (e), and P. yonahlossee (f). The number of sites sampled in each decade is represented by the number in parentheses above the sample size of animals measured for that time period.

As you can see, salamander length goes down over time. Each plot (the stats were all done in R) shows a different species over time, and generally the length goes down. Massive statistical analyses on these data, looking for underlying variables, resulted in this cool little graph showing that warmer-drier conditions were primarily responsible for the changes.

(a) Grand mean changes in standardized difference in mean body size per generation, relative to within-population standard deviation for populations in areas that have become colder and wetter (blue), warmer and drier (red), and either colder and drier or warmer and wetter (khaki). To compare among species and populations with different generation times, we converted body size change into Haldane Ratios. The greatest body size reductions, as indicated by Haldane Ratios, were found in populations that experienced both an increase in temperature and a decrease in precipitation (95% CRI = 0.732, 6.837). (b) Spatial distribution of actual climate trends during the study period; areas with the darkest reds experienced the greatest amount of both warming and drying, blue colors are areas that have become both colder and wetter.
(a) Grand mean changes in standardized difference in mean body size per generation, relative to within-population standard deviation for populations in areas that have become colder and wetter (blue), warmer and drier (red), and either colder and drier or warmer and wetter (khaki). To compare among species and populations with different generation times, we converted body size change into Haldane Ratios. The greatest body size reductions, as indicated by Haldane Ratios, were found in populations that experienced both an increase in temperature and a decrease in precipitation (95% CRI = 0.732, 6.837). (b) Spatial distribution of actual climate trends during the study period; areas with the darkest reds experienced the greatest amount of both warming and drying, blue colors are areas that have become both colder and wetter.

The aforementioned statistical model helps explain how and why the changes occur. It actually turns out to be very simple. As ectomorphs, salamanders get more active when it is warmer. Heat them up and their metabolic rate goes up, so they burn more energy. As you know, life is all about the partitioning of energy into three major categories: Reproduction, maintenance, and growth. The increased metabolic rate cuts into the maintenance part of that system, so the others may be reduced. I’d like to know if reproduction is diminished, but clearly, growth is affected. The science behind the following graph is complex (again, read the original if you want to bask in the formulae) but the meaning is pretty clear.

Results of modeling annual activity (upper row) and annual energy expenditure (bottom row) for a 10 g Plethodon at Catoctin Mountain N.P., MD (FDR), Mountain Lake area, VA (ATW), and Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area, VA (LIM).
Results of modeling annual activity (upper row) and annual energy expenditure (bottom row) for a 10 g Plethodon at Catoctin Mountain N.P., MD (FDR), Mountain Lake area, VA (ATW), and Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area, VA (LIM).

For different regions (where temperature, humidity, elevation, etc may vary) the models incorporating climate change and slamanderness of the salamanders show a modest uptick in activity, or virtually no change, happening along side a significant upward trend in energy expenditure. Temperature matters when it comes to size.

Now here’s the bonus climate science denialism controversy I promised you. Anthony Watts, on his blog Watts Up With That, mentioned this study and then made fun of it. He and his readers derided this excellent piece of science by pointing and laughing at two things. First, the scientists studying the salamanders used OMG COMPUTER MODELS. All climate science denialists know that all computer models are wrong. That is not true of course. Also, the modeling done in the salamander study was different … it was physiological modeling not climate modeling, and it was an excellent piece of work. Essentially, the salamander modeling took reasoning based on long established biology and expanded on it mathematically, then took that and used various techniques to test the mathematical modeling for validity. The second Wattsian complaint about the study is that some other study in the past showed that salamanders GREW, not SHURNK when it got warmer.

And yes, there is in fact a study from a few years ago that looked at fossil salamanders from the last 3,000 years, and showed an increase in body size with warming conditions. But comparing these studies is absurd. This would be like comparing a study of how big lions grow depending on how many antelopes there are from year to year with a different study on the evolution of lions across time as their body size changed. But worse, because these are species living in different regions. So it would be like studying size changes in African lions over decades in Amboseli with long term evolutionary trends in saber tooth cats in Mongolia, and assuming that you are looking at the same thing.

I suppose if one rejects science as does Watts, one would be more comfortable with the creationist idea that there are not really different species of animals, but rather, “kinds” of animals. In this way, one could think of all salamanders as just a “kind.” I suppose.

There are a lot of reasons the studies seem to show opposite patterns. In Yellowstone, that particular species of salamander can get larger if they change from a water based life history strategy to a land based one. In that region warm conditions may increase food supplies in terrestrial areas but not aquatic areas. Water based salamanders can evolve to be larger if their water bases become smaller and shallower, increasing predation and thus selecting for larger body size.

The main difference between the studies is the temporal resolution. The study reported here covers decades of phenotypic change within the range of norm of reaction (i.e., probably not mostly genetic) while the Yellowstone study is over evolutionary time. But there are other differences. Mike Sears, one of the authors of the Appalachian salamander paper, told me this:

Ambystomid salamanders [Yellowstone] require water for reproduction. Some adults live in terrestrial environments, but their larvae all require water. Plethodon salamanders [Appalachian], on the other hand are terrestrial for all life stages. Plethodon salamanders are lungless. They depend on their skin for oxygen exchange, meaning that they are limited to cooler, wetter habitats in terrestrial environments. Because their habitats are predicted to get drier and warmer, this lifestyle imposes some immediate stress (e.g., dry out and you can’t breathe). In fact, if these animals lose too much water over the course of an evening, they retreat from activity.

Most importantly, regardless of the differences between these two species, climate change biologists would not expect all species to respond similarly, within or among species. For instance, ectothermic animals from the Tropics might be expected to be negatively affected by increasing temperatures, whereas temperate species might benefit from them. For that matter, animals with large species ranges might be expected to respond differently to warming climates across their ranges, benefitting some populations while harming others. In fact, for species that are negatively impacted by warming climates, declining body size has been observed and should be expected given basic physiological principles.

Here’s the thing. Anthony Watts and his friends in the Climate Science Denialism gaggle love themselves them cherries. And, this is an example. Using just the titles of articles and not understanding the underlying science behind them, one can pretend to find contradictions that aren’t really there. Also, this is easy to get; it does not take much effort to misconstrue the meanings of a bunch of journal article titles. An active climate science denier can probably do several over a weekend. This expedience then allows the denier to blend the cherries into a nice Gish Gallop. Just look at Anthony Watt’s blog; the cherries flow there like the effluence of a hippopotamus with diarrhea. Who ate a lot of metaphorical cherries.

Anyway, back to the salamanders. There are many cases of well established biologically understood links between climate and physiology. And that is nice because it allows us to observe climate change in the past. But as this article on salamanders (and the Yellowstone paper as well) points out these systems have an important additional implication: Climate change is going to change more than just climate. From the paper:

Regardless of whether the effect is genetic or environmental, the degree of body size reduction we documented in Plethodon was both large and rapid. For the six species displaying significant trends, body size reduced by an average of nearly 8% across the time period examined. When standardized for within-population variation, this corresponds to approximately a 1% body size reduction per generation in these species. This magnitude of change is on par with some of the largest phenotypic changes observed in contemporary populations. Thus, these changes represent some of the fastest responses to environmental perturbations ever recorded and lend support to the observation that phenotypic responses, particularly those related to anthropogenic disturbance, are both more rapid and more extreme than those observed in natural contexts or over longer time periods. The rapidity and the widespread extent of these changes across so many species in a biodiversity hotspot may signal rapid adaptation to novel environmental conditions.

And now, for your patience, your refrigerator magnet:

Photo Credit: Furryscaly via Compfight cc

For another writeup see Climate change makes salamanders shrink, scientists say: A warmer and drier climate is likely causing wild salamanders in North America to shrink, say scientists by Cudeshna Chowdhury.

Caruso, N., Sears, M., Adams, D., and Lips, K. 2014. Widespread rapid reductions in body size of adult salamanders in response to climate change. Global Change Biology. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.12550

Bruzgul J. E., Long W. & Hadly E. A. 2005. Temporal response of the tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum) to 3,000 years of climatic variation. BMC Ecol., 5. 7 (2005).

New Paper: On Forced Temperature Changes, Internal Variability and the AMO

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Michael Mann, Byron Steinman, and Sonya Miller have just put out a new paper on climate change which addresses a number of key concerns. The paper is called “On Forced Temperature Changes, Internal Variability and the AMO.” Here’s the abstract:

We estimate the low-frequency internal variability of Northern Hemisphere (NH) mean temperature using observed temperature variations, which include both forced and internal variability components, and several alternative model simulations of the (natural?+?anthropogenic) forced component alone. We then generate an ensemble of alternative historical temperature histories based on the statistics of the estimated internal variability. Using this ensemble, we show, firstly, that recent NH mean temperatures fall within the range of expected multidecadal variability. Using the synthetic temperature histories, we also show that certain procedures used in past studies to estimate internal variability, and in particular, an internal multidecadal oscillation termed the “Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation” or “AMO”, fail to isolate the true internal variability when it is a priori known. Such procedures yield an AMO signal with an inflated amplitude and biased phase, attributing some of the recent NH mean temperature rise to the AMO. The true AMO signal, instead, appears likely to have been in a cooling phase in recent decades, offsetting some of the anthropogenic warming. Claims of multidecadal “stadium wave” patterns of variation across multiple climate indices are also shown to likely be an artifact of this flawed procedure for isolating putative climate oscillations.

The key points of this paper, which I cribbed directly (with minor modifications) from Michael Mann’s Twitter stream, are:

  • Warming of the past decade, during which time some have claimed global warming to have experienced a “pause,” is within expected range given internal variability.
  • Certain common procedures fail to isolate internal variability in climate.
  • The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) appears to have been in a cooling phase in recent decades.
  • “Stadium wave” patterns appear to be methodological artifacts of flawed assessment procedures.

So the pause is looking increasingly like a faux pause. The relationship between large scale decade-level variations in climate systems to long term warming is better understood. And, very interestingly, a previously proposed method of explaining the so-called “pause” was found wanting.

The “Stadium Wave” model found a signal in the data that appears to arise from the AMO and propagate across a number of climate subsystems and seemed to explain a pause in global warming, further suggesting that this pause may last until 2030 or so. When models were run by Mann et al that were explicitly designed to not include the necessary properties to develop a “stadium wave” they seemed to have this property anyway, which was further amplified by the procedure used to “detrend” (eliminate the long term effects of global climate change, leaving behind decade-level variation) were applied to the data. The “stadium wave” effect seems to have arisen initially from interaction of essentially random variables in the procedure and was then further accentuated by the detrending method. Putting it a slightly different way, the meaningful part of the long term climate signal, warming and other known factors, explains the climate signal best and the “stadium wave” is an artifact of an untried and untested method.

Has the Arctic Sea ice extent peaked for the year?

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Above is the nifty interactive graphic from the National Snow and Ice Data Center showing sea ice extent in the Arctic for the current year (the lower squiggle). This year’s squiggle looks like a peak, and it is possible that Arctic Sea ice extent is now on the decline. Minimum extent is typically reached in September.

The other squiggles are all the years since 1979 that seem to have had peaks later in the year than this year’s apparent peak of a couple of days ago. Those years are 1992, 1997, 1999, and 2010. In other words, for the available data set, four out of 34 years, or just over 10% of the years, had sea ice extent peaks that post date March 21st, which appears to be this year’s peak. There is still a chance that more ice will be added and this year’s squiggle will see an uptick. Well, I guess it is fair to say that there’s about a one in ten chance of that happening. But, I hear the Arctic is a bit warm and that the ice is getting all breaky-uppy so that seems like it might be a high estimate.

This is probably not too important because the relationship between what the ice does during its maximum extent and what the ice does during its minimum extent is seemingly random, and it is the minimum extent that counts.

You will recall that I’ve predicted the minimum extent of sea ice this year, here.

The degree to which sea ice extent is reduced is important. It normally melts to some degree every year, but when it melts a lot the open sea can absorb more heat from the sun, and there is less shiny ice to reflect sunlight away. This causes extra warming in the Arctic, a phenomenon known as Arctic Amplification, which may be implicated in changing large scale weather systems, resulting in the phenomenon known as Weather Whiplash.

Climate Science Denialists Target Academic in Hate Campaign

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This is a followup on Are the climate science deniers criminals?, which explored recent work by Lawrence Torcello, a philosopher at Rochester Institute of Technology. (See: Is Organised Climate Science Denial Criminally Negligent?)

Professor Torcello’s point was made in part by reference to the tragic events at L’Aquila, Italy, where a screw up mainly by non-scientist government official seems to have resulted in unnecessary deaths due to an earthquake. Torcello notes:

If those with a financial or political interest in inaction had funded an organised campaign to discredit the consensus findings of seismology, and for that reason no preparations were made, then many of us would agree that the financiers of the denialist campaign were criminally responsible for the consequences of that campaign. I submit that this is just what is happening with the current, well documented funding of global warming denialism.

That’s a powerful analogy from real life. If we are allowed the luxury of thought experiment, we can probably put an even finer point on it. Let me give that a try. Remember, this is a thought experiment. These things did not happen.

Bridges across the region are starting to deteriorate and some say they should be replaced. But there is an industry that makes a lot of money repairing bridges, as distinct from replacing them. That organization is represented by a number of public relations and lobbying organizations funded by the industry. The ruling legislative body has hearings to help decide if bridges should be replaced over the next few years at great cost, or if the annual budget for repair should be maintained.

There may be legitimate arguments on both sides of the issue, but the vast majority of engineers with relevant expertise feel that repair can not keep up with deterioration and bridges may start falling down despite best efforts to keep them up. A consensus has emerged that the bridges should be replaced. But the hearings happen anyway.

At the hearings there are a number of witnesses making various points, but among these witnesses are several representatives of the above mentioned industry and their lobbyists and public relations organizations. These witnesses are asked a number of questions and they provide a lot of information. But, they intentionally leave out important data, emphasize less important data that happens to support their cause (cherry picking) and they even go so far as to falsify studies. Overall, their argument is convincing, even if it is based on willfully misrepresented information and lies.

The legislative body, looking to save money in their budget decides to kick the can down the road, based on the testimony of representatives of the repair, not rebuild, interests. No bridges are replaced.

A few years later a string of busses carrying toddlers to a toddler convention is driving across one of the bridges. Below the bridge happens to be a tour boat that was leased by the Dalai Lama. He’s on the boat. Also on the bridge is a medical transport vehicle carrying a half dozen hearts to a nearby transplant hospital where very ill children will be given a new lease on life.

The bridge collapses, everyone on the bridge, and under it on the boat, are killed but many of them die slow and miserable deaths because the busses and other vehicles are pinned below water line under the debris, and they drown over the next half hour as the vehicles slowly fill with muddy, cold, river water.

OK, now, what do you think of the witnesses who knowingly and maliciously provided false testimony to the legislature, which ultimately was used to decide to not replace the bridge? Oh, by the way, the bridge that collapsed in this thought experiment would have been the first bridge to be replaced.

There are several things that Lawrence Torcello did not say. He did not say that “scientists who don’t believe in catastrophic man-made global warming should be put in prison.” But James Dellingpole claims that Torcello said that. James Dellingpole needs to apologize to Professor Torcello for that.

Eric Owens of the Daily Caller said that Torcello “wants to send people who disagree with him about global warming to jail.” Professor Torcello did not say that. Eric Owens owes the professor an apology.

Infowars.com and The Drudge repeated that Professor Torcello “called for the incarceration of any American who actively disagrees that climate change is solely caused by human activity.” He didn’t. More apologies owed.

These quotes (and their documentation) come from a piece by Graham Readfearn, which you can read HERE. Readfearn’s post also describes the kind and amount of harassment Professor Torcello has received since he revealed his idea that people who intentionally cause harm should be held responsible. (See also A corollary to Godwin’s law: the “law of genocidal intentions” by Ugo Bardi.)

The bridge analogy is very straight forward and if that really happened it would be hard to argue against very seriously looking into the industry representatives’ actions. The L’Aquila earthquake is a much less clear situation used by Torcello to make the point. Had there been bought and paid for expert testimony assuring everyone that filling cracks in buildings with some sort of cement like filler would suffice to keep everyone safe from earthquakes, from representatives of the crack-filling-compound industry, that case would be more like the bridge-thought-experiment. How does climate change fit into this?

Significantly changing the chemistry and physics of the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels makes a lot of people a lot of money. But it is also similar to lighting a fire under a pot of tap water on your stove. Once the CO2 is in the atmosphere it starts the multi-decade (and longer) process of changing the climate in ways that will undoubtedly have important negative effects, including sea level rise, changes in atmospheric circulation, and so on. People are going to die, economies are likely to collapse. It is a very bad situation.

Willfully misrepresenting the realities of climate change for personal gain (financial or not) is a nefarious act. I’m not sure if it is technically a criminal act, but maybe it should be. This is overall very tricky stuff. Lawrence Torcello has raised the question, as a philosopher interested in this problem. The result of his raising the question has lead to severe harassment and a spate of public misrepresentation of what he has said. In other words, a scholar has pointed out that there may be serious issues of legal responsibility related to attempts to do something about the fire we’ve lit under the pot, and the response to that has been to try very hard to make him shut up.

Climate change science denialists are not honest brokers. And that’s the nicest thing that comes to mind that I can say about them at this moment.

The Jet Stream is Misbehaving

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From meteorologist Paul Douglas:

Published on Mar 14, 2014
Weather seems to be staling. Look into how the speed of the jet stream causes this “stuck in a rut” weather pattern. Meteorologist Paul Douglas also takes a look back as to how this winter compares to years past. Checking out extreme drought conditions, snow cover and cooler temperatures overall. This did not only impact the U.S. but other areas of the world. England experienced their wettest winter yet!

Don't forget Canada's memorable storm

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Today, Wednesday, an immense storm will move into the Canadian Maritimes after grazing the US East Coast. In the US the storm may severely affect Cape Cod with many inches of snow and hurricane force winds. At sea, in the northern Gulf of Maine and points north, there is a severe risk to boats with very high waves and very severe winds. Halifax could get a foot or two of snow and there will be high coastal waves and strong winds.

This is a rare storm, but of the class of storms that seems to have become more common as the global system of air currents shifts under conditions of global warming. Repeated snow in the normally low-snow mid-Atlantic, severe flooding in the UK, cold in the US central and southern regions, and arid conditions in California (as well as some other bad weather) are a continuation of so-called “Weather Whiplash” that seems to be caused by changes in the pattern of trade winds and the jet streams stemming from a reduced gradient of warm to cool conditions from the Equator to the North Pole. The Jet stream has been bent low over North America for weeks, maybe months (hard to keep track it’s been so long).

There is some discussion of the storm here, where there are additional links, but it seems to not be the focus of much attention in the media, probably because it will mainly affect the Canadian Maritimes, because apparently we don’t care about the Canadian Maritimes.

Weather Nation has this video which covers “Bombogenesis” which is the process involved in the formation of this super duper megastorm.

I imagine we’ll be hearing more about this storm after it sinks a few ships and strands a bunch of people in deep snow.