Tag Archives: science

Global (not Regional) Temperature

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Throughout most of central Canada, where I live, as well as the north-central  US (west of the Great Lakes), we’ve had a very cool spring and summer. It feels like we’ve only had a few days of actual summer. My shorts are sitting at the bottom of my closet wondering why I’ve rejected them.

The media has been all over this. Skeptical websites are thrilled. I’ve heard way too many  “So much for global warming!” comments for my comfort and sanity. There are only so many times that I can patiently explain the difference between weather and climate, regional and global change before I go a little nuts.

I made an uneducated assumption that the world was still around 2008 temperatures. Perhaps it was due to a solar minimum, the last dregs of La Nina, or just statistical noise. I didn’t think too much about it.

It was a bit of surprise yesterday, then, when I read a blog post that suggested that the southern US was experiencing above-average summer temperatures. I was quite intrigued. I went on a search for a global temperate anomaly map for this spring and/or summer. Here is a map from the National Climatic Data Center (part of NOAA).

noaaAs you can see, north-central North America did have below average June temperatures (not too surprising to me – the jet stream almost reached Chicago the other day). So did parts of Asia, Europe, and South America. But it’s clear that these cooler areas are the minority. Almost everywhere else on our planet (including the southern US) had a warmer than average June.

The NCDC states that the global land-and-ocean temperature for June 2009 (basically the map you see above) “was the second warmest on record”. They also note that, during June, an El Niño began. As the global temperature increases during an El Niño event, due to a change in heat exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, the NCDC predicts that “global temperatures are likely to continue to threaten previous record highs”.

There’s a good chance that it won’t be long before we stop hearing that global warming stopped in 1998. In a way, that makes me happy – no other claim annoys me quite so much, can you say statistical misrepresentation – but it also makes me worry about the state of the world.

I wish I was wrong about this. I wish that global warming had really stopped in 1998.

To conclude

June 2009 alone can’t prove a warming trend – it doesn’t even come close to the classical 30-year climate period. But it really makes the “so much for global warming” hypothesis in my area fall apart. That claim was unscientific even before we knew the stats for the whole world. How can you possibly discern an idea of global climate from a few months in a single area?

There’s a reason it’s called global warming, not regional warming.

There’s a reason it’s called climate change, not weather change.

And hooray for scientific data that is readily available to the public, so we don’t have to rely on personal experience of our own little corner of the world to try to figure out the whole planet.

A Story Worth Hearing

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I found a great article on one of the blogs I read a few days ago. It was the first time I’d heard of the story, and it made me so mad that I knew I had to share it on ClimateSight. But this article was so well-written that I doubted I could come up with anything better.

In a nutshell…..an old paper that didn’t pass through the peer-review process of the EPA contained all sorts of climate-denial “evidence” which has been proven wrong countless times. The peer-review panel wasn’t trying to suppress contradictory evidence – in fact, publishing contradictory evidence would be great for the journal and the advancement of science – the paper was just utter nonsense!

But the Republicans threw a fit when they discovered that a paper questioning anthropogenic climate change was deliberately suppressed so the EPA could begin a communist takeover….or something like that. They want a criminal investigation. As David from Through a Green Lens writes,

“The irony is that these people watched calmly as the Bush-Cheney Administration suppressed global warming science.  Now, the party that supposedly promotes “fiscal responsibility” would like to spend millions of dollars on an investigation into why faulty science was not included in an EPA decision.”

Read the rest of his post here.

PS: A number of you have brought it to my attention that the ever-narrowing nested comments get very hard to read. I went to go check it out (I usually view comments from my WordPress dashboard) and my goodness, one word per line…..no wonder you were complaining!

I played around with the discussion settings, and I think I’ve fixed it as much as I can. Replies to comments will no longer appear indented below the original comment, but I’ve placed the oldest first, instead of the newest first, so that it makes more chronological sense. Unless there’s multiple discussions going on at once, I think it’s okay.

Let me know what you think, and if you have any more suggestions.

Paul Krugman Says it Best

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“[Climate change deniers] don’t like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they’ve decided not to believe in it — and they’ll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial.

Indeed, if there was a defining moment in Friday’s debate, it was the declaration by Representative Paul Broun of Georgia that climate change is nothing but a “hoax” that has been “perpetrated out of the scientific community.” I’d call this a crazy conspiracy theory, but doing so would actually be unfair to crazy conspiracy theorists. After all, to believe that global warming is a hoax you have to believe in a vast cabal consisting of thousands of scientists — a cabal so powerful that it has managed to create false records on everything from global temperatures to Arctic sea ice.

Yet Mr. Broun’s declaration was met with applause.”

–Paul Krugman, New York Times

Being Wrong

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I have had very little scientific training, and no formal education in climatology. If you’ve read my About the Author page, you’ll know that I’m a student and aspiring climatologist. You might think I’m a university student, probably in my undergrad.

I’m not. I’m going into my last year of high school. Many of my classmates don’t even know that the theory of anthropogenic global climate change has been endorsed by anyone other than Al Gore. They’re too wrapped up in regular high school drama. Here I am spending my spare time urging political action against climate change, and I can’t even vote yet.

All of my education in climate change has been informal and independent. I stay up late reading IPCC reports. I borrow university chem textbooks so I can understand how greenhouse gases work. I direct all my questions to a climatology prof I know. In a few years, I will have the opportunity for formal training that begins to specialize in climatology. But I’m too impatient. I want to do all I can now.

If credibility is “expertise + objectivity”, my expertise is limited by my circumstances. However, I can still spend time increasing my objectivity. I check my sources. I separate science from policy. I ask myself, “What if I was wrong?”

Since I started this blog, I’ve learned that one of the best ways to pinpoint your mistakes and fix them is to collaborate with others. A lot of you have been fantastic in the comments section, helping to improve the accuracy of my posts. Because of you, I’ve learned that Anthony Watts does not have a PhD, that the same band of radiation can only be absorbed by carbon dioxide once, and that the category of “publishing climatologists”, which is more credible than scientists from other areas on the topic of climate change, should really include atmospheric physicists and radiative physicists.

Without people telling me that I was wrong, I would never have known that I was making mistakes. Without admitting that I was making mistakes, my posts would remain inaccurate.

I believe that admitting your mistakes and fixing them is one of the best ways to increase your credibility. It lets people know that you are willing to change your mind when new evidence warrants it. Basically, it shows that your quest for accurate information surpasses your ego.

Peer-reviewed journals use this tactic all the time. If one of their publications is proven erroneous, they print a retraction. Accurate, up-to-date information is their greatest priority. What else could you ask of a journal?

We all make mistakes, as Big Bird told us when we were small. Nobody is infallible, not even the folks at NASA. Since we can’t escape making mistakes, the best thing we can do is to admit to them and fix them. In a world demanding scientific accuracy, there is no room for egos.

All Over the Map

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The climate change debate is usually categorized into two sides. One side claims that humans are causing the Earth to warm. The other claims that they are not.

But does the second side have an alternate scientific explanation for why humans are not causing climate change? When they are the extreme minority of scientific opinion, the burden of proof is really on them. So let’s look at the scientific theories of some of the more prominent skeptics.

Dr S. Fred Singer

Dr S. Fred Singer

Dr S. Fred Singer is an atmospheric physicist and a professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia. He is widely known for his opposition to the mainstream opinion regarding climate change, and has a history of being funded by oil companies and conservative think-tanks to promote this skepticism. (He was similarly funded for his opposition to the theory of tobacco causing cancer, as well as the theory of CFCs depleting ozone.)
Dr Singer claims that the observed warming is a natural phenomenon that occurs every 1500 years. He uses data from the Greenland ice core to support this theory. The data illustrates repeating D-O events, a well-known phenomenon from the last ice age, in which ocean currents caused the Greenland ice cap to warm while the Antarctic ice cap cooled. There was no change in the energy balance of the Earth, and little, if any, change in average global temperatures. Peter Sinclair created a fantastic video about Dr Singer’s D-O theory which you should all check out here.
With the training and knowledge he has, you’d hope Dr Singer would know to always use data from both poles when addressing issues of paleoclimatology. But, given his track record, there’s a good chance he’s deliberately trying to deceive us.
Dr Richard Lindzen

Dr Richard Lindzen

Dr Richard Lindzen is an atmospheric physicist and professor of meteorology at MIT. He was one of the many lead authors of the third IPCC report. His scientific work seems to follow the mainstream opinion……but he seems like a skeptic in the media. He is just as prominent as Dr Singer – between the two of them they’ve probably written most of the skeptical newspaper editorials out there. Like Dr Singer, Dr Lindzen is known to have been paid by the oil industry to promote his views on climate change.

But what are those views? It’s hard to know. Given his publications and participation in IPCC, it seems like he agrees with the basic physical processes of climate change. In an interview with Canadian climatologist Andrew Weaver, he seemed to acknowledge that humans were changing the climate, but didn’t think the consequences would be too bad. But he also likes to claim that there is little agreement or confidence, regarding anthropogenic climate change, in the scientific community. He told the Boston News that the Greenland ice sheet was thickening, indicating cooling – while it is well known that the thickening is due to an increase in snow from warmer temperatures. He’s also claimed that climatologists made up global warming so they would get more grant money.

Richard Lindzen says so many different things – it’s hard to tell whether or not he has a consistent opinion. Again, in scientific circles, he’s working just fine with the mainstream opinion. But then he goes to the media and spews out all the contrary arguments he can think of. My best guess is that Dr Lindzen is trying to confuse the public on climate change, because he doesn’t want action to be taken. But who knows?

Dr Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts is a weather forecaster, but now spends most of his time running the websites Watt’s Up With That? and Surface Stations. He believes that temperature data stations are producing flawed data, showing a false warming trend. He spends a lot of time trying to explain how observed signs of warming, such as melting ice sheets, are irrelevant.
However, we could forget the temperature data altogether, throwing out all the GISS graphs of temperature changes. We could instead look at changes in the timing of physical and biological events, such as when birds migrate, when snow melts, or when flowers bloom. NASA recently conducted such a study, and found that 90% of the 29,500 data sets studied indicated warming temperatures.
These are three of the most prominent skeptics who are actually qualified to understand climate change. If this small community – perhaps no more than a few dozen scientists worldwide – had a consistent scientific theory to explain why humans are not causing climate change, perhaps we’d pay more attention to them.
But they’re all saying different things. Their ideas are all over the map. I don’t think I’ve even seen two skeptics who share the same theory.
They’re working as hard as they can to disprove climate change, but they can’t even agree on an alternate explanation.

A Retraction?

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A recent comment by a long-time reader brought a new piece of information to my attention. “What about the JSER?” they asked. “[Someone claimed] that it was a Japanese scientific society that endorsed the falsity of global warming…..What do you think?”

Did this bring the absense of disagreement among professional scientific organizations, at the top of our credibility spectrum, to a close?

I mulled it over and decided to do what seemed to be the most honest course of action. I would research this claim as thoroughly as my resources allowed, and if it turned out to be true, I would publish a retraction of my former statement regarding organizations.

First, however, I needed to get more information. I researched with the following questions in mind:

1) Is the JSER a professional scientific organization? This part of the claim appeared to be true – according to the English section of their website, they published a scientific journal, held conferences and seminars, and boasted over 1500 members.

However, the JSER – the Japan Society of Energy and Resources – likely has a high chance of bias. Its goal is “to promote the science and technology concerning energy and resources and thus to facilitate cooperation among industry academia and governmental sectors for coping with the problems in this field.” With today’s fossil-fuel dependent economy, the JSER likely has a lot of members representing the oil and gas industry. Oil and gas officials can easily fall prey to confirmation bias – their jobs depend on a resource which is causing dire problems for our planet. In their situation, it’s often easiest to deny such problems. In fact, the final scientific organization to change its statement from “humans aren’t affecting the climate” to “oops, yes they are” was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

2) Did the JSER officially state that humans aren’t affecting the climate? I found no evidence for an official statement.

3) So where did the claim come from? It started with a written discussion between five JSER representatives. One, the only climatologist of the five, defended the mainstream opinion that humans are causing climate change. One was undecided. The remaining three rejected the theory.

However, this discussion was mistakenly perceived as a “report” by The Register, a British media news source. I found no evidence that this so-called “report” was peer-reviewed (and how could it possibly have passed peer-review – it claimed that global warming stopped in 1998!). For example, the Register article noted, “Remarkably, the subtle and nuanced language typical in such reports has been set aside.” One of the authors is alleged to have compared climatology to ancient astrology.

I think we can safely leave this source as an email debate between colleagues. I cannot imagine how it could be a peer-reviewed document worthy of consideration.

However, as always, I could be wrong. There is little on the Internet regarding the JSER and its report. If any readers have additional information, please comment.

Update: Thanks to John for pointing me to the website of James Annan, a climatologist living in Japan. He knows the authors of the document personally and says, “The “report” is simply the collation of one of these popular-but-pointless sceptic-vs-scientist debates, and has no official status.”

Skepticism and Denial

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Skepticism and denial are two words that many climate change activists throw around. What is the difference between them? What is the appropriate usage for each? And which camp do most of so-called “global warming skeptics” fall into?

A skeptic is someone in doubt. The key word here is “doubt”. They are willing to listen to evidence from all sides because they haven’t formed an opinion yet. However, it will take very strong evidence for them to accept a theory or belief.

All scientists are taught to be skeptical – to never make assumptions, jump to conclusions, or accept a theory without asking further questions. Skepticism is scientific nature. It is a way of saying, “I don’t know enough about the topic to make a decision.” Skepticism shows inherent objectivity.

A denialist will adamantly reject something, no matter how much evidence supports it. They will only listen to evidence from the side of the debate they support. Unlike a skeptic, who will accept a theory when strong evidence arises, a denialist will never accept a theory. Denial shows inherent bias.

Applying these definitions

In the context of climate change, I feel that denial, in a way, is opposite to skepticism. All over the Internet there are people claiming that climate change is nonexistent/natural/a global conspiracy. They say that they are “skeptical” of the evidence that humans are causing the Earth to warm. Let’s look at a rather tragic story and see if it sheds some light on whether they are actually skeptical, or if they are, in fact, in denial.

In The Great Global Warming Swindle – as well as countless other sources – a graph is presented which shows the Medeival Warm Period to be slightly warmer than the present day.

ipcc1This graph is from the first IPCC report, dated 1990. The film is adamant that this graph is correct. However, in the years following 1990, the IPCC did more research on the Medeival Warm Period, as almost all of their historical temperature data was from Europe. They looked at data from other parts of the world and discovered that the warming was confined to Europe. The Earth, as a whole, hardly warmed at all. By the third IPCC report, the graph had advanced dramatically, to what is known as “the hockey stick”.

ipcc2

This graph prompted a lot of yelling and screaming, and a lot of claims that the IPCC was forging data. But, in actuality, their data set had just improved. And it was continuing to improve. By its fourth report, the IPCC had not just a hockey stick, but a whole hockey team.

ipcc4

This graph, the most recent, was created by the same source as the first graph, which showed the Medeival Warming Period to be warmer than today. It was 17 years more recent. It had advanced dramatically. However, the Great Global Warming Swindle et al continued to use the graph from 1990 and claim that it was credible. Do they hold valid scientific concerns regarding the stastical methods used to create the more recent graphs? Or are they simply cherry-picking data?

There are other, similar, stories. Many skeptics put incredible faith on the idea that other planets might be warming – a dubious area of research we’re just starting to explore – and then turn around and say that the Earth’s temperature record, which has been going strong for a century, is flawed. They say that the 1970s theory of an impending ice age – which was mentioned by a single, discredited paper – held complete consensus in the scientific community, whereas there is apparently “no agreement” over the idea of human-caused warming.

They call themselves “skeptics”. But how can they really be of skeptical nature when they are clinging to certain pieces of evidence in a way that’s not skeptical at all? How can they claim that they hold logic, rationality, and common sense when they are advocating – without analysis, investigation, or statements of uncertainty – for all evidence which supports their pre-conceived conclusion?

Does this show inherent objectivity – skepticism?

Or does it show inherent bias – denial?

When Authority is Relevant

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When it is appropriate to use an argument from authority?

The most common criticism of arguments such as Doran and Zimmerman’s poll or a list of statements from organizations is, “That doesn’t mean they’re right.” Just because a topic has overwhelming agreement doesn’t mean it’s true.

I agree with that criticism. But I still believe that such arguments are appropriate at times. How can this be?

Firstly, to a scientist who has relevant experience, arguing from authority is not usually appropriate. If someone understands all the technicalities of a topic such as climatology, what others say shouldn’t necessarily influence them. If there is overwhelming agreement on an issue, they should certainly examine its evidence, but shouldn’t be subject to peer-pressure. If someone understands the science behind the issue, their own experience and analysis makes the popular opinion barely relevant.

However, to the individual with no climatology training, their own analysis can’t cut it. They simply need to trust those with relevant experience – who else are they going to trust? As Greg Craven says in Risk Management,

“Ask yourself this: does the Earth go around the sun, or does the sun go around the Earth? No one even seriously questions that anymore, right? Try this sometime. Stand and point to the sun in the sky. A few hours later, stand in the same spot, facing the same direction, and do it again. Is your arm pointing in the same direction as it was before? No! Clearly, the sun is the thing that moved, and clearly, the Earth is too large to have gone anywhere, and is right where you left it.

If your senses—and your common sense—are so easily fooled, then how do you decide what to believe about the natural world? Well, why do you so firmly believe that the Earth orbits the sun, despite all evidence and common sense to the contrary? You believe it because: smart people told you so. And you trust them, when it’s their area of expertise, and enough of them agree. Of course authority matters. That doesn’t mean it’s infallible—just ask Galileo. But it’s certainly a better bet than armchair analysis.”

Additionally, to the average non-scientist, the physical truth does not matter as much as the probability of the event in question. They don’t really care about D-O events, Milankovitch cycles, or the relative strength of different greenhouse gases. The real question they are asking is, “What do we need to do about climate change?” People care about what will impact them. For scientists, that means data and conclusions, as that’s their job. For average individuals, that means risk management and mitigation, as that determines which policies they will support and what individual action they will take.

And when over 97% of the scientific community agree that humans are causing the Earth to warm, the probability of emission reduction being worthwhile seems pretty high.

It’s important that the authority used to argue the probability of a point is large and diverse, however. It’s easy to cherry-pick one of the outspoken 3% of scientists who reject climate change and say, “See, they know more than you do, so you should vote against Waxman-Marley.” Statistics such as “97% agreement” or “every professional scientific organization that has issued a statement on climate change” gives the audience a much better sense of the mainstream scientific opinion.

Therefore, to the average person, arguing from authority is appropriate, because it reflects probability and risk management. And that’s really all that the general public cares about.

Ignore the Petition Project

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Many of you have probably heard of Ron Paul’s recent statement in Congress regarding a petition signed by thousands of scientists claiming that there was no scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change, no evidence that burning hydrocarbons was harmful, and, in fact, evidence that burning hydrocarbons would be beneficial for the Earth. The purpose of this statement was to persuade the American people to reject the cap-and-trade bill being negotiated in Congress.

I was skeptical of this petition. I did a little research to find out its legitimacy. Before long I discovered that it was an updated edition of the Oregon Petition, which was created to persaude America to reject Kyoto.

The Oregon Petition has some major problems. Firstly, attached to the petition was an article supporting its claims. The article was designed to look just like an article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a reputable peer-reviewed journal. However, the article was created by three skeptics and was not peer-reviewed at all. The NAS was subject to a lot of inquiries and controversy following the publication of this petition. It eventually had to publish a statement saying that the NAS had nothing to do with the article.

Secondly, the petition could be signed by scientists from any discipline, even if they had no experience studying climatology. As British physics student Michael Ashcroft writes,

“The problem is that, as science is such a vast field, you can spend your entire life studying one branch of science and still know absolutely nothing about another. For example, I am a physics student, and I can honestly say that I know nothing about medicine. I also wouldn’t expect an ecologist to understand the processes behind the formation of stars, for example.This is precisely what the Petition Project does assume, though. If we look at the qualifications of the signers, we see that even medical doctors are eligible to sign. Take a look. Some of the more amusing backgrounds, that supposedly give these people enough special knowledge about global warming to deny its existence, include:

Mathematics – without a special interest in the climate, this is worthless in the field.

Physics – I have almost finished a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and there has been only one, optional course about “Environmental Physics”, so I can argue from experience that a degree in Physics does not necessarily equip someone with the information they may need to decry global warming.

Biology – unless there’s a large degree of specialisation of the effects of climate change on some biological variable (growth, change of ecosystems etc), this has no bearing on the subject.

Medicine – What?!

Aerospace Engineering – I happen to live with an Aeronautical Engineering student, who has had no training in any environmental subjects whatsoever.

Computer Science – see Aerospace Engineering

It is like asking celebrities what they think of the economy of Chad. They may be famous, and therefore carry some weight, but their opinions are nothing more than opinion. Asking “Dr X” what he thinks of the manufacture of steel may be all well and good, except that “Dr X” has a PhD in ancient history. He may be qualified in something, but it is misleading to assume that because he is a doctor of something, he must know everything about everything.”

Thirdly, the scientists who did sign may have been misrepresented. An article in Scientific American conducted a study regarding the participants.

“Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition—one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers; a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.”

The Seattle Times also investigated the Orgeon Petition, and found that some questionable people had signed.

“Several environmental groups questioned dozens of the names: “Perry S. Mason” (the fictitious lawyer?), “Michael J. Fox” (the actor?), “Robert C. Byrd” (the senator?), “John C. Grisham” (the lawyer-author?). And then there’s the Spice Girl, a k a. Geraldine Halliwell: The petition listed “Dr. Geri Halliwell” and “Dr. Halliwell.”

Asked about the pop singer, Robinson said he was duped. The returned petition, one of thousands of mailings he sent out, identified her as having a degree in microbiology and living in Boston. “It’s fake,” he said.

“When we’re getting thousands of signatures there’s no way of filtering out a fake,” Robinson, 56, said in a telephone interview from Oregon.”

 Finally, for a more thorough and visually appealing analysis of the Oregon Petition, including the motives and credibility of its creators, I’d encourage you all to watch this video by Peter Sinclair.

We should all assess the credibility of the Petition Project. Its first revision has some major problems. Should we trust it a second time? Can it compare with the G8 Statement, the Joint Academies’ Statments versions I and II, the survey of individual climatologists by Doran and Zimmerman, and the dozens of other organizations that have made indepent statements?

Which statements truly reflect the opinion of the scientific community?

The Greenhouse Effect

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It always helps to have some background scientific knowledge on climate change – it makes it easier to sort credibility and call people’s bluffs. I thought I’d give a brief explanation of the Earth’s energy balance, something that confused me for a long time.

All substances can absorb a certain amount of radiation – they must then emit or radiate it back out, usually in the form of long-wave radiation (heat). Some molecules, however, possess certain chemical properties which allow them to absorb (and therefore emit) an extremely large amount of radiation relative to their size. These molecules are called greenhouse gases. I recently asked a chem major exactly which properties determined this amount of absorption. They replied, “You don’t know enough quantum chemistry yet.”

When solar radiation, in the form of short-wave radiation (light), approaches our atmosphere, about 30% is reflected right off. The remaining 70% reaches the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface.

The surface of the Earth absorbs some of the radiation. It can’t hold onto this energy indefinitely (it wants to have room to absorb the next rays of light), so it emits it back out. Even though it received the radiation in the form of light, it emits it in the form of heat. It is this emission that determines the temperature of the Earth.

Greenhouse gases allow short-wave light to pass straight through the atmosphere, but they do absorb some of the long-wave heat that the Earth just emitted. The more greenhouse gases present, the more radiation the atmosphere, as a whole, can absorb. When atmospheric particles (greenhouse gases, in this case) emit this radiation back out, it goes uniformly in all directions. Some goes up and escapes out to space. But some goes down and hits the Earth’s surface again.

Therefore, the Earth has to absorb and emit some of the radiation twice. This increases the temperature of the Earth.