SCIENCE SPIN

An email from David Whitehouse [david@davidwhitehouse.com]:

Here is a good example of how to 'interpret' scientific data. I can't help thinking that the public has been fed the most outrageous spin - not by politicians but by scientists who should know better, but hey, this is global warming and the UK's Met Office is seeing what it wants to see.

It's just released the 2007 global temperature figures and its forecast for 2008. 2007 it says was a top ten year but it's what it doesn't say in the main part of the press release (usually the only part that is read by journalists) that is alarming. Look further down the press release and you will see, tucked away in a list of notes to editors the admission that 2007 was, temperature wise, the same as 2006 and every year since 2001 - it admits there has been no global warming for 7 years!

But how does that square with the comment by Prof Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Institute of the University of East Anglia, who produced the figures, "The fact that 2008 is forecast to be cooler than any of the last 7 years (and that 2007 did not break the record that was set in 1998) doesn't mean that global warming has gone away. What matters is the underlying rate of warming."

That is misleading. The data obviously suggests that for the past 7 years at least global warming has gone away. Of course the past decade has been warmer than pervious decades but the recent decade's underlying rate of warming, the parameter by which Prof Jones sets so much store, is ZERO. No global warming. Anyone can see that if they look at the figures.

The press release put out by the Met Office, and swallowed by many media outlets, including the BBC, misrepresents the data of global warming. The public are not being given the whole truth.





Greenies getting rattled: Now condescending to debate the skeptics

Below is a Greenie post followed by comments on it from various sources. Note the condescending tone and the rather predictable inability to tell the difference between "tact" and "tack". Also interesting that the absurd sea-level scare seems to have lost its "oomph" (as it should after the revised IPCC estimates) and we are now told that it is ocean acidification that is the problem. Even if it is a problem, it is hard to see anyone outside a few specialists getting much excited about it

At this point the debate given from dwindling but increasingly aggressive climate change skeptics goes something like this:

1. We concede that the climate is warming
2. We concede that CO2 levels are rising
3. But there is still not enough evidence that the changing climate is linked to anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 emissions.
4. Therefore, we should not hasten to reduce our CO2 emissions because the consequences of doing so are extreme and may not do anything to help climate change.

Many skeptics maintain this view despite the mountains of evidence that CO2 and climate are indeed linked and that humans are more than likely a major contributor to these effects. They say this despite their counter-arguments being disproved time after time. They say this despite the fact that the risks involved with climate change far exceed the sacrifices needed to change our behavior. They say this despite the fact that the planet is not something we ought to gamble with, regardless how right or wrong the science is.

Given that this debate is often as fruitful as debating a creationist on evolution, I propose a different tact in winning support for timely action on this issue: explain the looming problem of ocean acidification.

The problem:

CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans. In fact, about a third of the CO2 we have emitted is now contained in the world's vast oceans. Once absorbed, CO2 then undergoes a chemical reaction to create carbonic acid. It's now been proven that the ocean's acidity level has slowly but surely been increasing from the CO2 humans have emitted. This has enormous consequences for the marine food web. Aquatic ecosystems are sustained by small organisms like coral, diatoms and pteropods:

The survival of these organisms depends on their ability to create a protective carbonate shells. When the water's acidity increases, their shells simply dissolve and these organisms cannot survive.

Let me make one thing clear about this phenomenon: this acidification is occurring due to a very basic chemical reaction that is well understood and has been proven countless times in the laboratory. There is no uncertainty about the effects of CO2 on water's acidity. It is also well known that the affected organisms make up the base of the food chain in many ocean ecosystems. Thus if uncertainty in climate science creates a stumbling block when arguing skeptics, perhaps we can turn to an argument unrelated to climate -- an argument for which there is virtually no uncertainty that an unchecked rise in CO2 will have global consequences. If skeptics are unwilling to be convinced on the climate argument alone, perhaps they would be willing to recognize the economic, social, and political consequences of the collapse of global fisheries.

Source

Comments:

1). This confirms that the alarmists are feeling the heat badly. First, the woeful rebutall by Environmental Defense and Michael Oppenheimer to the Senate Report and now this. They know they are losing the scientific debate badly nowadays, so they are openly admitting that a change in tactics is required. Nothing like changing the rules of the debate when you find yourself being clobbered.

2). It remains that since 1850, the total of human emissions (even including those from land use changes) consists of about 500 billion metric tons of carbon. According to the models, about 45% of that has remained in the air, the rest going 50/50 to the oceans and land. So this means that approximately 138 billion metric tons of carbon have gone into the ocean. According to the models.

Now, the ocean's reservoir of carbon stands at around 40,000 billion metric tons, the vast majority of which is dissolved in the lower depths, where pressure and coldness promotes absorption of far more CO2. Warmer surface waters tend more easily to release it.



So here are two things to consider.

A). Assume that the preindustrial surface ocean contained 1030 minus 138, or 892 billion metric tons. Following that proportion, the present surface ocean would seemingly be 15% more rich in CO2. Given that the ocean is a complex buffer solution, resisting pH changes, can a 15% increase of CO2 actually bring about the 0.1 pH change that is claimed? This question goes to the heart of the issue. (By the way, a 0.1 pH change represents a 26% increase of hydrogen ions.)

B). If it turns out that a 15% increase cannot bring about such a change, yet the 0.1 pH change is true, then consider thermohaline currents. To me it seems very reasonable to suppose that a warming ocean would circulate heat to the lower depths and thus release some of the CO2 dissolved there. This would rise up into the surface waters and necessarily influence the pH. It is entirely possible, then, that to the extent pH changes ARE real, they originate not from the sky but from the ocean below.

Just as Gore and others have the CO2/Temperature relationship backwards, prevailing assumptions about ocean acidification may be backwards too.

3). The most recent posting at CO2Science.org on this suggests that the extra CO2 stimulates biological growth in the upper ocean, which in turn is known to increase pH. So, maybe there is a biological negative feedback that helps stabilize ocean pH values?

4). According to Anthoni, whom I've cited before:

The most important limiting factor in aquatic ecosystem is the dearth of hydrogen ions (H+), which has also been overlooked. The more acidic the water, the higher biological productivity becomes, and the denser the amount of life. In the sea this is borne out by the observed fact that highly productive upwelling areas are more acidic. In other words, acidic seas are a good thing.

Bottom line, this is a confusing topic. But it does seem safe to say that how organisms use the pH that's available to them is not to be found or predicted in chemical calculations alone. I think Marc is right on target, then, that the ocean acidification issue should not be given a free pass. My own observations lead me to suspect that the present model of CO2 distribution is flat wrong. For instance, if the preindustrial ocean had nearly the same carbon content as the present one, fine, let's grant it around 40,000 GtC. But then the preindustrial atmosphere weighed 590 GtC compared to our 815. The partial pressure exerted by that preindustrial atmosphere being much less, the ability of the ocean to hold onto CO2 would have to have been correspondingly less too - in which case its carbon content could NOT have been 40,000 GtC. In short, the preindustrial ocean should have been degassing CO2 in response to the relative vacuum above it.

But if on the other hand we say, no, the preindustrial ocean was colder, so it held onto CO2 better - then we admit that the present ocean, being warmer, should be discharging CO2. And this point ties into Lance Endersbee's analysis, which shows atmospheric CO2 rising as a function of ocean temperature. But where, anywhere within the IPCC model, does it attribute rising atmospheric CO2 levels to a warming ocean? Nowhere. In fact it makes the ocean a passive sink rather than an active source. As a sink, yes, it should be getting more acidic. But as a source - CO2 upwelling from warming reservoirs below - surface waters would ALSO become more acidic. That's my point.




People in Greenhouses Throwing Stones

We promised to provide a breakdown of the IPCC's WGI as we did for WGII and III. So here goes: As before, we've limited ourselves to those contributors based in the US or USA. That gives us 303 authors to work with out of a total of 618. That's nearly half the total - strange, for an institution which claims to represent scientists from all over the world.

It was very difficult to establish the discipline, background and level of expertise of scientists who work at the UK's Hadley Centre and Meteorological Office, and NOAA and NASA in the USA, as they tend not to have personal web pages. 31 of the UK contributors work at the Hadley Centre, 43 of the US contributors work at the NOAA. Where we have been unable to locate these people properly (nearly always), we've given them the benefit of the doubt, and included them in the same category as scientists in climatology, meteorology, and oceanography. There were 215 scientists in this category. So there is certainly a higher proportion of people who could reasonably be called climate scientists in WGI compared with II and III. But it's worth pointing out that this figure is also boosted by a whole bunch of people who work in climatology but who are modellers by training. That's not to knock modelling - well, maybe a bit - but it does raise questions about what a climate scientist actually is, when you get to call yourself one even if you've spent most of your career modelling traffic flows or whatever. We'll try to come up with some numbers for that at some point.

As for the other 88, 24 are atmospheric physicists, 27 are geophysicists or geologists. Arguably, these could also be lumped in with the so-called climate scientists. Ach, what the hell, let's call it 266 climate scientists out of 303. Of the rest, we have four statisticians, eight mathematicians/physicists, eight engineers, two biologists/ecologists, and one each from history of science, computer science, and a lonely economist. There were also solos from an NGO, an agronomist, and a lawyer (who curiously seemed to double up as an oceanographer). Which leaves another eight whose expertise we can't establish.

So, across WGI, II and III, we have a very generous 314 contributors among the 510 we sampled who can reasonably be described as scientific experts. Which scales up to 1539 out of the putative 2500. Some of our critics have argued that it was dishonest to look at WGII and III, and that the climate scientists are all in WGI. Of course WGII/III are not all climate scientists. This criticism misses the point that the IPCC is neither, as is frequently claimed, 2500 of the worlds best climate scientists, nor indeed climate scientists at all. This is precisely the misconception we have been challenging, following claims made by the likes of Andrew Dessler about the Inhofe 400 list. The composition of the IPCC, it turns out, is not so different.

Tony Gilland points out in his review of Bjorn Lomborg's 'Cool It', the IPCC expertise is spread across many chapters, with the result that most of the scientists involved will have read only a minimal proportion of any report. That's to say, a reviewer or contributing author to WGI on glacial recession has not made any statement about his or her agreement in WGIII on what is the best way to approach the problem of climate change from a policy or economic perspective - or even on chapters of WGI to which he or she did not contribute. So the idea that the IPCC represents a scientific consensus on climate change and what to do about it is a complete misconception of the functioning of the IPCC. At best, each chapter from each working group represents the work of just tens of authors, across a range of disciplines and levels of expertise. Yet activists, politicians, and journalists will claim that de facto policy recommendations from WGIII have the support of the consensus of 2500 climate scientists.

That 'the consensus' does not represent agreement among 2500 scientists might not be news to some people. But others are quite oblivious. We flagged up a few examples in our last post; here's some more...

More here




Ski areas nationwide rejoice over super snow conditions

Santa brought just what the nation's ski resorts wanted: the best nationwide snow conditions in several years. From New England to California, the snow piled up in the days and weeks before Christmas. Even Taos, N.M., in the Desert Southwest had a 60-inch base. "This is our best opening since 1977," said Adriana Blake, marketing director for Taos. The resort couldn't open for Thanksgiving but later got 68 inches in a week. "This is crazy. It never snows like this."

In November, with a few exceptions, some of the most popular resorts in the Rockies and California delayed their openings because of a lack of snow. Most only offered limited terrain because of an unusually balmy and dry fall that produced disastrous wildfires. Then the jet stream moved south, and the snow began to fall, and fall, and fall. Wolf Creek, Colo., which usually has the deepest base in the state, has suffered for the past two years. It debuted in late November with less than 10 inches. A week before Christmas, it had 115 inches. "It is spectacular. For the first time in recent history, the industry is up and operating across the country," said Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association.

Sugarbush was close to being 100 percent booked for Christmas, a record for the Vermont resort. Also in Vermont, Mad River Glen, which relies mostly on natural snow, reported 100 percent open. New England struggled last year. The Vermont Ski Areas Association said 59 percent of Vermont's 1,242 trails were open as of Dec. 10, compared with 14 percent at the same time last year. The snow has been good from the start at Whistler-Blackcomb, British Columbia, the busiest resort in North America. "The skiers take note of that. If one region suffers, the skiers take note of that and tend to generalize that there is no snow," said Connie Marshall, spokeswoman for Alta, Utah's legendary powder palace. Mammoth's 14-inch base had grown to 45 inches. Squaw Valley, near Lake Tahoe, went from 5 inches to 40 inches.

Source





ENERGY PANIC GRIPS BRITAIN

First the credit crunch, now the energy crunch. Just as household electricity bills go stratospheric the first coal-fired power station to be built in Britain for more than 30 years has been approved by Medway Council in Kent. The 1 billion pounds plant at Kingsnorth, near Ashford, will be coal-burning - and carbon-producing - so is hardly an example to India or coal-rich China on how not to overheat the planet. But it will be built if only for one reason - to keep the lights on in the south of England.

Kingsnorth is an example of how the government is caught between preaching green but acting black. The final say on whether the plant will go ahead rests with the government's business secretary, John Hutton. Faced with the prospect of the UK becoming over-reliant on foreign oil and gas and committed to cutting CO2 emissions, the feeling is that Hutton will approve Kingsnorth along with a generation of nuclear plants.

FULL STORY here

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