Recent blog discussions have starkly highlighted the different values and priorities for scientists, bloggers and (some parts) of the mainstream media.
For working scientists, the priority in any discussion about science should be accuracy. Methods, results, and interpretations must be clear, logically connected and replicable by others. For people who haven’t experienced a joint editing effort on a scientific paper, it might surprise them to see the strength with which seemingly minor word choices are argued over. This process is particularly stark in short format papers written for Science and Nature, (and increasingly for press releases), where every word is at a premium. For many scientists then, the first thing they look for in a colleagues more ‘popular’ offerings is whether the science is described clearly and correctly. Of course, this is often not the same as judging whether it succeeds in improving popular understanding.
Indeed, the quality of the science is almost always how a popular piece is judged by scientists, regardless of the final conclusion the author comes to. For instance, my review of Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers was very critical, because his conception of how the science worked was poor, regardless of the fact that his conclusions are aligned to my own in many respects. The furor over the Soon and Balinuas paper in 2003, was much less about their conclusions, than about the nonsensical manner in which they had arrived at them (combined with disgust at the way it was publicised and promoted). Our multiple criticisms of Henrik Svensmark have focused far more on the spin and illogic of his claims concerning the impact of cosmic rays on climate than it is on the viability of the basic mechanism (which remains to tested).
The underlying principle is that proposed by Daniel Moynihan, that people might be entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.
The media on the other hand is mostly fascinated by the strength of the narrative. The enduring ‘heretic’ meme – the plucky iconoclastic individual whose ideas are being repressed by the establishment – is never very far below the surface in almost all high-impact scientific profiles, for instance, Freeman Dyson’s NY Times magazine piece last year. To be sure this is a powerful archetype even in how scientists see themselves (shades of Galilean hero-worship), and so it is no surprise that scientists play up to this image on a regular basis. Craig Venter is someone who very successfully does this, possibly with some justification (though YMMV). However, this image is portrayed far more widely than it is valid. Svensmark, for instance, has gone out of his way to mention that he works in a basement on a shoestring budget, having to work weekends and holidays (the horror!) to pursue his ideas. For such people any criticism is seen as the establishment reaction to the (supposedly revolutionary) consequences of their ideas. This of course would be the case for true revolutionaries, but it is a very common attitude among the merely mistaken.
It is not difficult to see the attraction in being seen as the iconoclast outside the mainstream in a scientific field that has been so polticized. There is a ready audience of misfits and partisans happy to cheer any supposed defection from the ‘consensus’, and there are journalists and editors who, in their desire to have ‘balance’, relish voices that they can juxtapose against the mainstream without dealing with crackpots. Witness the short-lived excitement a couple of years ago of the so-called ‘non-skeptic heretics‘, such as Roger Pielke Jr., championed in the New York Times. In truth, there is very little that is ‘heretical’ in any of these voices. Only someone with no experience with the way science is actually done — try going to an AGU meeting for example — would think that scientists being upfront about uncertainty and following the data where it leads is any kind of radical notion. The self-declared heretics do get criticised a lot, but not generally because of the revolutionary nature of their ideas, but rather because they often indulge in sloppy thinking or are far too quick to allege misconduct against scientists (or the IPCC) without justification, perhaps in order to bolster their outsider status. That does not go down well, but to conflate ‘mainstream’ expressions of distaste with this sort of behavior with the belief that the actual ideas of ‘heretics’ (about policy or uncertainty) are in some way special or threatening, is to confuse the box with the cereal.
There are a couple of tell-tale signs of this ‘Potemkin heresy’ that mark it out as not quite kosher. First, for the heretic who has a coherent alternative to the orthodoxy, it is very unlikely that this alternative will be in line with the thoughts of all the other outsiders. True heresy is actually very lonely. If alternatively, the ‘heresy’ consists of thinking that every idea that pops up is worthy of serious consideration, they are simply throwing away the concept of science as a filter that can actually take us closer to reality. If every idea must now and forever, be considered anew whenever someone brings it up, no progress is possible at all. Science works because it can use observations from the real world to move on from unsupported or disproven ideas. All ideas are in principle challengeable, but in practice, unless there is new information, old issues get resolved and put aside. The seriousness of a new ‘heresy’ then, can be measured in how much shrift is given to the crackpots. As Sagan said, one should always keep an open mind, but not one that is so open that your brains drop out.
The second sign that all is not well is in how well the supposed heretic understands why they are being criticised. Usually this is stated up-front by the critics – for instance, I have criticised Judy Curry for not knowing enough about what she has chosen to talk about, for not thinking clearly about the claims she has made with respect to the IPCC, and for flinging serious accusations at other scientists without just cause. Similarly, we have criticised Roger Pielke Jr. for frequently misrepresenting scientists (including me) and falsely accusing them of plagiarism, theft and totalitarianism. That both interpret these critiques as a disguised attack on their values, policies or scientific ideas would be funny if they were not so earnest. (For reference, we are just not that subtle).
Unfortunately, the narrative of the heretic is self-reinforcing. Once a scientist starts to perceive criticism as an attack on their values/ideas rather than embracing it in order to improve (or abandon) an approach, it is far more likely that they will in fact escalate the personalisation of the debate, leading to still further criticism of their conduct, which will be interpreted as a further attack on their values etc. This generally leads to increasing frustration and marginalisation, combined quite often with increasing media attention, at least temporarily. It very rarely leads to any improvement in public understanding.
The fact remains that science is hugely open to new thinking and new approaches. Indeed, it thrives on novelty. New data from new platforms, new calculations enabled by the increases in computing power and new analyses of the ever-increasing amount of observed data, each have the continual potential to challenge previously held ideas – if that can be demonstrated logically and with evidence to back it up. A recent example of a potentially dramatic new finding was the Haigh et al paper on solar forcing. If true, it would turn almost all work on solar effects on climate on its head, and they had no obvious problem publishing in Nature. This idea of knowledge sitting on a knife edge ready to flip whenever some new observation or insight arrives, is the reason why science is so exciting and fascinating. That is the reason why science deserves to be the story, and why journalists should be continuously searching for the ‘front page’ thought that will allow this story to be told to a wide audience. But all too often the real story is neglected in favour of a familiar well-worn, but inappropriate, trope.
It is clear that scientists’ obsession with clear thinking over narrative handicaps our attempts to communicate the seriousness of the climate change challenge. But since the media will continue to favor compelling narratives over substance, that is the method by which this debate will be fought.
>Dan H.
>latest Argo measurements
Dan, again, cite a source please.
Where did you read the information you rely on for that?
Not here: http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/global_change_analysis.html
“The global Argo dataset is not yet long enough to observe global change signals. Seasonal and interannual variability dominate the present 6-year globally-averaged time series….”
The numbers for sea level come from looking at a large variety of source material. “Sea level is rising at an accelerating rate of 3 mm/year ….”
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/
So — what’s your source, Dan?
Nope, looked further, can’t find Dan’s source. Dan, where’d you get it?
I found: http://www.sciencedirect.com/cache/MiamiImageURL/B985C-4WXB58T-1-5/0?wchp=dGLzVtz-zSkWb
from
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1877343509000025
ccpo: Great post! Lots of great material for me to research. It is evident that you have given it a great deal of meaningful thought, and I appreciate it.
[edit–please try to keep it at least quasi-marginally, peripherally, tangentially, obliquely related to climate science. No political discourses. Thanks ]
Alex Katarsis,
I was in the Peace Corps in West Africa. And I’ve traveled in East Africa. Suffice to say that lack of access to modern fertilizers is not the main problem with agriculture there. Use of buffalo to plow the field was considered a radical strategy. Most of the agriculture is slash and burn–not because farmers don’t know any better, but because it is the most economical and effective way to control weeds and pests.
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of agriculture in Africa is the small size of the farms. In many cases you will have less than a quarter acre to support an entire family. Under such conditions the area must be farmed intensively to support the family, and depletion is a serious risk.
I had a friend who used to grow vegetables for the ex-pats (no interest in most veggies from the Africans, although African kids eat carrots like candy). He had to tend his crops and deliver his vegetables by bicycle over an area of about 100 square miles. He’d managed to more than quadruple production with the addition of a water pump to his operation. Prior to that, he’d had to irrigate everything by hand. He was prospering and ambitious, but probably working himself to death!
One reason why development has been slow is because it is a very difficult problem.
Dan H – This is after the decelleration in Greenland and Antarctic ice mass lost
If your intent is to demonstrate you have no idea what you are talking about, you are succeeding spectacularly.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/greenland.html
“Greenland climate in 2010 is marked by record-setting high air temperatures, ice loss by melting, and marine-terminating glacier area loss. Summer seasonal average (June-August) air temperatures around Greenland were 0.6 to 2.4°C above the 1971-2000 baseline and were highest in the west. A combination of a warm and dry 2009-2010 winter and the very warm summer resulted in the highest melt rate since at least 1958 and an area and duration of ice sheet melting that was above any previous year on record since at least 1978.”
Some poster was saying that people from Asia could be moved to Siberia.
The Chinese are already moving into Eastern Russia.They may outnumber Russians before too long, and the Russian government is nervous about that.
Russia is 60% permafrost. Much of Russia is a huge frozen bog, basically.
Some of the permafrost is thawing, which causes the land to become lakes. The thawing releases methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas, which accelerates global warming (postive feedback).
Even though propagandists for the the Russian petrostate try to discredit Western climate science in their English-language propaganda (Which Cuccinelli and other subversives cite in their complaints to the EPA), the thawing of the permafrost is something that the Russians could hardly fail to notice and that Russian scientists are paid to study in state universities.
One expert on the Russian permafrost is named Sergei Kirpotin, a Professor of Botany in Tomsk. He was the only Russian scientist who was quoted saying that Climategate was a provocation to wreck the Copenhagen meeting. This was quoted the Russian Greenpeace site, but not in one Russian paper. A lot of the media is owned by Gazprom.
Obviously, it is not a normal situation when all those scientists are quiet, and the media only trots out some 90-year old scientists to debunk global warming.
It’s not clear to me who the propagandists “belong to,” as the Russians say. Maybe Gazprom. Maybe the Kremlin. Maybe the ruling Russia United party. Maybe the state security.
Even the analytical side of the state security has hired outside experts to study the consequences of global warming, just as the Pentagon and CIA do.
Russian scientific orgaizations also note the fact of global warming.
The gas companies also have to know about the thawing permafrost because it will cause their infrastructure to sink. Still, they may feel that thawing will also have some benefits because gas may be easier to get to.
It’s funny that Cuccinelli quotes the IEA (Andrei Illarionov) in his brief to the EPA. Instead of the propaganda, he should have read what Russian scientists, Gazprom, and the state security say.
Even a Russian ship can go through the Arctic to China now, and the Russians are wanting to claim the Arctic for Russia.
These things are all happening because of global warming, but these Republican conspiracists don’t read anything but the most transparent petrostate propaganda.
Hank and Jim,
http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2009/2008GL036010.shtml
or
ftp://ftp.ifm.uni-hamburg.de/outgoing/scharffe/BACKUP/paper/2009_GRL_Leuliette.pdf
or
http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/home/files/Cazenave_et_al_GPC_2008.pdf
I have a lot of respect for real Russian scientists. Mostly, they try to be honest scientists.
I have a lot about Kirpotin on my site.
http://www.google.com/search?q=kirpotin+%22legend+of+pine+ridge%22&hl=en&rlz=1R2ADBR_en&ei=RuDbTISYLMXflgfxho3NCw&start=0&sa=N
Russian politicians have to really dig deeply into a barrel of rotten apples to get Russian scientists to say there is no global warming. Actually, they got mainly an economist, Andrei Illarionov, to make their propaganda. He worked for Chernomyrdin, the head of the Soviet Gas Ministry, and subsequently created Gazprom. Illarionov was also a Putin adviser.
Now Illarionov works at the Cato with some guy named Michaels and at his fake “think tank” the Institute for Economic Analysis.”
I think he makes Libertarian propaganda because he wants our federal government to be weak so they can’t protect us. I read that the father of the Koch brothers was associated with the John Birch society and that they actually wanted to disband the FBI and CIA.
Sounds like a plan…if you are a Russian propagandist for the gas industry.
Still, when the fires came, the Russian “leaders” needed NASA to help them spot the fires. They were too cheap to have a government with federal agencies that could protect their people. Even their nuclear facilities were threatened by the fires. They were penny wise and pound foolish, or, as the Russians say, “a miser pays twice.”
I find it incredible that Cuccinelli’s brief to the EPA and some of the earlier petitions to the EPA cite IEA (Illarionov) propaganda from RIA Novosti (Russia’s official press agency) as scientific evidence that Western scientists are fudging their science.
Perhaps this is because Cuccinelli’s dad is a gas lobbyist with “European” clients.
It’s kind of funny the denialists cited RIA Novosti because the party line changed on them briefly during the fires. RIA Novosti cited Medvedev confirming global warming. RIA Novosti was even quoting US scientific agencies, mainly NASA.
One article in RIA Novosti even blamed global warming on the “secret climate weapons” of American scientists.
I think this moron embarrassed the Kremlin while NASA was helping them, so they started writing informative information based on NASA.
Now Putin says they have to be “realistic.” Probably this means to shut up about global warming. Putin is the head of the ruling Russia United Party.
[edit – too far OT]
#307–Thanks for the references, Dan; looks like good information.
You do realize, though–don’t you?–that it applies to a specific 3-year period, and doesn’t necessarily imply that the longer-term trend has changed? In fact, the error bars on the value you cite comfortably encompass that longer-term number.
And AFAIK, no-one knowledgeable expects SLR to be linear over time; so there’s really little reason to think that SLR will be limited to 20 cm, as you suggested way back when.
Should have written “specific 4-year period.”
Sorry. . .
Dan H 267: Maybe we can move them all to Russia. The climate will become much more hospitable as temperatures rise, and there are vast stretches of land for them to farm. Granted, them may have to farm wheat instead of rice. Of course, if we stop dredging those areas along the coast and allowing more seawater to enter, then the amount of land lost to the sea would be small.
The Amercan Midwest should prosper as the growing season continues to lengthen and precipitation increases. This area will include Canada also. The American Southwest has already grown mcuh faster than the area can support, and they probably should move out. There is a reason that the population remained low for centuries, it is a desert.
BPL: The problem with that idea is that if we don’t control AGW, by the end of the century, everywhere will be a desert as well. Including Russia and the US midwest.
Dan H 276: Reports saying that the entire U.S. will dry up are humorous at best.
BPL: Listen, friend, I just sent a paper on this subject to Journal of Climate. You’re wrong. Most of the US will be desert by 2100 if we don’t reverse global warming. Want the numbers?
Thanks for this question on the narrative or story and how it relates to weak public understanding of AGW.
Stories are how most people relate to their world. It is stories that give their life meaning. In the classification schemes of Northrup Frye (“Anatomy of Criticism”, 1957) and James Hopewell (“Congregations – Stories and Structures”, 1987) as told by Gil Rendle and Alice Mann (“Holy Conversations”, 2003, pages 113-118), there are four basic narratives and associated religious perspectives.
The narrative polarities are portrayed on the compass. The first polarity is the familiar Comic (Gnostic) as East vs. Tragic (Canonic) as West. The second polarity is less well known: Romantic (Charismatic) as South vs. Ironic (Empiric) as north.
Only the empirical narrative (the cold North) is part of the scientific paradigm. This narrative, as the most common narrative on RealClimate, resonates most favorably with intellectuals [I confess I am one, and an economist as well].
The other narratives are already part of the AGW “story” in the press. The narrative of James Hansen is of the romantic hero surviving inside the evil bureaucracy headed by Cheney and G.W. Bush. The story of ClimateGate is largely one of tragedy and perhaps resurrection. Tragedy is also the coming story of the Republican “investigations” (witch-trials) of AGW scientists by U.S. House committees. Of the comic stories of transcendence and victory by the right-hearted, these stories are not much in evidence in the AGW arena; although the thumping and bumping of some climate deniers on this site does trend in that direction.
Adelady knows a little something about farming :) :
“What do you do when the precipitation you rely on comes in 2 or 3 devastating, soil and seed washing away downpours rather than the frequent but less damaging rainfall that actually helps crops.”
Dan H. once read a little bit about farming:
“Bob, you left out the frost/freeze aspect. The growing has increased due to earlier planting and later frosts.”
To add a little bit to adelady’s post, the western Canadian wheat failure experience this year ties the frost/rain Scylla/Caribdys together. The (probably El Nino-influenced) rains that bedeviled the Olympics persisted long enough to prevent 8-12 million acres of wheat ground from being planted this spring. It was too wet to even plant, let alone allow decent germination/seedling survival. So, goobers who think food begins and ends in their grocery store say ‘why couldn’t those lazy farmers just plant later, instead of holding out for a government handout?’ That’s where crop insurance and the average frost date comes into the picture. After a certain date, crop insurance coverage drops a large amount, maybe 50%, for a few days, then goes to zero for then-unplanted crops. Insurers do that because the odds that the immature crop will be destroyed by frost converge to an unsatisfactory point. Regardless of the financial risk, money doesn’t trump nature. A prematurely frozen wheat crop is no crop.
Now, add in the probability that Arctic climate change perturbs the weather enough to produce rogue early frosts, even in generally longer growing season conditions. Further add the possibility that AGW compresses grain production into the northern latitudes, and reduces production elsewhere, so that there isn’t adequate production elsewhere to offset localized losses. Consider further that the northern lats are cereal grain country; corn production on a mass scale is unworkable there now, and it’s a question whether the problems can be overcome even with warmer conditions there. Finally, add the real probability that warmer conditions widen/deepen the prevalence/threat of wheat crop-ruining rust (let alone insect issues), and you begin to get the picture. Losing 10 million acres of production, plus the climate/weather-related Russian losses this year, and other supply factors puts wheat at around $7/bushel now. Do that year over year, and it doesn’t take long for the world to run low. Running out might not be the question–running low enough/raising prices high enough to cause unrest on top of a climate-stressed world is enough.
If that’s not uncomfortable enough for you, consider the protein situation when (a) climate-limited corn production no longer can support sufficient confinement livestock production; (b) ocean acidification, ocean hyperthermia, and overfishing combine to drastically reduce marine protein production; and (c) climate-impaired soybean production is inadequate to fill the protein gap. Think that’d bring out the pitchfork-and-torches crowd, or the cruise missile crowd, as the case may be? The best comparison for the average no-idea-where-my-food-comes-from American might be the comparatively very short term disruption experienced during/after hurricanes. Expand that to a years-to-decades timeframe or to an annual event, and then check the Rolaids supply.
With sea level as with temperature, accounting exercises can help explain the observed rise, but the trends obtained this way don’t trump the actual observed trends.
How can they? We see this kind of model-abuse from deniers quite frequently, but I think this is the first time I have seen someone argue that the sea isn’t rising as fast as it is because the budget adds up to a different number!
Do you think Dan H. noticed that two of his links are to the same paper?
More evidence that he is simply confused and out of his depth. I really honestly have no clue what point he was actually trying to make and he has neither clarified it nor backed it up.
I wonder what his real (third hand, predigested) source was?
290, Didactylos: But then, he says insane things like “declines in total energy dissipation … since 2005″. Maybe reading the whole paper really wouldn’t help him.
The ” … ” displays omission of useful information. Is that your way of saying that you dismiss Maue’s data presentations out of hand?
What parts of my summaries of the paper’s findings are you disputing? Their models predicted declining cyclonic energy dissipations with global warming, and they explicitly wrote that their model results do not conform with the increase in energy dissipation through 2005.
304:
I’ve spent years overseas myself, living in poor areas of Asia. I understand that we’ve had bad luck with foreign aid to some of these areas – with corrupt governments diverting funds meant for good purposes, but these subsidies were being blocked because people claimed the fertilizers were dangers to the already famine stricken environments (as well as generators of GHGs). I think the conservative elements are right on this issue. We should support development of modern highways in Africa and subsidies for fertilizing well organized farmland. It is politically-correct to oppose highway development, because people are mistaken in the belief that the laying of asphault is the primary cause of deforestation. The truth is, land clearing for inefficient farming is the main cause. Those little family farms that clear land immediately between two forested areas and a river or stream is precisely what begins the deforestation process. If we do those two things now, we will improve access to health care in Africa, stimulate trading intercontinentally and increase the food output in famine stricken areas. Concerns over GHG’s should take a back seat. It seems we are dodging the nitrogen issue anyway. Making these danger zones more self-sufficient, will provide funding for infrastructure later (even in Bangladesh). The best part is, we can do it immediately.
[edit – debating made up stuff about DDT is best done on other blogs. It is very OT here]
I truly hope that some of you see why it could be argued that fighting carbon dioxide and nitrogen may actually be damaging, more immediately, to the poorer people of earth? In fact, it’s more than just an argument. Fighting against these actions to “save the earth” is demonstrably damaging in the short term.
Funny Didactylos,
I was being polite to those who might not have a subscription. Apparently you prefer rudeness based on your last post. Do you always blindly accept that which supports your own beliefs, but vehemently deny that which does not? Did you even notice that there is no significant different between the two values. Maybe with a little more research, you can clear up your confusion.
Barton,
The NCAR is one prediction for the future. Here is another which shows a significant increase in precipitaion for the U.S. by 2100. Both of these prediction lie within the uncertainty for 90 years in the future. I would not bet on either.
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/knowledgediscovery/WarGaming/
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/knowledgediscovery/WarGaming/
BPL (#313)
I thought the precipitation variation from the GCM weren’t clearly indicating more or less, just greater frequency of extremes. I understand increased area of desert, however I don’t understand how you saw with certainty that it’s going to cover most of the US. Can you explain how the argument supports that statement (or provide a link to your paper)?
#319–
I don’t think cumulative July precip is that useful a metric, I’m afraid. It ignores 90%+ of the year (obviously) and also the effect of temperature on drying–also important for drought conditions.
This one’s a “fail.”
A few comments on the farming thing. I’ve posted before about the water retention capacity of soils with good organic content. This is a key metric in keeping soils in place even in heavy downpours. A second key metric is keeping the ground covered. ALL farming/gardening land/plots should be heavily mulched. This is as simple as chopping and dropping the remains where they grew or returning them after processing. If you do the second you get the first and many heavy rains will simply add to your aquifer.
If water starts to run regardless of organic content, then you need to plan in earthworks to deal with this. Like the first two, this should be done, anyway. Any good land management/development project starts with water, soil, sun and wind. The earthworks manage water (energy) flows on your land and, except in very wet environments, should be keeping every drop that falls on your site on your site. Overflow is always accounted for and planned in.
You’ll note the first comments take care of sun, too, by keeping the soil/humus covered up preventing drying, which also takes care of wind blowing away your soil.
3 and 4+ standard deviation events occur. There’s nothing we can do about that other than attempt to stabilize the Greenhouse effect and hope that gives us a climate that stays within the range we grew up in. But, the very, very simple steps above take us very far into sustainable, efficient and resilient food systems.
Oh, and your weed problem is essentially non-existent with all that ground covered up thus are very easy to keep up with.
As for bugs, much is dealt with via compost teas, organic sprays as simple as garlic and pepper, the mulching, co-planting to attract beneficial, and repel unwanted, insects, animals (ducks and chickens, e.g.,), hand removal and simply acknowledging bugs are people too and if your system is well-balanced will not overwhelm your system, so simply account in 10% losses for bugs and fauna.
The negatives of chem fertilizers and insecticides are just too obvious to even bother addressing, but here’s a simple list:
destroy soil
poison food chain, people, environment
expensive
create dependencies
create super bugs and weeds
allow and promote massive monocultures
allow and promote dissociation from natural systems
Funny thing about saving the planet? Could not be simpler.
Dan, I’m aware of the uncertainties — click on the “cited by” links for the papers you came up with, and you’ll find more recent papers too, e.g.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/4110w74742p79v0x/
What you posted earlier is not in the papers you cited.
I’m curious where you got the specific claim about ARGO you first posted — that ARGO is the most up to date source. Memory play you wrong? No worries, that happens. But if you got it from some other blog or source — where? And why do you consider it reliable?
Watch out for one easy pitfall — posting a claim then going to look for support afterwards. That’s a debate tactic. But it’s not a research approach in science — it’s called “retrospective citation” nowadays because it’s so easy to do. But it only gets you what you want, not what you need.
A few comments on the farming thing:
I’ve posted before about the water retention capacity of soils with good organic content. This is a key metric in keeping soils in place even in heavy downpours. A second key metric is keeping the ground covered. ALL farming/gardening land/plots should be heavily mulched. This is as simple as chopping and dropping the remains where they grew or returning them after processing. If you do the second you get the first and many heavy rains will simply add to your aquifer.
If water starts to run regardless of organic content, then you need to plan in earthworks to deal with this. Like the first two, this should be done, anyway. Any good land management/development project starts with water, soil, sun and wind. The earthworks manage water (energy) flows on your land and, except in very wet environments, should be keeping every drop that falls on your site on your site. Overflow is always accounted for and planned in.
You’ll note the first comments take care of sun, too, by keeping the soil/humus covered up preventing drying, which also takes care of wind blowing away your soil.
3 and 4+ standard deviation events occur. There’s nothing we can do about that other than attempt to stabilize the Greenhouse effect and hope that gives us a climate that stays within the range we grew up in. But, the very, very simple steps above take us very far into sustainable, efficient and resilient food systems.
Oh, and your weed problem is essentially non-existent with all that ground covered up thus are very easy to keep up with.
As for bugs, much is dealt with via compost teas, organic sprays as simple as garlic and pepper, the mulching, co-planting to attract beneficial, and repel unwanted, insects, animals (ducks and chickens, e.g.,), hand removal and simply acknowledging bugs are people too and if your system is well-balanced will not overwhelm your system, so simply account in 10% losses for bugs and fauna.
We used co-planting, mulching and compost teas and had no problem until we simply stopped paying any attention to our garden. We did not till, used no chem fertilizers or insecticides, used lasagna beds (sheet mulching). We had the best-tasting tomatoes I’ve ever eaten and some read and white potatoes up to 1lb., 3 lbs. per plant, e.g.
The negatives of chem fertilizers and insecticides are just too obvious to even bother addressing, but here’s a simple list:
destroy soil
poison food chain, people, environment
expensive
create dependencies
create super bugs and weeds
allow and promote massive monocultures
allow and promote dissociation from natural systems
allows communities to be dissected into constituent pieces, reducing health, wellness, resilience, community
Etc.
Funny thing about saving the planet? Could not be simpler.
I wrote some things about the importance of the narrative in conveying the science:
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/what-we-know-is-most-important/
Alex Katarsis says, ” Concerns over GHG’s should take a back seat.”
Actually, no. Climate change is already affecting African agriculture adversely, and if we ignore it, then all of our investments and good intentions will come to naught.
Ultimately, all the problems we are talking about fall under the heading of sustainability. We cannot ignore climate change to concentrate on development when both must be considered to achieve sustainability.
Now perhaps you are sincere in your concern for the poor. However, if that is true, then you need to realize that the burdens of climate change will fall heaviest upon them. I’m sorry. Saying “It won’t be that bad” is denial, and it is shortsighted.
For Dan:
It’s worth finding the actual paper at its origin, not second-hand descriptions of it.
Cazenave for example — Lots of people have posted the same link you did, on, well, the kinds of blogs you’d expect people who know what they want.
But if you instead look it up yourself, you can give people the link to the original without having to say where you first read it, if you don’t want to — and you and others can then read the papers citing it:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=6500194676456641230&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=2001&hl=en
Those will rather add to your understanding, if you read some of them.
P.S, also for Dan — did you look at that link I gave you already?
Then you noticed this update by Cazenave:
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-marine-120308-081105?journalCode=marine
Surprised? Don’t just read that one though.
Posting real primary sources, or at least being willing to say where you get your information, is going to be helpful to everyone.
This isn’t debate.
Dan H at 319: did you read the tutorial associated with those maps?
Mean Summer Precipitation: The average summer (July) rainfall appears higher in most
of the Eastern US (other than Florida and southern Georgia) as well as in the Midwest,
parts of central US and parts of New Mexico and Texas. In the Western US, there is
significant reduction in summer rainfall. Roughly speaking, the rainfall shows an
increasing trend for July in areas which get more rainfall compared to other parts of the
US, and a decreasing trend in areas which get less rainfall in July. This may exacerbate
existing problems related to both floods and droughts (or water scarcity), although more
detailed study on extremes must be performed before any conclusive assessments.
Annual Stream flow: Significant reduction in annual average stream flows is projected
for all rivers by 2100. The most notable are the major rivers, namely, Columbia,
Colorado, St. Louis and Mississippi. This suggests a major stress on the water resources.
Mean Summer Wetness: The eastern USA will experience more significant changes in
summertime (P–E) than the western USA. The tip of the Florida peninsula exhibits the
greatest likelihood of drying (up to 7 cm reduction in July P–E), which will likely
increase the strain on already overdrawn fresh groundwater supplies. West of the Rocky
Mountains, minimal decreases in P–E of about 1 cm will occur. There will be some
slight increases in wetness of about 1 cm along the eastern portion of the Rockies
extending down into central Texas. A roughly triangular area of increased wetness of up
to 2 cm can be seen stretching from Tulsa, OK in the west to Sault Saint Marie, MI in the
north to Virginia Beach, VA in the east. Within this moisture triangle, particular wetness
increases of 2-3 cm in net P–E are projected over the Mississippi River area north oMemphis, TN and over the center of North Carolina. The north-south trending portion of
the wetness triangle appears to reflect the presence of the Appalachians. The east-west
portion of the wetness triangle may result from frontal precipitation patterns in the region.
The heavily populated northeast (New Jersey and portions of New York), will experience
decreases in P–E of up to 2 cm/month.
Dan H. @319 — The ORNL authors specifically state that the r3esults presented are exemplary rather than definitive. Dr. Dai’s recent paper is a survey in which he writes “This is very alarming because if the drying is anything resembling Figure 11, a very large population will be severely affected in the coming decades over the whole United States, southern Europe, Southeast Asia, Brazil, Chile, Australia, and most of Africa.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.81/full
Dan H.: Maybe I am wrong about you. Maybe you understand everything but simply have a communication problem.
I doubt it, though. You make too many fundamental errors for that to be the case. Which makes your personal attack an example of the rudeness you pretend to be offended by.
It is clear that you failed to understand my post, which doesn’t surprise me since the thrust of my post was your failure to understand anything. Congratulations, Dan. You met expectations.
“Septic” Matthew. Please don’t be obtuse. My complaint about your “since 2005” comment is simple. You know that such a short period is meaningless. It means nothing, yet you trumpeted it as vindication of your lazy ideas.
As for the body of your argument, you seem to be misinterpreting the section that discusses the disparity between observed and modelled power dissipation, while blithely ignoring sections such as
Your interpretation of this and the related text was “the apparent warming of 1980-2005 … must be due to something other than global warming, unless the models are wrong.” This is so clearly not what it says that I really, really weep for your reading comprehension skills.
Nobody expects models to be perfect, particularly in a field such as this where data is so sparse and unreliable. You are just using it as an excuse to bash models, without paying any attention to the paper’s actual results.
Dr. John Abraham has an op-ed in the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/nov/08/climate-science-bad-information
I have from time to time felt like a broken record for saying that the accumulation of heat due to excess CO2 will probably not significantly cause the atmospheric temperature to increase because the heat will be taken up in the oceans. I say it again based on Argo data I just ran into:
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Research_use.html
I have also tried to explain that there is no such thing as a mixed layer that permanently, or long term even, traps heat based on:
Physics of Sound in the Sea, National Defense Research Council 1946 (reprinted as NAVMAT P-9675) (Last time I was away and could not completely cite, but I have it in hand at this moment)
But it is not necessary to read Physics of Sound — when we have the Argo data above cited.
Clearly, the phenomenon known as a mixed layer occurs about once a year and in this area shown here goes very deep. It does not seem to ever get colder than the coldest part of the ocean, and in fact the minimum surface temperature seems to be set by deep water temperatures. This seems to suggest that there is vertical mixing of significance involved in forming of this mixed layer.
But most importantly, this Argo data seems to bear out that the deep ocean is indeed taking on a great deal of heat. This certainly supports the radiative imbalance theory, but it should tell us that the supposed atmospheric warming of the climate will not be that significant, since the deep oceans appears both large enough as a reservoir for heat and the mechanism of heat getting there seems to be strongly functional.
This is actually worse because the globe will be warming and nobody will notice; except over the long term the sea level will rise. That will be slow so not much will be done about it for some time.
I realize this is all based on a history in only one spot, and it is in a place where great ocean systems interact, but being a picture that goes very deep and shows such strong trends over the last decade, I would look for it to be somewhat similar elsewhere.
As near as I can tell, the vertical mixing in the ocean has not been well handled in the climate models.
Here is another quote from the aforementioned Kerry et al:
It is noteworthy that simulated global tropical
cyclone power dissipation increases by more
than 60% in simulations driven by NCAR–NCEP
reanalysis over the period of 1980–2006, consistent
with deductions from best-track data, while global
power dissipation increases somewhat more than
that over the next 200 yr in simulations driven by
climate models undergoing global warming. This
suggests either that the greater part of the large
global increase in power dissipation over the past
27 yr cannot be ascribed to global warming, or that
there is some systematic deficiency in our technique
or in global models that leads to the underprediction
of the response of tropical cyclones to global
warming.
The paper also notes inconsistencies in the model predictions.
And now that the record is longer, we know that there has been no net increase in ACE over the past 31 years. Emanuel et al just happened to be written at the end of a transient increase.
290, Didactylos is right about one thing: in the last few months, I have become more skeptical.
Let Emanuel et al have the last word: A new technique for deriving hurricane climatologies from global data, applied to climate models, indicates that global warming should reduce the global frequency of hurricanes, though their intensity may increase in some locations. Right or wrong, that’s their summary of their work.
313 BPL: Keep up the good work. Hoping to read your paper soon.
315 ghost: Thanks. Exactly. And combine that with BPL’s paper. Mitigate NOW!
Jim@333, you can’t be serious! Where were you during 1998?
When the deep Pacific gets its chance to release absorbed, accumulated heat during an El Nino, those of us stuck between the Pacific and Indian Oceans fail to understand the term ‘warming’ – the correct Australian expression is bl**dy hot. And dry, and dangerous.
I am not in the least reassured by heating oceans, dying corals, disappearing fish.
Dan H 319: The NCAR is one prediction for the future. Here is another which shows a significant increase in precipitaion for the U.S. by 2100. Both of these prediction lie within the uncertainty for 90 years in the future. I would not bet on either.
BPL: I’d bet on both. More precipitation and more deserts are entirely compatible if the precipitation is concentrated more on the coasts and less on the interior.
Sambo: My paper hasn’t been published yet. I took the Dai et al. drought database and derived a global time series, F, of the fraction of Earth’s land surface in severe drought or worse (“severe” = PDSI <= -3.0). That fraction was 6% in 1870, 12% in 1970, and 21% in 2005, after peaking briefly at 31% in 2003–it's a very variable series. I used statistical analysis to tie F to past F, temperature anomaly, the *square* of temperature anomaly, and the SOI index. With 72% of variance accounted for 1870-2005, I used the IPCC AR2 "business as usual" scenario and a Monte Carlo numerical simulation of the ENSO cycle to show that F always hits 70% by 2050-2055, with a mean of 2052 sd 0.6. I ran the simulation 10,000 times to get a good sample.
Drought is increasing in continental interiors, as predicted long ago by the GCMs. Dai et al. have just published a paper coming to the same conclusion I got by a different route (they used a GCM, I used statistics). Drought is a more immediate problem than sea-level rise or other bad side-effects of AGW. And it will very definitely bring down human civilization in this century unless we act very, very soon.
[edit – OT]
#333–
Jim, I’m skeptical of your contention. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I do know that the critical role of the ocean in responding to radiative forcing has been well-known for a long time. (As has its role in sinking CO2.)
Coincidentally, I just posted a question on Open Mind about a graph showing Ocean Heat Content–essentially, I have trouble imagining any physical basis for the variability it showed. (Conservation of energy, and all that.) So it’s not a closed question in my mind, but I’m positive that there’s been *lots* of folks looking at this stuff. (And as positive that I know very little about it!)
Maybe this is a good topic for a future RC essay?
I did find this note by Dr. Trenberth:
http://acacia.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/NatureNV10.pdf
“It is clear that scientists’ obsession with clear thinking over narrative handicaps our attempts to communicate the seriousness of the climate change challenge. But since the media will continue to favor compelling narratives over substance, that is the method by which this debate will be fought.”
On December 29, 1972, an Eastern Airlines Lockheed L-1011 which had taken off from JFK was in the landing pattern for Miami when the warning light that indicated if the nose gear was down and locked failed to illuminate. The pilot and co-pilot began a series of procedures intended to determine the nature of the malfunction – whether the gear was down and locked, whether the indicator light had burned out, etc. In the process of focusing on this issue they failed to realize they had inadvertently disengaged the autopilot and, as they obsessed over the indicator light, they flew the plane into the ground and 101 people died.
On August 6, 2001, a Presidential Daily Brief titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” that had been prepared by the best intelligence wonks in the US failed to capture the attention of the country’s top political and national security leaders. Thirty six days later, over 3,000 people died in an event that subsequently precipitated two wars, added trillions to our financial burdens, and has cost tens of thousands of additional lives – most of them innocent bystanders.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery. Stop obsessing – or, at the very least, redirect your fixation toward winning the larger argument – eliminating fossil fuels as sources of energy.
UnReal2r @ 340
“failed to capture the attention of the country’s top political and national security leaders”
Communication is a two part problem. There are limits when people just won’t listen or are perhaps too incompetent to comprehend for whatever reason.
Coming up:
Abby Zimet
How fossil fuels are dealt with is a very thorny policy issue. Climate scientists can inform the process, but by and large, they aren’t in a position to actually fly the plane, so to speak.
However, if you have a good way to get through to the lunkheads, now might be a good time to speak up.
UnReal2r … with all due respect, your comment is utterly incoherent. Do you have a point?
Jim@333 – I’m sorry, I’m not understanding how the deep ocean warming keeps the atmosphere from warming, if you’re increasing the heat of the whole system? If I were to take a closed flask and somehow manage to layer warm water on top of cold water, with air layered on top of that, and then warm up the air layer, the cold water at the bottom would eventually get warmer, yes. It slows down the warming of the air, but it doesn’t stop it – the whole flask just gets warmer, all the layers. That’s a simplistic model, I know, but it seems like the principle is the same.
Jim Bullis says, “I have from time to time felt like a broken record for saying that the accumulation of heat due to excess CO2 will probably not significantly cause the atmospheric temperature to increase because the heat will be taken up in the oceans.”
And we will continue to correct your misunderstandings of the greenhouse effect. There are only two relevant places where the energy can go. It can escape to the inky blackness of space, or it stays in the climate system. Period.
If more energy goes into the deep oceans, that merely means it takes longer to reach equilibrium–because it is the temperature rise that provides the main negative feedback to the energy captured by greenhouse gasses. We don’t reach equilibrium until energy_out equals energy_in, and energy_out is determined by the temperature at the radiating surface.
Even if you were correct (and you aren’t), all it would mean is that it takes longer to reach equilibrium and longer to recover. Of course it would also have some pretty serious implications for the paleoclimate that haven’t been observed. Maybe you want to think this through again?
Barton,
Where do you get data that drought is inreasing? Most of what I have seen have shown decreasing drought in the recent decades. The worst droughts were the U.S. dust bowl in the 30s, the African Sahel in the 70s & 80s, and China in the 60s. These also pale in comparison to some of the mega-droughts of previous centuries.
The whole discussion of hurricanes is horribly tedious. The uncertainties are so large that it gives huge scope to people like “Septic” or Judith Curry to bloviate almost indefinitely.
Anyone seeking solace in our ignorance deserves some kind of ostrich award.
The efforts of those people seeking to increase our understanding, our power of explanation and our predictive ability should be applauded, and the results should not be prematurely judged.
It could turn out that in a warming world, hurricanes will stop completely*, but that won’t change the problem that faces us, with increasing drought, rising seas, and climbing temperatures threatening civilisation. There is an equal chance that current science severely underestimates the increase in hurricane frequency and intensity, and that doesn’t bear thinking of.
* Not a chance in hell.
Jim, nobody claims a “mixed layer” somehow segregates heat permanently.
You write
> there is no such thing as a mixed layer that permanently, or long
> term even, traps heat…
Is that the definition from your 1940s source? That may be the source of your confusion.
The climate papers don’t claim the surface water permanently or longterm traps heat separately. You’re looking at up and down mixing; they’re looking at sideways mixing– thermohaline circulation.
Surface currents move poleward; deep ocean currents move toward the equator.
Thermohaline circulation. It’s the same water, it moves sideways more than up and down. It takes years for heat to move through the system.
> Clearly, the phenomenon known as a mixed layer occurs …
> … there is vertical mixing of significance involved …
> the deep ocean is indeed taking on a great deal of heat.
When the atmosphere warms, so does the upper ocean
Visit to the comment section of Dr. Abraham’s Guardian OpEd is depressing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/nov/08/climate-science-bad-information
Ignorance and citation of the plethora of denialist canons dominates by a considerable degree. And I thought DotEarth was bad. Shows how a small number of dedicated (and in many cases well paid, though it does not do to presume that all the also-rans are also in the toils – most are just deluded and/or ill-informed) advocates can bias public perception.
I don’t think most people are interested in knowledge. They get all the prepackaged information they need from the media, and they no longer have to listen to anything they don’t want to hear, and this is starting younger with all the social media and reality TV providing fake models for fake skeptics to grow up with. Time to stop being avatars and be real people, but what a hope!
For blackish humor and a novel approach to communication, I strongly recommend this, which I’ve been following for years. The text accompanying the visual commentary is also full of excellent links.
http://www.marcrobertscartoons.com/index.php?globalid=2077
(I’ve referenced the most recent because it is so on topic but there’s a whole lot more – almost all significantly on point – if you arrow through previous images. I met the guy recently – pleasant, unassuming – and he has a day job which indicates he’s not making his fortune and can use a wider audience for this funny clever stuff.
343 Ray Ladbury
There are three places for energy to go: the inky space, the atmosphere, and the oceans. You must have missed the discussion some time ago about the large capacity of the oceans to take up heat. The issue seemed to be how fast could the heat get mixed into the ocean. Equilibrium involves flow in three directions. I was trounced by the consensus that seemed to believe that something like a hundred or more years would be necessary for meaningful heat uptake by the world oceans, such that it would matter much. Popularized portrayals of the process seemed to often ignore the heat flow into the oceans, as you would seem to agree.
The Labrador Sea data show that a lot of heat did get into the deep ocean at that site over a period of less than a decade. The particular chart from Argo data, referenced in my #333, shows much heat increase in deep water and also gives a lot of insight into how the convection process would cause vertical mixing of the sort that I postulate.
The Argo data shows how vertical mixing by convection is a powerful process that occurs on an annual basis when heat is removed from near surface water, thus establishing a condition where the colder, heavier water is above the warmer, lighter water; thus unlocking the convection process. This convection process establishes a mixed layer that goes very deep. (This should not be confused with a shallow, day long cycle that can not be seen in this particular data.)
It is not clear how this relates as a feedback process, since the greatest mixing occurs when heat is being removed from the surface water, thus it would seem that warmer air would cause reduction in mixing rate. A simple story would say that the deep water should hold its cool water better as air became warmer, but the fact that the deeper water got noticeably warmer on a steady basis means it will be necessary to look further into the process.
However, if climate effects due to general warming included greater swings of atmospheric temperature, as I think some have said, then the colder winter events would cause greater rate of convection mixing which would serve to move heat downward. Under this more complicated story, the greater instability in atmospheric temperature would be the cause more upflow of cold water whereby warm water could be drawn downward, although the up and down flow of water would have to be on a larger regional basis. If this were the case, a negative feedback process would be in existence, whereby the overall climate temperature would be moderated and the local instability would also be reduced.
For this specific Labrador Sea location, it looks like there is a vertical mixing, pump-like process for cold water to be moved upward by the convection on an annual basis. I look for more on the thermo-haline circulation as related to this process, since the supposed regional picture may be far too simplistic.