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.
UnReal2r @ 340
Radge Havers @ 341
To continue the theme, what are we (scientists and interested parties) to do when the plane (=science and policy of climate change) is in the process of being hijacked by anti-science fundamentalists bent on our destruction?
#336 adelady,
Sorry for the climate instability. But I seem to remember there was a post by the knowledgeable folks here that explained that El Nino etc. had nothing to do with global warming.
We in the USA had a dust bowl in the 1920s that was thoroughly cussed out also.
#343 Ray Ladbury
“all it would mean is that it takes longer to reach equilibrium and longer to recover”. And might we here be talking about decades, centuries or millenia?
sigh: intelligent commentary needed for DotEarth Lomborg puff (well, Andy as usual is on the fence and not altogether “wrong” but the headline makes it promotion in my book).
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/cool-climate-film-takes-on-truth/
#301 Hank Roberts,
The Argo reference in my #333 came up by following your link. Thanks.
I am surprised we have not heard more about Argo data analysis. Though I am not in the right circles.
re mine of 2:44 PM
Correction to:—–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 ————
That should have been:——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 not matter much—–
Aside — anyone have a guess how big climate blogging would be on this map?
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/online_communities_2_large.png
Jim Bullis (current #333) said:
> I have from time to time felt like a broken record
Trust your feelings. – Obi-Wan Kenobi
> for saying that the accumulation of heat due to excess CO2 will probably
> not significantly cause the atmospheric temperature to increase
Please define “significantly”.
> heat will be taken up in the oceans.
What else is new? Anything you’d care to quantify?
> I say it again based on Argo data I just ran into
What exactly in this Argo data do you believe supports your claim?
> Clearly, the phenomenon known as a mixed layer occurs about once a
> year and in this area shown here goes very deep. (…)
Just checking: are we looking at the same picture? The one of the Labrador sea in the 2000s?
Barton,
I would be curious as to how you have determined that droughts are increasing. What I have read so far indicates that droughts have been less prevalent in recent decades, and much less than those of previous centuries.
“What I have read so far indicates that droughts have been less prevalent in recent decades”
Really, Dan H? Then why not just tell us where you read this, so we can set you straight? Unless you just made it up.
Forgive us for not believing you, but you have a really bad track record when it comes to saying things that are verifiable.
Susan Anderson wrote “Visit to the comment section of Dr. Abraham’s Guardian OpEd is depressing. Ignorance and citation of the plethora of denialist canons dominates by a considerable degree.”
Susan, I wouldn’t judge opinion by the comments section, often dominated by the worst fanatics looking for an argument. For example, after a Democrat won the local election here, the comments were dominated by mean-spirited partisans on the other side. (“How can people be so dumb…” etc.) If you were to judge by the comments, you would think our city was heavily Republican; the election said much differently.
That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of ignorance out there. Just don’t take comments too seriously.
(A notable exception being the comments section here, moderated to avoid the stupid and ugly.)
Mike Palin @ 351
That’s the question. Unfortunately, where the analogy breaks down, there doesn’t seem to be a hatch you can open to just pitch the crazies out.
You could argue that the denial is so intense precisely because the denialist lunkheads are afraid that the science warning about AGW is compelling. In which case, keep up the good fight!
One of the reasons this particular article is to the point is that it addresses what may be the most pernicious of the denialist devices, the phony expert. Most of the other tactics are pretty transparent if you think about them in a moment of dispassion. But fake experts really catapult the FUD. And they’re hard to take down as they are embedded in our cultural mythology and enabled by our disfunctional, so-called watch dog press.
Jim Bullis@350, think about it. How does the system return to equilibrium?
It has to radiate more IR, right? How is it going to radiate more? The radiating surface has to heat up.
If more heat goes in the oceans, it just takes longer to reach equilibrium–and it takes longer once the CO2 goes away to dissipate all that heat from the deep oceans.
The energy is either in the climate, or it’s not (i.e. it’s in space).
In any case, we know from the paleoclimate that the planet has warmed in the past and cooled in the past. This suggests you are wrong.
#358 CM
I don’t know what you are looking at, but the link I offered took us to the Labrador sea data for the 2000s.
My #350 might have provided more detail, though if there is nothing interesting for you in what I am saying here, that would not be useful for you to read.
I guess you are agreeing that heat will be taken up by the oceans so that the atmospheric temperature will not increase significantly, and you are saying that this is old stuff.
Let’s just define ‘significantly’ as something noticeably less than the consensus models would predict when not accounting for deep vertical mixing in the oceans. But you seem to have already formed a definition of ‘significantly’ since you already conclude it is nothing new.
On the other hand, maybe we should just try to have a conversation.
Dan H @ 345 & 359 – Pay attention, try investigating desertification a bit, you’re obviously thinking dry periods come and go.
Ray: how can you keep supporting ideas like:
a) Conservation of energy
b) Quantum mechanics, i.e., including absorption/emission spectra of GHGs.
Since AGW depends on those, and some people know that wrong, they often say so, using semiconductor-based computers and fibre-optic-based Internet, all powered by various energy conversions to electricity.
There might be a slight incongruity :-)
Mike Palin @ 351
I feel your pain. But I also think much of it is self-inflicted.
On one hand, the community of scientists seems to think its job is to report the latest findings, uncertainties and all, and allow nature to take its course among the firmament of media, politicians, and “lunkheads”.
On another, the community of concerned and putatively enlightened citizens believes the world is just one chorus of Kumbaya away from a cosmic epiphany.
I think Gavin alluded to the problem – perhaps somewhat defensively or apologetically – by describing disconnects between scientific thinking and the narrative milieu. But his observations may lead to yet another cul de sac if proves to be just more form-over-substance bickering.
AGW cognoscenti have been telling the world – for decades now – that an important idiot light is blinking red. They’ve also spent a lot of time telling us how fast it is blinking, what shade of red it seems to be, where it falls in the constellation of idiot lights on the dashboard, what might happen if we don’t find and fix the cause of the blinking, and so on.
That’s all interesting and important and thanks very much. But it’s also indicative of cognitive tunneling – or something like it. Gavin called it obsession. Insightful, perhaps, and also indicative of something being fundamentally – and I think dangerously – wrong.
363 Ray Ladbury
Thanks for helping to clarify.
The incoming radiation would cause the climate temperature at the earth surface to rise until outgoing radiation matched the incoming, unless there was some heat flow away from the earth surface in the downward direction. In this case, the total of heat flow outward would add to the heat flow downward and the temperature would rise until this sum came to zero.
Heat goes beneath the ocean surface rather directly and as heat transfer from air to water. One could include the shallow ocean depths as part of the atmosphere and then your expectation would come to pass. However, if convection is significant, the heat will be transferred downward from the near surface regions.
There are dynamic factors in all this, where convection downward would seem likely to lag the heat accumulation in the atmosphere.
We do not have a lot of knowledge about the deep ocean temperatures or the thermo-haline circulation in the paleoclimate; well not that I have heard about anyway.
No, the energy is not ‘either in the climate or space’. It is also in the ocean, and the deep ocean has a lot of cold water to soak up spilled heat.
Jim, ocean heat content:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/La_Nina_cant_erase_warming.html
Hank,
I would guess that it is about the size of Tuvalu.
Drought not increasing, Jim. Have a look at this map for annual total rainfall trends in Australia for 1971-2009.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/trendmaps.cgi?map=rain&area=aus&season=0112&period=1970 The really disturbing patch is the deep brown over Victoria shading up through the middle of NSW – a pretty good match to our major food-producing Murray river system.
Then look to the box on the upper right where you can choose to show the same map for the whole period 1900-2009. Before you choose that option and click to see the result, remember this. The data for that map _includes_ the 39 years displayed in the first map.
Didactylos,
DO you think Barton made his statements up, or are they okay because you happen to agree with him. Can you say double standard.
This post complains that journalists are shallow and “favor compelling narratives over substance” and even concedes that compelling narratives trump substance; but it seems to me that the substance is not really about the science, and you don’t have a compelling narrative, either.
You scientists seem to think this is about science, but sometimes you remind me of a nun who pulls out her rosary instead of a cell phone while she is being assaulted in an alley.
The other guys are winning, and you may notice they are not really talking about science.
When researchers tell scientists about the elephant in the room, the scientists don’t seem to even consider what they are being told. Maybe this is because of their political biases, but I don’t know.
Politicians are betraying the people for money, and I think that a lot of that money is coming from the lucrative collaboration of Western energy companies with government-controlled Russian energy companies.
This is nothing new. As Lenin rightly observed, the capitalists donate the rope.
It’s not like the Russians haven’t noticed global warming and aren’t researching it, in spite of what Cuccinelli’s and Inhofe’s so-called Russian “experts” say.
Who is the big global warming “expert” of the politicians and the Cato Institute? Who does the Russian business daily Kommersant and the official press agency RIA Novosti quote about global warming when the EPA comes out with its finding about CO2?
They cite an ECONOMIST, Andrei Illarionov, who was Putin’s adviser and who worked for Chernomyrdin, who ran the Soviet Gas Ministry and set up Gazprom.
Has any scientists written that in an op-ed?
Cuccinelli is attacking Dr. Mann and climate science. Has any scientist written an op-ed that observes that Cuccinelli’s dad is a career gas lobbyist who gives to his son’s campaign? Has any scientist written an op-ed that asks who the dad’s “European” clients are?
Since he won’t tell, we are entitled to our speculation.
I have not seen one newspaper ask if the fact that Cuccinelli’s dad is a gas lobbyist might have something to do with his son’s persecution of climate scientists. It’s really kind of creepy that nobody even asks the question.
You famous scientists won’t even ask your persecutors about this, even though they call you greedy liars.
These denialists hypocritically accuse government scientists of blogging during working hours.
That is such a joke. The denialists are blogging on the government’s dime, too. It’s just not OUR government.
Dan H 345: 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.
BPL: Dai’s team, in a 2004 paper, described how they broke the world from 75 degrees north to 60 degrees south (91% of the Earth’s surface) into 2.5 x 2.5 degree grid squares and accumulated measures of temperature and rainfall for each, for each month from January, 1870 to December, 2002. This allowed them to calculate the PDSI for each grid square. I took their data and derived global annual averages and total fraction in severe drought. They recently extended their time series to 2005; I used the updated data.
JB 368: the energy is not ‘either in the climate or space’. It is also in the ocean
BPL: The ocean is part of the climate system. And heat going into the ocean is not somehow lost forever.
“DO you think Barton made his statements up, or are they okay because you happen to agree with him. Can you say double standard.”
Neither. I criticise BPL when I think he is wrong, but in this case there is plenty of evidence to support the claim that drought has increased in recent decades. Google is your friend.
Try Dai et al (2004).
adelady, I don’t really follow you. Drought can be described as a function of precipitation and temperature. Precipitation alone doesn’t tell the whole story. Even if it did, a developing regional inequality in precipitation puts great stress on water management.
Jim Bullis @ comment 368: what BPL said. The ocean is most definitely an integral component of the climate system.
Hope RC has a post on “Cool It!” which is coming out soon. A Bjorn Lomberg docu — apparently saying we can solve AGW without reducing our GHG emissions…
Snap, “donate”??
346, Didactylos: 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.
You have restated my earlier conjecture that AGW does not make clear and consistent predictions that tropical cyclone frequency and intensity will increase with global warming.
> drought
Remember, don’t rely on anything til you look up the followup papers, e.g.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL045530.shtml
Yes, “Septic”. But my problem with what you say is the way you use uncertainty as an excuse for inaction, and to fuel your denial.
Even in the studies that predict a negligible global trend in tropical storms, they do show significant regional changes. The way you gloss over these details is inexcusable (and part of the reason you aren’t a sceptic).
Re. Drought
As with all things climate there are complexities
Drought has to do with lack of precipitation. But that can also contain a timer component as in lack of precipitation when it is needed vs. when it used to happen, which may then relate to current infrastructure for agriculture.
Then of course you also have soil moisture content.
Generally, pretty much all the evidence points to climate change combined with natural variability producing increasing drought trends based on pre existing agriculture as well as general trends pertaining to the net primary production as well as certain latitudes losing moisture content, which is shall we say problematic.
Economics: Balancing Economies
October Leading Edge: The Cuccinelli ‘Witch Hunt”
—
Fee & Dividend: Our best chance – Learn the Issue – Sign the Petition
A Climate Minute: Natural Cycle – Greenhouse Effect – Climate Science History – Arctic Ice Melt
> Jim Bullis
http://www.google.com/search?q=deep+ocean+warming
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=deep+ocean+warming&as_sdt=2001&as_ylo=2008
Read some of the science.
Please. Isn’t that why you’re here?
382, Didactylos: you use uncertainty as an excuse for inaction,
I use uncertainty to support some actions (afforestation, fossil fuel tax, measured investment in water control projects and alternative fuel development) instead of other actions (rapid elimination of the American coal industry and the businesses that depend on their electricity.)
Even in the studies that predict a negligible global trend in tropical storms, they do show significant regional changes.
I was examining the claim that global warming would lead to increased total cyclonic activity. Now that we are agreed that there is no basis for the claim, we can go to the next step of examining claims about particular regions. But first we had to examine the widely reported claim that AGW would lead to greatly increased total global cyclonic activity.
You seem to have changed your mind about total global cyclonic increase in the course of about 36 hours. Is that so? You wrote that I have learned nothing, but I have learned that there is no basis for the claim that AGW will cause a global increase in total cyclonic activity. I await more studies like Emanuel et al.
OK, not “donate,”–sell.
“Капиталисты продадут нам даже веревку, на которой мы их повесим”.
It means sell, but possibly in the sense of “put up” for sale/auction. Maybe it’s a bit of a pun, like “putting up the rope that we will hang them from.”
Hard for me to say.
375 Barton Paul Levenson
I said that some heat goes to the atmosphere and some goes to the oceans. Of course it is not lost forever. Being in the ocean does not mean anything like being lost. However, net heat that goes in the deep ocean and causes the deep temperature to go up is heat that does not cause the atmospheric temperature to go up. Thus, even though there is an imbalance in the radiative heat transfer the heat that remains on the globe does not necessarily cause a hotter atmosphere.
The calculation that determines how much the atmosphere rises in temperature compared to how much the deep ocean rises in temperature is not something to do in a comment box.
It seems important though to note that a heated deep ocean is not a factor in climate events or weather. So the more heat that is held there, the less blame can be fixed on global warming for bad weather.
371 Adelady
Thanks for that most interesting presentation.
Clearly, I need to be careful in choice of words.
But notice, in my last, I said that heat ‘held there’ in the ‘deep ocean’ is not so relevant to weather.
Your rainfall data is profoundly shocking, and more relevant to ocean heat is the trend in sea temperature surrounding Australia. This is not directly a matter of deep ocean temperature, but it is still connected by the flow process of the thermohaline circulation. That is, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that the surface waters in the far southern latitudes are ultimately influenced by the deep temperatures in the Labrador Sea. This would follow from Rahmstorf’s description of that thermohaline circulation, which showed vertical water movement in the Southern oceans.
My last line of my last comment is still valid; it only refers to heat held in the deep. However, that heat which is drawn out by whatever means then does get back into the climate event processes.
BUT HOLD ON!!!
That rainfall trend that you illustrate for us is not all drought. Almost half of Australia in the West seems to be awash, while the Eastern bigger part is parched. This is not a drought, it is a water distribution problem not too different from that of North America. Why would anyone try to fix this by desalination, as the most expensive of possible choices. Moving water is not that expensive, and we even know how to do it from experience in the great California Central Valley.
Just as we need a canal, running generally from North to South in North America, Australia needs a canal running from the near coastal North-North-West to the Eastern coast down to the South-Eastern coast.
Australia needs the same continental tree and water project that we do in North America. And, in the same way as it could function on our continent, the canal would enable establishment of standing forests to capture the Australian share of CO2 from fossil fuels while it also enabled vast irrigation systems. The mechanism for establishing a financially viable project would exist there also, since the irrigated crop values as well as the longer term forest product harvests would payback upfront financial arrangements.
385 (Septic Matthew),
Please quantify “measured” in either dollars or %GDP per year?
Please quantify “rapid” in decades.
Please provide a list of citations which support the adjective “widely reported.”
Please specify the time frame, in decades, that corresponds to the predicted “greatly increased total global cyclonic activity” that allows you to declare at this point in time that there is “no basis for the claim.”
384 Hank Roberts
See many comments at:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/04/target-co2/
Note in the article at the above link:
Not coincidentally, the Charney sensitivity corresponds exactly to the sensitivity one gets with a standard atmospheric GCM with a simple mixed-layer ocean, while the Earth System sensitivity would correspond to the response in a (as yet non-existent) model that included interactive components for the cryosphere, biosphere, ocean, atmospheric chemistry and aerosols. Intermediate sensitivities could however be assessed using the Earth System models that we do have.
Then a discussion ensued, beginning with #11:
Jim Bullis says:
7 April 2008 at 11:20 AM
Do you mean by, “simple mixed layer ocean” that the variations of ocean temperature with depth are not part of the analysis?
[Response: In the standard estimate of the Charney sensitivity. no. Using fully coupled OAGCMs takes much much longer and has not yet become standard practice. In the GISS models, the difference in eventual temperatures (after hundreds of years) is on the order of a few tenths of a degree. – gavin]
I was surprised by this characterization of the climate models, and have made a number of attempts to explain that such models will over-predict temperature. I have not fully understand all the possible mechanisms for vertical mixing, but there seem to be many, and this would make the model results invalid.
The comments here began again based on the Argo data which happened to show a strong vertical mixing process.
Might you address the details of that linked data?
By the way, I have repeatedly said that this does not mean that the global warming problem is lessened by the fact that the models overpredict atmospheric temperature. The inexorable fact of sea level rise is a broad measure of the process of heat intake in the oceans, though confused by ice melting effects. And sea temperature increase should accelerate sea ice melting.
“I have learned that there is no basis for the claim that AGW will cause a global increase in total cyclonic activity”
No, it turns out you have learned nothing. Oh well.
You are confusing the possible and the probable. It is very probable that there is a significant link between sea surface temperature and power dissipation. This directly implies “a global increase in total cyclonic activity” (global power dissipation) under a warming scenario. It is not, of course, certain.
But you seem to enjoy trying to use the limitations of models to conclude silly things.
To be frank, I think you are still confusing frequency and power dissipation. It doesn’t help that you seem to use these terms (and others) interchangeably. Please be very aware that some studies only look at frequency or storm category.
Didactylos@376. Oh OK, I thought it was more or less understood about Oz evaporation rates. Though the details are sometimes surprising. Adelaide’s rainfall is much the same as Rome or Berlin and a lot less than Perth – the results are very different.
UnReal2r @ 367
You said, “On one hand, the community of scientists seems to think its job is to report the latest findings, uncertainties and all, and allow nature to take its course among the firmament of media, politicians, and “lunkheads”.”
Yep, that’s probably the best scientists can do as individuals. It doesn’t prevent us from being policy advocates, but, if we are, we must clearly distinguish that we ware a different hat while doing so. And of course we should always be willing to provide expert testimony during policy development. In this regard, I think professional scientific organisations have a vital role in formulating and distributing position statements on public policy in accordance with the views of their membership.
Opinion polls have repeatedly found that the public has a very high regard for scientists. IMO, this is principally because scientists are generally not seen as advocates, but as unbiased providers of information. This well may be a fantasy, but, if scientists want to use this standing to influence policy, we need to be very careful how we proceed, particularly as individuals.
Jim Bullis, you still are not thinking about this clearly. Energy going into the oceans merely is stored. It does not change the outgoing radiation. That is determined entirely by the temperature of the radiating surface and the greenhouse gas content of the atmosphere.
Temperature rise IS the main negative feedback against increasing energy in the atmosphere. If some heat goes into warming the briny depths, that merely means that the radiating surface takes longer to heat up. It does not change the amount it must heat up to restore equilibrium. Think about it.
[Response: Well and clearly (and correctly) said.–eric]
John Mashey, Sigh. Yeah, I often wonder how people got the idea that science could be taken cafeteria style–only the bits you like. Actually, it’s most important contribution is forcing us to pay attention to the things we don’t like.
392 adelady
So how about a North to South Canal, aquaduct or whatever you want to name it? Right down through Alice Springs. It looks flat as can be, all the way, though someone who has seen it there would know better than me.
If it’s truly flat, it takes energy to move it …
You seem to constantly ignore the energy trap …
[Response: Along with a number of other components of reality.–Jim]
396 Jim Bullis
Schemes to transport water from Australia’s “wet” (part of the year) north to the dry (all the time) interior of the south and east have been proposed before. Open canals would be subject to massive evaporation so that the water delivered could be saltier than sea water. A closed pipeline would have to be massive to transport enough water. Bottomline – not a goer.
Never fear Jim, a lot of people have already looked at that and similar notions. Remember that vast portions of the Oz inland are below sea level so it looks logical and achievable. Lake Eyre only fills once every 10 or 15 years usually. I know a couple of people have suggested cutting a ‘channel’ from Port Augusta northeast across towards the salt flats below Lake Eyre. A v.e.r.y bad idea.
Check out the map of the Artesian Basin. http://www.environment.gov.au/water/locations/gab/pubs/gab-map.pdf That water collection system provides much of outback pastoral Australia, and some agricultural areas, with groundwater. The danger of letting seawater into that huge reservoir is tremendous, much of the water extracted is pretty salty anyway. Why anyone would bother trying to collect water from Alice Springs with mean annual rainfall of 283mm, less than a foot, is a mystery to me, and everywhere south of Alice gets that or less until you get south of the Goyder Line. (Coober Pedy gets a miserable 30 days a year of recordable precipitation for a measly total of 156mm, 6 whole inches.)
Evaporation rates on the Australian mainland are so high that the only feasible way to change the hydrology would be to restore the scrub and woodland that used to cover vast swathes of SA, WA and inland areas of Queensland and NSW. The land is so poor and so salty /alkaline/ horrible in many places that carbon sequestration would be a very slow business. And the effort involved is unbelievable.
“So how about a North to South Canal, aquaduct or whatever you want to name it? Right down through Alice Springs. It looks flat as can be, all the way, though someone who has seen it there would know better than me.”
I suppose it depends upon your definition of “flat.” Alice Springs in at about 580 meters, and having backpacked in the MacDonnell Ranges near Alice, I recall the higher peaks being about 1500 m.
Kinda reminds me of the Army Corps plan for the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) to dam the Yukon and other Alaskan Rivers to bring water to California and other western states. That was a very bad idea, too.