El artículo original de Andrew Revkin está disponible en español aquí
Journalistic whiplash
) Reporting on climate
) North Pole notes
I always find it interesting as to why some stories get traction in the mainstream media and why some don’t. In online science discussions, the fate of this years summer sea ice has been the focus of a significant betting pool, a test of expert prediction skills, and a week-by-week (almost) running commentary. However, none of these efforts made it on to the Today program. Instead, a rather casual article in the Independent showed the latest thickness data and that quoted Mark Serreze as saying that the area around the North Pole had 50/50 odds of being completely ice free this summer, has taken off across the media.
More PR related confusion
It’s a familiar story: An interesting paper gets published, there is a careless throwaway line in the press release, and a whole series of misleading headlines ensues.
This week, it’s a paper on bromine- and iodine-mediated ozone loss in marine boundary layer environments (see a good commentary here). This is important for the light that it shines on tropospheric ozone chemistry (“bad ozone”) which is a contributing factor to global warming (albeit one which is about only about 20% as important as CO2). So far so good. The paper contains some calculations indicating that chemical transport models without these halogen effects overestimate ozone near the Cape Verde region by about 15% – a difference that certainly could be of some importance if it can be extrapolated across the oceans.
However, the press release contains the line
Large amounts of ozone – around 50% more than predicted by the world’s state-of-the-art climate models – are being destroyed in the lower atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic Ocean.
(my highlights). Which led directly to the headlines like Study highlights need to adjust climate models.
Why is this confusing? Because the term ‘climate models’ is interpreted very differently in the public sphere than it is in the field. For most of the public, it is ‘climate models’ that are used to project global warming into the future, or to estimate the planet’s sensitivity to CO2. Thus a statement like the one above, and the headline that came from it are interpreted to mean that the estimates of sensitivity or of future warming are now in question. Yet this is completely misleading since neither climate sensitivity nor CO2 driven future warming will be at all affected by any revisions in ozone chemistry – mainly for the reason that most climate models don’t consider ozone chemistry at all. Precisely zero of the IPCC AR4 model simulations (discussed here for instance) used an interactive ozone module in doing the projections into the future.
What the paper is discussing, and what was glossed over in the release, is that it is the next generation of models, often called “Earth System Models” (ESMs), that are starting to include atmospheric chemistry, aerosols, ozone and the like. These models may well be significantly affected by increases in marine boundary layer ozone loss, but since they have only just started to be used to simulate 20th and early 21st Century changes, it is very unclear what difference it will make at the large scale. These models are significantly more complicated than standard climate models (having dozens of extra tracers to move around, and a lot of extra coding to work through), are slower to run, and have been used much less extensively.
Climate models today are extremely flexible and configurable tools that can include all these Earth System modules (including those mentioned above, but also full carbon cycles and dynamic vegetation), but depending on the application, often don’t need to. Thus while in theory, a revision in ozone chemistry, or soil respiration or aerosol properties might impact the full ESM, it won’t affect the more basic stuff (like the sensitivity to CO2). But it seems that the “climate models will have to be adjusted” meme is just too good not to use – regardless of the context.
Impressions from the European Geophysical Union conference 2008
Last week, the European Geophysical Union held its annual general assembly, with thousands of geophysicists converging on the city of Vienna, Austria. It was time to take the pulse of the geophysical community.
[Read more…] about Impressions from the European Geophysical Union conference 2008
Blogs y reseña de pares
) Traducido por Angela Carosio
Nature Geoscience tiene dos comentarios este mes sobre ciencia y blogging, uno mío y otro de Myles Allen (véase también estos correos de blogs sobre el tema aqui y aqui).
Mi comentario trata de establecer una proposición que es que la gran mayoría de lo que los científicos conocen es “tácito” (por ejemplo, no explícito o escrito en la literatura técnica) y es ese conocimiento que les permite distinguir rápidamente, con precisión razonable, que artículos nuevos valen la pena leer en detalle y cuáles no. Este contexto es lo que provee a RC, y a otros sitios científicos, la seguridad para comentar sobre nuevos artículos científicos y sobre la cobertura que éstos reciben en los medios.
El comentario de Myles destaca que la crítica de artículos y la reseña de pares debe permanecer en la literatura de reseña de pares y que la crítica informal, como la que se encuentra en un blog, podría desmerecer el artículo.
Estamos de acuerdo con que hay una gran diferencia entre rápidamente indicar problemas obvios en un artículo publicado (como el artículo de Douglass et al de diciembre pasado) y hacer un trabajo sustancial y un análisis extra que merece una respuesta reseñada por pares. Los enfoques no son necesariamente opuestos (por ejemplo, nuestra respuesta al artículo de Schwartz el año pasado, que dio lugar a un comentario referido). Pero dada la limitación de tiempo de todos, y la limitación de espacio del periodismo, se presentan y se publican muchas menos refutaciones comparando con la cantidad de quejas. Es más, es extremadamente raro que se escriba un comentario formal sobre un artículo particularmente excepcional, dando como resultado que las quejas son mucho más comunes que los aplausos en la reseña de pares. De hecho, hay mucho que aplaudirle a la ciencia moderna, y nos gustaría pensar que RC juega un rol positivo en resaltar algunos de los resultados más importantes y apasionantes que aparecen.
El comentario de Myles, si bien termina con un interesante punto de discusión, es ilustrado, en mi opinión, con un ejemplo fuera de lugar que involucra a RC, un correo y el posterior seguimiento de un artículo de Stainforth et al (2005) y la gran cobertura que éste tuvo en los medios. El correo original aborda el tema sobre como los modelos ejecutados en el sitio climateprediction.net han afectado nuestra expectativa actual sobre que es la sensibilidad climática y si se justifica una revisión de cualquier proyección a futuro. El segundo correo vino luego de un artículo de periodismo, un tanto inferior, en Radio 4 de la BBC que implicaba, injustificadamente, que el público estaba siendo engañado deliberadamente por el equipo CPDN (Climate Prediction Dot Net, por sus siglas en ingles) sobre la importancia de su trabajo. Hemos discutido entonces, así como le hemos hecho en otras ocasiones, si parte de la responsabilidad de artículos inexactos o exaltados publicados pertenece a la misma prensa o si nosotros como comunidad, podríamos hacer un esfuerzo por proveer un contexto en dichos casos. La razón por la cual esto no es pertinente a lo que Myles opinó es que no hemos criticado en absoluto el artículo en sí. En ese entonces pensábamos, y seguimos pensándolo ahora, que el esfuerzo del equipo CPDN valió la pena y que cualquier lección aprendida será informada a los modelos de simulación en un futuro. Nuestra crítica, tal como era, fue asociada en vez con la percepción del artículo en parte de los medios y en la comunidad en general. Estos medios no son para nada adecuados para comentar una reseña de pares.
Este no es el lugar adecuado para argüir el tema de la sensibilidad climática (prometo un nuevo correo respecto a eso pronto), de modo que se considerará fuera de tema. Sin embargo, estamos muy interesados en comentarios sobre el tema fundamental planteado: como se interceptan, o como debieran interceptarse los blogs sobre ciencia y las tradicionales reseñas de pares, y si la percepción de Myles que estas están en conflicto es ampliamente compartida.
La excusa del enfriamiento global
By John Fleck and William Connolley
To veterans of the Climate Wars, the old 1970s global cooling canard – “How can we believe climate scientists about global warming today when back in the 1970s they told us an ice age was imminent?” – must seem like a never-ending game of Whack-a-mole. One of us (WMC) has devoted years to whacking down the mole (see here, here and here, for example), while the other of us (JF) sees the mole pop up anew in his in box every time he quotes contemporary scientific views regarding climate change in his newspaper stories.
Una traducción está disponible aqui
Tłumaczenie na polski dostępne jest tutaj.
A day when Hell was frozen
I was honoured to be invited to the annual regional conference for Norwegian journalists, taking place annually in a small town called ‘Hell’ (Try Earth Google ‘Hell, Norway’). During this conference, I was asked to participate in a panel debate about the theme: ‘Climate – how should we [the media] deal with world’s most pressing issue?’ (my translation from Norwegian; by the way ‘Gods expedition’ means ‘Cargo shipment’ in ‘old’ Norwegian dialect).
BBC contrarian top 10
There is an interesting, if predictable, piece up on the BBC website devoted to investigating whether there is any ‘consensus’ among the various contrarians on why climate change isn’t happening (or if it is, it isn’t caused by human activity or if it is why it won’t be important, or if it is important, why nothing can be done etc.). Bottom line? The only thing they appear to agree about is that nothing should be done, but they have a multitude of conflicting reasons why. Hmm…
The journalist, Richard Black, put together a top 10 list of sceptic arguments he gathered from emailing the 61 signers of a Canadian letter. While these aren’t any different in substance to the ones routinely debunked here (and here and here), this list comes with the imprimatur of Fred Singer – the godfather to the sceptic movement, and recent convert from the view that it’s been cooling since 1940 to the idea that global warming is now unstoppable. Thus these are the arguments (supposedly) that are the best that the contrarians have to put forward.
Alongside each of these talking points, is a counter-point from the mainstream (full disclosure, I helped Richard edit some of those). In truth though, I was a little disappointed at how lame their ‘top 10’ arguments were. In order, they are: false, a cherry pick, a red herring, false, false, false, a red herring, a red herring, false and a strawman. They even used the ‘grapes grew in medieval England’ meme that you’d think they’d have abandoned already given that more grapes are grown in England now than ever before (see here). Another commonplace untruth is the claim that water vapour is ‘98% of the greenhouse effect’ – it’s just not.
So why do the contrarians still use arguments that are blatantly false? I think the most obvious reason is that they are simply not interested (as a whole) in providing a coherent counter story. If science has one overriding principle, it is that you should adjust your thinking in the light of new information and discoveries – the contrarians continued use of old, tired and discredited arguments demonstrates their divorce from the scientific process more clearly than any densely argued rebuttal.
Cockburn’s form
Alexander Cockburn (writing in the Nation) has become the latest contrarian-de-jour, sallying forth with some rather novel arithmetic to show that human-caused global warming is nothing to be concerned about. This would be unworthy of comment in most cases, but Cockburn stands out as one of only a few left-wing contrarians, as opposed to the more usual right-wing variety. Casual readers may have thought this is a relatively recent obsession of his (3 articles and responses over the last month), however, Cockburn has significant form* and has a fairly long history of ill-informed commentary on the subject of global warming.
[Read more…] about Cockburn’s form
Lindzen in Newsweek
Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann
As part of a much larger discussion on Learning to live with Global Warming in Newsweek recently, the editors gave some space for Richard Lindzen to give his standard ‘it’s no big deal’ opinion. While we disagree, we have no beef with serious discussions of the costs and benefits of various courses of action and on the need for adaption to the climate change that is already locked in.
However, Lindzen’s piece is not a serious discussion.
[Read more…] about Lindzen in Newsweek