Knowledge as a foreign, invading power

Knowledge is power, but there are people who see any application of physics, collection of data, and survey of scientific literature as foreign, and therefore they fight its presence as though it were an invading power.

Pathetic.

The Bugle is a monthly paper produced by Knight Publishing. Ad hominem attacks are an assumed risk for anyone offering an informative article. The September 2014 issue published a community forum article that confused a high school reading level with jargon and attacks me personally.

Here is the Sept 4 Community Forum by Ken Woytek:

John Garrett took great exception to my “mythical” claims of fraud in the scientific consensus of climate professionals crying Wolf over dangerous trends in global climate. His response, printed in the Aug. issue, is replete with jargonic references that only serve the unbiased reader to agree with my premise condemning the self-serving 97% of active “climatologists.”
These alarmists are simply furthering their own secure careers in bolstering the theory of  anthropogenic global warming, as they toil away measuring conditions that support their creed. Computer models so key in the mantra are man-made and undeniably reflect the bias of the developer, equally as crucial as the manmade CO2 explosion.
Have you, for example, ever had any faith in a program sponsored by the U.N., which reacts to every open argument with condemnation of the West, USA in particular, to court the majority of General Assembly members that envy and despise America? The vaunted IPCC meets regularly to rebuke our material success, without recognition of our humanitarian exceptionalism, with climate-abuse sanctions never visited upon the grossest violators in China, India, or Brazil who share our planet.
The only answers to 176 climate myths announced by Garrett that were not faith-based are those that refer to the destruction of the Amazon rain forest as a causative factor in growth of the CO2 concentrations in the global atmosphere. That massive CO2 consumer, and all smaller brethren gardens, are pivotal in the equilibrium necessary to radiate heat back into night space after earth insolation temperature rises all day, acting together with cloudless skies. All the other references paraded by Mr. Garrett are similarly flawed pseudo-science, to which he has become irrationally enamored in classic scholastic fervor colored by his political persuasion and shared by Mr. Inconvenient Gore, Sir RT Watson, and eminent scientist BH Obama.
Best regards, Ken Woytek, Menifee

What did I say to deserve such a come-uppance?

I wrote this:

The July Community Voice [by Ken Wyotek] alluded to at least a dozen climate science myths(1), too many to discuss here, so we need to start with the basics to correct the misinformation:
Predictions of global warming are based on fundamental physics. How much warming to expect from a given increase in greenhouse gases is constrained by observations, computer modeling, and past climate reconstructions(2).
Observations include surface and ocean temperatures, solar output, Earth's reflectivity, greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations, and outgoing radiation.
When considering all of these, rising CO2 is the best explanation for a global average temperature increase of 1.44F over 150 years, a conclusion supported by 97% of climate scientists(3). For comparison, cooling of 9F gives us an ice age. Warming of 3.6F over pre-industrial climate is worrisome but possibly safe, so our current 1.44oF increase is almost halfway through our safe zone.
Observations can be compromised by small sample sizes and measurement errors; thus decade-to-hundred-year trends such as global warming can be masked by natural year-to-decade long fluctuations. It takes 30 years to see the long term rise among short-term waves; and no one region can be taken as typical of the planet as a whole.
Computer modeling tests our understanding of the underlying physics of the climate system. Models are tested against observations and past climate reconstructions. Any scientific theory is incomplete without a physics-based model. Models have even identified errors in observations(4) and have demonstrated how global warming can dry the western US while cooling the eastern US.(5)
Climate reconstructions are based on ice cores, sediments, plant residue, and cave formations. These reconstructions of past climate smooth out the short-term effects. For example, when you look at an ice core, you’re seeing hundred-year trends, not decadal trends. It is these hundred year trends that are most disturbing, for they show:
• Our climate has changed drastically due to very small but gradual changes in energy.
• Naturally occurring changes in atmospheric CO2 levels regulate global climate on thousand-year timescales.
• Warming trends invoke feedback effects that amplify the warming.
• Our current rate of warming and level of greenhouse gases have no precedent going back millions of years.
The concern for global warming will not go away because the science will not go away despite the steady stream of misinformation.
References
1. SkepticalScience: Rebuttals to 176 climate myths, http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
2. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Assessment Report 5. On my entire summary of observations, modeling, and climate reconstructions, http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/#.UxNwv_ldWBR
3. Environmental Research Letters, Cook et al., http://www.skepticalscience.com/tcp.php?t=home
4. Nature, Fu et al. How a long-standing discrepancy between models and temperature observations was resolved. htttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v429/n6987/full/nature02524.html
5. Geophysical Research Letters, Wang et al. Modeling study shows global warming influence in the 2013-2014 California drought, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL059748/abstract
Additional information:
For instrumental temperature records, see http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
(I’ve created interactive version here: http://www.brightstarstemeculavalley.org/science/InstTempRecord.html
For CO2 and temperature data for the past 800,000 years, see CO2:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/domec/domec_epica_data.html
(I’ve created an interactive version here: http://www.brightstarstemeculavalley.org/science/climate.html
Questions and criticism are welcome
at my blog: http://www.brightstarswildomar.blogspot.com
John Garrett -Wildomar

I think the differences between these two illustrate the gulf between reason and ignorance in the climate debate and in many other unnecessarily politicized issues.

jg

Cyclical Reasoning

Our climate has cycles: daily, seasonal, multi-year (El Nino Southern Oscillation), and decadal (Pacific Decadal Oscillation). It's likely there are century-scale cycles, though I don't know the specific names of any. But the paleoclimate record provides evidence of long term changes in how efficiently heat gets re-distrubuted between the hemispheres and many of these episode behave like a seesaw, where one hemisphere warms while the other cools, and then reverses. And of course, there are millineal scale cycles, such as the rise and fail of ice ages.

A letter in today's Press Enterprise dismisses global warming, and the work of thousands of scientists, as natural cycles. I've written a rebuttal, however, because the PE's reply format is severely restricted, I'm using this post as a landing place for anyone interested in learning more about climate science.

Several years ago I tried to package climate data into interactive graphs that allow anyone with a Flash-enabled browser to quickly study paleoclimate and instrumental temperature records:

• Instrumental temperature and other climate related measurements: Instrumental Temperature Record
• Paleoclimate data: Ice Core Data

I may refer to these pages if anyone accepts my offer to discuss climate science.

UPDATE: I provided this link to answer a commentator's question about volcanic vs anthropogenic CO2:

• Gerlach 2010

UPDATE 2: Another person shared this link:

• IPCC 2013 Report

Letter: letters-to-the-editor-headlines/20140228-letter-earth-has-cycles.ece

NOTE: It is appalling how limiting the response format at the PE is. If the PE allowed the space, I would have said this:

Jason, the following is settled: Atmospheric CO2 levels govern Earth's global temperature and have done so for, at least, the past 1 million years. Atmospheric CO2 levels contribute to the rise and fall of cold glacial and warm interglacial climates. The current rise in CO2 levels from the pre-industrial values of 270 ppm to 400 ppm are from human activity. The 400 ppm (and rising) CO2 level has no precedent going back a million years. The rate at which CO2 is rising has no precedent for a million years and likely for tens of millions of years. This rise is changing the climate. The poles are warming. The icecaps are melting. The oceans are warming and becoming more acidic. Less settled but still well-supported, the jet stream is becoming more prone to blocking patterns that create extreme weather such as storms and drought.  If you want to suggest otherwise on any of these points, you need to cite evidence, something stronger than "cycles". Your claim that government is exploiting the opportunity is unsupported. Your claim that scientists have a financial stake is unsupported and absurd. Because the PE's response format doesn't allow for a thorough explanation, I'll politely explain the science to anyone at my blog.

The PE's format isn't good for much more than short insults. -- Correction: I had a pleasant conversion at the PE site.

jg

Combating a two-decade campaign against climate science

The magazine Europhysics News has published an article by Skeptical Science founder John Cook on the anti-science campaign against climate science. I created an illustration the cover page, which I've shown here:

The article is open access:
Combating a two-decade campaign attacking the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

jg

I had an opportunity to contribute an illustration to Dana Nuccitelli's blog at The Guardian: Climate Concensus - The 97%. Below is a variation of the illustration used, but without the typo.

The illustration in a larger form (also without the known typo) is available from the Climate Graphics section of the Skeptical Science website. I expect to be doing variations of this illustration, as the notion of a consensus is still provocative among those unwilling to face the implications form climate studies. The existence of a consensus, what it is based on, and how that message has been derailed will have to stated and restated if humanity is to unite in time to avert unprecedented rates of global change.

jg



Heartland Institute's behavior vindicates Wildomar Elementary

The Heartland Institute has received a lot of attention for their anti-science positions regarding global warming and generous funding from a few major corporations. Even the journal Nature has discussed Heartland's activities and published an admission by Joe Bast of Heartland that the science is not on Heartland's side. Other bloggers (check out Openmind on my blog list) are sharing details of Heartland's recent billboard implying that activists like me have a lot in common with terrorists like Bin Laden and Ted Kaczynski.

Rather than retell this story, I wish to share a local variation. Four years ago a sixth grade class from Wildomar Elementary wrote "shame on you" letters to the Heartland Institute. The Heartland Institute, not otherwise engaged in valid research, found time to criticize the teacher and incite anger through a local paper's community forum. The forum article from Heartland, published in the Press Enterprise on 14 April 2008, is how I know of the sixth grade class's activities.

Maureen Martin of Heartland criticized the students for numerous errors on the science, which fair criticism; for example, quotes from the letters showed confusion between between greenhouse gases and other forms of air pollution. She went on to say the letters demonstrate brainwashing and ended with the statement "If my children attended this school, I would be outraged".

Rather than be outraged, I was impressed that 6th graders were aware that there are organizations who  manipulate public opinion using disinformation. I think Heartland's latest tactic, the billboard, vindicates the teacher, if there had been a need for vindication.

jg

climate conversation for safe keeping

In hindsight, I wish I had captured many of the climate-related discussions I've engaged in. Some, like a column by an editor of a industrial automation trade journal went missing; others lose their revealing comments; and others I just lose the link.

Here, I've captured the online comments made when my local paper ran this article on the efforts of a lobby to promote an energy tax in California:

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/sdcounty/article_fa54b0ee-3bbd-5e07-846a-14029b5dec24.html?mode=story

The comments below reveal common attitudes in the resistance to addressing climate change. I'm posting them for the purpose of keeping them. Later, I may try to condense and summarize them. The comments are listed from the most recent to the earliest, a formatting choice of the newspaper, which I think is intended to promote comments by hiding when certain ideas have already been stated. In other words, later commenters are less likely to see what has already been said, so they are more likely to repeat but in their own words.

jg

Op Ed promotes geoengineering; my letter refutes

As an informed citizen, I try my best to correct misunderstandings on the science of climate change that appear in local media. This gives me plenty to do.

Eleven days ago, The Californian ran this op-ed by Dana Milbank in which he argues that we need to consider geo-engineering should efforts to control greenhouse gas levels fail.

Climate Change Plan B

I agree with him to the extent that we are failing miserably to control emissions and that some geo-engineering solutions may need to to considered to buy us time, but his description of many geo-engineering options and describing them as opportunities that haven't been explored is ignorant of the science. It is disturbing that columnists say such things and then are allowed additional op-eds before their previous errors can be corrected.

My letter ran today:

Geoengineering

The defining feature of my article is that it's 200 words. I'm also guilty of a little political manipulation. I refer to the conservative side of me recognizing that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I used the word "conservative" for it's original meaning: tending to conserve the resourses we have. But, I was writing for the paper, and during election season, so I knew people will read "conservative" in it's political sense, where conservative on ecology and conservative in political outlook do not mix.

The issue is not to convince liberals or anyone open to scientific conclusions that climate change is real and dangerous. The issue is in convincing conservatives, as they have to be part of the solution. Climate change is becoming the frog in the boiling pot of water experiment. Next year continues to look only slightly worse than this year. We do not hear the clicking of the rachet.

Of couse, as an animal loving liberal, I've never boiled a frog for myself. I hope I don't have to, and I hope humanity doesn't take the global experiment much farther.

jg

Issa and 'Climategate'

Being a follower of climate science, it has been difficult to not hear about the "climategate" scandal, which is based on the theft and misinterpretation of private correspondence between scientists. I commented in my local paper before on this issue and invited critics to reach me here. This otherwise non-issue returns with my House representative commenting on the need for investigation, as reported here:

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/09/23/23climatewire-rep-issa-would-lead-climategate-probe-if-hou-44766.html

I examined my representative's climate change position, which didn't address my concern, so I sent this inquiry (and received an acknowledgement that my comment had been received):

The 9/23/10 New York times says that you will be ramping up an investigation into "climategate" if Republicans take the House. I have been studying climate science and would like to know 1) whether the New York Times accurately portrayed your intentions and 2) what are your plans regarding oversite of climate science and an investigation of "climategate"
thank you,

After three days with no reply, I send this letter to my local paper:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/letters/article_33584c5a-db25-5a54-b455-971944a77ab9.html

As of today, I have not received a reply from my representative. It's possible that he has been too busy responding to other inquiries made before mine: e.g., http://www.change.org/petitions/view/stop_investigating_climategate_already
(I just discovered the above petition today and was disappointed by the lack of date information; it doesn't say when it started nor when it will end.)

Politicians have tried to intimidate scientists before. Such behavior is going on as I write, for example, yesterday's Washington Post covers a similar situation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/05/AR2010100504908.html

jg

Have I learned? Has he?

Two months I ago I shared an experience from 5 years earlier about how I learned that a dedication to precision and scientific accuracy makes your writing unpublishable for local news media (Five scientific terms you can't in local news media). The columnist whom I was correcting in my unpublishable essay is back again with another letter about global warming (Wishing for some global warming). I've submitted another rebuttal (me, see 2nd comment), so this is a great opportunity to examine whether I have learned anything in the past 5.5 years. Likewise, it's an opportunity to see if he has too.

Because rebuttals I've posted online have mysteriously disappeared before, I'm posting the content below in this order:
1. The writer's 2004 column on global warming.
2. My unpublishable rebuttal submitted for their community forum column.
3. The writer's letter to the editor from 11 Feb. 2010.
4. My rebuttal. (I also sent a shorter letter to be printed, but I won't share that till it's published).

1. The column that was intrumental in my epiphany on climate propoganda:
(in progress; can't find it online and will have to transcribe a news clippin; will add soon)

2. My rebuttal (in italics)
If climate research demonstrates an unambiguous human-caused greenhouse effect, implementing appropriate corrective action will remain controversial. For example, it may be unfair and unscientific to limit fossil fuel consumption and not cement manufacture; or government regulations may be costly, too restrictive, or misguided. If mitigation solutions are market-based, objections to the unpleasant conclusions of climate scientists will decrease. But for the market to mitigate human-induced climate change, it will need better information, starting with the correction of numerous misconceptions about climate science.

One misconception is the belief that climate models are junk science: As in chemistry, physics, and weapons testing, computer models are our best chance of understanding phenomena that too complex to solve on paper and beyond controlled experimentation. Climate models merge the work of many specialties: paleoclimatology (the study of past climate inferred from coral, tree rings, gases in ice cores, and chemical isotopes in fossil-forming plankton in ocean sediments), atmospheric chemistry (how gases, aerosols, and particulates are formed, interact, and are removed), hydrology (water cycles), oceanography (currents, heat, salinity, photosynthesis). There are so many specialties, scientists, and publications involved that we must be skeptical of anyone claiming to understand these well enough to call them junk science.
Another misconception is the notion that a regional or short-term weather trend supports or discredits climate models. Climate models do not have the resolution to tell what's in store for a specific region, whether it's a good time for a drive among the vineyards, or not. They calculate general trends, such as averages of temperatures, precipitation, and wind direction, with resolutions varying between 200 km and 50 km. Finer resolutions will result as scientists continue to test their models against real phenomena. Climate researchers state their models' limitations, and the field has a well-published timeline projecting milestones for improvement.
Climate models are used in a variety of studies besides global warming. For example, in India scientists are trying to use them to predict their monsoons. Other scientists use them to examine natural effects hindering the recovery of over-exploited fisheries. Brief progress in the acceptance of climate models occurred in 2001 when the models showed that North America acts as a net carbon sink, meaning its forests, soils, and peat lands were absorbing more CO2 than North Americans were emitting. This lent support for rejecting the Kyoto protocol, which was doomed regardless, but I suspect these results-oriented skeptics failed to grasp the complete scenario described by the carbon sink modeling: the climate models showed North America to be a net carbon sink in wet and cool years; in dryer and hotter times the stored carbon gets metabolized by soil microbes and animals and North America becomes a net emitter of CO2. By 1999, the northern hemisphere went back to being a net carbon source.
Finally, changes in greenhouse gas concentrations affect more than climate. Oceanographers and ecologist are studying the effects of known increases in CO2. Rising CO2 levels may be changing species composition of pristine rainforests, preferring softwood species and vines (commercially and ecologically less valuable) over the densest understory trees. The pH of seawater is changing as the oceans absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere. Oceanographers are examining what this change portends for the ocean's food chain. Paloeoclimatologists are searching the geologic record for evidence of times when atmospheric CO2 and ocean pH reached levels similar to levels projected for the near future. Should they find these layers, they will learn whether the CO2 levels, ocean pH, and rates at which these changed, created conditions favorable to the agriculture, aquiculture, and economy needed today by six billion humans.
In 2001 president Bush exercised his right of a scientific review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The National Academy of Sciences confirmed that the science was sound and the conclusions valid with some qualifications. Their reply was a definitive act, like the Supreme Court choosing a president, which should be cautiously accepted so we can examine the implications.

3. Wishing for some global warming
Much of the country is deluged with record snowfall, and we are supposed to believe that this is caused by global warming? Record snow packs fall onto our local mountains. A friend of mine in the D.C. area spent two hours digging his car out of the snow. He was wishing for some global warming.
So, does global warming now cause global cooling?
After the revelations of the e-mails by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showing fraud and cover-up, anybody with an sliver of common sense can conclude that global warming (and our current global cooling) are caused by, um ---- the changing of the four seasons.
Those who seek to control and regulate every aspect of our lives will utilize any moral panic available to centralize and expand government control.
Notice how they will now attempt to downplay "global warming" by substituting the term "climate change." Climate change is just the changing of the four seasons. What's the next environmental moral panic? Attacking Newton's laws of gravity?
In the meantime, I just filled up the gas tank of my Hummer. I like to think the oil comes from Iraq. Life is great.

4. my rebuttal (in italics) printed on 17 Feb 2010:
Climate change not a subject for common sense
Common sense suggests that the sun orbits the Earth; Rick Reiss (Letters, Feb. 11) asserts that common sense shows Earth is cooling. Climate change is not a subject for common sense; rather, it requires math, statistics, physics, chemistry and data collection, just as describing the solar system does. Reiss cites recent cold weather as common-sense proof that Earth is cooling. This is not common sense, but cherry picking, selecting only the information one believes. If weather observations are suitable, then you have to include killer heat waves in Europe and Australia.
Reiss says snowstorms conflict with global warming — no: Heat, then water vapor, then precipitation. Warmer climate, then more water vapor, then more snow. He claims that scientists backpedal on warming by using the phrase "climate change."
Publishing scientists have used this phrase for 20 years while showing that Earth is warming from increasing greenhouse gases. To understand the e-mails stolen from the Climate Research Center and exploited out of context by people like Reiss, you have to read science journals to know what the e-mails were talking about. One can't explain to activists the error in conclusions they've drawn from stolen information, but as long as they remain ignorant of the science, the science will remain incomprehensible to them.


jg

thousand one...thousand two...thousand three....

It was only a matter of time till the CRU hacked email story was addressed by local letter writers from my community (Climate change nonsense ), and likewise, it was only a matter of time before I stuck my neck out and invited a discussion. I make the offer in openness (I've provided a means to find me here) and friendship (I left out any personal attacks). I'm posting this topic as a welcome, should any readers of the Californian accept my offer.

I did imply that the letter writer was ignorant of the scientific literature, but this is not a personal attack, rather a description of the writer's lack of knowledge on one subject, the science of climate change. I appeal to the conservative notion that we should avoid political correctness and call ignorance what it is. We should also call theft what it is. Computer hacking and information theft is theft and we must be careful when using information from such means. And we all make judgment calls on when an end justify its means. Lets be sure we know what the ends are.

Here are two videos addressing the CRU hacked emails. Both take a swipe at the intellectual impoverishment of those crying foul over the contents of the emails, but both show how ridiculous such claims are.

CRU hack

Deltoid on stolen emails (...and I highly recommend this blog)

Additionally, the writer of the letter asks "What happened to 'peer review?'" Should my post recruit any interest in understanding the science, I offer the following chart as a starting point. This chart of temperatures was created by a scientist who performs peer-review; that is, he's the person who looks at papers, finds errors, makes suggestions, and evaluates methodology and veracity, all of which determine whether the paper merits publication. I recommend his blog (openmind):

For more on this: Openmind, riddle-me-this

Venn diagram, field of view

OpenMind (see blog roll) is inviting charts.