Oh, no! Global warming is bad bad bad!
Maybe it's causing Hurricane Irene!
“Irene’s got a middle name, and it’s Global Warming,” environmental activist Bill McKibben wrote Thursday night in The Daily Beast. He argued that this year’s hot Atlantic Ocean temperatures and active spree of hurricanes — coupled with droughts, floods and melting sea ice elsewhere on the globe — are “what climate change looks like in its early stages.”
But
what if it's doing something fabulously good?
Patterns of rainfall in these years were more chaotic in these regions of Tanzania and often fell outside the rainy season. The scientists say this may have disturbed the natural cycle of mosquito development.
But the lead author of the study, Professor Dan Meyrowitsch from the University of Copenhagen, says that he is not convinced that it is just the changing climate.
"It could be partly due to this chaotic rainfall, but personally I don't think it can explain such a dramatic decline in mosquitoes, to the extent we can say that the malaria mosquitoes are almost eradicated in these communities."
Global warming — or, as they say, "climate change" (for maximum coverage of any possible condition) — is probably not the cause of the hurricane or the big mosquito drop-off, but those who like to wring their hands about the connection between
global warming climate change and anything bad that happens must apply the same kind of reasoning to anything good that happens. Otherwise they won't be able to maintain the pretense that they're all about the
science.
Posts
108 comments:
Besides, “what’s a ‘tropical’ storm doing heading for the snow belt?” asked McKibben.
Those anti-science Republicans!
There's nothing humans can do about it!
Before flushing toilets; when waste was thrown out of windows to the common walking areas below ... diseases were rampant.
This became something humans could fix. And, it started with cleanliness.
My mom (who was born in 1905) said, her mom was so clean you could eat off of her floor.
Clothes weren't just washed. They were boiled clean. And, then ironed.
There's nothing we can do about a process that's "global." It was a scheme to TAX. And, to control the world. Basically by people who were NOT elected.
In Europe they are facing this ... because sovereignty has been lost to the gnomes of Belgium. It will not last.
And, ALgore has no place to go to get his family name cleansed off.
We have the best system.
We don't always get the best men.
But "global warming" gave us all another use for a "hockey stick."
Couldn't this post have been tied into Althouse's concern trolling for BHO?
It seems that BHO is to blame for Irene!
From the link that branches from Althouse's Politico link:
"Hurricane Irene’s dangerous power can be traced to global warming says Bill McKibben—and Obama is at fault for his failed leadership on the environment."
The dishonesty is breathtaking. Like August and September were never hurricane season before the dreaded global warming began?
Climate Change - neater than a skeeter's peter - is there anything it can't do?
Before the onset of AGW, there was a snow belt tropical storm in 1938. It was a Cat 3, Irene will hit as a Cat 1. Perhaps global warming has reduced the power of these aberrant storms. (That makes about as much sense as McKibben's question.)
Irene’s got a middle name, and it’s Global Warming,..
What caused the big CAT 3 hurricane in 1938 then?
I've been scanning the internet looking for discussions of it. Nobody likes to talk about the 1938 hurricane that hit the east coast. But people still talk about the Munich Pact and Peace For Our Time spoken just a week later which portended a much greater storm.
What's up with that?
Don't forget earthquakes!
THEY TOLD US IT WAS GOING TO BE!!!
Global weirding will cause cats and dogs living together.
Because a weak hurricane (the first to make landfall in the continental United States in three years) is proof of global warming!
A hurricane has never hit New England before!
There were no hurricanes before the 1980's, when global warming kicked in!
What's Irene Global Warming's last name?
McKibben needs a sippy cup and a high chair. His logic is that of a six-month old.
Hurricane season started on June 30th and this is the first major storm of this season. Some doom there let me tell you.
One of the reasons for the rise in the number of storms is better instrumentation. When the 1938 storm hit New England, the only clues a storm was approaching were reported by ships that happened to stumble into the storm. But you never hear the AGW/Climate Change supplicants mention that do you.
Gosh, it just HAS to be global warming, because there never used to be any hurricanes at all until mankind starting treating Gaia unkindly! Pay no attention to Galveston 1900, Florida Keys 1935, the New England Hurricane of 1938...
@chickenlittle and chuckR, the first thing that popped into my mind was that 1938 must have been as warm as today if global warming was the reason for a hurricane hitting New York.
Without modern satellite surveillance systems such as we have today the meteorologists simply lost track of the storm out at sea. According to Manchester's discussion of the storm in his book The Glory and the Dream (check it out through the Professor's amazon link) that 1938 hurricane utterly devastated Long Island.
But that's one of the problems with today's liberals, isn't it? It never occurs to them to consider evidence that is contrary to their foolish theories, does it? Sort of reminds me of the bible thumping preachers who claim each natural disaster is evidence of God's punishment for our sins, never mind that it might hit the pious and just every bit as hard as the truly evil.
More trouble for the religion of GW here.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/25/cern_cloud_cosmic_ray_first_results/
"But the lead author of the study, Professor Dan Meyrowitsch from the University of Copenhagen, says that he is not convinced that it is just the changing climate."
It's nice to see scientific professionalism reappear when climate change is discussed. Am I the only one amazed how quickly it reappers when usefule to the alarmists.
Greenies don't give a shit about Africans and their tropical diseases, just look at their attitude towards DDT.
Speaking of DDT, did anyone bother checking to see whether the locals have been surreptitiously using it? I know I would (use it, that is).
Maguro's partly right - Lefties in general only care about Africa if they get an opportunity to scream, "Raaacist!!!".
As for a good thing coming out of global warming, any profit or good is to be condemned because it's not their idea.
My cousin told me how a nuclear plant near him was able to grow a certain kind of warm water shrimp in the pools of water used to cool the reactor, which they sold (the shrimp) to the locals.
Perfectly safe and certified so by Freder and all the appropriate nannies, but, because the shrimp weren't native to the area, the enviro-nuts screamed and had it shut down.
There is no climate scientist who would say that EVERY change due to global warming must be bad, or that no one can possibly benefit in any way from it.
Let's apply Ann's logic to the recession: if some people make money during a recession, or some people get new or better jobs, then we have to give credit to the recession for the good as well as the bad.
Well, this is a trivial statement. Does it mean the recession is not happening if someone gets some good out of it? No. Does it mean recessions aren't something we might wish to avoid? When economists are focusing on only the bad that happens during a recession, does that mean thay they're not realy doing economics if they don't point out something good as well?
"It seems that BHO is to blame for Irene!"
Haven't you been paying attention? He's not being blamed for it at all. He's being considered its biggest victim. (There's that old Heinlein quote about bad luck circulating lately that is appropriate)
Oh, and since we're clearly going to engage in all kinds of climate science bashing today, let me point out that Ann conveniently, and not too long ago, posted on creationism, and a lot of the same people will be commenting on this. I will be comparing and contrasting.
I always wonder at the causation thing. If America is responsible for everything bad that happens in the world, isn't it also responsible for all the good? Can a country, or someone like W, be all powerful but only in select categories?
Only in the crazy cosmology of the left, I think. It's a very juvenile thought process. As in a "public space" that only belongs to one segment of the public, and not the Meade segment.
And of course the AGW crowd is THE FIRST to admit and/or argue that the fact that no major hurricanes hit the continental US last year is a DEFINITE sign of global cooling and portends a "long-term" trend, right?
"Crickets"--yet the EXACT same logic is used to argue 12 months later that Irene is a sign of the long-term" trend of global warming.
UTTERLY moronic..
Hanna - Overall, humans have tended to thrive during periods of economic growth and have tended to siuffer during recessions and depressions.
Likewise, in the past, humans have tended to thrive during warm periods and suffer during cool periods. Therefore, the default assumption should be that global warming is beneficial to mankind.
Correct?
James Hansen, the T. D. Lysenko of climate science, wrote President Obama that the game would be over for the environment if the President did not stop the Keystone XL pipeline (http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/keystone_obama/index2.html). Now that President Obama approved the pipeline (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/27/business/energy-environment/us-state-department-to-allow-canadian-pipeline.html?_r=1), we are now all doomed, doomed to die of heat stroke. Hurricane Irene is the final proof of our fate, because we have never, ever seen in all of human history a Category 2 hurricane on the Eastern seaboard.
It's funny how leftists (who generally think of themselves as secular) buy into the most primitive religious belief - that natural disasters and bad weather are caused by our sinful lifestyles.
Yikes! I woke up this morning with chaffing and a rash in the "underwear zone". My behavior has been unimpeachable so I can only assume that it's due to global warming/climate change or whatever term is in vogue. Reduce green house gases for my sake if nothing else.
I once dared question a disciple of global warming.
I was immediately dismissed with the comment that I wasn't smart enough to understand the difference between climate and weather.
Crack's correct in saying that it is a religion.
Counter intuitively, the number and intensity of storms increase because of cooling and decrease because of warming.
It is always hot around the equator, and the mixture of that equatorial hot air with cold air as the cold air descends from a cooling arctic is what we call tropical storms.
The myth factories in the world propaganda apparatus keep showing huge cloud band circles around the hurricane and tell us that the 100 mile wide hurricane is 1200 miles across.
They lie.
Besides, “what’s a ‘tropical’ storm doing heading for the snow belt?” asked McKibben.
Wikipedia has an impressive list of hurricanes that have hit Canada going back to the massive storm of September 1775, which killed 4,000 on Newfoundland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canada_hurricanes). Most hit the Maritimes, but a few--like Hurricane Hazel in 1954--wallop Ontario or Quebec.
PatCA/
"Leftism" (really just a series of variations on Marxism/Communism) offers a very appealing (to the simple-minded and/or naive) easily understood "single-track" theory of history and the way the world works. EVERYTHING is seen thru the same polarized ideological lenses. Single-track philosophies (Islam is another) have great appeal due to their power of clear-cut explanation and lack of self-doubt that is characteristic of all messianic-type ideologies. This really all flows from the Gnostics, who were the first "true believers" who believed themselves the sole possessors of the ultimate truth or "THE WORD." Seen in this light, all who do not believe in their vision once shown "the TRUTH" MUST be seen as willful evil opponents of all that is right; and alternate visions of social arrangements seen as axiomatically defective ones that must be quashed at all costs so that "social/cosmic justice" may prevail. As one Iraqi "militant" is quoted as saying prior to the first "purple finger" vote: "Why do we need a Constitution when we already have the Koran?"
@sorepaw:And I'm still waiting for Dr. Hanna's interpretation of "hide the decline."
The "Nature trick" was plotting intstrument data and reconsturcted temperatures SIDE BY SIDE on the same graph.
That's all it was.
Because of the 50 year averaging, the reconstructed data series ended in the sixties. So Mann plotted instrument data from that point on--separately labeled.
That's the entire "Nature trick".
He didn't average in instrument data to the proxies. Only the tree ring proxies aren't used after the sixties, there are many other other proxies that go on to the present day.
People like you have been lying about that ever since. That's why YOU won't say what it was.
The figure in question is 5b in Mann paper.
@sorepaw:Gabriel Hanna has yet to admit that any serious critic of CAGW theories and predictions believes in evolution.
Maybe he is so inclined to see creationism everywhere because he sees it as a doctrine put forward by a rival religion.
Of course there are those who do accept evolution but they are not thick on the ground here at Althouse.
People who reject both demonstrate a problem with science in general--ignorance of what constitutes evidence, ignorance of the current scientific understanding, and a demonstrated willingness to reject science that they feel undermines their political or religious beliefs.
That's the reason I point out the overlap among creationists and those who oppose global warming. Their concern for "science" and "evidence" is actually concern trolling.
There was a New England hurricane recorded by colonists in 1635, and no reason to believe there were not New England hurricanes before the region was New England.
The 1998 paper with the "Nature trick" is avaliable here.
@ambrose:no reason to believe there were not New England hurricanes before the region was New England.
There is no climate scientist claiming that New England earthquakes never happened before, just like no climate scientists have ever claimed that the climate never changed before, or that there was never global warming before.
"New England earthquakes"
Oops. Meant "hurricanes". Earthquakes were also in the news recently.
Of course New England has been hit by hurricanes before. Maybe not everyone knows that, but climate scientists certainly do.
He didn't average in instrument data to the proxies. Only the tree ring proxies aren't used after the sixties, there are many other other proxies that go on to the present day.
So how come tree rings stopped working after the sixties?
Or did they ever really work at all?
"concern for "science" and "evidence" is actually concern trolling"
A pretty fair summary of every Gabriel Hanna comment.
Bill McKibben is an idiot.
If Irene is caused by Global warming, how is it that storms A-H this year did not achieve hurricane status?
http://povertynewsblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/tanzania-now-says-it-will-use-ddt.html
Maybe (as mentioned in a few posts above) they are using DDT again. Looks like they have.
Some 'mystery'
Mosquitoes will soon be a protected species. City halls large and small will be raided and officials arrested for mosquito abatement.
The "Nature trick" was plotting intstrument data and reconsturcted temperatures SIDE BY SIDE on the same graph.
No, the "Nature trick" was truncating Briffa's proxy series at 1960 (thus removing most of the decline), padding it with post-1960 instrumental data, then smoothing with a 1960 endpoint. Why else would Phil Jones speak of "adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline"?
Of course there are those who do accept evolution but they are not thick on the ground here at Althouse.
Oh, puhleeze.
If man causes it, it's bad. period. end of discussion. move along
Mad Man said:
"Bill McKibben is an idiot.
If Irene is caused by Global warming, how is it that storms A-H this year did not achieve hurricane status?"
I can answer that. It is because hurricanes are caused by George Bush and he was waiting to screw up Obama's vacation.
Gabriel,
Of course, scientists and most residents of New England and the Maritime Provinces know that hurricanes head north.
It was Bill McKibben who questioned why a tropical storm would be headed to the snow belt if it were not for global warming. He is a well-known environmental activist, not a scientist.
He is also a Malthusian, believing that human population growth and economic growth will outstrip the ability of Earth to feed us all and preserve the environment. Two hundred years of false predictions of impending famine hasn't swayed him, so I doubt any evidence exists that could modify his views.
Prof., get with the program. Climate change is bad and that is science. Ergo good things cannot happen with climate change. So stop being a toady of big oil and koch brothers /sarc
"Of course there are those who do accept evolution but they are not thick on the ground here at Althouse.
Oh, puhleeze."
I second caplight's "puhleeze." Where did you get that impression (other than your own convenient preconceptions)? I'm sure it's false. And IMO those who parrot the AGW skeptic = creationist equivalence automatically mark themselves as partisans arguing in bad faith.
For the record, I believe the theory of evolution is true (in essence; details always open to scientific revision); I think creationism (qua "scientific" theory) is nonsense (propagated by people confused about what scientific hypotheses & theories are, how they work & how they're tested, the limits of their purview-- the causality of "nature"-- as distinct from metaphysics, theology, or religion); and I'm a strong skeptic of AGW.
I would contend that, at least among laymen, advocacy of creationism resembles advocacy of AGW more than skepticism toward AGW. (Even if many creationists also happen to be skeptics of AGW.)
True, creationists consider themselves "skeptics" of evolution-- but this isn't true skepticism, since they dispute the theory of evolution only because it (apparently) conflicts with their own pre-held philosophical, moral, religious conceptions (e.g. their view of the place of man in the universe, his role in causing a "fallen" state of nature, guilt for which we are to atone in order to avoid a fiery hell, etc.). Their "doubt" is motivated & undergirded by their faith in an alternate grand theory/ paradigm.
Skeptics of AGW are skeptical of AGW: not because it conflicts with pre-held philosophical, moral, or religious conceptions, not because they're wedded to an alternate grand theory or paradigm. Their skepticism is directed to AGW as a grand explanatory theory/ paradigm.
It's actually advocates of AGW whose belief is motivated & undergirded by their own pre-held philosophical, moral, politico-religious conceptions (e.g. their view of the place of man in the universe, his role in causing a "fallen" state of nature, guilt for which we are to atone in order to avoid a fiery hell, etc.). Capitalism as original sin.
The fact that a scientific theory jibes with all sorts of pre-held philosophical, moral, politico-religious conceptions-- a grand theory, expansive in scope, said to account for myriad phenomena, predicting apocalyptic consequences & thus said to justify draconian policies & a global shift in power-- doesn't in itself prove that theory is false. But such a theory warrants especially intense skeptical scrutiny. AGW believers who scoff at creationists (equating them with AGW skeptics) ignore the mote in their own eye.
I've lived in New England most of my life. McKibben needs to look up Nor'Easter.
From Wikipedia:
A nor'easter (also northeaster; see below) is a type of macro-scale storm along the East Coast of the United States and Atlantic Canada, so named because the storm travels to the northeast from the south and the winds come from the northeast, especially in the coastal areas of the Northeastern United States and Atlantic Canada. More specifically, it describes a low pressure area whose center of rotation is just off the East Coast and whose leading winds in the left forward quadrant rotate onto land from the northeast. The precipitation pattern is similar to other extratropical storms. Nor'easters also can cause coastal flooding, coastal erosion, hurricane force winds, and heavy snow. Nor'easters can occur at any time of the year but are mostly known for their presence in the winter season.[1] Nor'easters can be devastating and damaging, especially in the winter months, when most damage and deaths are cold related, as nor'easters are known for bringing extremely cold air down from the Arctic air mass. Nor'easters thrive on the converging air masses; that is, the polar cold air mass and the warmer ocean water of the Gulf Stream.[2]
Emphisis mine
That sounds like not quite a hurricane.
I've seen several nor'easters in my life and they can cause as much damage as a hurricane.
In other words massively damaging storms along the north east coast of the U.S. and the Canadian maritimes are not exactly rare.
I bet some Africans got a hold of some illegal DDT and killed off those skeeters!
AND I DON'T BLAME THEM!
Levia Starks, why am I am reminded of this quote "Two legs bad, four legs good" after reading your post.
Actually trotted out the Nature study and the tree rings? Desperation. If your study is built around tree rings for hundreds of years but abandons that data source, then the study is bogus because the results are based on inconsistent data. That is not sound science. Its politics hiding as science.
In the first place, global warming is only 0.8 degrees +/3-4degrees. That is coldest to warmest year over the past 120 years or so. (Per the IPCC)
Hardly seems likely to be enough to seriously effect the mosquito population.
But even if we assume that there has been 0.8 degrees on average worldwide, that does not address what is happening in Tanzania.
It is not global warming that would kill mosquitos in tanzania, it would be local warming.
So how much has the temperature of Tanzania risen over the past 10-20 years or so?
John Henry
I said:
In the first place, global warming is only 0.8 degrees +/3-4degrees. That is coldest to warmest year over the past 120 years or so. (Per the IPCC)
Sorry about that. Add "alleged" before the phrase "global warming"
John Henry
Kudos to Anna, near the top, for this: "One of the reasons for the rise in the number of storms is better instrumentation. When the 1938 storm hit New England, the only clues a storm was approaching were reported by ships that happened to stumble into the storm."
It's a mighty big ocean... Kind of hard to acknowledge the storms that happen out of sight when you don't have satellites, radar, etc. I had the same thought when the Deadly Ozone Hole was first discovered: "Was this by any chance the first time anybody LOOKED FOR a hole in the ozone layer?"
@sorepaw:let him quote JIm Hansen and Michael Mann and Kevin Trenberth on positive changes that may take place or may be taking place on account of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt:
"Global warming's effects will vary tremendously by location, however, fueling in some regions more rain or less, stronger or weaker winds and even possibly colder temperatures at the bottom of the planet.
Michael Mann, a meteorologist at Pennsylvania State University, compares it to fixing dice. Suppose you take a die, erase the three, and replace it with a six.
"If you roll that die, you're going to find that sixes come up twice as often as they should," Mann explained. But no particular six rolled can be attributed to the fixing because chance dictates it happen one-sixth of the time anyway. "That's sort of an analogy for what we see with climate change: As warm winters become more prevalent, we can't say that that particular one was due to climate change, but what we can see is that sixes are coming up more often than they should be."
"If we go back and look at those couple of 70-degree days in Boston a couple weeks back, or this record-breaking cold snap that's destroyed a large part of the citrus fruit crop in California, that's weather," Mann told LiveScience. "There's no way to attribute those individual episodes in any way to climate, let alone climate change."
Only by examining weather over seasons or years do scientists begin to enter the realm of climate, which is weather averaged over a long period of time.
"You can't take any one warm spell and say that was climate change," Mann said. "But the fact that they're occurring more often and more consistently, in part we may be seeing climate change loading the dice."
"Economically, for one warm winter, there are winners and losers," Schmidt told LiveScience. "And all those plusses and minuses are extremely difficult to tally up. In not that many years, we'll be way out of the noise. It will be obvious to everybody that things have changed. Then you're not talking about plusses and minuses. It's going to be a net minus for everybody."
@Paul Zrimseck:the "Nature trick" was truncating Briffa's proxy series at 1960 (thus removing most of the decline), padding it with post-1960 instrumental data, then smoothing with a 1960 endpoint.
That is a lie. That was not done in the 1998 MBH Nature paper I linked to, that Phil Jones referred to.
No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, "grafted the thermometer record onto" any reconstruction. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum. Most proxy reconstructions end somewhere around 1980, for the reasons discussed above. Often, as in the comparisons we show on this site, the instrumental record (which extends to present) is shown along with the reconstructions, and clearly distinguished from them (e.g. highlighted in red as here). Most studies seek to "validate" a reconstruction by showing that it independently reproduces instrumental estimates (e.g. early temperature data available during the 18th and 19th century) that were not used to 'calibrate' the proxy data. When this is done, it is indeed possible to quantitatively compare the instrumental record of the past few decades with earlier estimates from the proxy reconstruction, within the context of the estimated uncertainties in the reconstructed values (again see the comparisons here, with the instrumental record clearly distinguished in red, the proxy reconstructions indicated by e.g. blue or green, and the uncertainties indicated by shading).
@sorepaw:Why weren't the tree ring proxies used after the 1960s?
Because they diverge from the many other climate proxies after that time, and no one is exactly sure why. Fortunately reconstructions do not depend on only one set of proxies. There are many that agree with each other and the instrument record.
Gabriel Hanna finally offers an interpretation of "Mike's Nature trick."
I "interpreted" nothing. I described literally what had been done and linked to the original paper.
When I challenged you to describe it you refused.
@sorepaw: More acknowledgment that some effects of global warming are positive:
Hansen's climate group:
The IPCC predicts that increases in global mean temperature of less than 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) above 1990 levels will produce beneficial impacts in some regions and harmful ones in others. Net annual costs will increase over time as global temperatures increase.
"Taken as a whole," the IPCC states, "the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time."
IPCC report:
Crop productivity is projected to increase slightly at mid- to high latitudes... Globally, the potential for food production is projected to increase with increases in local average temperature over a range
of 1-3°C, but above this it is projected to decrease....Adaptations such as altered cultivars and planting times allow low- and mid- to high-latitude cereal yields to be maintained at or above baseline yields for modest warming. Globally, commercial timber productivity rises modestly with
climate change in the short- to medium-term...Costs and benefits of climate change for industry, settlement and society will vary widely by location and scale. In the aggregate, however, net effects will tend to be more negative the larger the
change in climate....Climate change is expected to have some mixed effects, such
as a decrease or increase in the range and transmission
potential of malaria in Africa. Studies in temperate areas have shown that climate change
is projected to bring some benefits, such as fewer deaths from
cold exposure. Overall it is expected that these benefits will be outweighed by the negative health effects of rising temperatures worldwide, especially in developing countries....
The balance of positive and negative health impacts will vary
from one location to another, and will alter over time as
temperatures continue to rise....Beneficial impacts would include reduced heating costs and more navigable sea lanes.
Etc, etc, I'm not going to excerpt the whole report for you. Thing is, you shot your mouth off at a strawman.
@sorepaw: More acknowledgment of beneficial effects of global warming:
EPA:
The extent of climate change effects, and whether these effects prove harmful or beneficial, will vary by region, over time, and with the ability of different societal and environmental systems to adapt to or cope with the change....climate change is expected to bring a few benefits to health, including fewer deaths due to exposure to cold. Nonetheless, the IPCC has concluded that, overall (globally), negative climate-related health impacts are expected to outweigh positive health impacts during this century....Reduced sea ice is likely to increase marine access to the region’s resources, expanding opportunities for shipping and possibly for offshore oil extraction (although operations could be hampered initially by increasing movement of sea ice in some areas)...Increased areas of tree growth in the Arctic could serve to take up carbon dioxide (CO2, the principal greenhouse gas emitted by human activities) and supply more wood products and related employment, providing local and global benefits. However, tree growth would mean absorption of additional sunlight (as the land surface would become darker and less reflective) and add to regional warming...Higher temperatures, in combination with favorable rainfall patterns, could prolong disease transmission seasons in some locations where certain diseases already exist. In other locations, climate change will decrease transmission via reductions in rainfall or temperatures that are too high for transmission....
In summary, at no time was any climate scientist ever saying that there would never be any beneficial effect from global warming, just like no economist has ever said that no one can profit from a recession. In both cases, the experts have always said that the NET effects, on the AVERAGE, are negative.
I don't understand what is so difficult to grasp about that, but for some apparently it is. People like sorepaw encourage the confusion to spread their FUD.
The claim that there are more frequent or more destructive hurricanes because of global warming has been refuted many times, and the AGW activists know this.
But the lie continues.
Gabriel, "RealClimate's" explanation of the truncated Briffa series is false as McIntyre illustrates here and the claim that the allegation is found in "industry funded disinformation websites" is the kind of false slander - FUD from AGW advocates - that gives AGW advocates their reputation for dishonesty.
Gabriel, repeating over and over that there was an instrumental data record in the MBH98 graph along with the tree-ring proxy series does nothing to refute the charge that the proxy series was truncated and padded with instrumental data. That can't be what Jones was referring to as "Mike's Nature trick", and not just because it renders the phrase "hide the decline" incomprehensible. Remember, his description of the trick is "adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline." (emphasis added) The instrumental data in the MBH98 graph run from 1902-95; therefore "adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years" must refer to something else.
N.B. Robin's link describes one of several variations on Mike's Nature trick which have appeared in various publications-- not to the original trick, which is described here.
Clothes weren't just washed. They were boiled clean. And, then ironed.
Well, yeah. Back before good detergents and clothes dryers, that's what you had to do to kill off any bedbugs, fleas, lice, etc.
Modern technology has allowed us to be more hygienic for less effort than was possible in the old days.
Even if a 2 degree change in tropical zone temperature, say from 88F to 90F, has occurred (and it has not) it is ludicrous to claim that this would have a significant impact on the energy system of a storm. The science of thermodynamics requires the use of the Kelvin temperature scale. Converting 88F and 90F to Kelvin, we get 304.3K and 305.4K, a 1.1 part increase out of 304, or a 0.36 percent increase. If someone argued that this small change could have a 'trigger' effect, I'd reply that the temperature hasn't actually changed that much and besides it isn't close enough to a phase change temperature where such a 'trigger' effect could be manifest.
So how come the tree ring proxies don't work after the sixties?
And did they really work before or is all the tree ring data basically garbage?
Was there some major change to the physiology of trees that occurred in the sixties?
The "hide the decline" comment was referring specifically to the graphic created for political effect and attached to the UN report. It was not referring to the 1998 Nature paper, in which the "trick" may or may not have been a valid statistical technique. I don't pretend to be able to judge on that matter. What is clear, however, is that it was used in the graphic attached to the UN report because it would have undercut the political message, and cast doubt on the accuracy of the whole project, to use the unedited tree ring data.
@Paul:The allegation about adding in temps is false. Not only is it false, it's UNNECESSARY.
Because you guys are trying to pretend that there's only tree ring proxies and without them no reconstructions are possible, so they needed to cover up something. But that's false; there are many proxies used in the reconstructions. I already linked to an article about them.
re the tree rings:
there are a couple of problems with using them to try to tell temperature:
Very limited sample. We have a gazillion square miles of Earth surface and only several thousand (several tens of thousand?) of tree ring samples.
Many areas were not sampled at all.
Different tree species and even the same species in different areas will behave differently due to temperature variations. Comparing tree rings on a pine in Canada to an Oak in England to a Poplar in India is a fools errand.
Precision-They are trying to measure a temperature change of .008 (8/1000) of a degree per year or 0.8 degrees over 100 years or so. How can they possibly claim with a straight face that they can do this from tree rings?
Tree rings are affected by other things than temperature. How do they compensate for the effect of a dry or cloudy year? How do they say what is due to temperature and what is due to other factors? They will not tell us how they do this. "Trust us" they say, "We're scientists."
They will not even release the raw data on temperature measurements. We get all kinds of excuses why not. They tell us that we can't be trusted with the raw data. They tell us that it is a national security issue. Finally they told us that it has been destroyed because they did not have storage space.
Anyone who says that there has been global warming is A) lying, B) ignorant or C) has their head up their ass (If the shoe fits, Gabriel...)
Global temperatures may have risen 0.8deg. They may just as likely have fallen 0.8deg. Or they may have even stayed the same.
We just have no way of knowing from the data.
Nor do the scientists.
John Henry
@Maguro:So how come the tree ring proxies don't work after the sixties?
That is a very good question.
Trees need lots of things to grow. Heat, nutrients, light, water. The width of a tree ring is going to be decided by the limiting factor of those.
So the only trees used for temperature proxies are trees that you'd have reason to think get plenty of everything except heat. So the vast majority of trees don't work, obviously. Only a few trees.
And did they really work before or is all the tree ring data basically garbage?
They are consistent with the many other proxies I linked to above, so yes they worked before. Even if all the tree ring data were garbage there are many other proxies to choose from which don;t have that problem. But they don;t pick one, of course, they average them.
Was there some major change to the physiology of trees that occurred in the sixties?
No, a change in the environment of the particular trees used as proxies. Heat was no longer the weakest link.
Here's the thing, Maguro; you could have found this out at any time, because it is openly discussed in the scientific literature. This is one more reason why charges like those Paul and sorepaw make are so stupid. Many of the "gotcha" questions like "Don't they know the earth was warmer before" are things that climate scientists were figuring out long before anyone else heard of them.
And you could have bothered to find out for yourself, instead of uncritically swallowing the lies of people who don't know what they're talking about.
And this is another analogy to creationists and creationism--they have the same dynamic. A few people actively spreading lies and the majority of followers relying only on the liars for their source, uncritically repeating their lies.
@John:there are a couple of problems with using them to try to tell temperature...
Except that they AREN'T the sole source of temperature reconstructions, and it is very clear when they do not work.
As usual, you fall back on the fundamental denialist argument: if we don't know everything, that's the same as knowing nothing.
But it's not. There are many other proxies that are used to reconstruct temperature, they don't have the same problem. And they make it clear when the tree rings fail.
@John: And your talking point that we can't trust tree rings because scientists only use a few of them is an out-and-out lie.
OF COURSE they only use a few of them! They are accounting for "cloudy years" and all the other things you claim are problematic! They are using only the ones that they think CAN be assumed to have heat as their limiting factor!
So you criticize them for DOING that at the same time you criticize them for NOT doing it.
Because you guys are trying to pretend that there's only tree ring proxies and without them no reconstructions are possible, so they needed to cover up something.
Rubbish. The only thing I've talked about here is the dishonest use made of tree rings in MBH98 (and a few other places). If you'd rather talk about the other proxies, fine; simply admit that we don't yet know enough about tree rings to rely on them as temperature proxies, and leave them out of future multi-proxy studies.
And did they really work before or is all the tree ring data basically garbage?
We don't know, and won't know until the "divergence problem" is solved, one way or the other-- i.e., we either confirm that tree rings are simply no good as temperature proxies, or we find a specific cause for the late-20C divergence. If we don't know what the cause is, assuming there to be one, we're obviously in no position to say that it wasn't also present at any time before the start of the instrumental record.
while watching Dr Hanna flail as he attempts to "Humpty Dumpty" the argument [i.e. he is trying to define words so they mean what he wants them to] is pretty funny, it gets tedious after a while. Sort of like watching a fat teenager with a wooden sword pretend to be a ninja.
He obviously has no intention whatsoever of addressing the actual meat of the argument. It is interesting, though, how engaged he is. I guess he may be distantly related to Torquemada and is desirous of stamping out heresy wherever it [appears to him] to occur.
The idea that you can determine the average annual temperature from 1000 AD to a fraction of a degree by looking at tree rings is so patently absurd that only an academic could believe it. Of all the many variables affecting tree growth, average annual temperature is only one, and not a particularly important one for any tree species I'm familiar with. How can you draw any conclusions whatsoever from a data set with so much "noise" and so little "signal"?
And yet, historical proxy data is the foundation that the entire global warming edifice rests upon. If the average temperature in 1000 AD was really, say, 1.5 degrees warmer than what the proxies think it was, then today's supposed warming is not unprecedented or even particularly unusual.
Some of you may find this academic study on temperature proxies interesting.
@Paul:MBH98...
All they did was plot two sets of data side-by-side, and label them.
Everything else you've said about it is a lie, and you have no excuse because I linked to the original and ANYONE following this discussion CAN SEE FOR THEMSELVES.
If we don't know what the cause is, assuming there to be one, we're obviously in no position to say that it wasn't also present at any time before the start of the instrumental record.
No. Because they AGREE WITH THE OTEHR PROXIES that don't share that problem.
And only NOW do you even MENTION that other proxies exist.
So fine, we do it your way. Leave the tree rings out entirely, and calculate a nearly identical moving average with slightly larger error bars. Does your position change? No. "We don't know everything to so we know nothing" is your default setting.
@sorepaw:Mann doesn't.
Yes, he acknowledges 70 degree days in Boston when the weather should have been cold.
Furthermore, the vast majority of things I quoted are from documents that he and Hansens and hundreds of others helped put together.
If you want to focus exclusively on three devils from your denialist mythology, you can, but there are thousands of climate scientists, and they all work together on climate science.
@Maguro:The idea that you can determine the average annual temperature from 1000 AD to a fraction of a degree by looking at tree rings is so patently absurd that only an academic could believe it.
I see you didn't bother to clikc on the link to the paper, preferring to swallow lies whole.
The graph 5b that we've been arguing about here HAS ERROR BARS ON IT GENIUS. Nobody is claiming they know the reconstructed temperatures to a fraction of a degree.
That's why they AVERAGE.
See, Maguro, you are CHOOSING ignorance, because you PREFER it. At this point, you are being WILFULLY stupid and furthermore trying to deceive others.
One more strawman. If you don't know what an error bar is, look it up and get someone to read you the hard words. But don't accuse working scientists of not knowing.
@sorepaw:
Your analysis, as I have pointed out as nauseum is incomplete.
Choice 4: You include tree rign proxies when they agree with all the others, and exclude them when they don't.
Are ice cores going to have the same problems tree rings do? No. Isotope ratios? No. Each might have it's own problem, but ice and isotopes AREN'T PLANTS and so aren't going to have the same problems a plant based proxy would have.
If you had a digital thermometer, a mercury thermometer, and an alcohol thermometer, and you used them all for months and they all agreed, then digital one stopped working for some reason, would you therefore conclude that all your temperature measurements were worthless? Only if you were stupid, or talking about climate science.
It's very, very simple. You have to work very hard to confuse people about it. And you d.
@sorepaw, Maguro, Paul:
Since no one click on links, here's some the other proxies:
Ice cores. Oxygen isotope ratios. Boreholes. Corals. Pollen rings. Sediments.
Why does the temperature record need to be thrown out because of tree rings?
You got no answer, only FUD.
@sorepaw:Therefore, Hanna ought to be able to produce quotations from them regarding occasional positive outcomes of CAGW.
He hasn't done it.
You really ARE a loser. I cited SOME of the people you mentioned, and reports from agencies that assemble the consensus of views of THOUSANDS of scientists.
And it's NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Because NO EVIDENCE is good enough for you, sorepaw.
But I'm not writing for YOU. You are a spreader of lies, and you will never change your tune.
Instead, I am writing for the people who read your lies, so that they can see for themselves that they ARE lies.
And the more you call names, and baselessly accuse people, the deeper hole you put yourself in with them.
Hanna is pretty much down to "la la la I can't hear you" at this point, but I would like to observe that he's making awfully free with that word "lie"-- especially for someone who's also trying to get us to believe that the conclusion in MBH98 is robust to the removal of all tree ring series, when in fact it's not even robust to the removal of bristlecones alone.
@sorepaw:That if one speaks, all have spoken, and if one has published, all have published?
Oh, I get it. I have to solicit a quote FROM EVERY SINGLE CLIMATE SCIENTIST before you admit I amply answered your question.
No, the IPCC report isn't good enough for you. Only thousands of people worked to put it together. Not every single climate scientist ever.
When are you going to answer any of my questions with evidence, rather than demanding that I jump through two more hoops every time I jump through one?
Explain to us all why borehole measurements or isotope ratios have to be thrown out because of tree rings.
Explain to us why a temperature reconstrcution that DIDN'T have tree rings, which would produce nearly identical results, is somehow invalid if it includes tree rings in the series when tree rings agree with other proxies and the instrument record.
You can't. You got nothing. All you ever say is "that's not good enough" to any evidence whatever.
@Paul: I notice you still won;t ackowledge the other proxies that have nothing to do with trees or rings.
And accusing me of "la la" is pointless. Other people reading this can see for themselves what I wrote, and compare it with what you wrote. They can check the links I posted and see the originals for themselves and judge whether I characterized it accurately.
This isn't a CONVERSATION, where we only remember what the last person said just a minute ago. It's all up there for all to see.
@sorepaw:No indirect indicator has the status of a direct measurement.
Any indirect indicator is legitimately subject to questioning, as to how good an indicator it actually is, and why it should be so deemed.
No one is saying otherwise, genius. OF COURSE proxies aren;t as good as instruments! Do you think nobody knows that? But it doesn't matter, YOU DON'T ACCEPT TEH INSTRUMENT RECORD EITHER!
It's concern trolling from you. There is NO evidence you will accept, you've proved that over and over.
And when you have 10 or 12 independent proxies that all agree, then you have something pretty reliable, for any human endeavor except climate science which you magically exclude.
Hanna - Now it's my turn to tell you to CLICK ON THE LINK and READ THE PAPER. It's really quite a good one, you might even learn something.
@sorepaw: There's no point in telling other people how bad I am. They are going to look at what I presented, and what you presented, and judge for themselves.
Sorowfully referring to me in the third person, expressing concern for my scientific malfeasance and hoping I live to regret it, just makes you look more the like the concern troll I accurately described you to be.
@Maguro:Now it's my turn to tell you to CLICK ON THE LINK and READ THE PAPER. It's really quite a good one, you might even learn something.
People who do will see the error bars you claimed weren't there.
@Maguro: That's a good one. Hanna learn something? He's made it incredibly clear that he's totally uninterested in learning anything that might contradict what he *knows*. His entire career and being at this point appear to be 'defending' by any means necessary his chosen "Truth". He can't be a real scientist, since that would require actually considering other possibilities and *testing* things.
I have built some pretty complicated statistical models, and they can be misunderstood and/or misused pretty easily. I do know one thing, though. Any model that fails to predict is pretty much useless and based on incorrect assumptions or leaving out major variables.
Gabriel,
in your notes you say that the data relies on:
Assumptions
Estimates
Proxies and indirect measurements
Adjustments
Massaging
And more.
And this doesn't even begin to address the problems of non-calibrated instruments, untrained collectors, variable methods of calculating average temps, movement of monitoring locations and a whole host of other problems.
Fair enough. I agree that there are no direct measurements for much of the temperature data and those things are the best we can do.
If the data showed a 10 degree warming trend, perhaps all those things would give enough accuracy to show that.
Probably not, because they are trying to measure an incredible noisy and diverse system. I would at least feel more comfortable with it.
But to take all that vagueness and tell us that it can show a rise of 0.8 degrees for the world as a whole over the past 120 years or so?
And you call us, who have trouble swallowing that, "creationists" believing in fairy tales?
Give me a call. I have a bridge for sale. I can make you a special good deal.
Are you the Gabriel Hanna at U Alberta Chemistry Department? One would expect better from you if you are.
John Henry
For what it is worth, I am one of the people who collected the ocean temperature data.
Most of the ocean temperature data relies on ship's logs recording cooling water inlet temps.
When I was in the Navy I stood many a messenger watch and it was my job, once an hour, to collect about 50 different temperature, pressure and other readings.
Most of the time I did it. Sometimes I sat on my ass and "radioed" or "gundecked" the messenger log. Writing down the last hour readings with enough variation to make it look like I actually went and took them.
The main condenser cooling water thermometer was 6-7' above the deck. It was a circular bimetallic thermometer, with 2 degree gradations. In all the time I was on the ship it was never calibrated AFAIK.
I did not realize how critical my readings were. Had I known, perhaps I would have taken more care. Or perhaps not.
I suspect that they were within 5 degrees of what the real temperature was.
I would not bet any money on them being any closer.
John Henry
Rachel Carson made sure malaria lingered far longer than need be.
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