Interesting commentary by Daniel Henninger in the WSJ. The shabby aspects of ‘climategate’ seem to deal more in attempts to block dissidents from publication and tricking numbers to manipulate them into being ‘right’ – that is, to reflect what the scientist in question assumed they would. The shoddy behavior of a few scientists does not change the facts. Whether the planet is warming, and whether the cause is human activity or not is not changed by a small group of ‘scholars’ attempting to trick the numbers or keep others who disagree from publishing. Henninger refers to Gallileo, and it doesn’t seem that much of a stretch to see global warming driven by human activity as an article of faith which must be served if one wishes to prosper in scientific endeavors. Scientists are called to a higher discourse and regard for free exchange of information and ideas. Though it does not change whether the earth is warming due to our activities or not, the behavior of our scientific community does bear on not only this question but the whole of scientific discourse. IMO.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Stagnating Temperatures: Irony puts a Silly Hat on Yet Another Global Climate Change Summit
Okay, so if I haven’t bored you with my lame metaphysical theory before, lucky you. But not that lucky, as I will do it now. After observing the world, the way it works, the way we interact; in fact the sum total of my education and experience from birth to the moment of epiphany went into this theory: At the root, at the smallest possible level, we will someday learn that the universe and all of its’ components are built of this basic material. What is it? Irony. Yes, irony. Look closely enough at almost any situation and one finds irony of varying degrees. For example, let’s say you were going to have a global summit to face the crisis of global warming. You were going to invite Prince Charles to repeat his prediction of immanent disaster if we don’t reduce greenhouse gases dramatically this year. Let’s say you are planning to press national governments to enact and enforce emissions standards projected to cost hundreds of billions of dollars at a time when the global economy is teetering on the brink of a huge depression. What would be ironic, in this situation? I think the subject of the following article does the trick nicely in showing us the irony of which we are all assembled. According to this Spiegel article (and many other reports in news sources, journals and science magazines as well), the earth has stopped warming. Just in time to make the people who have been predicting catastrophe look a bit silly and alarmist. Whether you attribute this phenomena of stagnated temperatures to ocean current patterns, or the historic low levels of sunspot activity since 2000, you must admit that I may be right. Irony might be the cause of the whole thing.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Echoes of Past Complaints
One of the many issues over which the Bush Administration was criticized heavily (and probably rightly so) for was suppressing information and opinions in the EPA whish disagreed with the administration’s policy. That’s okay in many management settings, but I hate to see it when what is being curtailed is not merely points of view in conflict with chosen policy, but scientific discussion and debate. In the case of the Bush Administration it seems clear that data which did not support the administration's skepticism of global warming and human-based causes of warming. Now it seems that the Obama Administration is doing the same thing, albeit the data being suppressed is in conflict with the administration’s view that earth is warming and human activity is driving it. At the EPA, a 38 year veteran researcher concluded that the earth is probably not warming and may actually be cooling. He also wrote that it is probably not necessary to regulate carbon dioxide emissions at this point. He actually sees signs that earth is cooling recently and may be back to mid-20th century levels. You can read more about the censoring of his report and the details of its’ content here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10274412-38.html
If it is bad for one administration to suppress research that opposes its’ policies, it is bad for all administrations to do so. Far better to consider and reply to such research than just to try and quash it – which seldom works anyway.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Colder Weather Spurs Late Revival of Arctic Ice
Arctic Research Center: Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979
"Thirty years of sea ice data. The record begins at 1979, the year satellite observations began (Source: Arctic Research Center, University of Illinois)
Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close. "
--Michael Asher (Blog) - January 1, 2009 Link to full entry
Arctic sea ice decreased significantly through much of last year, but satellite data shows the trend was reversed late in the year, with the rate of increase from September to year end showing the fastest rate of change on record - either for rate of increase or rate of decrease. According to the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center as reported in the Dailytech.com blog above, the information is collected via satellite observation of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions. This is the method used to calculate snow cover data as well.
Sea ice is a very useful indicator of short-term trends because it forms and melts much more quickly than the huge and thick ice sheets anchored to bedrock in Antarctica and around the Arctic Circle. In the last quarter of 2008, the thinner sea ice had less snow cover than the ice sheets to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
The Arctic Research Center report (Arctic Research Center Website) uses a system based upon the mean ice anomaly - a measurement which reflects the difference between the current sea ice value and the mean sea ice value for the period between 1979 and 2000 (1979 is the year satellite data first began to be used for this purpose). The above image shows the mean sea ice anomaly value at near 1, about where it was in 1979. Note that as late as September the word "unprecedented" was frequently being attached to predictions of low sea ice levels:
http://geology.com/news/2008/arctic-sea-ice-levels.shtml
arctic-sea-ice-in-death-spiral-second-lowest-on-record
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17912_3-10043977-72.html
This is just one of the many ways that science continues to learn about the processes, causes and effects, and the historical record for climate related processes on earth. Because the record is so complex, it can be very difficult to model the future based on data from multiple and variable sources, collected by different means and over a very short period of time, in terms of the planetary history. Clearly, science does not yet understand all of the earth's processes or the complex interrelationships that drive them.
By way of disclaimer, though, please note that merely publishing reports that do not conform to global warming doctrine at face value does not in any way indicate that I am a denier. I am uncomfortable with many definitive statements that are made concerning earth processes for which we have only cursory and recent data to interpret. However, that does not mean that we should conduct ourselves as if our activities have no impact on the planet. Clearly they do, and to whatever extent science ultimately demonstrates, human actions are wasteful and have an unnecessary impact on the ecosystems and processes of the planet. I prefer to take a logic-based approach in this case rather than an empirical approach where facts are tough to demonstrate. The logic-based approach, as I see it (and no doubt Gifford Pinchot would concur), is simply to conserve our natural resources, minimize the footprint of humans to the greatest practical degree, and to conduct our future designs, economy and collective lifestyle with as great an emphasis on preserving the natural processes and resources of the earth as we can manage. By taking this approach, the objective of the current global warming proponents can be met without the need of introducing political agenda and public relations into the scientific process. The need to prove that each wasteful or polluting activity is having grave consequences right now is moot, if the guiding principal is conservation.
Oh, and yes, I realize that is idealistic. Once we have uniformly adopted conservation I propose we move on to world peace.
Sunshine on Discovery Bay
As always, the photos we use are either my own, or in the public domain. Please let me know if there are any errors and I'll correct them immediately.
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