Lisbon reconciliation unsettling

February 4, 2011 by

The Lisbon climate reconciliation workshop is over and it has created a lot of blog-fodder. I’m quite intrigued by the concept and find it a worthwhile undertaking to try to assuage the tempers in the public debate. Whether this workshop was a useful step towards that goal I wouldn’t know; I wasn’t there. The stories floating around paint a bit of in-crowd picture, with participants varying from staunch contrarians, social scientists and journalists to a small handful of climate scientists at the more agnostic side of the spectrum of professional opinion. Strong proponents of the mainstream scientific view were largely absent AFAIK, as were more activist voices. (I don’t know the views of all those present, so take this characterization for what it’s worth.)

If one were to divide the whole spectrum of opinion in three categories (overplaying uncertainty – mainstream scientific view – overplaying certainty), one could say that only the former category was well represented, and perhaps some who are edging between the first and middle category. Based on the names I recognize, it definitely wasn’t a representative sample from those engaged in the public climate change debate. Which thus defeats the purpose of reconciliation a bit I guess.

Apparently RC’s Gavin Schmidt was also invited, but declined. Gavin writes that his

decision not to go was based purely on their initial assessment of why there was conflict in the climate debate. They appeared to think that it was actually related to reconstructions of medieval temperatures and differing analyses of ice extent. Since these are not even close to the reason why climate science is politicised, I saw little purpose in trying to ‘reconcile’ on points that are completely tangential to the real causes of conflict.

Somehow Gavin’s absence was twisted by Fred Pearce, who wrote that Gavin Schmidt

said the science was settled so there was nothing to discuss.

Needless to say, Gavin has said nothing of the sort (he’s said the opposite). Anonymous conference participant “tallbloke” has outed himself as the source. In a letter to the New Scientist editors, Gavin wrote:

Since, in my opinion, the causes of conflict in the climate change debate relate almost entirely to politics and not the MWP, climate sensitivity or ‘ice’, dismissing this from any discussion did not seem likely to be to help foster any reconciliation.

As an experienced climate journalist, Pearce is well aware of the baggage that the term “settled science” carries: It is often used as a strawman attack on climate science, in which context it means something like “there’s no uncertainy and therefore no need to discuss any of these scientific issues”. Gavin and most, if not all scientists, would vehemently disagree to this.

At other instances (e.g. by Simon at CaS) it is defined as “widespread agreement amongst experts on the main tenets of the issue”. Most Scientists would agree that such consensus exists (it’s hard to argue with really), but it is not at all the same as the definition often used when used as a rhetorical weapon by contrarians. So a defense that that’s how it was meant doesn’t sound convincing to me.

As Stoat rightly sais:

“the science is settled” has been one of the mantras used almost exclusively by climate denialists as a term of insult for those actually doing science (…). It is a feeble attempt at a double bind: is the science settled? ha ha, then you can’t be a scientist because real science is never settled. Is the science not settled? Oh great, then we don’t need to do anything until it is.

Update: Gavin’s response to the conference invitation conforms to his initial description of why he declined. Steve McIntyre chimed in to say that Fred Pearce had read this email as well, which makes the twisted transcription into “settled science” even weirder. Eli assembled the main back and forth’s.

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Posted in English, musing | 83 Comments »

Past, present and future temperatures

February 2, 2011 by

Check out these two graphs of past, present and future climate change:

They both provide a compelling visual picture of potential future warming in the context of past temperatures.

I wanted to use one of these graphs for a climate presentation recently, and there are pro’s and cons to each. Most importantly (to me):

– The bottom figure includes the “constant composition” scenario (C3 in yellow), which I find a useless distraction. It has no realistic value, as it implies an abrupt and arbitrary CO2 emission reduction, but continued aerosol emissions. (Aerosol particles have a short atmospheric residence time, so emissions have to be sustained in order to keep the concentration constant. OTOH, CO2 has a very long lifetime and with roughly 70% lower emissions its concentration would remain constant). It shows the amount of unrealized warming, but it most definitely is not an (even remotely) plausible scenario, and thus should not be presented as such.

– As for the proxy temperatures going back to the Middle Ages (or even further), I prefer the (mini) spaghetti graph of the lower figure over the top figure, which features only the Mann et al (2008) reconstruction.

Steve Easterbrook reminded me of my dilemma with his post comparing the top figure with one on which the bottom figure is based. He notes a few other differences:

– Different scenario’s are used in each (e.g. the top fig includes the “fossil intensive” A1FI (sort of business as usual) scenario, whereas the bottom fig doesn’t. A2 is worst case shown in the bottom graph, whereas it’s the middle of the road in the top graph.)

– Different temperature baseline (pre-industrial versus 1995-2004 period)

The top figure is from the Copenhagen Diagnosis; the bottom figure from Chapman and Davis (2010).

I chose to show the top graph, mainly because of the bothersome inclusion of the C3 “scenario” in the other one.

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Posted in Climate science, English | 38 Comments »

Monckton climate myths resource and the Overton Window

February 1, 2011 by

Christopher Monckton is a skeptic who loves to recycle. He keeps re-using the same old and tired arguments. To help placing his arguments in a scientific context, you could check out this one-stop shop for Monckton misinformation:

Monckton Myths (468 x 60 pixels)

with links to the many arguments Monckton peruses.

Even though an increasing number of people who are very critical of the scientific consensus are not taken in by Monckton’s empty rhetoric, he’s still getting a lot of traction with journalists and politicians.

Another way of looking at it though is offered by Keith:

He’s so gonzo out there that he makes his side look ridiculous. So if you belonged to the climate concerned community, and you wanted to be strategic about this, then I would say the more Monckton appears in the public eye, the better he makes your side look.

There’s something to that, though it carries the danger of shifting the Overton Window (h/t Eli). This is the

“window” in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on an issue. Overton described a method for moving that window, thereby including previously excluded ideas, while excluding previously acceptable ideas. The technique relies on people promoting ideas even less acceptable than the previous “outer fringe” ideas. That makes those old fringe ideas look less extreme, and thereby acceptable…..

I.e. the extreme position of Monckton makes less extreme, but still incorrect/misleading statements about climate appear acceptable. Or worse, presentable as “middle ground” between the Moncktons and Delingpoles of this world on the one side and climate science as embodied by e.g. the IPCC on the other. Whereas science -as the process of gaining understanding of physical processes- ought to be the middle ground of course, at least for physical questions such as “why is the climate changing?” We should reclaim that rightful place for science.

Richard Alley is quoted in EOS (Nov 2010) as saying, in response to the US House Hearing on Climate Change:

You have now had a discussion or a debate here between people who are giving you the blue one and people giving you the green one. This is certainly not both sides. If you want both sides, we would have to have somebody in here screaming a conniption fit on the red end, because you are hearing a very optimistic side

He is right.

On another note, the BBC recently aired some insightful documentaries providing a glimpse into the skeptical mindset. See e.g. this interview with James “interpreter-of-interpretations” Delingpole by Royal Society president Paul Nurse. Complete footage of “Science under Attack” at ClimateCrocks; a nice rundown at Hot Topic. What struck me was that Paul Nurse is so incredibly nice! And that definitely helps getting a connection with the viewers, and I think it contributed to Delingpole being caught totally off guard when confronted with Nurse’s medical analogy (“what would you do if …”). Turn off the sound and look at his body language.

Another one coming: “The Skeptics”, featuring Monckton (so far only the trailer is available outside of the UK).

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Posted in English, musing, Skeptics | 8 Comments »

Eschenbach to Trenberth: Admit uncertainty but don’t show uncertainty

January 26, 2011 by

Willis Eschenbach, in an open letter to Kevin Trenberth, lais bare the catch-22 for scientists-communicators:

Admit the true uncertainties.

while at the same time:

Write scientific papers that don’t center around words like “possibly” or “conceivably” or “might”.

Hmm… that might be tricky. Due to the impossibility of complying with both requests though, it’s a good recipe for presuming someone guilty until proven guilty.

There’s an important question underlying these recommendations though: How could scientist steer between the need to admit uncertainties and at the same time communicate clearly?

Update: I partly answered my own question before: It’s what we know that’s most important in communicating to the public.

Also: The catch-22 in communicating to the public; talking by means of merely providing rational information or emotive storytelling (just the facts won’t do); being angry or calm in your communication?

 

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Posted in English, musing | 26 Comments »

The Food Gap predicts 2.4 degrees by 2020? I don’t think so.

January 20, 2011 by

The Food Gap study by an Argentinian NGO contains an embarrassing mistake: As its first key finding, it sais:

Following the current business-as-usual path, by 2020: The temperature of the planet would be, at least, 2.4ºC warmer.

This is of course patently wrong, and it only takes a quick look at the IPCC projections to figure that out. Which makes it doubly embarrassing, since as the first guiding principle they state: 

The analysis is based on the scientific evidence and conclusions from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

The Guardian has the story; Realclimate has the scientific context.

Now of course this is being spun as if it’s alarmist propaganda gone wrong. Even the otherwise sensible Keith seems to frame it that way. No organization that wants to be taken seriously though would knowingly put in a glaring error like that, as it clearly blows away any credibility they may have had. The most likely explanation is that they honestly believed their own calculation. 

What can be learnt from this:

– Make sure you have the required expertise to write your story, and if you don’t, get people with such expertise to advise you. Base yourself on a proper reading of the relevant literature and/or on people who do.

– If people alert you to an error, check it (or let it be checked), and then fix it, even if that means postponing a deadline or changing something for the gazzilionth time.

Their refusal to correct their mistake after it was pointed out to them is flabbergasting. How stubborn, how stupid. I hope they learnt their lesson.

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Posted in English, Media | 97 Comments »

Sea level versus temperature

January 19, 2011 by

The previous post featured some graphs of changes in historical sea level. Obviously, sea level depends on temperature (due to thermal expansion of water and due to melting of glaciers and ice sheets). Let’s see how the relation between sea level and temperature has been over the Earth’ past. An often seen figure is the one from Archer (2006):

Future projections of sea level rise are much lower than what this graphs seems to suggest, based on the past. There are a few reasons for this:

These values refer to situations where sea level could be assumed to be close to equilibrium with respect to temperature, a situation we’re very far removed from at the moment, and that takes very long (milennia) to achieve. Also, past periods become worse as climate analogues for the future the farther in time they’re from. E.g. during the Eocene the continental configuration was different from today, which has implications for climate.

The Eemian period (the last Interglacial, 125,000 years ago) is probably a more useful analogue for the future. Global average temperature was about 2 degrees higher than now, whereas sea level was 4-6 metres higher than now (“with individual maxima up to +7 or +9m“). However, Rahmstorf pointed out that there’s also a …

problem here: this is forced by orbital changes, i.e. highly regional and seasonal insolation anomalies, not a global mean forcing.

Perfect analogies don’t exist. But all timeperiods from the past point to a very strong dependence of eventual sea level to the earth’ temperature. I wrote about this before, with a home-made figure of sea level versus temperature, including the Eemian.

Grinsted made another graph of sea level versus global average temperature, based on the analysis by Rohling (2009):

Rohling et al based their analysis on data from the past 5 glacial cycles (covering half a million years), to which they fitted an exponential (their figure 2b, reproduced as the thick blue line above, here scaled to global average temperatures. Values in red are ‘recent’ sea level values and a sea level projection for 2100). Grinsted provides the following explanation for this relation being sub-linear:

During glacials where ice volume was large the sea level response to a [change in temperature] was also large. In interglacials, with much less ice volume, the sea level response is much smaller.

Based on Rohling’s data, he concludes that in a warming climate, equilibrium sea level rise would be 6-10 m/degC of global average temperature change. That’s a helluva lot more than projections for the next 100 years suggest (due to long equilibration timescales), though less than the 20 m/degC from Archer’s figure. That’s good news I guess, though as the saying goes: “When it’s bad, it’s really bad. When it’s good, it’s still pretty bad”.

Quoting myself:

We know relatively little about dynamical processes that influence the breaking up and melting of land ice. But apparently large changes in sea level are possible if the temperature remains long enough above (or below) a certain value. The examples from the past may give a sense of what order of magnitude sea level rise we could eventually expect for a given temperature increase. The rate of sea level rise is the most uncertain. Most scientific literature concludes that sea level rise won’t be more than one or at most two meters by 2100 (but it will continue to rise thereafter). That is quite a strong increase for large parts of the world to adapt to, and uncertainty in the rate and level of the rise is not really comforting. The examples from the past are even less so.

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Posted in English, Sea level rise | 10 Comments »

Past, current and future sea level rise

January 18, 2011 by

What’s there to worry about sea level rise; it’s going very slowly, right? Let’s put current sea level rise in a historical perspective.

Here’s a graph of sea level since the last ice age. As the ice from the last ice age was melting, sea levels rose by some 120 metres over the course of about 8000 years, before it flattened out ~6000 years ago. On the top right, I drew a black line with an approximate slope of 3 mm/year, which is the current rate of sea level rise (over the past 20 years or so). This is much faster than the relatively stable sea level during the ~6000 years before, though not as fast as the sea level rise at the end of the last ice age.

Let’s zoom in on the last 9000 years (covering most of the Holocene epoch). The strong sea level rise at the end of the last ice age is still visible on the left hand side, slowing down 7000 years ago and even more so 4000 years ago. Until recently: Current sea level rise represents a clear increase. For the future, most recent estimates of sea level rise fall between 0.5 and 1.5 metres in 2100. It won’t stop thereafter, since there’s a lot of inertia involved in warming up the oceans and in melting (parts of) the large ice sheets (Greenland and Antarctica).

 

Under a business as usual scenario sea level will likely rise by multiple metres over the course of the next few centuries (see e.g. the Dutch DeltaCommittee and German WBGU reports). The vertical red line attempts to give an indication of these long term projections (which are uncomfortably uncertain). With increased warming, sea level rise will likely also increase, so the black line denoting 3 mm/yr can be seen as a lower bound (until the temperature goes down again and the climate system re-equilibrates). An upper bound is harder to predict, because that depends e.g. on tipping points being surpassed, such as parts of the great ice sheets becoming unstable. The fact that in the past sea level has risen with multiple metres per century means that such rates are physically possible. Whether that will happen again in the next millennium depends partly on nature’s forces (uncertainty in the physics, i.e. the response of ice sheets) and partly on what we do to poke nature around (uncertainty in our future emissions).

Quoting from a  recent book “Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions” (eds. Richardson, Steffen and Liverman), the chapter on sea-level rise and ice-sheet dynamics:

The period of relative stability of sea level over the past 6000–7000 years (Harvey and Goodwin, 2004 ) has now ended, and sea level is undoubtedly rising in the post-industrial period (IPCC, 2007a ). Given the massive heat capacity of the ocean, the Earth is already committed to many more centuries of sea-level rise due to thermal expansion alone. The dynamics of the large polar ice sheets and the rapid retreat of glaciers and ice caps will significantly add to the magnitude of sea-level rise. The critical questions are: how much and how fast?

(…) 

Several lines of evidence point towards a sea-level rise by 2100 of perhaps a metre higher than 1990, which is at the upper limit of the IPCC ( 2007a ) range of projections. First, the mid-range of projections of semi-empirical models is centred around 1 m (Rahmstorf, 2007; Grinsted et al ., 2009 ). Second, observed sea-level rise is currently tracking at or near the upper limit of the IPCC projections (Rahmstorf et al ., 2007 ; Domingues et al ., 2008 ). Third, recent observations show an increasing rate of mass loss from both the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets (Cazenave, 2006 ; Rignot and Kanagaratnam, 2006 ). Finally, an analysis of the kinematic constraints on dynamical ice loss suggests a plausible increase in sea level of 0.8 m by 2100 (Pfeffer et al ., 2008 ).

Nevertheless, considerable uncertainty surrounds many of the processes that contribute to sea-level rise, especially concerning the dynamics of the large polar ice sheets. All of these uncertainties point in the same direction – towards more rapid and severe sea-level rise. Thus, rises higher than 1 m by 2100 cannot be ruled out.

(Graphs based on Robert Rodhe’s Global Warming Art)

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Posted in Climate science, English, Sea level rise | 25 Comments »

Blog highlights

January 11, 2011 by

At the start of a new year, let me mention some of my favorite posts of this blog. 

Who to believe? (2009)

In this post I discussed the million dollar question for the lay public in this internet-age: How to gauge conflicting information on complex topics such as health or climate? Who do you trust? Some things to consider: Context, expertise, conspiracy theories, timescales, spatial scales, logic, likelihood, risk, motive, consistency, coherence, etc. (Also a Dutch version)

Climate “skeptics” out of touch with reality (2008)

This post was in reply to a newspaper article about Fred Singer, where he made a host of untrue claims. The Dutch version was published as a column in a newsletter for environmental professionals.

Singers unfounded opinion about CO2 is not relevant for the discussion about energy options. About policy options, for example concerning energy, there will always be different opinions. And different opinions should be heard. But please leave out scientifically proven untruths.

And some more recent ones:

The public role of scientists

To what extent should scientists differentiate in their role as ‘pure’ scientists and their role as public educator, advocate, activist, or whatever other public role they may want to assume? With a medical analogy to illustrate the dynamics.

Of the random walk saga:

– Could climate randomly change very much without being forced to? No, as it would violate conservation of energy.

– Just as my weight cannot change randomly very much without me changing my eating or exercise habits.

And this series of four addressing the interlinking issues of long timescales, big inertia and long term sustainability:

– The risk of postponing corrective action to a gradually deteriorating situation

– What does population have to do with climate change? (with global maps scaled to different quantities)

– Where are we going? (idem, for future GDP)

– The problem is that it’s not our problem (but rather that of future generations)

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Posted in English | 2 Comments »

Benefit of environmental regulations generally outweighs cost

January 6, 2011 by

Steven Cohen writes in the Huffington Post:

EPA has historically been quite careful about gradually phasing in environmental rules to minimize economic disruption. (…)

According to this [OMB] analysis, EPA issued 30 major regulations from 1999 to 2009 at an estimated cost of $25.8 billion to $29.2 billion against estimated benefits ranging from $81.9 billion to $533 billion. As a society we have really not taken leave of our senses. When we make policies, the benefits generally outweigh the costs. Of course, for any given corporation or particular factory in any given financial quarter, the costs may be far higher than the benefits. And the costs might be borne by one group while the benefits may be felt by another. Still the idea that environmental rules kill jobs and destroy our quality of life is deceptive propaganda. It is part of a subtle and symbolic political campaign with the goal of delegitimizing government’s role in protecting the environment.

The rest of the article is well worth reading as well, in which Cohen fulminates against the “fact free climate policy debate” and the inconsistent position of the antiregulatory zeal that’s been getting more political momentum:

We seem willing to ensure [via government regulation] that the food we eat and the toys we give our children are free of poison, but seem reluctant to keep our land, air and water free of toxics.

(Hat tip Paul Luttikhuis)

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Posted in English, Policy | 39 Comments »

2010 blog round-up

January 3, 2011 by

I started writing this blog in mid 2008, and it was off to a quiet start. In the last months of 2009 and the start of 2010, my blog traffic gradually increased due to me chiming in on popular blog discussions on topics such as the CRU email affair or criticizing some contested ‘skeptic’ or ‘lukewarmer’.

A big change in my readership occurred in March 2010, after I wrote a post comparing different datasets of global average temperature. I was looking for a good looking graph of the major surface temperature reconstructions for use in a presentation, and after I couldn’t find one to my liking decided to prepare my own.

Now in all honesty, it wasn’t my pretty graphs that drew thousands of visitors to check out that post, but rather the verbal antics of pseudonymous commenter “VS”. It was initially picked up by Bishop Hill (causing a massive traffic spike) from where it spread to WUWT, Josh’s cartoons and others. It garnered over 2000 comments, many of which consisted of cheering VS on in his attempt to show that the increase in global average temperature could be described by a random walk (from which he later seemed to backpedal), based on a near unit root in the timeseries. But besides the expected chorus of “see, it’s all a scam/random/don’t touch my SUV!”, which got on my nerves at times, it was an interesting discussion from which I learned a thing or two. Of course, from energy balance considerations it is quite clear that the global average temperature can’t randomly walk away in any one direction without being somehow “forced” to. But I do have this desire to understand where someone else is coming from, to search for a nucleus of truth amidst the rhetoric, and to see if common ground can be reached between reasonable people who disagree.

I did a recap of this discussion in various posts thereafter (though never a proper round-up regretfully): Here, here, and my favorite: a sarcastic analogy on April fools day, followed by part 2 (not half as funny).

My site stats clearly show this post is an outlier: 45,000 views, whereas all the others are below 3000. After the big spike was over, the number of pageviews stabilized on a level a few times higher than before (~3000/week after vs ~700/week before). I think a lot of this increased traffic is due to more lively discussions taking place in the comment threads. The number of pageviews in 2010 were almost 10 times that in 2009, and in 2008 it averaged less than 100/week.

Since my recent posts are published in whole on the front page, the number of pageviews of separate posts sais more about the popularity of the discussion ensuing in the comment thread than of the head post itself (most of my pageviews are to the frontpage). That said, after the global avg temp thread the top-3 most popular discussions were:

The risk of postponing corrective action to a gradually deteriorating situation (2713)

The NIPCC report: don’t be fooled (2712)

Scott Denning to ICCC Heartland ‘conference’ gathering: “Be skeptical… be very skeptical!”  (2378)

The NIPCC post (from 2009) is popular because it’s one of the only rebuttals of their 2009 “climate change reconsidered” document, and as such is easy to find by google. The others were mainly popular because of the ensuing debate I think, though I like the post featuring Scott Denning’s excellent Heartland presentation a lot.

I don’t think these were necessarily my best posts; I’ll try to make a list of those some time later this week. Suggestions welcome, as I’m curious to hear what my readers liked or disliked.

It is clear though, even from my own blog, that antagonism sells. Posts where I’m sharply critical of something or someone tend to be more popular than thoughtful essays. Others have similar experiences I believe. Which goes to show that for many, blogs are mostly about entertainment and polarization. The challenge is to get some thoughtful reflection, discussion and critical thinking in there too.

A happy, thoughtful and fun new year everyone!

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Posted in English, musing | 6 Comments »

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