Interesting Times in the Arctic

Well, after what has been a boring melt season, maybe even Neven thinks so, the Northern Hemisphere heat wave appears to have created some interesting times (in the sense of the Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times) at the end. 

It may in the long run be nothing, but the ice pack appears to have separated from Greenland and the passage between Ellesmere Island and Greenland, or at least some impressive melt pools have formed and the ice to the west of the separation is not healthy

EH2R has a nasty gif  showing this from NASA Worldview, again, interesting in the catastrophic sense with a comparison from 2012 where it was smooth enough to skate on (well not really but not nearly so broken up)

Zack Labe has a really good tweet about this

Arctic sea ice is once again pulling away from the coast of far northern Greenland. You can easily see this reflected in the current drift circulation: https://t.co/BkhAkJipgm. Sea ice extent in the Greenland Sea has been at or near a record low for most of 2018. pic.twitter.com/zvOEyNpHut

—

Zack Labe (@ZLabe) August 6, 2018

And last, but not least, there are, again, interesting things happening on the Pacific side.  Neven has that story.  Basically WTF?

Could be interesting.

The blind orange squirrel on Trump's scalp finds a nut

I share the same appalled reaction as the rest of the planet to Trump's dimunitive behavior when standing next to Putin. That isn't really what this post is about, but I can't entirely ignore it. I disagree with the claim that he made a Kinsley Gaffe when he said:

...they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be

A Kinsley Gaffe is when someone publicly says something they privately believe to be true and gets in trouble for it. That didn't happen here - Trump knew he was lying the first time around about there being no reason for Russian interference. He then lied again a few days later by claiming he meant to say he didn't see any reason why it "wouldn't" be Russia - he didn't mean to say that, he's just layering on another lie because he was in trouble from his previous lie. Saying there was literally no valid reason arguing against Russian involvement would be completely inconsistent with virtually everything that comes out of his mouth on the subject, constantly casting doubt on Russian involvement.

And none of that is what I want to talk about - which is the new gas pipeline, and Trump's Blind Squirrel is right to criticize it. However bad and dangerous Russian interference is in American elections, it's even worse in Europe. Why is Germany rewarding Russia when Germany and the rest of the democratic world is under attack?

I get the interdependence idea that Germany has advanced even during the Cold War, but this pipeline has the opposite effect - it reduces interdependence with Eastern European countries that are otherwise under the Russian thumb. Right now, if Russia cuts off supplies to Ukraine or other East European countries it's mad at, then it also loses sales to Western Europe. This new pipeline decreases integration and interdependence.

Trump's goal is for Europe to buy more American natural gas instead. A better goal and an achievable one is to further ramp up European renewables generation and storage capacity. It's not just an environmental issue, it's a national security one. Germany is missing the boat.

Public Access Policies for NASA

At least for the physical sciences public access policies are fairly recent and not at all clear.  This became obvious to Eli in a recent Twitter exchange and indeed, shows that many have not read the FAQ.

Note, that these are public access policies, not an open access policy, the difference being that any material not labelled open access remains under copyright but can be read.  It is subject to normal copyright use.  Open access publications are usually covered by Creative Commons copyrights.

NASA has established an archive for public access, NASA PubSpace, as part of PubMed Central.  Policy requires that digital copies of all peer reviewed articles sponsored by NASA in full or in part be made available for public access on PubSpace for publications supported by NASA grants that started after November 28, 2016 (OTOH there is another place which says it applies to all funded proposals submitted after January 2016.  Consult your program officer).  Unlike some other US government publication archives the final version must be deposited although an embargo of 12 months is allowed. IF the journal has an agreement with PubMed Central this may occur automatically.  Talk to your publisher.

What repository does NASA require PIs to use for depositing publications?  

NASA requires principal investigators who publish peer-reviewed journal articles or juried conference papers to deposit a copy of the item (either the final accepted version or the version of record, as defined in NASA's public access plan) in the NASA public access repository hosted by the National Institutes of Health at PubMed Central. 

What is a "final accepted version" of a manuscript?  

The final accepted version is the author's final manuscript of a peer-reviewed paper accepted for journal publication, including all modifications resulting from the peer-review process. It is the version before the journal makes edits that will constitute the final "version of record."  

What is a "version of record"?  

The version of record is the publisher's authoritative copy of the paper, including all modifications from the publishing peer review process, copyediting, stylistic edits, and formatting changes.

In other words no preprints.  Whose gonna pay for it?

What if my grant does not have sufficient funds to cover publication costs (remember this means costs with the public access in 12 months or less), or the grant has expired?  

Please consult with your institutional official for advice and options.

:)

Where is the hammer?

Will compliance with the NASA Public Access Policy affect the outcome of the application review? 

Compliance with the NASA Public Access Policy is not a factor in the scientific and technical merit evaluation of grant applications. Non-compliance will be addressed administratively and may delay or prevent awarding of funds. 

Are there exceptions?

Will NASA grant exceptions to the policy?  

NASA will consider exceptions only under the most extreme circumstances, such as the death of the sole author, on a case-by-case basis.

They have a video for external grantees, for civil service folk  and a FAQ

For civil service types there is undoubtedly training.  For external grantees, the first step is to register with Orcid.  With your grant you should have received information about linking your NASA grant to Orcid.  If not contact nasa-openaccess@mail.nasa.gov.  This is mandatory for PIs but co-Is and authors should also do this.  Registering links your grant to the National Institutes of Health Manuscript Submission System.  You should also check in your grant/contract whether your project requires pre-publication review.  In case of doubt check with your grant monitor.

At this point you have to go to the NIH Manuscript Submission System and it gets complicated.  Briefly, you login using your NASA Orcid ID, fill in some metadata, identify a Reviewer (PI appears simplest), upload the manuscript files including supplementary data

The FAQ and the Video have more information.  Eli's candid advice at this point is to take somebunny with an R1 out to lunch and get their advice on PubMed Central and the NIH Manuscript Submission System.

The End of Physics

Science is maybe only three times as old as Eli (Eli is very old, has he mentioned that recently) maybe 5 if you count back to Newton.  About a month and a half ago, the Bunny pointed out that physics was the simplest science, the one where you could most easily combine and contrast observations with theoretical descriptions in useful models.  It is also the science where humans have gone the farthest.  That raises the interesting question as to whether we have reached the end of physics or if a lagomorph prefers, the end of physics that a bunny can understand or do or use for other ends.  Comes to the same thing

There is little doubt that progress on foundations of physics finds itself in a traffic jam of a multitude of unprovable theories.  String theory, the multiverse, and other attempts to break out have not been very successful, one could say not at all for more than a few decades.  Astronomy, confronted with the issues of dark matter or modified gravity may not be far behind.

Attempts to go beyond the current paradigms for gravity and quantum behavior have become increasingly fanciful.  Peter Woit, on his blog, Not Even Wrong, has chronicled the search.  Sabine Hossenfelder, on her blog Backreaction and book Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray grapples with these issues.  Both are optimists in that they think that further progress is possible.  Eli maybe not so much. 

John Horgan, in 2012, wrote about an interview he had with Thomas Kuhn.  There is much of what Kuhn says that Eli disagrees with but perhaps more on that later.  For example, Kuhn appears to miss much of the interplay between observations and theory and models.  He also appears to fall into the philosophers trap of what does a thermometer measure, however there is a disturbing for us thread in the interview.

Kuhn described normal science as the working out of puzzles within an accepted framework or paradigm.  IEHO, for some areas it is almost certain that humans have approached the point where no further changes are likely.  Paradigm shifts in those areas are jogs not car crashes, and most often the new is simply an extension of the old to more extreme, smaller, or larger conditions.  Extension rather than revolution is something that the follow on to physics sciences are now experiencing. 

In that sense it is to be expected, that for example in chemistry, many new, exciting and useful puzzles will be solved in new ways but don't expect the hydrino revolution.  Ain't happening folks.

New foundational science can end.  It might have already done so in physics

On Records

A distinguishing mark of a new record in a time series is that it exceeds all previous values another is that the first value in a time series is always a record. 

Given a stationary situation with nothing except chance, aka natural variation, the number of new records should decline to zero, or pretty close, as the series extends in time.

If governed by natural variation the rate at which it declines should be a marker of the nature of the wings, e.g. the distribution characterizing the climate from which the weather is sampled.

It’s pretty hot out there, with all sorts of new record highs being recorded. They are not declining to zero. This is strong and convincing evidence of increasing global temperatures.

That, and it being pretty hot out everywhere

ADDED:  Two interesting items, the first a 2017 paper by Andrew King on Attributing Changing Rates of Temperature Record Breaking to Anthropogenic Influences pointed out by Doug McNeil, the second a blog post by Andrew Gelman “A Headline That Will Make Global-Warming Activists Apoplectic”  on new temperature records.

The Betts Test

Having engaged himself in a worthy round of hole digging while trying to explain why he never used what he himself acknowledged as the excellent Skeptical Science’s explanations about climate issues, Richard Betts fell back on defending Ethon’s favorite, Roger Pielke Jr., against the Skepticals listing said Roger as a climate misinformer.

This too did not go so well until Richard came up with the Betts test, that there were nowhere to be found on said list those who were really out of their mind worried about the dangers of climate change (the name of Peter Wadhams came up in this regard and indeed Dana Nucetelli has a few words on this)

However Eli finds the Betts test a good one and would point to an interesting example previously discussed here on Rabett Run, specifically Roger Jr.’s Convenient Truthiness. Now at the time, Roger’s Prometheus had not yet been pecked to death by Ethon, and Rabett Run was but a small vanity blog, but Eli had asked over there why Roger reserved all his fire for Mike Mann, Al Gore and the IPCC. The answer came

Question: Why don’t I write about glaciers, solar variability, Fred Singer, or Pat Michaels?  

Answer: I don’t know anything special about glaciers, solar variability, or the issues which are often discussed by Fred Singer or Pat Michaels. By contrast, I do know something about disasters and climate change. In fact, I know a lot, perhaps as much as only a few dozen people.

Eli was not particularly impressed

Other than the fact that the Google turns up a mess of Singer / Michaels pronuncimientos about climate change and disasters, we here at the Rabettorium were under the impression that the good Prof. Pielke runs a SCIENCE POLICY INSTITUTE and is always telling us that he loves science policy and we don't.

S. Fred and Pat have been playing in the science policy patch like forever, and maybe before. I am morally certain that RPJr has never, ever read a single word of that stuff. On the other hand, I am a bunny, and you know about the morals of hares. In the words of Dorothy Parker about a particularly childish children's book, Tonstant Weader Fwowed up.
UPDATE: Well, it looks like Roger knows S. Fred well enough to invite him to lecture his classes. FWIW, Trenberth, Sawitz et al also came. Roger also knows Pat Michaels work well enough to cite it in his publications on hurricane damage and elsewhere, as well as the fact that his father and Michaels are co-authors and long term collaborators. In short, the deniability here is not even plausible.

You want the links bunnies, well go to the original

Then, not a single comment from the audience now, well, ATTP has gathered a few but he always does a better job of that than Eli, but none at the time.

As to Roger, the Betts test is a wonderful razor to tear apart the envelop of his latest and Richard might consider taking a Betts test hisself.  Eli will be back with the results.

Hansen 1988 Retrouvé

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the 1988 publication of Global climate changes as forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies three-dimensional model Hansen, J., I. Fung, A. Lacis, D. Rind, S. Lebedeff, R. Ruedy, G. Russell, and P. Stone Eli along with others (like Gavin Schmidt, Nick Stokes and others) Eli went back and took a look at what had been discussed in these parts as well as those.  There are a lot of very good people who contributed to that paper, so it henceforth hereabouts shall be known as HFLRLRRS.

One of the most important things is that the current discussion focuses on the predictions of forcing as well as outcomes.  The first is more or less ecomonics, the second physics.

That being the case, HFLRLRRS were pretty good on both.  Back in 1988 Hansen described the choice of scenarios

For the future, it is difficult to predict reliably how trace gases will continue to change. In face, it would be useful to know the climatic consequences of althernative scenerios. So we have considered three scenarios for future trace gas growth, shown on the next viewgraph. 

Scenerio A assumes the CO2 emissions will grow 1.5 percent per year and that CFC emissions will grow 3 percent per year. Scenerio B assumes constant future emissions. If populations increase, Scenerio B requires emissions per capita to decrease. 

Scenerio C has drastic cuts in emissions by the year 2000, with CFC emissions eliminated entirely and other trace gas emissions reduced to a level where they just balance their sinks. 

These scenarios are designed specifically to cover a very broad range of cases. If I were forced to choose one of these as most plausible, I would say Scenario B. My guess is that the world is now probably following a course that will take it somewhere between A and B

In 2006, Eli pointed out that the CO2 prediction was eerily accurate

and that since CO2 is the predominant forcing differences in the other greenhouse gas forcings will have lesser effects

It shows that many details in emission scenarios are unimportant, or rather that false estimates in one direction are most likely going to be cancelled by false estimates in the other for a different forcing agent, and that on average the scenarios should be useful for larger periods.

Which is what happened using the illustration from Real Climate

A neat thing in HFLRLRRS which has not been commented on much were the color coded maps of temperature anomalies by decade in the future which can be compared to measurements. Eli finds this much more interesting and informative about the early GISS model than the time one dimensional variation of averate global temperature change.  Comparing the result for the 2010s with measurements between 2014-2016 show that HFLRLRRS captured the broad picture but was not perfect

Arctic amplification is clear in the model and 30 years later in the observation.  Otoh, the Antarctic in the model is clearly too warm as is the Arctic south of Greenland. The third pole (the Tibetan Highland is too warm also. It would probably be better to map out more of the current decade wrt the El Nino - Southern Oscillation, 2016 being a monster El Nino, but the period also includes about a year of La Nina.

Another, not remarked much upon thing is that  HFLRLRRS calculated the temperature change compared to the interannual variabilty of their 100 year control run.  The change is everywhere (with the exception of the Indian Ocean off Perth) positive compared to the null of the control.  What would be interesting (to Eli) to compute would be the model interannual variability for the 2010s compared to that of the control run.  Indeed were Eli in charge, CIMP runs would include such a metric.

Democratic National Committee "quietly" bans fossil fuel company contributions

Some good news for a change:

The Democratic National Committee voted over the weekend to ban donations from fossil fuel companies, HuffPost has learned.

The resolution....bars the organization from accepting contributions from corporate political action committees tied to the oil, gas and coal industries....

“We talk about how climate change is real and climate change is a planetary emergency, what we need to do is stop taking money from the institutions that have created this crisis,” said RL Miller, president of the super PAC Climate Hawks Vote Political Action and a co-author of the resolution.

The DNC may consider a second resolution at a full board meeting in Chicago in August to ban contributions over $200 from individuals who work for the fossil fuel industry. Miller said the proposal ― which has not yet been submitted to the DNC ― will hopefully lead candidates to adopt similar policies....

The energy and natural resource sectors, including fossil fuel producers and mining firms, gave $2.6 million to the DNC in 2016, according to data collected by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. That’s a pittance compared to the $56.1 million that came from the finance and real estate sectors, the DNC’s largest corporate donors that year. This year, the energy and natural resource sectors’ donations totaled $186,100 by the middle of May....
The coal mining industry gave 97 percent of its donations to Republicans in 2016 ― a figure that has dipped to 95 percent this year. 

While it's not a huge change in how the money is currently distributed, it will have a cascading effect as Democratic politicians find it increasingly hard to accept fossil fuel contributions, and then be influenced by those donations. I think it will be even more important at the state and local level, where we'll be seeing most of the climate action for the time being.

And at some point the Ds will have the same control in Washington that they had for six months of Obama's first term, and this will give them more freedom to act.