Friday, May 24, 2013

Memorial Day Puzzler

So Eli and Ms. Eli are bundling up for the end of May holiday here in the US and Ethon thought he would take a whack or a peck as the case may be.  This one starts with the set to between Richard Tol (boo, hiss) and Dana Nuccetelli (yea) covered at places which are dangerous but it really is about reading carefully.  You can see their tweets at Twitter, but Eli's friend @Ethon Raptor wants to point to two of them

22 May
Cook survey included 10 of my 122 eligible papers. 5/10 were rated incorrectly. 4/5 were rated as endorse rather than neutral.
Tol, of course,  like Lucia's friend, misses the point that there are differences between abstracts and papers, something Eli and Dana have been hammering at.
23 May
I already elaborated twice. On top of the abstract/paper issue you suggested it was a fault our sample only included 10 of yours
But, dear bunnies, how can it be that Cook et al, missed those 112 papers that Tol whines about?  (Hint read the methods in the Cook et al. paper)

Pielke class meltdown to follow.


27 comments:

willard said...

A tweet in Eli's honour:

> ABSTRACTS, @RichardTol, ABSTRACTS. You've been told. Thank you.

https://twitter.com/nevaudit/status/337772674531065856

bluedwarf said...

Tol is citing PopTech as a reliable source?!? PopTech?!?!?

Anonymous said...

Typical Richard Tol to make it all about him.

willard said...

For what it's worth, I think that Dana's exchange with Richard might have been suboptimal. There's no point in calling Richard any name or to label him in any way. Speaking of which, TonyB just promoted this brief at Judy's:

GWPF INVITES ROYAL SOCIETY FELLOWS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE DISCUSSION

> The GWPF has now invited the five climate scientists to a meeting with a team of members of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council [...]

http://www.thegwpf.org/gwpf-invites-royal-society-fellows-climate-change-discussion/

There is a link under the word "invited" leads to an invitation sent to four members of the GWFP's Academic Advisory Council and two other independent researchers.

Here are six names :

- Prof Vincent Courtillot
- Prof Mike Kelly FRS
- Nic Lewis
- Prof Richard Lindzen
- Viscount Ridley
- Prof Richard Tol.

***

Thanking Richard for his concerns and paying due diligence to them might be less suboptimal.

willard said...

Eli,

I think you missed this other one:

> .@dana1981 I published 4 papers that show that humans are the main cause of global warming. You missed 1, and classified another as lukewarm

https://twitter.com/RichardTol/status/337455725158744064

I asked:

> @RichardTol @dana1981 What category is the lukewarm category?

https://twitter.com/nevaudit/status/337770309744734208

No response yet.

Albatross said...

@Bluedwarf,

It is worse than that. Tol has joined the ranks of Lucia and Morano as well.

Albatross said...

Ethon might be interested to know that Lucia and Poppy don't like to be web cited.

This from the same people who routinely yelp about others allegedly "disappearing" things and openness and transparency. LOL.

It is time for these folks to either put up (i.e., publish a paper in a reputable journal like Cook et al did) or to shut up. Their favourite hobby of yelping from the sidelines and whining became tiresome a very long time ago.

They don't need a new hoppy, they need therapy :)

willard said...

When I search For 'tol,' in the database, I find these:

Greenhouse Statistics - Time-series Analysis .2.
Authors: Tol, Rsj (1994)
Journal: Theoretical And Applied Climatology
Category: Methods
Endorsement Level: 1.

A Bayesian Statistical Analysis Of The Enhanced Greenhouse
Authors: Tol, Rsj; De Vos, Af (1998)
Journal: Climatic Change
Category: Methods
Endorsement Level: 1.

Climate Change, The Enhanced Greenhouse Effect And The Influence Of The Sun: A Statistical Analysis
Authors: Tol, Rsj; Vellinga, P (1998)
Journal: Theoretical And Applied Climatology
Category: Methods
Endorsement Level: 2.

The Marginal Costs Of Greenhouse Gas
Authors: Tol, Rsj (1999)
Journal: Energy Journal
Category: Mitigation
Endorsement Level: 4.

Methane Emission Reduction: An Application Of Fund
Authors: Tol, Rsj; Heintz, Rj; Lammers, Pem (2003)
Journal: Climatic Change
Category: Mitigation
Endorsement Level: 3.

Exchange Rates And Climate Change: An Application Of Fund
Authors: Tol, Rsj (2006)
Journal: Climatic Change
Category: Mitigation
Endorsement Level: 4.

Multi-gas Emission Reduction For Climate Change Policy: An Application Of Fund
Authors: Tol, Rsj (2006)
Journal: Energy Journal
Category: Mitigation
Endorsement Level: 2.

Evaluating Global Warming Potentials With Historical Temperature
Authors: Tanaka, K; O'neill, Bc; Rokityanskiy, D; Obersteiner, M; Tol, Rsj (2009)
Journal: Climatic Change
Category: Methods
Endorsement Level: 3.

On Regional Labor Productivity
Authors: Kjellstrom, T; Kovats, Rs; Lloyd, Sj; Holt, T; Tol, Rsj (2009)
Journal: Archives Of Environmental & Occupational Health
Category: Impacts
Endorsement Level: 3.

Climate Change And Violent Conflict In Europe Over The Last Millennium
Authors: Tol, Rsj; Wagner, S (2010)
Journal: Climatic Change
Category: Impacts
Endorsement Level: 4.


willard said...

Let's recall Richard's tweet that mentioned

> 4/5 were rated as endorse rather than neutral.

Since the two (1) are quite clear-cut, these must be:

Climate Change, The Enhanced Greenhouse Effect And The Influence Of The Sun: A Statistical Analysis (2)

Multi-gas Emission Reduction For Climate Change Policy: An Application Of Fund (2)

Methane Emission Reduction: An Application Of Fund (3)

Evaluating Global Warming Potentials With Historical Temperature (3)

On Regional Labor Productivity (3)

***

According to Richard, only one of them is not neutral.

But which one?

willard said...

Here's the abstract of Tol & Vellinga 1998:

> Changes in solar activity are regularly forwarded as an hypothesis to explain the observed global warming over the last century. The support of such claims is largely statistical, as knowledge of the physical relationships is limited. The statistical evidence is revisited. Changing solar activity is a statistically plausible hypothesis for the observed warming, if short-term natural variability is the only alternative explanation. Compared to the enhanced greenhouse effect, the solar hypothesis looses a substantial part of its plausibility. Reversely, the size and significance of the estimated impact of the enhanced greenhouse effect on the global mean temperature is hardly affected by solar activity.

Is this a neutral abstract?

You be the judge!

willard said...

Here's the abstract of Tol, Heinz & Lamertz:

> Methane is, after carbon dioxide, the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas. Governments
plan to abate methane emissions. A crude set of estimates of reduction costs is included
in FUND, an integrated assessment model of climate change. In a cost-benefit analysis, methane
emission reduction is found to be instrumental in controlling the optimal rate of climate change. In
a cost-effectiveness analysis, methane emission reduction largely replaces carbon dioxide emission
reduction. Methane emission reduction reinforces the case for international cooperation in climate
policy, but complicates the efficient allocation of emission reduction efforts. Methane emission reduction at the short run does not help to achieve the ultimate objective of the Framework Convention
on Climate Change.

Should this ABSTRACT be classified as neutral?

You be the judge!

willard said...

Here's the ABSTRACT of Tol (2006):

> The costs of greenhouse gas emission reduction with abatement of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are investigated using the FUND model. The central policy scenario keeps anthropogenic radiative forcing below 4.5 Wm 2. If CO 2 emission reduction were the only possibility to meet this target, the net present value of consumption losses would be $45 trillion; with abatement of the other gases added, costs fall to $33 trillion. The bulk of these costs savings can be ascribed to reductions of nitrous oxide. Because nitrous oxide emission reduction is so much more important than methane emission reduction, the choice of equivalence metric between the greenhouse gases does not matter much. Sensitivity analyses show that the shape of the cost curves for CH.

Should it be classified as neutral?

You be the judge!

willard said...

Here's the abstract of the Kjellstrom & al working paper:

> Global climate change will increase outdoor and indoor heat loads, and may impair health and productivity for millions of working people. This study applies physiological evidence about effects of heat, climate guidelines for safe work environments, climate modelling and global distributions of working populations, to estimate the impact of two
climate scenarios on future labour productivity. In most regions, climate change will decrease labour productivity, under the simple assumption of no specific adaptation. By the 2080s, the greatest absolute losses of population based labour work ability as compared with a situation of no heat impact (11-27%) are seen under the A2 scenario in South-East Asia, Andean and Central America, and the Caribbean. Climate change will significantly
impact on labour productivity unless farmers, self-employed and employers invest in adaptive measures. Workers may need to work longer hours to achieve the same output and there will be economic costs of occupational health interventions against heat exposures.

Is this an example of a neutral ABSTRACT?

You be the judge!

Tom Curtis said...

Willard's collection is not complete, so here is the abstract of Tanaka et al, 2009 (Evaluating Global Warming Potentials with historical temperature):

"Global Warming Potentials (GWPs) are evaluated with historical temperature by applying them to convert historical CH4 and N2O emissions to equivalent CO2 emissions. Our GWP analysis is based on an inverse estimation using the Aggregated Carbon Cycle, Atmospheric Chemistry, and Climate Model (ACC2). We find that, for both CH4 and N2O, indices higher than the Kyoto GWPs (100-year time horizon) would reproduce better the historical temperature. The CH4 GWP provides a best fit to the historical temperature when it is calculated with a time horizon of 44 years. However, the N2O GWP does not approximate well the historical temperature with any time horizon. We introduce a new exchange metric, TEMperature Proxy index (TEMP), that is defined so that it provides a best fit to the temperature projection of a given period. By comparing GWPs and TEMPs, we find that the inability of the N2O GWP to reproduce the historical temperature is caused by the GWP calculation methodology in IPCC using simplifying assumptions for the background system dynamics and uncertain parameter estimations. Furthermore, our TEMP calculations demonstrate that indices have to be progressively updated upon the acquisition of new measurements and/or the advancement of our understanding of Earth system processes."

As he would say:
Is this an example of a neutral ABSTRACT?

You be the judge.

willard said...

Here's the abstract of Tanaka & al, cited 24 times on Ze Scholar:

> Global Warming Potentials (GWPs) are evaluated with historical temperature by applying them to convert historical CH4 and N2O emissions to equivalent CO2 emissions. Our GWP analysis is based on an inverse estimation using the Aggregated Carbon Cycle, Atmospheric Chemistry, and Climate Model (ACC2). We find that, for both CH4 and N2O, indices higher than the Kyoto GWPs (100-
year time horizon) would reproduce better the historical temperature. The CH4 GWP provides a best fit to the historical temperature when it is calculated with a time horizon of 44 years. However, the N2O GWP does not approximate well the historical temperature with any time horizon. We introduce a new exchange metric, TEMperature Proxy index (TEMP), that is defined so that it provides a best fit to the temperature projection of a given period. By comparing GWPs and TEMPs, we find that the inability of the N2O GWP to reproduce the historical temperature is caused by the GWP calculation methodology in IPCC using simplifying assumptions for the background system dynamics and uncertain parameter estimations. Furthermore, our TEMP calculations demonstrate that indices have to be progressively updated upon the acquisition of new measurements and/or the advancement of our understanding of Earth system processes.

http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/assets/osgc/OSGC-000-000-002-775.pdf

Is this an ABSTRACT that &c?

You be the judge!

***

Let it be noted that Richard tells us that four of of these five ABSTRACTS are neutral.

***

Does anyone know if Richard has been contacted by John's team?

If yes, does anyone know if Richard has responded?

willard said...

Tom,

Jinx!

***

I might as well tell that:

> You be the judge!

should come with an hat tip to our Honest Broker, e.g.:

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.ca/2011/09/gatekeeping-at-grl-you-be-judge.html

Anonymous said...

This is really quite extraordinary.

Does Tol understand what he's writing? Does he understand what the survey is asking?

Perhaps he might consider coming here and explaiing to us the difference between "neutral" and "endorse".


Bernard J.

Tom Curtis said...

Willard asked us to decide (complete with h/t), so I did:
http://bybrisbanewaters.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/tols-gaffe.html

My conclusion is that Tol is full of it.

As an aside, further comments has ruled out Tol and Vellinga as one of the four purportedly neutral papers. According to him it should be a 1. At a minimum that shows he is mistaking "Explicitly endorses but does not quantify" for "Endorses a luke warm position" which is rather bizarre.

willard said...

Tom Curtis,

Please do not forget to mention this tweet by Richard:

> I'm an academic. I stand with appropriate methods, founded conclusions, reasoned & informed debate with public and policy makers.

https://twitter.com/RichardTol/status/337507320382775296

Was his "4/5" claim founded by an appropriate method?

Was the expression "lukewarm category" an informed choice of words?

***

My own hypothesis is that Richard was simply unclear. My justification is that he seems to entertain this belief:

> You can't be clear and honest at same time.

https://twitter.com/RichardTol/status/337521382512553984

Rattus Norvegicus said...

Willard,

That tweet sounds suspiciously like a rather often spun quote by Schneider. You don't think he (Schneider) might have been saying something true, do you?

Andy S said...

Bunnies should remember that the SkS study also contacted the original authors for their own evaluations of their papers (not just the abstracts). These results were duly reported in the paper as self-ratings, but only as summations; ethics rules dictate that individual author self-ratings have to remain confidential, to protect innocents and rascals alike.

Richard Tol may or may not have replied to the SkS emails, only he is at liberty to say.

Tom Curtis said...

Tol is trying a new line in his tweets. Apparently Cook 2013 is no good because it does not include Principia Scientific International (and similar journals) in its survey of the scientific literature. Apparently, according to him, a survey to find the consensus position in the scientific literature should venture well outside ISI certified journals.

Anonymous said...

That thread of Tol-weets is quite amusing. Apparently Tol was one of the first people to demonstrate human-caused global warming. At least, he was in his own humble opinion:

https://twitter.com/RichardTol/status/337482998050074624

There might be a few climatologists and physicists who remember the history somewhat differently...


Bernard J.

Anonymous said...

Tol:

"@dana1981 WoS vets journals. Young journals are out. Strange journals are out. That would lead to overconfidence in established position."

Or it could simply lead to a representative sampling of respected experts in the field (which is, after all, the point of Cook's et al paper), and winnow out dog astrology journals and cranks who pay to have dross published that simply cannot pass professional peer review... and which are, after all, hardly representative of the world's practicing climatological experts.

Eli FTW:

"@RichardTol @AGrinsted @dana1981 Variable of interest to Richard Tol is Richard Tol's opinion. 122X or more"


Bernard J.

willard said...

Rattus,

Here you go:

> Is your "You can't be clear and honest at same time" inspired by a famous Schneider quote, @RichardTol ?

https://twitter.com/nevaudit/status/338996302157344768

Anonymous said...

The Twittercademic
-- by Horatio Algeranon

I'm a Twittercademic
A cad of bitter polemic.
I stand by my conclusions
Tweeted for mass confusions.
You can't be clear and tweet
Your enemies to defeat.

Anonymous said...

“Printcrapia Slyentific”
– by Horatio Algeranon

Printcrapia Slyentific
Is really quite terrific
A brand new tonian journal
Of physics gone infernal