Curry vs. Curry

UPDATE:  And Eli has been remiss on the Prof. Curry testimony circuit on not pointing to Tamino's take on her statements about the Arctic.   North Pole, South Pole, all around the planet. . .

Dana Nuccitelli, And Then, Sou and Bart have comments on last week's Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee testimony by Prof Andy Dessler and Prof. Judith Curry.

Prof. Curry has issued a challenge to those (Mike Mann usw,) who think she was being economical with the truth

Since you have publicly accused my Congressional testimony of being ‘anti-science,’  I expect you to (publicly) document and rebut any statement in my testimony that is factually inaccurate or where my conclusions are not supported by the evidence that I provide

Now some, not Eli to be sure, might point out that there is more than a bit of lawerly verbage in there given the cherry orchard that the evidence that somebunny provides can omit, but the bunnies are forgiving beasts.

In Prof. Judith Curry's testimony she claimed that

However, several key elements of the AR5 WGI report point to a weakening of the case for attributing most of the warming to human influences, relative to the previous assessment

• Lack of warming since 1998 and the growing discrepancies between observations and climate model projections
• Evidence of decreased climate sensitivity to increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations
• Evidence that sea level rise during 1920 - 1950 is of the same magnitude as in 1993 -2012
• Increasing Antarctic sea ice extent

Permit the Rabett to start at the bottom.  Eli and the Weasel previously noted Prof. Curry really does not believe that increasing Antarctic sea ice extent casts any doubt of the AR5's conclusions because she knows why the sea ice in Antarctica has been increasing (or perhaps not increasing as much, that may be another interesting tale of whom do you believe, theory or observation, as a recent preprint casts doubt on the magnitude).  In a 2010 PNAS paper, Accelerated warming of the Southern Ocean and its impacts on the hydrological cycle and sea ice Prof. Curry's abstract reads:

The observed sea surface temperature in the Southern Ocean shows a substantial warming trend for the second half of the 20th century. Associated with the warming, there has been an enhanced atmospheric hydrological cycle in the Southern Ocean that results in an increase of the Antarctic sea ice for the past three decades through the reduced upward ocean heat transport and increased snowfall. The simulated sea surface temperature variability from two global coupled climate models for the second half of the 20th century is dominated by natural internal variability associated with the Antarctic Oscillation, suggesting that the models’ internal variability is too strong, leading to a response to anthropogenic forcing that is too weak. With increased loading of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere through the 21st century, the models show an accelerated warming in the Southern Ocean, and indicate that anthropogenic forcing exceeds natural internal variability. The increased heating from below (ocean) and above (atmosphere) and increased liquid precipitation associated with the enhanced hydrological cycle results in a projected decline of the Antarctic sea ice.(emphasis added)

Of course the Weasel thinks the entire paper is the stadium wave in forecasting form, but Eli will be generous given that Prof. Curry thinks that the paper was a good thing given her comments over at Stoat's. (The paper has vanished from the Ga Tech cache btw).  OTOH, a forecast of growth of sea ice through increased snow fall has a pretty simple and obvious mechanism going back to at least the 1990s.  The range of temperature at which snow falls is rather small basically because there has to be a significant amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, and when it gets really cold there ain't, so the only way for snow to fall is transport from warmer areas.  This makes sense if the Sourthern Ocean is warming, which cannot be gainsaid (sks has two useful debunkers which demystify Prof. Curry's claim in depth from which the next two images are borrowed)

and, of course, while there may be more sea ice, Antarctica itself is losing mass at a furious rate due to warming

But perhaps Prof. Curry's position has now shifted to that enunciated by Mark B

Liu and Curry, defended by The Team, selected inappropriate data and time periods, ignored data that doesn’t match the IPCC message, manipulated results, clearly engaged in misconduct, dismissed dissenting views, and ultimately pushed the notion that Antarctic Sea Ice will melt, based on fudged computer models, when data clearly shows otherwise. Read ‘The Antarctic Ice Illusion: CurryGate and the Corruption of Science’ by Montfork. It’s one of the best books written on climate science, though I can’t personally vouch for any of its conclusions

Prof. Curry appears to have publicly documented and rebutted Prof. Curry's statement in Prof. Curry's testimony about Antarctic sea ice increase weakening the evidence for man made climate change. Many thanks.

While Antarctic sea ice increase is taking place, according to Prof. Curry, it is inaccurate to say that it is evidence against man caused climate change, but according to her own published work, and that of others dating back to decades before her work, it is actually evidence for man made climate change because of the forecast increase in snow fall,. Prof. Curry's own work contradicts her own testimony.  Bunnies can now debate to what extent she gets an out by demanding that such a demystification be limited to the evidence that Prof. Curry provided, given that Prof. Curry probably provided Prof. Curry's CV with a list of publications as part of the evidence.  Moreover, this appears to be another case of where the models are too optimistic, as Prof. Curry herself states in Prof. Curry's paper.

To paraphrase Richard Alley, Prof. Curry,  looks at one part of the data, ignores much and and advises nulo problemo, Prof. Dessler looks at the entire picture and says, hey the models tell us we got a problem, we need to do something quick, and the Earth is over in the corner screaming bloody murder

Senator Whitehouse on the Response of Industry to Climate Change

Missed a few weeks, but here is the holiday edition

Ruinenpornography

For the festivities of our choice, Ms. Rabett recently gifted Eli with a book, Schottenfreude, German words for the human condition, by Ben Schott, where the author provides examples of the dexterity of the German language.

Of course, the prototype that has made it into other languages is Schadenfreude, happiness at the misfortune of some others, the rejoicing by certain parties at a boat getting stuck coming to mind, but Schott has others like Ruinenpornographie, which he defines as the morbid fascination with photographs of contemporary urban decay.  Eli will re-purpose it to fit the demise of Pattern Recognition In Physics, a two issue journal that was set up by and a bunch of buds who, let Eli be polite, don't quite fit into the 97%.  This was an important step for the denialists, because it opened the gate to the scientific literature.  While there are nuisance journals that are not followed by the citation services like World of Science or Scopus, and the occasional outlier that sneaks in because a bud of the editors has something weird to say, this was the real thing, published by the house that published the EGU journals.

After two issues that set new records for wrong Copernicus Publications has terminated the journal

Copernicus Publications started publishing the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics (PRP) in March 2013. The journal idea was brought to Copernicus' attention and was taken rather critically in the beginning, since the designated Editors-in-Chief were mentioned in the context of the debates of climate skeptics. However, the initiators asserted that the aim of the journal was to publish articles about patterns recognized in the full spectrum of physical disciplines rather than to focus on climate-research-related topics.

Even Eli, trusting bunny that he is, would have been, shall he say, skeptical of that one given the all star team of editors.

Recently, a special issue was compiled entitled "Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts". Besides papers dealing with the observed patterns in the heliosphere, the special issue editors ultimately submitted their conclusions in which they “doubt the continued, even accelerated, warming as claimed by the IPCC project” (Pattern Recogn. Phys., 1, 205–206, 2013).

They were too greedy and obvious.  For the long haul they should have started quietly, but no.

Copernicus Publications published the work and other special issue papers to provide the spectrum of the related papers to the scientists for their individual judgment. Following best practice in scholarly publishing, published articles cannot be removed afterwards.

In addition, the editors selected the referees on a nepotistic basis, which we regard as malpractice in scientific publishing and not in accordance with our  publication ethics we expect to be followed by the editors.

Well, maybe nepotistic is not quite the right word, after all these guys are not family, or maybe they are, in which case incestuous would be better, but these are strong words

Therefore, we at Copernicus Publications wish to distance ourselves from the apparent misuse of the originally agreed aims & scope of the journal as well as the malpractice regarding the review process, and decided on 17 January 2014 to cease the publication of PRP. Of course, scientific dispute is controversial and should allow contradictory opinions which can then be discussed within the scientific community. However, the recent developments including the expressed implications (see above) have led us to this drastic decision.

Interested scientists can reach the online library at: www.pattern-recogn-phys.net

Nasty implication there.  Certainly the publishers are not happy about the clown show they let in the door.  However on a more serious note, Eli would like to ask the bunnies to stop rolling on the floor and direct their browser to the preceding post, where the Rabett has, with permission, put up Andy Dessler's testimony to Congress and the first comment by eveningperson

One of Andy's key points is

What about alternative theories?

Any theory that wants to compete with the standard model has to explain all of the observations that the standard model can. Is there any model that can even come close to doing that?

*No*.

Eveningperson gets to the nub of why Pattern Recognition In Physics and skepticism in general flails (and yes that is a pun, but one with a point)

as Dessler points out, no other explanation accounts for the whole body (or standard model) of current climate change science and it is notable that there is no body of 'skeptics' building and refining an alternative model. 'Skepticism' consists largely, as far as I can see, of the continual circulation of a body of zombie memes that are never developed into a coherent model, indeed, these memes often logically contradict each other. This even after decades of development of the standard model. 

UPDATE:  More at Retraction Watch and Big City Lib.  And the bleating has begun.

Rog (I hate relativity and climate science) Tattersall even posted the Dear Nils-Axel letter they got

We regret to inform you that we decided to terminate the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics

 While processing the press release for the special issue “Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts”, we read through the general conclusions paper published on 16 Dec 2013. We were alarmed by the authors’ second implication stating “This sheds serious doubts on the issue of a continued, even accelerated, warming as claimed by the IPCC project”. Before the journal was launched, we had a long discussion regarding its topics. The aim of the journal was to publish articles about patterns recognized in the full spectrum of physical disciplines. PRP was never meant to be a platform for climate sceptics. In addition to our doubts about the scientific content of PRP, we also received information about potential misconduct during the review process. Copernicus Publications cannot risk losing its excellent reputation in the scientific community. We therefore wish to distance ourselves from the apparent misuse of the originally agreed aims & scope of PRP and decided today to cease the publication. This decision must come as a surprise for you, but under the given circumstances we were forced to react.   

In the Dirty Harry sense, didn't Copernicus even look at the list of clowns who were the editors and take an early pass before getting pied??

Andrew Dessler's Testimony to the Senate

Andy Dessler, an old friend of the blog, testified to the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee yesterday, while the testimony is available in full at the EPW site, Eli, with Andy's approval, is reproducing it at Rabett Run, where comments are welcome.  There is a general agreement that the testimony is a good statement of the current status of climate science and the challenges of climate change.  Without further ado:

What we know about climate change

Andrew E. Dessler

Professor of Atmospheric Sciences

Texas A&M University

My name is Andrew Dessler and I am a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. I have been studying the atmosphere since 1988 and I have published in the peer-reviewed literature on climate change, including studies of the cloud and water vapor feedbacks and climate sensitivity.

In my testimony, I will review what I think are the most important conclusions the climate scientific community has reached in over two centuries of work. Let me begin by describing some important points that we know with high confidence — and how that has led me to personally conclude that climate change is a clear and present danger.

1.  The climate is warming.

By this I mean by this that we are presently in the midst of an overall increase in the temperature of the lower atmosphere and ocean spanning many decades. This can be seen in Figure 1, which shows the global average surface temperature, and Figure 2, which shows the heat content of the ocean (both figures plot anomalies, expressed in degrees Fahrenheit). A mountain of ancillary data supports these observations of warming: e.g., satellite measurements of the temperature of the lower atmosphere, loss of ice on the planet, observations of sea level rise.

Fig. 1. Global annual average temperature anomaly in °F; the gray line is the annual average and the black line is a smoothed time series. Data are from the NASA GISS Surface Temperature Analysis [Hansen et al., 2010], downloaded from http://data.giss.nasa.gov/giste mp/.  Other analyses show nearly identical results.

2. Most of the recent warming is extremely likely due to emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by human activities.

This conclusion is based on several lines of evidence:

a. Humans have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 280 parts per million in 1750 to 400 parts per million today. Methane levels have more than doubled over this period, and chlorofluorocarbons did not exist in our atmosphere before humans.

b. The physics of the greenhouse effect is well understood, and it predicts that the increase in greenhouse gases will warm the climate.

 Fig. 2. Ocean temperature anomaly in °F of the entire ocean. Anomalies are calculated relative to the 1970 - 2000 period (data are from Balmaseda et al. [2013]).

c. The actual amount of warming over the last century roughly matches what is predicted by the standard model¹ of climate. This is shown in Fig. 3 .

1  Following particle physics and cosmology , I’ll refer to the mainstream theory of climate science as the standard model.  A climate model is a single computational realization of the physics embodied in this standard model.

d. Reconstructions of paleoclimate data over the last 60 million years show that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide exert a strong control on the climate system.

e. There is no alternative explanation for the recent warming other than an enhanced greenhouse effect due to human activities.

 Fig. 3. Global mean surface temperature anomalies from the surface thermometer record (gray line), compared with a coupled ocean- atmosphere climate model (black line). The model includes natural forcing and human greenhouse - gas emissions, aerosols, and ozone depletion. Anomalies are measured relative to the 1901 - 1950 mean. Source: Fig. 3.12 of Dessler and Parson [2010], which was an adaptation of Fig. TS.23, Solomon et al.[2007]

These points fit into a more general context about how science works. Making successful predictions is the gold standard of science. If a theory successfully predicts phenomena that are later observed, one can be confident that the theory captures something essential about the real world system. The standard model has done that. For example, climate scientists predicted in 1967 that the stratosphere would cool while the troposphere warmed as a result of increasing greenhouse gases. This was observed 20 years later.  Climate models predicted in the 1970s that the Arctic would warm faster the Antarctic. This has also been subsequently confirmed²

2.  Some of these examples are taken from the 2012 AGU Tyndall Lecture by R. Pierrehumbert, http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2012/events/tyndall-lecture-gc43i-successful-predictions-video-on-demand/

Figure 4. The spatial distribution of the water vapor feedback (W/m²/K) in (top) observations between 2000 and 2010 and (bottom) control runs of CMIP3 models. Adapted from Fig. 2 of Dessler [2013].

Figure 4 shows the spatial distribution of the water vapor fee dback in observations and in climate models.The model calculations are fundamentally a prediction because they were done before the observations were available.  The agreement is excellent, and I take from this high confidence in the ability of the models to simulate this feedback. And given the importance of this process in driving climate change, I take this as a strong validation of the standard model generally.

And this is just the tip of the melting iceberg of successful predictions that the climate science community has made using the standard model.  Other successful predictions include an increase in energy stored in the ocean, amplification of heating over land during transient warming, etc. The list goes on and on — far too many to catalog here

The standard model also explains the paleoclimate record. In the 1980s, my colleague Prof. Jerry North was trying to use energy balance models to simulate the ice ages and he just couldn't get the model to simulate those cold periods. Then, in the 1990s, ice core data showed that carbon dioxide was much lower during ice ages. When Prof. North included that reduction of carbon dioxide into the model, voila! —he could suddenly simulate the cold temperatures necessary to account for the ice ages.

In addition, there are many occasions where the observations and the standard model disagreed, and it turned out that the observations were wrong. For example, in the 1980s, paleoclimate reconstructions suggested that the Tropics did not cool much during the last Ice Age, while the standard model found that to be inconsistent with the land-based data. More recent syntheses, however, have shown that the Tropics actually cooled more than previously thought—in good agreement with the standard model.

Another example is the cooling observed in the MSU satellite temperature record in the 1990s. The standard model told us that cooling of the troposphere is inconsistent with surface temperature increases. But after corrections to the satellite data processing were made, they now both show warming. Disagreements between this data set and climate models still exist, but ongoing studies of the satellite record are uncovering more issues in it [e.g., Po-Chedley and Fu, 2012]. I suspect future revisions will bring it into ever-closer agreement with the models.

Thus, we have a standard model of climate science that is capable of explaining just about everything. Naturally, there are some things that aren’t necessarily explained by the model, just as there're a few heavy smokers who don't get lung cancer. But none of these are fundamental challenges to the standard model.

An excellent example of a challenge to the standard model is the so-called “hiatus”[Trenberth and Fasullo, 2013]: a lack of warming in the surface temperature record over the last decade or so. This is frequently presented as an existential threat to the standard model, but as I describe below that greatly exaggerates its importance.

To begin, the lack of a decadal trend in surface temperatures does not mean that warming has stopped. Figure 2 shows the continued accumulation of heat in the bulk of the ocean, which is a clear marker of continued warming. And because heat can be stored in places other than at the surface, a lack of surface warming for a decade tells you almost nothing about the underlying long-term warming trends.

More quantitatively, Figure 5 shows surface temperature anomalies between 1970 and 2013. Over this period, the planet warmed rapidly, at a rate of 3°F/century. Also plotted on this figure are short-term trends based on endpoints that were selected to demonstrate short-term cooling trends. As you can see, it’s possible to generate a nearly continuous set of short-term cooling trends, even as the climate is experiencing a long-term warming. This would allow someone to claim that global warming had stopped or even that the Earth had entered a cooling period —even though the climate is rapidly warming!

As Fig. 5 shows, the problem in very short temperature trends (like a decade) is that climate variability such as El Niño cycles completely confounds ones ability to see the underlying trend. However, this short-term variability can be removed, and, if one does that, then the hiatus essentially disappears [Foster and Rahmstorf, 2011; Kosaka and Xie, 2013]. Because of this, I judge that there is virtually no merit to suggestions that the “hiatus” poses a serious challenge to the standard model.

Fig. 5. A plot of monthly and global average surface temperature anomalies (°F)from the GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (gray line) along with selected negative short-term trend lines (black lines). This figure is inspired by Skeptical Science’s escalator plot (http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47)

Nevertheless, it would be wrong for me to claim that the standard model includes a robust understanding of the interaction of ocean circulation, short-term climate variability, and long-term global warming. Viewed that way, the “hiatus” is an opportunity to refine and improve our understanding of these facets of the standard model. Papers are already coming out on this subject [e.g., Kaufmann et al., 2011; Kosaka and Xie, 2013; Solomon et al., 2010]and I suspect that, in a few years, our understanding of this phenomenon will be greatly improved. 

What about alternative theories? Any theory that wants to compete with the standard model has to explain all of the observations that the standard model can. Is there any model that can even come close to doing that?

No.

And making successful predictions would help convince scientists that the alternative theory should be taken seriously. How many successful predictions have alternative theories made?

Zero.

Based on everything I discussed above, and more, the Working Group I report recently released by the IPCC concludes that humans are extremely likely to be the cause of most of the warming over the last few decades. Note that this does not claim that humans are the ONLY cause, nor does it claim that we are 100% certain. But given the amount of work that’s gone into studying this and the amount of evidence in support of it that has emerged, my view is that this statement is, if anything, conservative.

3. Future warming could be large 

As a consequence of our understanding of the climate system, unchecked greenhouse-gas emissions would lead to warming over the 21st century of 4.7-8.6°F ³ (for the global average). Regionally, on land and in the Arctic, the warming is apt to be larger.

3.  Based on an ensemble of RCP8.5 runs.

These warmings may not sound like much until you realize that the warming since the last ice age —a warming that completely reconfigured the planet—was 9°F-14°F (5-8°C). The upper limits of projected warming over the 21^st century would therefore herald a literal remaking of the Earth’s environment and our place within it.

4. The impacts of this are profound.

Before I begin talking about impacts, it is worth discussing the value of talking about what we know rather than what we don't know. Focusing on what is unknown can lead to an incorrect perception of uncertainty. For example, we don't know the exact mechanism by which smoking cigarettes causes cancer. Nor do we know how many cigarettes you have to smoke to get cancer. Nor can we explain why some heavy smokers don't get cancer, while some non-smokers do. Based on this, you might conclude that we don't know much about the health impacts of smoking. But that's wrong. Despite these unknowns, it is certain that smoking increases your risk of health problems.

In the climate debate, we can argue about what we know or what we don’t know. Arguing about what we don’t know can give the impression that we don’t know much, even though some impacts are virtually certain.

The virtually certain impacts include:

•increasing temperatures

•more frequent extreme heat events 

•changes in the distribution of rainfall

•rising seas

•the oceans becoming more acidic

In my judgment, those impacts and their magnitude are, by themselves, sufficient to compel us to act now to reduce emissions.

And there are a number of impacts that may occur, but are not certain. We may see changes in drought intensity and distribution, and increases in flood frequency. And we have an expectation that hurricanes will get stronger, although their numbers might decrease. And there’s always the risk of a surprise, like the Antarctic ozone hole, where some high consequence impact that we never anticipated suddenly arises.

We can argue about these less certain impacts, and scientific research in these areas is very active, but they should not distract us from those that are virtually certain.

In conclusion, things are beginning to change rapidly. More and more frequently it seems we pass another climate milestone —hottest year of the modern temperature record, highest CO2in perhaps a million years, etc. Because of inertia in the climate system, every year we don’t take action commits us to about 2% more eventual warming [Allen and Stocker, 2014]. In other words, if we start taking appropriate action today, we can limit global warming to 2°C. But, if we wait 10 years to begin to reduce emissions, then the same level of effort will lead to warming of 2.4°C. Time is not our friend in this problem. By the time everyone agrees we have a problem, it is too late to do much about it.

The scientific community has been working on understanding the climate system for nearly 200 years. In that time, a robust understanding of it has emerged. We know the climate is warming. We know that humans are now in the driver’s seat of the climate system. We know that, over the next century, if nothing is done to rein in emissions, temperatures will likely increase enough to profoundly change the planet. I wish this weren’t true, but it is what the science tells us.

References

Allen, M. R., and T. F. Stocker (2014), Impact of delay in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, Nature Clim. Change, 4, 23-26, 10.1038/nclimate2077.

Balmaseda, M. A., K. E. Trenberth, and E. Kaellen (2013), Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of global ocean heat content, Geophys. Res. Lett., 40, 1754-1759, 10.1002/grl.50382.

Dessler, A. E. (2013), Observations of climate feedbacks over 2000-10 and comparisons to climate models, J. Climate, 26, 333-342, 10.1175/jcli-d-11-00640.1.

Dessler, A. E., and E. A. Parson (2010), The science and politics of climate change: A guide to the debate, Cambridge Univ. Press.

Foster, G., and S. Rahmstorf (2011), Global temperature evolution 1979-2010, Environmental Research Letters, 6, 10.1088/1748-9326/6/4/044022.

Hansen, J., R. Ruedy, M. Sato, and K. Lo (2010), Global surface temperature change, Rev. Geophys., 48, Rg4004, 10.1029/2010rg000345.

Kaufmann, R. K., H. Kauppi, M. L. Mann, and J. H. Stock (2011), Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998–2008, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 108, 11790-11793, 10.1073/pnas.1102467108.

Kosaka, Y., and S.-P. Xie (2013), Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling, Nature, advance online publication, 10.1038/nature12534.

Po-Chedley, S., and Q. Fu (2012), A Bias in the Mid-tropospheric Channel Warm Target Factor on the NOAA-9 Microwave Sounding Unit, Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 29, 646-652, 10.1175/jtech-d-11-00147.1.

Solomon, S., K. H. Rosenlof, R. W. Portmann, J. S. Daniel, S. M. Davis, T. J. Sanford, and G. K. Plattner (2010), Contributions of stratospheric water vapor to decadal changes in the rate of global warming, Science, 327, 1219-1223, 10.1126/science.1182488.

Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, R.B. Alley, T. Berntsen, N.L. Bindoff, Z. Chen, A. Chidthaisong, J.M. Gregory, G.C. Hegerl,M. Heimann, B. Hewitson, B.J. Hoskins, F. Joos, J. Jouzel, V. Kattsov, U. Lohmann, T. Matsuno, M. Molina, N. Nicholls, J.Overpeck, G. Raga, V. Ramaswamy, J. Ren, M. Rusticucci, R. Somerville, T.F. Stocker, P. Whetton, R.A. Wood and D. Wratt (2007),Technical Summary. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the FourthAssessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis,K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY,USA.

Trenberth, K. E., and J. T. Fasullo (2013), An apparent hiatus in global warming?, Earth's Future, 10.1002/2013EF000165

Nathan Drake vs., Steve McIntyre on the Spirit of Mawson Matter

Now Eli is not one to interfere with a good pasting, but it looks like Nathan Drake is putting it to Steve McIntyre over at the Nature Blog. Eli has to go to a meeting but, as Drake points out McIntyre has made a major mistake in  using MODIS visible images to track ice.  Basically, visible images are not much use for bad weather situations, and microwave is a much better choice.  There is more over there.  FWIW Shrub is losing a few spare eyeballs.

Cue The Heavy Breathing

Lots of heavy breathing about a ship getting stuck in the Antarctic pack ice, delaying important scientific research.

Whodda thunk that it was the Aurora Australis that got stuck for three weeks from November 12 to December 3 which screwed up the Aussie Antarctic program.

The Australian supply ship, the icebreaker Aurora Australis, has finally returned to port in Hobart, after being stuck in the pack ice for three weeks.

The ship had left the Davis Research Station on the Antarctic coast on 12th November, but became stuck soon after, about 180 miles off the coast. It finally broke free of the ice on 3rd December.

It had been due back in Hobart originally on 16th November, but the three week delay has meant that the planned three voyage season has had to be curtailed to two:

Australian Antarctic Division Director, Dr Tony Fleming said that the ship’s delayed arrival and the recent helicopter crash near Davis station have necessitated changes to subsequent voyages and some research projects.

Now some, not Eli to be sure, might think it unlikely that tourist ships with a bunch of birders trying to add to their life lists would get stuck in the ice.  Quel horror!:) 

MORE than 100 penguin-loving tourists including dozens from Britain are trapped by ice off Antarctica aboard a Russian ice-breaker cruise ship, officials and the tour operator said today.

The Kapitan Khlebnikov is in a bay near Snow Hill island, located off the northeastern end of the Antarctic Peninsula, and cannot leave as the bay is sealed off with ice, the Russian transportation ministry said.

"The wind has currently slowed down in the area and the massing of the ice has ended.

Everything is calm aboard the ice-breaker, nothing is threatening the passengers and crew,'' the ministry said in a statement.

"When the wind changes to a favourable direction, the ice-breaker will head into clear water and on to the port of Ushuaia,'' at the extreme southern end of Argentina, the ministry predicted.

Ships, get stuck in pack ice in the Antarctic.  Talk to Shackelton.  Talk to these folk

Send a note to Willard Tony, Nigel Persaud, Ste. Lucia and Ste. Judy

Heavy breathing about the Mawsons may resume.

Sen. Inhofe, got any coastal vacation properties where you want to sell options?

From a comment of mine at Same Facts about coastal properties and sea level rise:

One other option for climate denialist landowners – sell 99-year options to obtain ownership of their land for token value should it become uninhabitable. Denialists will be willing to [sell] this cheaply. Science believers will be willing to buy in order to get whatever residual value the land has other than residential use (harvest, recreation etc.).

A denialist with a large expensive coastal property should be willing sell for a small amount of money an option to buy it for a nominal amount if sea level makes it uninhabitable. The obvious problem is once the land's uninhabitable then it loses a lot of value, but maybe there are other uses that give some benefit to owning it.

I had an earlier version of this idea several years back thinking about the end-of-the-world types and how to bet with them (aren't we due another outbreak?). Climate change isn't the end of the world, but it's going to be curtains for a lot of residences.


UPDATE:  just thought I'd add a personal note - yours truly is now the Vice-Chair of our Water District, a feat I achieved by "waiting my turn." It doesn't mean a whole lot, one or two extra committee assignments. If I'm re-elected then I'll be Chair next year and have the honor of chucking aside any goals I have for the District for that year, to work instead on the goals of the rest of the Board and on everything else the Chair's got to get done. Should be fun.

Two climate politics predictions

My political predictions are somewhat better than my civil war predictions, so with that faint praise, here's one:  if Obama doesn't approve Keystone before November, then he won't approve it at all. It's good politics but bad policy to approve Keystone. The political reward diminishes after the lower-turnout, more conservative, off-presidential election year, while the policy and international reasons for not approving Keystone get stronger with more delay. And not to get too wildly hopeful, stringing along the idiotic Canadian government before cutting them off might make it harder for PM Harper to figure out alternative ways to harm the planet with tar sands.

I only put a little emphasis on the recent addition of climate hawks and Keystone opponents to the Obama admin - he's the one they work for. It might be a hint of how the wind's blowing, though.

OTOH, there's still 10 months to make a decision. And just to caveat it a bit, I could imagine Obama locking himself so close to a promise before the election without getting to the final signoff that he does approve it soon afterwards. So far though this reinforces the obvious point I made almost two years ago that delay is a victory (albeit not THE victory) when you're trying stop somebody else from doing something. Just like it is in Iran.

The other prediction came from reading in Stoat of the welcome retirement for Richard Lindzen, leaving the ranks of non-retired, denialist climatologists even thinner than before. John Mashey noted in the comments that the 2009 "mass" petition to the American Physical Society to deny climate science from 0.45% of its membership was skewed much older than the general membership. My second prediction is this petition will not be repeated because it will be even less successful in the future than it was in 2009, as demographic destiny wins out. This might explain why Singer and friends kept switching from one meritless type of mass document to another - recycling an old one some years later will just highlight increasing consensus.

Citation Manager Death Match

A useful discussion has started around which citation managers a bunny might use.  Two important free citation managers are Mendeley and Zotero.  There is video from Portland State



Eli is invested in EndNote, which has the huge disadvantage that costs $$.  Many, Martin Vermeer, for example is invested into BibTeX/LaTeX which although free, has a significant learning curve, so it looks like these two are the best free choices.  Several libraries have nice tables about picking a citation manager.  Eli really likes the one from the University of Washington

If you need to ...	Use:	Why:
… work from multiple computers or locations.	Zotero Mendeley RefWorks	Zotero saves your citation library to your local computer, but syncs with multiple computers so you can work from home, work, or school. RefWorks is web-based which means that you can access it from anywhere you have an Internet connection.
… work without an Internet connection.	Zotero Mendeley EndNote desktop	Zotero, Mendeley desktop and EndNote store your citation libraries locally on your computer.
… archive web pages and import citations from sites such as Amazon and Flickr.	Zotero Mendeley	Zotero and Mendeley allow you to easily save snapshots of web pages and annotate them within your citation library. It is a great tool for scraping citation information from web-based publications and some commercial and social networking sites.
… work on a group project or share my citations with others.	Zotero RefWorks	Both RefWorks and Zotero allow you to share your citations through shared folders. With Zotero, you can give individuals or groups permissions to add and edit the citations in the shared folder. With RefWorks, you can also set up a shared group account for collaborating on group projects.
… work on a mobile device	Mendeley Zotero EndNoteBasic RefWorks	Mendeley offers a mobile app for iPhones and iPads; Zotero has several 3rd-party mobile apps available. RefWorks and EndnoteBasic offer mobile-optimized sites that work with any web-connected phone or PDA.

and here is the comparison of properties (bunnies may have to hit CNTL/Apple - to shrink this to fit the screen or just go to the University of Washington Library site)

	EndNote Desktop	Mendeley	RefWorks	Zotero
Web based?	No, this is a desktop product. Can transfer library to EndNote Web	Yes. Also available as Mendeley Desktop, which can sync with online account.	Yes	Yes, lives in browser (Firefox plugin, or Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari through Zotero Standalone). Can sync with online account but web library not editable
Must be online?	No	No	Yes	No
Mobile capability	Native app for iPad, currently costs $$.	Native app for iPhone and iPad, or check yourMendeley library on your mobile device's web browser.	No app, but mobile-optimized site	3rd-party apps available (www.zotero.org/support/mobile), or check your Zotero collection on your mobile device's web browser.
Cost	$$. Available for purchase at the University Bookstore at a discounted rate (UW students, faculty, and staff only).	Free	Free to UW users (Libraries pays the subscription costs)	Free
Word-processor compatibility	MS Office, Open Office, iWork Pages	MS Word, Open Office, LaTeX	MS Word with Write-N-Cite, any other word processing program using One Line/Cite View option	MS Word, Open Office, Google Docs
Import from databases	Direct export from specific databases	Yes, with Mendeley Import browser plugin.	Direct export from specific databases	Yes
Import citation info from web pages	No	Yes, with Mendeley Import browser plugin. Also archives the page and allows annotations.	Yes, with RefGrab-It plugin	Yes. Also archives the page and allows annotations
Storage capacity	Unlimited local storage	Unlimited local storage and data syncing; 1 GB free Mendeley web space (larger plans available for purchase)	Default limit is 100MB per user, can be increased to 5GB; limit of 20MB per attachment	Unlimited local storage and data syncing; 100MB free Zotero web space (larger plans available for purchase)
Attach associated files (PDFs, etc.)	Yes	Yes, and can annotate	Yes (limited)	Yes, with option to attach automatically
Search full text of PDFs	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Create group  or shared libraries	No	Yes. Costs for private groups (1 3-member private group free).	Yes, but other users cannot add more references	Yes
Create bibliography w/ different styles	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Other features	Insert figures and charts using word processor integration	Sync library w/multiple computers Use tags to organize/search	Access for web-connected mobile devices	Sync library w/multiple computers Use tags to organize/search

Breathless in Antarctica Writes

As of today, both the Akademik Shokalskiy and the Xue Long are in open water

SYDNEY, January 08, 13:56 /ITAR-TASS/. The Russian research ship Akademik Shokalsky has finally got out of the ice and reached open water, chief mate Nikolai Velichko told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.

"We reached open water at about 18:20 ship time (about 09:20 Moscow time), he said.
The ship was sailing at 11 knots. There was fog, no wind, and visibility was within two miles. The vessel was moving carefully with only one engine working, as icebergs were detected with locators, the mate noted.

They are expected to arrive at New Zealand's port of Bluff early on January 14.
The Chinese icebreaker also safely left the ice area, passed the Russian ship and sailed north at 15 knots, the mate added.

Anybunny interested can trace the Xeu Long, the Australian ship the Aurora Australis and the US Nathan B Palmer, which are in the area using the live ships map on Marine Traffic.  The Akademik Shokalskiy doesn't appear to be updating its position, but if you had load of money you probably could find it by paying for the satellite positioning service

Which should pretty much put an end to at least some of the heavy breathing.  Willard Tony had infinite blather on this, ATTP went through a Richard Troll attack with off topic reprise, and Stoat was busy being . . . ah, fascinatingly weird.  Steve McIntyre is taking up a collection

The Wisdom of Ms. Rabett

Reading in Gizmodo

researchers from Towson University are claiming that incredibly precise measurements of the positions of solar-system bodies could provide a test capable of proving string theory right or wrong.

Ms Rabett speculated that they may have actually found the Big Ball.

BTW it's just more press office churning as Peter Woit pointed out

This is following the usual pattern: published article includes only minor references to string theory, since no referee would allow the author to claim that this was a “test of string theory” (since it isn’t). On publication of the article, the author has their university press office issue a press release about how they have discovered a “test of string theory” (I don’t believe in claims that university press offices issue press releases about their faculty’s work without the faculty member’s agreement). The press release then gets spread through various media outlets, often with the outrageousness of the claims increasing as it spreads. Finally, you end up with lots of news stories like
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/07/string-theory-experiment-announced_n_4552931.html

There are by now dozens of examples of this. You can argue about who is responsible for the public getting misled here, my vote would be for the physicists who allow or encourage such press releases to go out (together with their colleagues who raise no objection or sometimes provide supporting quotes for the stories).

and Eli repeats his recommendation that all grant applications have to be accompanied by press releases from the previous cycle so that reviewers can evaluate the noise.

Search Engines - Google Scholar

Eli forgets where, but he got trapped in a discussion of search engines, citation analysis and open source publishing.  While Eli is a smart bunny, he don't know it all, but he knows some, probably more about these things, so what follows is the first of some brief summaries for beginners.  Hopefully this will eventually cover Googele Scholar, SciFinder, WebofScience, Scopus, INSPEC, ProQuest.  Anybunny who wants to take a chance on any of these or others, feel free.  Talking about free, the place to start is obviously:

Google Scholar:  Google scholar is a free offering from Google that can be accessed at http://scholar.google.com/.  It's strength is that it will find (pretty much) anything on the net, journals, books, conference proceedings, etc.  The disadvantage is that it misses (pretty much) everything that is not on the net, so it will be weaker, the further back in time that you go.  Google scholar is catholic, it searches across all fields.

A typical entry reads

Phylogeny and ancient DNA of Sus provides insights into neolithic expansion in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania

…, LM Pedriña, PJ Piper, RJ Rabett… - Proceedings of the …, 2007 - National Acad Sciences

Abstract Human settlement of Oceania marked the culmination of a global colonization
process that began when humans first left Africa at least 90,000 years ago. The precise
origins and dispersal routes of the Austronesian peoples and the associated Lapita ...

Cited by 124 Related articles All 23 versions Cite Save

If you are lucky there is something off to the side like [HTML] from NIH.gov which will take a bunny directly to an open source for the article

The Cited by 124 leads to 124 other entries which cite the article you found.  This is the citation time machine.  It takes you to articles on (vaguely) the same topic, but published after the one you are looking at.

Related Articles are ones that have been cited by the original article or that Google thinks should have been cited by the original article, or have appeared later and would have been cited according to Google.  Again a help when one is researching a topic.

The All 23 versions link brings you to a page which lists all other pages where either the original article can be found (often behind paywalls).  For a paywalled article this is a good place to shop for an open version, but most of the links are to collections of abstracts which can be frustrating especially if the abstract collection links back to the paywall.

Cite brings up a pop up
-------------------------------------------------
Cite

Copy and paste a formatted citation or use one of the links to import into a bibliography manager.

MLA  Larson, Greger, et al. "Phylogeny and ancient DNA of Sus provides insights into neolithic expansion in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104.12 (2007): 4834-4839.

APA  Larson, G., Cucchi, T., Fujita, M., Matisoo-Smith, E., Robins, J., Anderson, A., ... & Dobney, K. (2007). Phylogeny and ancient DNA of Sus provides insights into neolithic expansion in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(12), 4834-4839.

Chicago  Larson, Greger, Thomas Cucchi, Masakatsu Fujita, Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith, Judith Robins, Atholl Anderson, Barry Rolett et al. "Phylogeny and ancient DNA of Sus provides insights into neolithic expansion in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, no. 12 (2007): 4834-4839.

New! Save this article to my Scholar library where I can read or cite it later. Learn more

Import into BibTeX   Import into EndNote   Import into RefMan   Import into RefWorks

If anybunny is serious about science they need a reference manager, something that allows organization of references, insertion into documents and general all around avoidance of aggro.  BibTeX grew our of LaTeX, something Eli avoids with a passion.   If the Bunny wanted to be a printer he would have gone into the family business.  However, it is free and there are now interfaces to Word and OpenOffice.

EndNote, the one Eli uses, is sold by Thompson-Reuters at a huge markup, $250, but at ~half price to  students and others associated with universities, $113.  There is a web based version.

RefMan is another Thompson Reuters product, costs are about the same.  Eli knows nothing about it

RefWorks is web based.  They sell annual licenses to individuals ($70) and organizations.  It is surprisingly hard to find out where you can get a license.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Saved offers you a place to save a reference you are interested in.  It is possible to label categories of papers so that the database is not flat.

Google Scholar also has an interesting front end, Ann Harzing's Publish or Perish more oriented towards citation analysis than searching, but none the less very useful for searching Google Scholar, especially for work by a particular person.  Publish or Perish has an excellent page on the meaning of various indicies starting with the original h-index

Proposed by J.E. Hirsch in his paper An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output, arXiv:physics/0508025 v5 29 Sep 2005. It aims to provide a robust single-number metric of an academic's impact, combining quality with quantity.

The h number is the number of publications, h, that a bunny has which have h citations.  Over 30 is good, over 50 is superbunny.  Depends on field of course and, because of the different coverage of different search engines, depends on the search engine.  The secret sin of academics is tracking their h number and those of the ones they hate.

Oh yeah Google Scholar also does a citation analysis, but only for yourself, which can be made public or not.

Fear and Loathing in the New York Times

Eli takes a break from science/policy blogging to bring you the definitive David Brooks takedown by Patrick Non-White at Popehat. Popehat is a libertarian blog that believes in punishing patent trolls and is rather absolute on free speech issues.  David Brooks is a twit who has column inches in the NY Times, a punching bag for many, including Charles Pierce.  Brooks recently outdid himself with a screed on the even more evil weed, and the entire blogosphere, left, right and confused took after his with a mighty grin.  None better than Popehat which starts in best Roger Vadim Claude Lalouche fashion to describe Brook's ride through DC. . ..

The silver 2001 BMW 535i roared through Adams Morgan, occasionally screeching over the sidewalks as my accountant wrenched both hands from the wheel for another toke at the weed-pipe. "Gadzooks, man!" I shouted. "Can you keep it together for another fifteen miles, or at least outside the District limits?"  We were halfway through our 35 mile journey from Bethesda to Falls Church, with enough dangerous narcotics to stun a grizzly bear in the trunk: We'd started with nine ounces of weed, six rocks of crack, a sugar jar full of blow,  36 vicodin tablets,  a cage filled with live Bolivian arrow toads, and two jars of ketamine. Plus two quarts of Beefeater gin, a case of Schlitz malt liquor, and a four ounce ball of Afghan hash: Surely enough to get this pair of degenerate drug addicts to Fall's Church. After that what man could say? . . .

Read the rest only after protecting your LCD

It's Not a Bug

A couple of hours ago, Eli pointed out that the Richard Trolls of the world should be pumping up the Spirit of Mawson expedition as a return to the old time way of privately funding exploration.  After all every bunny knows that goverment funding is the distorting devil, put into words by Richard Lindzen

it mostly comes down to the money—to the incentive structure of academic research funded by government grants. Almost all funding for climate research comes from the government, which, he says, makes scientists essentially vassals of the state. And generating fear, Lindzen contends, is now the best way to ensure that policymakers keep the spigot open."

However Dear Richard is mighty displeased by the science of the Spirit of Mawson, and you know, he might even be right, but, OTOH, while in the world of his dreams money talks, it is not very good at expert peer review, something that is easy to lose in the world of private funding.

Eli Is Puzzled

The recent todo about the Spirit of Mawson expedition has Eli a bit puzzled.  If you want a discussion of whether what they were up to was scientifically justified, hie thee to the Weasel or ATTP if you want the Schadenfreude, well there is always Willard Tony, or any of the other usual suspects.

Eli has a different POV.  If you look at the denialist blogs, they are pretty much libertarian in flavor, or at worst hate on government types, which, at least to Eli would indicate that they like people who raise their own money to go splorin, and sciencin.  OK the Rabett can understand their being embarrassed that the folks on the Akademik Shokalskiy have to be rescued by government ice breakers, but the expedition did what expeditions did in the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and even early parts of the 20th century, especially for polar expeditions.  Yeah, yeah, there are civilians on board, but voyages of discovery often took along the rich guy who provided the benjamins.  Now why WTony would not let the nice Bunny pass a remark on this curious thing at Watts is another amusing question.

You can even Richard Tol this, as  Jonathan Karpoff does in Public vs. Private Initiative in Arctic Exploration

From 1818 to 1909 35 government and 57 privately funded expeditions sought to locate and navigate a Northwest Passage, discover the North Pole and make other significant discoveries in Arctic regions.  Most major Arctic discoveries were made by private expeditions.  Most tragedies were publicly funded. 

Which puts you in mind of an astronaut sitting on top of a Saturn V, ruminating on the fact that the beast was built by the lowest bidder.  So what's not to like with the Spirit of Mawson?

The climate news hook about record cold is that it doesn't happen much. Also, betting opportunities.

So, it looks like record-breaking cold in parts of the US. That's a great hook for newsmakers to remind us that record-breaking cold doesn't happen nearly as often as record-breaking warmth. It's not hard - all they have to do is show this:

If the blue matched the red, then that might indicate a problem with our understanding of climate change. Occasional deviations, like what we're seeing now, doesn't change that.

The years since 2010 have generally followed this pattern, although 2013 didn't. For one year out of the last 20, record cold exceeded record warmth, but this decade is running at a ratio of 3:1 overall between record highs and record lows. If someone thinks 2014 is likely to have more record cold than warm, let's do a bet.

Speaking of which, via Chris Mooney, I see Fox News' Stuart Varney says we have more of a problem with global cooling than warming. So I sent him this:

We'll see what happens.

Meanwhile, data for the other 98% of the earth's surface would be nice. I probably just haven't looked hard enough. I did find this paywalled Coumou/Robinson/Rahmstorf abstract saying in our warming world record heat is happening five times as often as you'd expect in a non-warming world, so it seems likely there's at least a similar large disparity in heat to cold record ratios worldwide.  

UPDATE:  thanks to Steve Bloom in the comments (and Eli) for finding unpaywalled versions of the Coumou et al. piece. The full article doesn't address cold records, but it clearly shows the ratio of heat records is off the hook because of global warming. And per Daniel Wirt in the comments, the climate change effect of a warming Arctic could be shifting the location of the cold, causing our current cold records.

Methane and Ozone

Some time ago, Eli discussed the atmospheric oxidation of methane a topic to which he now returns in the context of ozone pollution and the effects on air quality and human health. Tropospheric ozone is a result of NOx chemistry, where NOx, either referred to as NO ex, or nocks, is the sum of NO (nitric oxide) and NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) in the atmosphere.

Tropospheric ozone is formed by the photodissociation of NO2 between 400 and 300 nm, with the long wavelength limit set by the bond strength of O - NO, and the lower one by the absorption cut off of stratospheric ozone which absorbs all of the solar light below 300 nm (to be fussy 306 nm or so and as long as the bunnies are being fussy somewhere like 420 nm on the high end because of thermal population of excited vibrational levels)

The red and blue lines are the NO2 absorption spectrum at 294 and 220 K, the black line represents the ozone cut off for UV light at the surface.  Essentially no UV light below 300 nm reaches the surface because of strat ozone absorption

NO2 + hν --> NO + O(³P)  [1]

hν stands for a photon in the active wavelength region and O(³P) is the ground state of the oxygen atom, which then reacts with an oxygen molecule in the presence of another molecule in the air, M, (nitrogen or oxygen)

O(³P) + O2 + M --> O3 + M [2]

The reconversion of NO to NO2 by reaction with ozone is fairly slow

NO + O3  --> NO2 + O [3]

So the more NO2 there is, the more ozone will be produced during the day.  The natural source of NO2 is lightening which splits N2 molecules, the anthropic source is high temperature combustion such as in autos. Also the more sunlight, the more photodissociation, so one expects more ozone during the summer.

If Reaction 2 is assumed to be fast (it is because there is so much oxygen and nitrogen around) the rate at which ozone is produced is j [NO2] where j is the flux of UV light and the rate at which it is consumed is k3[NO][O3] where k3 is the rate constant for reaction 3[X] means the concentration of X.  Under steady state conditions when production via Reaction 1 equals destruction via Reaction 3

k3[NO][O3] = j [NO2] 

which can be solved for an estimate of the ozone concentration

[O3] = j [NO2]/k3[NO] 

in terms of the steady state concentrations of NO and NO2

While reaction [3] appears to limit the amount of ozone that can form, other reactions which cycle NO back to NO2 without consuming ozone would lead to much higher ozone concentrations. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) provide such a path, and methane is the VOC with the highest atmospheric concentration.  Moreover, as a non-condensible gas not very susceptible to rain out,  it spreads worldwide in ways that heavier VOCs do not.  Looking at the reaction scheme for methane oxidation

we see (light blue boxes) two additional paths.  The lower one is shown for methane, although an equivalent exists for other VOCs.  The methane is oxidized by reaction with hydroxy radicals

CH4 + HO --> CH3 + CH4+ H2O [4]

The methyl radical then quickly combines with an oxygen molecule

CH3 + O2  --> CH3O2  [5]

and the methylperoxy radical,  CH3O2 then can react with NO to cycle back to NO2 leaving methoxy

CH3O2 + NO --> CH3O + NO2

The more VOCs, the more ozone. . .

Kloor Meltdown Scheduled

In the NYTimes On Hawaii, a Lonely Quest for Facts About GMOs.

From the moment the bill to ban genetically engineered crops on the island of Hawaii was introduced in May 2013, it garnered more vocal support than any the County Council here had ever considered, even the perennially popular bids to decriminalize marijuana.

Public hearings were dominated by recitations of the ills often attributed to genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.’s: cancer in rats, a rise in childhood allergies, out-of-control superweeds, genetic contamination, overuse of pesticides, the disappearance of butterflies and bees.

Like some others on the nine-member Council, Greggor Ilagan was not even sure at the outset of the debate exactly what genetically modified organisms were: living things whose DNA has been altered, often with the addition of a gene from a distant species, to produce a desired trait. But he could see why almost all of his colleagues had been persuaded of the virtue of turning the island into what the bill’s proponents called a “G.M.O.-free oasis.”

And in more good news, we have from the soon to be retired Bob Tisdales byebye taking, a comment of interest from Donna Laframboise

…as all but a few best-selling writers know, it’s damn near impossible to support oneself on book sales.

This is, indeed, the sad state of affairs. The skeptic book-buying community is not as large as some of us suppose. It also appears to have been shrinking recently. More people are getting on with their lives, convinced by the hard work of people such as yourself that there’s no compelling reason for alarm.

Eli hopes for a soon end to the long con.

They keep talking carbon treaties, and I'll keep talking carbon trade agreements

More speculation on a carbon treaty in the news lately, so I'll once again point out that treaties require 67 votes in the Senate while trade agreements require majorities in both houses. Which do you want?

The best-while-feasible outcome may be a treaty without teeth describing goals that maybe could get 67 votes, and then put the real dealmaking in a trade agreement. Or as per the discussion below, blur the distinction between treaties and executive/legislative agreements, and just submit it for majority vote in both houses.

Next-best would be the model the Bushies used with strategic nuclear weapons - reduce our own arsenal but only on the condition that we don't obtain a mutual promise from Russia to do the same. Yes, unilateral concessions are preferable to Republicans over mutual agreements. Maybe simultaneous global unilateral concessions to reduce emissions can happen.

Anyway, a repost from wayback in 2009:

The climate treaty won't be the international agreement with teeth 

Jonathan Zasloff, a friend/law prof/Same Facts blogger, is publishing a proposal in the Northwestern University Law Review suggesting that the US Trade Representative rather than the State Department should take the lead in negotiation a new international climate agreement. (Abstract here, you should also be able to download the full text.) His argument that USTR is better suited than State to coordinate positions of many US governmental agencies makes sense to me. He also argues that the climate agreement could include trade concessions. 

This argument reminds me of one I've made for several years, that trade agreements instead of treaties should provide the real teeth for international climate agreements. The main reason is that treaties need 67 votes in the Senate while trade agreements only need 60 to overcome an initial filibuster. 

I've thought I've been making a lonely argument, but maybe not. I corresponded with Jonathan, and he goes even further. Relevant parts of his email, with his permission to blog them:

I suppose that I disagree with your position because it's not clear to me why climate change agreements need to be submitted as treaties. The Third Restatement of US Foreign Relations Law endorses a pretty broad interchangeability argument.

To be sure, there are those scholars who argue against interchangeability, but it may prove too much. Laurence Tribe has at least suggested quite strongly that all agreements must be submitted as treaties, and so I think he rejects the trade/climate distinction. That could throw out more than 90% of America's international agreements! John Yoo says that something must be submitted as a treaty if it is outside Congress' Article I power, which makes sense, but then he lists a whole lot of things outside that power, which doesn't...

The most recent scholarly statement on the matter is Oona Hathaway's piece in Yale, where she basically says that outside very narrow limitations (not relevant to climate), everything can and should be submitted as an executive-legislative agreement. Her argument is basically policy-based, saying that it makes more sense to do agreements through executive-legislative agreements, and saves the treaty clause from superfluity by these very narrow limitations. 

My very tentative approach is what might be called the Meat Loaf principle, i.e. two out of three ain't bad. The Treaty Clause makes sense because it essentially says that if you're going to ignore the House, you've got to get 2/3 of the Senate; if you're going to override a Presidential veto of a law implementing an international agreement, then you've got to get 2/3 of both Houses. (Interesting and subtle questions of whether an "executive-legislative agreement" can be passed over a Presidential veto, i.e. what's the difference between an executive-legislative agreement and a normal law?). It's a political issue--the way in which an agreement should be submitted depends upon the political context, i.e. whether you can get it through the House or not. 

I think Jonathan is disagreeing with my exclusive reference to trade agreements, and I think he's right that any executive-legislative climate agreement would be constitutional. Doing it as a trade agreement makes political sense, though. 

The other argument for why treaties shouldn't and don't need to be used was in yesterday's New York Times. Johns Yoo and Bolton argue that treaties must be used for a next climate agreement. Anything written by those two johns, particularly by them together, is guaranteed to be both wrong and evil. In particular I don't seen a logical reason why trade agreements under their own argument shouldn't be subject to two-thirds vote. I'm sure Yoo has his nonsensical reason for excluding them, but meshing a climate agreement into a trade agreement would help tie their arguments even further up in knots. 

Here's hoping that Obama listens to the johns and does the opposite. 

(One additional note - this isn't to say there should be no treaty at all. A treaty in addition to some other agreement would be fine, but the teeth should be elsewhere.) 

UPDATE: Just checked, and Jonathan wrote about this issue yesterday.

And if that's not an old-enough post, here's another on the same from my blog toddlerhood in 2005.

Welcome to the 2014 elections

The Hill anticipates a climate change focus in the elections this year where both sides attempt to use it to their advantage. Their argument is anecdotal rather than data driven, but it seems logical enough. Per their anecdote, the first attack ad on a politician for being a climate denier happened last year, and maybe we'll see some more this time around.

Which side will benefit overall is another question, but it's all local. Yours truly will also be up for re-election this year, and if I drew an opponent who denied climate change then that would make things much easier for me. In the Alaska and Kentucky Senate races, climate reality has to overcome some people's self interest and world view.

There's a parallel between the demographic issues the old-guard Republican leadership faces and the climate issue. Young people accept climate science more than the older ones, and demographic replacement marches on. Economic issues may also be getting more complex. The old guard's right that coal jobs are disappearing although they ignore the long-term causes, while renewable energy jobs are growing everywhere and give people reasons to embrace reality. In contrast to that hope, non-presidential elections tend to be more conservative and older. This year will also see many more Democrats than Republicans up for election in the Senate, although the ratio reverses strongly in 2016.

Fun times ahead.

2013: the year in review

The old year is past. What weirdness shall we remember from 2013?

In Iowa last fall, debate raged over whether or not blind people could obtain a gun permit. It would be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act to deny a gun permit to someone just because that someone is blind. The story was picked up by USA Today (a.k.a. McPaper) and also by the online publication The Daily Beast.

But why should the Second Amendment be limited to pistols and rifles? Why not include machine guns or nuclear weapons? What could possibly go wrong?

The novelist Philip Roth is most famous for Portnoy's Complaint (a.k.a. "The Gripes of Roth"), along with many other novels. (Enough novels to justify the creation of a new literary journal, devoted to Philip Roth Studies) Roth wrote decades ago that the challenge facing a novelist in America today is that reality is stranger and more grotesque than anything the novelist can imagine.

Roth wrote the truth. The stand-up comic Mort Sahl got his best material from the headlines. Too bad Mort missed this one: back in the Reagan Administration, a US official spoke to an official about the effects of sea-level rise on low-lying Bangladesh: "Now you have cows. In the future you'll have fish!"