Climate Change/Water Issues....

[Mike Churchill]

Woodman,

You said:

"One thing the "anti-climate change" folks will never be accused of is uncertainty. So Mike...there is one, non-peer reviewed website that we should believe over the overwhelming evidence of climate change.

"Even if you debate the degree to which anthropogenic effects are to cause, changes in the timing and magnitude of flows in Central Valley rivers are well documented. Pretending it isn't true doesn't really help anyone..."

On the contrary, most of the folks who question global warming alarmism emphasize the current uncertainty in the science of climate change. While it is true that there is overwhelming evidence that the climate changes--locally, regionally, globally, over both short and longer terms, and that it has done so throughout the history of the earth, and in many ways cyclically--there is no "overwhelming evidence" of DANGEROUS MAN-MADE global warming. Educate yourself.

"Peer review" is also not the authoritative stamp of truth some claim it to be; it is merely an indication that two to four other scientists thought an article was worth publishing. Peer reviewed articles are shown to be incorrect all the time (in many fields)--that's one of the ways science advances. In the case of climate science, the Climategate 1 and 2 emails reveal extreme perversions of the peer review process at multiple scientific journals by alarmist scientists ("pal" review of alarmist articles and gate keeping to prevent the publication of articles dissenting from the views of "the team.")

As to flows in the valley rivers: yes, flows have varied over the last century that we've been measuring them. They will continue to vary as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (an approximately 60-year cycle that affects the frequency of El Nino and La Nina events, among other things) and other climate influences affect the watershed. What I said was there was no reason to panic about them based on increasing levels of atmospheric CO2, which has not been shown to significantly affect the climate (despite the constant wails of alarm like the study reported in that Bee article).

California's climate has a documented history of both long and short term wet/dry cycles. Those will continue. Fish populations tend to suffer in the dry years. Water diversions (and other habitat changes we've caused) exacerbate the negative effects of low water years and increased diversions will worsen the effects.

Mike

[Woodman]

Woodman,


--there is no "overwhelming evidence" of DANGEROUS MAN-MADE global warming. Educate yourself.

Don't think I said that Mike, especially not in caps. It seems that everyone who disagrees with you in any way is uneducated.

[Ed Wahl]

I ate a honkin big bowl of chili with beans tonight and the indications are positive for a night of climate altering gas emissions.

So if tomorrow is warmer than today it's obvious that human emissions (mine) are to blame for global warming.

If it's cooler tomorrow it's also obvious that I need to add more peppers to the chili.



Chill boys, leave the politics to the political boards, or as Frenchy says " I fart in your general direction".

You people are just lucky I didn't eat the red beans and rice, we'd all be in sub-sahara tomorrow.
Ed

[Darian]

Yea!!!! But the only climate change that'll result from your "exhalations" will be localized (like in your house). Duke'll probably move outside....

[Mike McKenzie]

I ate a honkin big bowl of chili with beans tonight and the indications are positive for a night of climate altering gas emissions.

So if tomorrow is warmer than today it's obvious that human emissions (mine) are to blame for global warming.

If it's cooler tomorrow it's also obvious that I need to add more peppers to the chili.

Chill boys, leave the politics to the political boards, or as Frenchy says " I fart in your general direction".

Well Ed, it's 8° cooler here this AM and it's obvious that you either don't use enough chilies or the wrong kind.
Also quit bein' a killjoy..You can't discuss "conservation" without gettin' into politics. It's just the nature of the beast! I ain't too worried about your farts as I've got an old WWII gas mask around here someplace....Soooo....

I'll jump in to the above discussion with my own .02¢ worth of opinion....
I'll start with sayin I basically agree with Mike C.'s take on the issue. The real problem with any discussion with regard to "global warming"/ "climate change" is the fact that the issue has been so politicized and corrupted.

When people start name calling such as "deniers or alarmists", debate is over and "arguing" begins. When you have "alarmists" criticizing "deniers" because they have received a couple of million dollars from the fossil fuel industry while ignoring the fact that they ("alarmists") have received upwards of 700 billion dollars from the taxpayers of the U.S.A. to "study" climate change due to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and the possible effect on the climate, credibility becomes lost. What gets lost further is that the "science" the "alarmist" quote to support their position is based on about 14 computer generated climate "models" that try to predict weather based on perceived climate change 100 years out. In actuality none of the models are really capable at predicting the "chaos" that really drives climate/weather systems.

When one considers that all the ruckus is over anthropogenic CO² emissions which are generally given by the media in billions of tons (and sometimes giga-tons) the reality is, anthropogenic emissions amount to 3-6% of the .0389% (as a percentage of the total gas content) in our atmosphere. It is an infinitesimally small amount, especially when compared to water vapor which at about 95% total content and is the largest "greenhouse" gas in the atmosphere. Then there is the on going debate with regard to "positive" feedback (more warming, which all of the NASA models assume) or "negative" feedback (less warming) which there is a growing body of evidence to support...

For a rational discussion on the issue (which is admittedly hard to find) I recommend that those that are so inclined go to the Blog site of Dr. Roy Spencer who, when working for NASA helped to develop and build the satellite atmospheric temperature measuring system. He left NASA when the institution became susceptible to "muzzling" due to the increasing politicization of the subject years ago. He now still works with the system he helped to create but from the University of Alabama Huntsville.

A lot of good scientific discussion and sometimes a little sarcasm which make that stuff more tolerable..Be careful about getting bogged down in the comments section of his posts though!

http://www.drroyspencer.com/#GW101

Enjoy while edifying yourselves

Mike

[troutless]

Hi,

Let me add another perspective to this thread. Probably a pointless exercise but here goes:

If you are really interested in educating yourself, I would strongly advise starting with resources that make a habit of citing source materials, so that the arguments and explanations can be traced back into peer-reviewed literature. From there one can get a discussion of the underlying data, the methodology of analysis, the uncertainties in both, in many cases links to the underlying data itself and even to the computer codes used to analyze or create the data.

Science coverage, in general, in contemporary media has become very poor, whether one is talking about particle physics or earthquakes, and the proliferation of web sites and blogs by people whose knowledge level ranges from expert to cretinous makes it even more difficult to sort out the noise. Because of the political sensitivity around climate topics the noise level is particularly bad here. So it is not surprising that there is a lot of confusion and argument in the public arena on climate-related topics and a lot of misinformation floating about.

In attempting to distill out some reliable picture, there are several reasons to prioritize sources who give good references, and particularly references in the peer-reviewed technical literature. Some parts of the field are quite complicated, and when reading a blog or other popular account, it is very difficult, even for someone who is technically sophisticated, to be able to easily tell who is telling the story straight, who is well-meaning but confused, and who is actively spreading misinformation and/or pushing a political agenda. When you can trace a line of argument back to the technical literature, and trace its history therein, you at least have some hope of sorting out what is what. Almost every topic we see out on the web has a much richer and longer discussion taking place -- again, with real data, and discussions of the limitations of that data -- in the technical literature. Blogs are here-today, gone tomorrow, zero accountability, zero follow-up. Journals are forever, and you can't moderate out people who publish follow-on articles pointing out mistakes in an article. For obvious reasons, it is likewise good practice to look for sources that represent either a consensus viewpoint, on non-controversial topics, or, multiple viewpoints, on topics that are still unsettled.

Secondly, a lot can be told about credibility of sources just from the sources they in turn cite. People who are interested in science tend to prioritize first convincing other scientists, and second informing the public. People who are interested in pushing an agenda tend to prioritize swaying public opinion, and don't care so much for doing actual science. So if you find some "revelation" out on the web, with no support in the technical literature, that should be a red flag. Likewise if you find someone who is saying one thing to a general audience, and another to a technical audience, that should be another red flag. That means they know their arguments will not pass muster with an informed audience and they are hoping to put one over on the general reader, knowing that most people won't put in the effort, or don't have the background, to call them on it.

I'm going to list four resources, in increasing order of difficulty of use, meaning that in the first you will get more material "pre-chewed" and interpreted for the layperson or at least non-specialist, and the last will require significant investment of effort. Not surprisingly the first two, being somewhat accessible to a general audience, have some detractors. The point is, with all of these, they are fairly good about referencing primary sources in the peer-reviewed literature. And if it's not in the peer-reviewed literature, or headed there, from a scientist's point of view, its relevance is marginal.

1. realclimate.org

Run by actual climate scientists as an experiment in direct public communication. Deliberately steers away from policy discussions, and they are not afraid to 'eat their own', meaning that false claims and overstatements in either direction will get highlighted and dissected. There is reasonable, selective, coverage of contemporary publications in the area. There are few if any sites out there that go into quite the depth in this area, and feature as many knowledgeable contributors. There is a little snark about, particularly in the comments, but this is on the whole a fairly level-headed site.

2. IPCC AR4 -- the "Fourth Assessment Report", particularly the "Scientific Basis" section.

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_.../contents.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_...ence_basis.htm
There is a lot of misinformation surrounding this document too. Most people have heard of the IPCC, few indeed have actually read the AR4, even part of it. I suggest you reserve judgment until you have read at least a chapter or two. If you are not familiar with it, the AR4 is an assessment report -- it is a report of available knowledge and a review of the existing peer-reviewed literature. It is not a policy or political document nor does it represent original or independent research. Probably it does represent the most comprehensive view of the "consensus" state of science in the climate area. Several hundred scientists were involved in writing it, and, literally, thousands of references are cited. This last point is the one I want to emphasize here: despite the size, about a thousand pages just to describe the physical science basis, it is a *summary*, and for details you go from there to the primary sources. If you can wade through it, it is a great reference.

3. A good climate science textbook.

If you really want to get a basic grounding in the area, this is one way to go about it. For example: Raymond Pierrehumbert, Principles of Planetary Climate. Not for the lay reader, but approachable by say someone with a undergraduate-level degree in the physical sciences and who still has a workable recollection of differential equations and thermodynamics.

4. Google Scholar. scholar.google.com.

Google Scholar indexes scientific and technical publications much as "Google" proper indexes the web. You can track publication trails and evolution of scientific thoughts here through the paper citation chains. For the truly industrious, it is an indispensable tool for working through the technical literature. It is a fun exercise to compare the information you find on the general web with the information you find in Google Scholar.

That's my plea for sanity. If you are getting information from ClimateProgress, Roy Spencer, Watts Up, etc. etc. you are getting data that has been subjected to a heavy political filter and may be fairly far from the scientific mainstream. A lot of what passes for commentary is either just plain wrong, or, represents a view with very very shaky support either in the way of data or theory. I don't want at this point to single out specific topics or posts, but, sadly, there is quite a bit of such misinformation posted previously in this thread, too. Like I said before, given the amount of noise on this topic, and the difficulty, even for the PhD types, in getting reliable, non-polluted information, this isn't surprising. But if you are interested in this topic, please try to put aside the political filters and hatchets for a bit and curl up with a good journal paper. Think carefully before passing on information that you can't trace back to roots in technical literature

Hope someone finds this useful.

[Mike Churchill]

"Troutless" calls realclimate.org and the IPCC's 4th Climate Assessment Report "unbiased" sources regarding global warming alarmism. A little investigation reveals that nothing could be farther from the truth. Realclimate.org is a propaganda site set up and run by an arm of Fenton Communications, a "progressive" / big government media-consulting company. The scientists who run it include Gavin Schmidt of NASA, Michael Mann of Penn State (and hockey stick infamy) and Pierre whatever his name is whose textbook Troutless cited. Their careers are dependent on government grants. If global warming is not a crisis, the cash won't continue to flow. They have a conflict of interest.

Realclimate is a biased echo chamber that ruthlessly censors comments from those who question climate orthodoxy. Feel free to go ask some honest questions there or just observe a few threads to see how the moderators treat commenters, then compare them to the discussions and posts at wattsupwiththat.com, bishophill.com, and climateaudit.com.

Troutless also cites the IPCC's AR4 report. The IPCC is a political body that was established with a mandate to assume the existence of dangerous climate change, not to investigate whether it was or was not occurring. The Climategate 1 and 2 email releases have pulled back the curtain on a great deal of nonscientific shenanigans perpetrated by scientists who worked on the AR4 report. Lots of analysis is now available on WUWT and Bishop Hill. In addition, a newly released book by Canadian journalist Donna LaFramboise looks at the ridiculous structure of the IPCC itself and shows how many of the authors of the AR4 report were young staffers of organizations like Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund rather than experienced scientists.

"Consensus" and arguments from authority have no place in science.

Mike

[Darian]

OK Mike, now you're beginning to sound a lot like those you criticize as being authoritative. And, I emphatically disagree with your contention that consensus has no place in science.

Time to back off....

[troutless]

Hi Mike,

I have two questions:

1. Did you read the first part of my last post?

I will repeat the critical first and last sentences there: "If you want reliable information, go to the source........Think carefully before passing on information that you can't trace back to roots in technical literature."

If so, then:

2. How many chapters of AR4 have you read? Did you trace back the conclusions to the references therein? If not, why?

If you, or anyone else, is genuinely interested in a dialog about the reasons for the metric I give, why the sources I listed are credible in the context of that metric, and why web sources like WUWT and Bishop Hill are not credible, I will formulate a polite reply and explanation. Let's be fair and throw in to that latter list sites like ClimateProgress, a fairly leftish political organ that I mentioned in my first post. Or any others you care to name. The bar I am setting is fairly high, and the number of sources on the web that I expect will pass it, on either side of the issue, low.

If you want to move the discussion to political indictments that, even if they were true, are actually irrelevant to my original point, I see no point in that.

It's very easy to shut down a discussion with charges of political bias and graft. It's almost as easy to get a pre-canned argument list, suiting any viewpoint one likes, off some web site or another.

It's quite difficult to do the work necessary to understand who is properly collecting and interpreting data, and therefore, whose picture of the world is correct, or at least more likely to be correct.

[Mike Churchill]

Troutless,

I have read parts of a number of different chapters of AR4 and the Summary for Policy Makers (which was drafted before the AR4 chapters were finalized). From that reading I am aware that the uber scary parts of the Summary for Policy Makers are not supported by the text of any of the chapters. I have also read the relevant language from the document that created the IPCC, thousands of the Climategate 1 and 2 emails between scientists who served as "lead" and "contributing" authors on many of the chapters of the AR4 report (in which they express criticisms and uncertainties regarding the "consensus" science in sharp contrast to their public statements), and I have been closely following climate science and climate alarmism for the last couple of years.

Just because something was published in a technical journal does not mean it is "true" or even good science. Particularly when the field is an immature science dominated by a relatively small group of researchers who are engaging in uncritical "pal review" of each others' papers.

What you are making is an argument from authority. "Trust them, they are scientists." By their actions and writings Gavin Schmidt, Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Kevin Trenberth, and a significant number of other high profile scientists at the core of the IPCC process have proved themselves to be untrustworthy and not very scientific at all. But anyone who is interested can find that out for themselves. Realclimate is a propaganda site, not a science site, but each person should judge that for themselves rather than take my word for it.

Naked alarmism is easy to see and judge. CO2 is plant food and the basis for all life on earth. Crop productivity increases as CO2 concentration increases (in the relevant range). To the extent the climate is warming (as it generally has been since the Little Ice Age ended about two hundred years ago), a warmer world is a better world. Colder is bad for life, warmer is better, and a richer world will deal with any problems better than a poorer one. So why is it that the alarmists never mention any of the real benefits that will result from a warmer climate or any of the benefits that will result from higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere? And why is it that all of their proposed "solutions" will make increase poverty by raising energy prices without significantly affecting global average temperature (according to their own calculations)?

Mike