Climate Science Blunders

[N.E. Brigand]

Well, I'm sorry to learn that, and for any posts I made suggesting that Jones might be exonerated, I apologize.

[halplm]

No need to apologize.

I should be clear, it is only in the legal sense that there would be no repurcussions. Obviously the University itself can take some actions...

[halplm]

Two new published papers (one in Science, and one in Nature) are finally questioning the inexplicably high "posative feedback" aspects of Global Warming Models.

http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2010/01/ ... enged.html

They are, of course, still sure to point out they are "still extremely concerned about global warming..." even though they've shown the models predicting catastrophe are clearly wrong...

[halplm]

This definitely takes the cake for bad citations:

http://climatequotes.com/2010/02/01/ipc ... operators/

At least the warming experts will know how to clean their shoes.

[halplm]

Well, Phil Jones is in continually worse shape.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... es-chinese

[halplm]

Some time ago, I pointed out that more CO2 would result in more plant life, which would in turn offset the increased CO2.

I believe I was promptly told I didn't know what I was talking about, and the feedback provided by the CO2 would far outweigh any possible consumption by extra vegetation.

Well, the feedback has been solidly debunked as I posted above, and now we see the extra vegetation wasn't a stretch after all:

link

[N.E. Brigand]

Well, Phil Jones is in continually worse shape.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... es-chinese

On the other hand, Michael Mann has been largely exonerated:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/scien ... ate&st=cse

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Well, Phil Jones is in continually worse shape.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... es-chinese

On the other hand, Michael Mann has been largely exonerated:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/scien ... ate&st=cse

The opening of the news article is poorly written, and (perhaps, unintentionally), it misspeaks in regard to the basic premise of science.

WASHINGTON — An academic board of inquiry has largely cleared a noted Pennsylvania State University climatologist of scientific misconduct, but a second panel will convene to determine whether his behavior undermined public faith in the science of climate change, the university said Wednesday.

Science does not involve "faith". It involves understanding--the evidence of things seen (or reasonably inferred from things that are seen).

Perhaps, a better word to use here would have been "trust", since "faith" implies a basic misunderstanding of the scientific enterprise.

BrianIs AtYou

[MithLuin]

Some time ago, I pointed out that more CO2 would result in more plant life, which would in turn offset the increased CO2.

I believe I was promptly told I didn't know what I was talking about, and the feedback provided by the CO2 would far outweigh any possible consumption by extra vegetation.

Not quite.

You weren't told that you didn't know what you were talking about. What was questioned wasn't whether or not there would be more growth, but whether or not that increased growth would off-set the increased levels of carbon dioxide. After all, it hasn't really seemed to so far...

Incidentally, there was a period in the distant past (Permian I think) when the Earth was very warm and CO2 levels were very high. Plants grew very big back then. And then there was a massive die-off. 12/1/09

You were told that while, yes, that would happen, one of the ways it happens is algal blooms....which then produce way more algae than the animals eat, die, and produce a ton of CO2 as the extra algae decomposes. I'm pretty sure vison pointed out the algal bloom problem, and I know I linked to a study showing increased plant growth in areas with increased CO2 levels (here). What was pointed out was that trees grow slowly, and thus while they will grow faster in areas with more CO2, that would not necessarily set the CO2 back to earlier levels. Also, in areas facing a drought (ie, the entire US Southwest for quite some time now), no matter how much carbon dioxide is available, growth of vegetation will not change because the limiting ingredient (water) is not available.

You weren't even the first to bring up plant growth and its role in this:

Most of the solutions presented focus more on reducing the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere, but it would be equally effective to suddenly have a lot more photosynthetic plant life on earth. In other words, not just stop burning coal, but start planting trees, as well.

Based on that...even if climate change isn't necessarily caused by human activity...we could certainly manipulate it if we wanted to, couldn't we?

Let's assume all things are equal, Hal, then add CO2. Given CO2's known chemical properties, what happens?

More plants. Then more O2 and less CO2. Oh wait, the CO2 you added is gone now... all things being equal...

to which she replied:

DEMONSTRABLY more CO2 does not lead to enough plants to take up the CO2. If so, then CO2 would have never risen to the levels it has.

Please do not mischaracterize what you were told on the board in the past when presenting new information. Yes, some skepticism was leveled at your claim, but it was not dismissed out of hand. No one denied more plant growth, they just questioned whether it would be enough plant growth. Considering how much of the land used to be covered in forests compared to how much is today, it's fair skepticism. People here took the time to look into it, and see what the actual impacts would be. [I even linked to the Wisconsin study on aspen growth which that article cites!] (Edit: or not...)

Well, the feedback has been solidly debunked as I posted above, and now we see the extra vegetation wasn't a stretch after all:

Not a stretch, no, but there are some things to point out. One, this study (in MD, not the entire east coast) linked the extra growth to three things: increased carbon dioxide levels, longer growing season, and increased average yearly temperature. I can say without hesitation that MD has had one of the lowest average yearly temperatures on record (we just got the most snow in one winter...for us ), so if a higher temperature is required for this extra tree growth, his team won't be seeing so much growth next year...regardless of what the CO2 does. Also, the question raised at the end of the article is a pertinent one: we are observing increased biomass in forests with a modest increase in CO2 levels; what will happen if the CO2 levels go through the roof? Likely, the forest growth will level off and this 'sink' will not be able to keep up. Also, this will likely change ecosystems as the faster growing trees take over and the slower growing trees struggle to keep up. The conclusion of this study in the Smithsonian and the others in the midwest and northwest are not that the problem is solved. One factor is changing, and we're trying to understand how that impacts other factors...but changes in environment have a significant and long-term effect on many of the species that live there.

It doesn't contribute to an action-packed disaster movie, either, but I don't think anyone here is arguing for that, either.


Edit: The aspen article was familiar to me because you linked to it before, not me. Sorry for taking credit there. I'll go hunt down the articles I linked to in a moment.....

[River]

Along with what Mith's saying, if the CO2 rises but the rains don't come, that's also going to have a negative effect on plant life. And the aspen article sort of addresses that:

The surprising increase in growth rates for the trees sampled in the study is coupled, the authors note, with moist conditions. By contrast, aspen in the western United States do not seem to grow as fast as those in the American Midwest, most likely due to recent extended periods of drought. Also, while the researchers found that aspen grow much faster in response to elevated carbon dioxide, similar effects have not been observed in other trees species, notably oak and pine.

Also, that study was limited to one geographic area...and in Colorado, the aspens are dying and no one's figured out why. So are our pine forests, but that's the pine beetle. We've got so many dead trees you can't even give away cord wood. The only way to get rid of so many trees is fire. Some summer, maybe this one, maybe the next, the Rockies are just going to go up in flames. And won't that be fun to live through (those of you not in Colorado, you won't be safe either - if the haze from California fires can get to Colorado, the haze from ours can cross multiple state lines as well). :/

[Griffon64]

I read an article in Time referring to the aspen study recently:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 67,00.html

As anybody who have ever tried to actually grow a plant has found out, plants aren't just about water and CO2. They also need other nutrients, and there is some concern that the accelerated growth seen due to CO2 increase will cause problems for plants running out of the other nutrients.

Another reason advanced for the increased growth is that the growing season is simply getting longer - temperatures stay warmer for longer.

This made me think of this remark by halplm:

Let's assume all things are equal, Hal, then add CO2. Given CO2's known chemical properties, what happens?

More plants. Then more O2 and less CO2. Oh wait, the CO2 you added is gone now... all things being equal...

From a common sense perspective, the article I linked to above, and my own experience entering a second year of growing vegetables, I think halplm's assumption that CO2 can be spirited away, on a self-sustaining basis, by increased vegetation is likely to be a bit optimistic. The system isn't as simple as a closed, balanced CO2->O2 cycle.

[MithLuin]

I was curious what numbers are involved...what amount of carbon are we talking about?

Calculations show that the burning of fossil fuels (mainly coal, petroleum derivatives, and natural gas) add about 6 billion metric tons of carbon (as the element) to the air annually; each year also, deforestation permits an extra 1-2 billion metric tons of carbon to reach the atmosphere. source: NASA

So, the increased growth of vegetation (whether due to warmer weather or increased CO2 or both) would have to counteract that amount. I don't think anyone is suggesting that it currently is, or will.

However, if we could reverse the trend in deforestation (what would that be, reforestation?) we could potentially cancel out the carbon dioxide output from burning fossil fuels. I'm not really sure how we could plant over 3x as many trees as we generally cut down, but I suppose it's worth looking into.

One target of those who wish to save trees is the printing of textbooks. According to the NWF,

the U.S. paper industry uses a million tons of paper a year. Textbooks represent approximately 20 percent of that, consuming the equivalent of 4 million trees annually. source

So, the trend towards e-books could have an impact on how many trees we cut down each year...though it would not reverse the trend of deforestation. For all I know, they're using already-dead trees to make paper pulp anyway.

[Infidel]

The warming rates of the years 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 as well as the longer 1975 to 2009 are not statistically significantly different from each other;
There has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995;
And since the matter of the MWP is still up for debate, such that if the MWP was warmer than now, the current warming trend is not unprecedented;

Where does this leave the debate over AGW?

[vison]

When we burn fossil fuels (or wood) we release decades, centuries, millennia or even epochs worth of stored carbon dioxide in a matter of mere days or months. There is simply no way we can balance that by planting greenery.

[MithLuin]

Well, the naturally-released carbon is on the magnitude of 300 gigatons per year. The man-made emissions are about 6 gigatons per year (2% of the total). [NASA again] So, if the current level of plant growth + oceans can handle 300 gigatons and maintain a balanced system...more greenery actually could take care of the extra 6 gigatons, theoretically. It has to be a lot more greenery, though, and right now we're losing forest, not gaining it.

Keep in mind that the deforestation that accompanied the industrial revolution had a more significant impact on the carbon cycle than the burning of fossil fuels itself. Our current loss of biomass in the world's remaining rainforests is as critical as developing cleaner energy in the northern hemisphere - quite possibly more so.

This doesn't mean we can burn as much coal as we want, as fast as we want...but it is true that losing forests is quite detrimental.

[N.E. Brigand]

3. This is the global body saying Man-made Global Warming is going to doom us all, and you're OK with this kind of stuff making it into what they say is the global consensus?

I believe the report is the size of a long book, with different sections requiring different specialties from different experts. Even books written carefully by just one person will often include some incidental errors.

In fact, it's just under 3,000 pages long, in three volumes "written by over 450 lead authors and 800 contributing authors".


[Edit to change "more than" to "just under" -- my mistake.]

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As N.E.B. pointed out earlier, I can definitely attest to the fact that even a very carefully researched and written work by only one author inevitably is going to include some incidental errors.

[N.E. Brigand]

Well, Phil Jones is in continually worse shape.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... es-chinese

UEA response to Guardian story:
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/pre ... nstatement

[N.E. Brigand]

The warming rates of the years 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 as well as the longer 1975 to 2009 are not statistically significantly different from each other;
There has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995;
And since the matter of the MWP is still up for debate, such that if the MWP was warmer than now, the current warming trend is not unprecedented;
Where does this leave the debate over AGW?

I can't speak for the debate, but the current scientific assessment of AGW is unchanged by statements Phil Jones recently made to the BBC, which you've apparently been reading. None of the facts you identify are new, nor have they been denied by climate scientists.

For now, let's just consider the second point. Has there been statistically signficant global warming since 1995? Jones said that CRU dataset shows a warming trend of 0.12 deg C per decade over that period (the other datasets show more, by the way) but that the period is too short for that warming to be stated with 95% statistical significance. This is a helpful explanation of the time frame needed to achieve statistical significance in climatology. It predates the Jones interview:

http://bartonpaullevenson.com/30Years.html

Here's a funny quote I just read by John Beddington, chief scientific advisor to the British government: "Some people ask why we should act when scientists say they are only 90 per cent certain about the problem. But would you get on a plane that only had a 10 per cent chance of landing?"

[Cenedril_Gildinaur]

I'm still looking through the data from the East Anglia CRU inadvertent release, so I don't want to talk too much about that yet. It does look bad for the AGW faithful, but I'm not done yet.

But the missing sunspots is definitely something to consider given that global temperatures have really leveled off.