One vulnerable coral type adapts to ocean acidification in just 6 months

Credit: S. Ross et al., UNCW

We already know that pH varies naturally across the oceans of the world. In some sites, it varies more in a single day than global oceans are likely to face in a century.

But cold water corals live in deep water, are slow growing, and hard to study.

Six years ago, experts in cold water corals were telling us how they would be likely to fall victim to ocean acidification first, and that they believed this for good reasons but with little experimental data. But about a year ago data came out (by one of those same experts) showing that rather than being the badly affected, cold water corals adapted to effectively very high levels of CO2 and possibly even increased their calcification rates. Eight days after the pH was changed suddenly, the corals did worse. But when the experiment was continued for six months, the results turned right around. The researchers pointed out how useful longer studies are: “This is the first evidence of successful acclimation in a coral species to ocean acidification, emphasizing the general need for long-term incubations”. The paper is called “Acclimation to ocean acidification during long-term CO2 exposure in the cold-water coral Lophelia pertusa.” The pH fell as low as 7.75 in the long term study (from the normal pH of about 8.1).

It’s highly unlikely the atmospheric levels of CO2 will reach 1,000 ppm in the next couple of centuries, but if they did, it appears that at least one major and widespread species of cold water coral can adapt within six months. Co2 feeds plant life above the water, and atmospheric levels were much higher during the time that corals evolved. That doesn’t guarantee anything, but suggests scientists could have been more cautious in predicting a disaster when they didn’t have the data.

cold water corals and ocean acidification

In short term studies the growth of a major cold water coral slows as CO2 levels rise

The results:

In 6 month studies, even very high levels of CO2 were not detrimental to cold water corals. Indeed the corals appeared to grow faster.

In 2006 experts thought Cold Water Corals would be some of the first to suffer

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9.5 out of 10 based on 52 ratings

Australian Filmmaker knocks back Al Gore’s request for firestorm footage

Good on you Chris Tangey.

Chris Tangey captured moving images of a dust storm picking up a bushfire.

He’s turned down some income to stand on his principles.

Al Gore wanted to use the awesome shots of a dust devil picking up a bushfire, which happened on Sept 11, 360km southwest of Alice Springs at Curtin Springs Station. When Al Gores office asked for rights to use the footage, Tangey knocked him back. He felt its use in a climate change setting would be “deliberately deceptive” and that it was “difficult for me to imagine a fire event less relevant”.

“I am aware that you may have missed the reporting on the very localised nature of this firestorm,” Tangey wrote. “However, in any case, I am confused as to why you would offer to buy a licence to use it at all unless you had conducted even elementary research which might indicate that this Mt Conner event had direct linkage to global warming/climate change.”

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9.3 out of 10 based on 120 ratings

Man Made Global Warming Disproved

by Joanne Nova and Anthony Cox

The theory that failed

It takes only one experiment to disprove a theory. The climate models are predicting a global disaster, but the empirical evidence disagrees. The theory of catastrophic man-made global warming has been tested from many independent angles.

The heat is missing from oceans; it’s missing from the upper troposphere. The clouds are not behaving as predicted. The models can’t predict the short term, the regional, or the long term. They don’t predict the past. How could they predict the future?

The models didn’t correctly predict changes in outgoing radiation, or the humidity and temperature trends of the upper troposphere. The single most important fact, dominating everything else, is that the ocean heat content has barely increased since 2003 (and quite possibly decreased) counter to the simulations. In a best case scenario, any increase reported is not enough. Models can’t predict local and regional patterns or seasonal effects, yet modelers add up all the erroneous micro-estimates and claim to produce an accurate macro global forecast. Most of the warming happened in a step change in 1977, yet CO2 has been rising annually.

Observations from every angle point to a similar conclusion

Studies involving 28 million weather balloons, thousands of satellite recordings, 3,000 ocean buoys, temperature recordings from 50 sites in the US and a 1,000 years of temperature proxies suggest that the Global Climate Models overestimate positive feedback and are based on poor assumptions. Observations suggest lower values for climate sensitivity whether we study long-term humidity, upper tropospheric temperature trends, outgoing long wave radiation, cloud cover changes, or the changes in the heat content of the vast oceans.

Continued faith in flawed models breaks central tenets of science

The two things which make science different from religion are that nothing in science is sacred, and everything in science must ultimately fit with observations of the real world. While a theory may never be 100% proven, it can be disproven. The pieces of the climate jigsaw are coming together. The observations suggest that the warming effect of man-made emissions of CO₂ has been exaggerated by a factor of 3 – 7 in computer simulations.

Observations show major flaws

The missing heat is not in the ocean ^{8 – 14}
Satellites show a warmer Earth is releasing extra energy to space ^{15 -17}
The models get core assumptions wrong – the hot spot is missing ^{22 – 26, 28 – 31}
Clouds cool the planet as it warms ^{38 – 56}
The models are wrong on a local, regional, or continental scale. ^{63- 64}
Eight different methods suggest a climate sensitivity of 0.4°C ⁶⁶
Has CO2 warmed the planet at all in the last 50 years? It’s harder to tell than you think. ⁷⁰
Even if we assume it’s warmed since 1979, and assume that it was all CO2, if so, feedbacks are zero — disaster averted. ⁷¹
It was as warm or warmer 1000 years ago. Models can’t explain that. It wasn’t CO2. The models can’t predict past episodes of warming, so why would they predict future ones?

Graph: climate sensitivity, climate models, observations, empirical estimates.

Figure 1 Climate Sensitivity Comparison (empirical methods versus models, for a doubling of the CO2 level).

The direct effect of CO2 is only 1.2C

The IPCC estimates that carbon dioxide’s direct effect is 1.2 °C¹ of warming (that is, before feedbacks are taken into account) for each doubling of the carbon dioxide level. Models amplify that warming with assumptions about positive feedback (see the blue region of model estimates in the graph below). But observations show that net feedback is probably negative, which would instead reduce the direct effect of the extra carbon dioxide.

While independent scientists point to the empirical evidence, government funded scientists argue that a majority of scientists, a consensus, support the theory that a man-made catastrophe is coming.² This is plainly unscientific and a logical fallacy. The test of scientific knowledge is through experiment and observation. The only evidence the government scientists provide on the key points of attribution (the cause of the warming) come from simulations of the climate done with computers. Those models are unverified, and when tested, have “no skill” at predicting the climate. Scientists may claim otherwise, but no single model is proficient, rather a selection of models has “success” with a few parameters.

A multitude of observations are in rough agreement that any increase in global average temperature caused by a doubling of CO₂ is more likely to be about half a degree than the 3.3 degrees determined by the IPCC³.

The major problem for models: Feedbacks

Our climate changes because of outside effects, called forcings: the sun grows brighter, or its magnetic field changes, ocean currents shift, vegetation changes, or continents move. The Earth is a ball of magma, is a 12,000 km thick, with a thin crust about 12 km of rock on top, who knows what effects come from within? The IPCC recognizes only two types of forcings: greenhouse gases and solar luminosity.

Forcings are difficult to unravel. Harder still are feedbacks, as systems all over the planet simultaneously adjust to changing conditions. In a warmer world, for instance, less ice and more plant-life means less sunlight is reflected to space, which creates more warming. The oceans release carbon dioxide, more water evaporates, humidity changes, sea-levels rise, and all of those consequent changes further affect temperatures.

The feedbacks are not just icing on the cake, but in the IPCC’s view, collectively more powerful than any forcing due directly to CO₂. Indeed while CO₂ may cause one degree of warming, the feedbacks amplify this – theoretically anyway – by up to three degrees. The major agent of feedback, according to the IPCC, is water vapor (ie. humidity)^.4 The IPCC could be right about one hundred factors, but if they are using the wrong assumptions about the way clouds and humidity behave, the forecast of an alarming three degrees could be reduced to a forecast of a mere half-a-degree. Some details matter more than others.

Not only is it hard to put a value on all the feedbacks, it’s difficult to know if some changes are a feedback or a forcing⁵ or even both at once — for example, clouds. Clouds’ impact on climate would obviously change as the world warms (a feedback) but, if solar-magnetic effects change clouds, as now seems likely, clouds could also drive climate change (a forcing).⁶^{, 7}

The references here independently show that core model assumptions are wrong. Models assume that relative humidity will stay the same over the tropics as the world warms, that clouds are a positive feedback and not a negative one, and that cloud changes are a feedback and not a forcing in their own right. These are three critical and demonstrable errors.

Conclusion

Every which way we measure it, the models predictions don’t match the observations.

The warming we’ve had in the last thirty years implies that at best, we could expect 1°C from a doubling of CO₂, but observations from eight natural experiments around the globe, and even on Mars and Venus suggest that 0.4°C is the upper bound of climate sensitivity to any cause. In addition, if Miscolscki is right, and an increase in carbon dioxide leads to a decrease in water vapor, then the sensitivity due to CO₂ could be close to zero.

The global warming predictions are contradicted by the data. The vast funding which is now being directed to ‘solving’ global warming should be redirected to researching hypotheses which are consistent with empirical data and confirmed by observable evidence.

The exception proves that the rule is wrong. That is the principle of science. If there is an exception to any rule, and if it can be proved by observation, that rule is wrong.

Richard Feynman, according to The Meaning of it All, 1999

REFERENCES

Combined references from the linked articles.

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Andrews, T. and Forster, P.M. (2008) CO2 forcing induces semi-direct effects with consequences for climate feedback interpretations , GeoPhys Res Letter, 35. [abstract]
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Kirkby, J. et al. (2011) Role of sulphuric acid, ammonia and galactic cosmic rays in atmospheric aerosol nucleation, Nature 476, 429-433 (2011). [Article]
Pielke Sr., R.A., (2003): Heat storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335.
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Loehle, C., (2009) “Cooling of the global ocean since 2003,” Energy and Environment, Vol. 20, 101–104.
Douglass, D.H. and Knox, S.R. (2009) “Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance,” Physics Letters A, Vol. 373, pp3296–3300.
Pielke, R. A.., (2008)“A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system,” Physics Today Vol. 61, no. 11, 2008, pp. 54-55.
von Schuckmann, K., F. Gaillard and P.-Y. Le Traon [2009] Global hydrographic variability patterns during 2003-2008. J. Geophys. Res., 114, C09007, doi:10.1029/2008JC005237 [Abstract] [discussion] [other PDF]
Knox, R. S. and D. H. Douglass [2010] Recent energy balance of Earth International Journal of Geosciences, 2010, vol. 1, no. 3 (November) – In press Published Online 2010 [PDF]
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Cess, R.D. and P.M. Udelhofen, (2003): Climate change during 1985–1999: Cloud interactions determined from satellite measurements. Geophys. Res. Ltrs., 30, No. 1, 1019, doi:10.1029/2002GL016128.
Hatzidimitriou, D., I. Vardavas, K. G. Pavlakis, N. Hatzianastassiou, C. Matsoukas, and E. Drakakis (2004) On the decadal increase in the tropical mean outgoing longwave radiation for the period 1984–2000. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 4, 1419–1425.
Clement, A.C. and B. Soden (2005) The sensitivity of the tropical-mean radiation budget. J. Clim., 18, 3189-3203.
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Karl et al (2006), Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) 2006 Report, Chapter 1, 1958-1999. Synthesis and Assessment Report 1.1, 2006, CCSP, Chapter 1, p 25, based on Santer et al. 2000; [PDF]
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Douglass, D.H., J.R. Christy, B.D. Pearson, and S.F. Singer. (2007). A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions. International Journal of Climatology, Volume 28, Issue 13, pp. 1693-1701, December 2007. [Abstract] [PDF]
Santer, B. D., P. W. Thorne, L. Haimberger, K. E Taylor, T. M Wigley,. L. Lanzante, J. R. Solomon, M. Free, P. J Gleckler, P. D. Jones, T. R Karl, S. A. Klein, C. Mears, D. Nychka, G. A. Schmidt, S. C. Sherwood and F. J. Wentz (2008), Consistency of modelled and observed temperature trends in the tropical troposphere. International Journal of Climatology, 28: 1703–1722. doi: 10.1002/joc.1756 [Abstract] [PDF]
McKitrick, R., S. McIntyre, and C. Herman, (2010), Panel and multivariate methods for tests of trend equivalence in climate data series. Atmospheric Science Letters, 11: 270–277. doi: 10.1002/asl.290 [PDF]
McKitrick, R., McIntyre, S., and Herman, C. (2011) Corrigendum to Panel and multivariate methods for tests of trend equivalence in climate data series, Atmospheric Science Letters, Vol. 11, Issue 4, 270–277. [Abstract]
Christy J.R., Herman, B., Pielke, Sr., R, 3, Klotzbach, P., McNide, R.T., Hnilo J.J., Spencer R.W., Chase, T. and Douglass, D: (2010) What Do Observational Datasets Say about Modeled Tropospheric Temperature Trends since 1979? Remote Sensing 2010, 2, 2148-2169; doi:10.3390/rs2092148 [PDF]
Fu, Q, Manabe, S., and Johanson, C. (2011) On the warming in the tropical upper troposphere: Models vs observations, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 38, L15704, doi:10.1029/2011GL048101, 2011 [PDF] [Discussion]
McKitrick, R. and Vogelsang, T. J. (2011), Multivariate trend comparisons between autocorrelated climate series with general trend regressors, Department of Economics, University of Guelph. [ PDF]
Stockwell, David R. B. and Cox, A. (2009), Structural break models of climatic regime-shifts: claims and forecasts, Cornell University Library, arXiv10907.1650 [PDF]
Miskolczi, Ferenc M. and Mlynczak, M. (2004) The greenhouse effect and the spectral decomposition of the clear-sky terrestrial adiation. Idojaras Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service Vol. 108, No. 4, October–December 2004, pp. 209–251 [PDF]
Miskolczi, Ferenc M. (2007) Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres. Idojaras Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service Vol. 111, No. 1, January–March 2007, pp. 1–40 [PDF]
Miskolczi, Ferenc M. (2010), The Stable Stationary Value of the Earth’s Global Average Atmospheric Planck-Weighted Greenhouse-Gas Optical Thickness. Energy & Environment Vol. 21, No. 4, 2010 pp 243-263 [PDF and Discussion]
Paltridge, G., Arking, A., Pook, M., 2009. Trends in middle- and upper-level tropospheric humidity from NCEP reanalysis data. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Volume 98, Numbers 3-4, pp. 351-35). [PDF]
IPCC, Assessment Report 4, 2007, Working Group 1, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 8. [PDF] Page 610 8.3.1.1.2 “The balance of radiation at the top of the atmosphere”
IPCC, Assessment Report 4, 2007, Working Group 1, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 8. [PDF] Page 636 8.6.3.2 “Clouds”
Zhang, M.H., Lin, W.Y., Klein, S.A., Bacmeister, J.T., Bony, S., Cederwall, R.T., Del Genio, A.D., Hack, J.J., Loeb, N.G., Lohmann, U., Minnis, P., Musat, I., Pincus, R., Stier, P., Suarez, M.J., Webb, M.J., Wu, J.B., Xie, S.C., Yao, M.-S. and Yang, J.H. 2005. Comparing clouds and their seasonal variations in 10 atmospheric general circulation models with satellite measurements. Journal of Geophysical Research 110: D15S02,
Randall, D., Khairoutdinov, M., Arakawa, A. and Grabowski, W. 2003. Breaking the cloud parameterization deadlock. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 84: 1547-1564.
Allan, R [2011] Combining satellite data and models to estimate cloud radiative effects at the surface and in the atmosphere. University of Reading [Abstract] [Discussion]
Croke, M.S., Cess, R.D. and Hameed, S. 1999. Regional cloud cover change associated with global climate change: Case studies for three regions of the United States. Journal of Climate 12: 2128-2134
Herman, J.R., Larko, D., Celarier, E. and Ziemke, J. 2001. Changes in the Earth’s UV reflectivity from the surface, clouds, and aerosols. Journal of Geophysical Research 106: 5353-5368
Spencer, R.W., Braswell, W.D., Christy, J.R., Hnilo, J. (2007). Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations. Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L15707, doi:10.1029/2007/GL029698. [PDF]
IPCC, Assessment Report 4, 2007, Working Group 1, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 8. (see 8.6.3.2) [PDF]
Kirkby, J. et al. (2011) Role of sulphuric acid, ammonia and galactic cosmic rays in atmospheric aerosol nucleation, Nature 476, 429-433 (2011). | Article
Svensmark, H. 1998. Influence of cosmic rays on earth’s climate. Physical Review Letters 81: 5027-5030. [Discussion CO2Science]
Svensmark, H. and Friis-Christensen, E.: Variation of cosmic ray flux and global cloud coverage – a missing link in solar-climate relationships, J. Atmos. Sol. Terr. Phys., 59, 1225–1232, 1997.
Mauas, P., Flamenco, E., Buccino, A. (2008) “Solar Forcing of the Stream Flow of a Continental Scale South American River”, Instituto de Astronomı´a y Fı´sica del Espacio, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Physical Review Letters 101 [http://www.iafe.uba.ar/httpdocs/reprint_parana.pdf])
Alexander, W., Bailey, F., Bredenkamp, B., van der Merwe, A., and Willemse, N. (2007) Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering, Vol. 49 No 2 [PDF]
Shaviv, N.J. (2008) Using the oceans as a calorimeter to quantify the solar radiative forcing. Journal of Geophysical Research 113: 10.1029/2007JA012989. [CO2 Science discussion]
Herschel, W. 1801, in Philosphical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, 265 and 354. (See here, and here)
Spencer, R., and W.D. Braswell. (2008). Potential biases in feedback diagnosis from observations data: a simple model demonstration. Journal of Climate, 21, 5624-5628.
Spencer, R.W., and W.D. Braswell, (2010), On the diagnosis of radiative feedback in the presence of unknown radiative forcing, J. Geophys. Res, 115, D16109
Spencer, R. W.; Braswell, W.D. (2011) On the Misdiagnosis of Climate Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance, Remote Sens. 2011, 3, 1603-1613. [PDF]
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2003: Heat storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335.
Chapter 1 of the: Annual Report on the State of the Ocean and the Ocean Observing System for Climate. OCO, NOAA. [HTML]
C. Loehle, “Cooling of the global ocean since 2003,” Energy and Environment, Vol. 20, 2009, 101–104.
D. H. Douglass and R. S. Knox, “Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance,” Physics Letters A, Vol. 373, 2009, 3296–3300.
R. Pielke Sr., “A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system,” Physics Today Vol. 61, no. 11, 2008, pp. 54-55.
von Schuckmann, K., F. Gaillard and P.-Y. Le Traon [2009] Global hydrographic variability patterns during 2003-2008. J. Geophys. Res., 114, C09007, doi:10.1029/2008JC005237 [Abstract] [discussion] [other PDF]
Anagnostopoulos, G. G., D. Koutsoyiannis, A. Christofides, A. Efstratiadis, and N. Mamassis, (2010). A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data’, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 55: 7, 1094 — 1110 [PDF]
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McKitrick, R. and Vogelsang, T. J. (2011), Multivariate trend comparisons between autocorrelated climate series with general trend regressors, Department of Economics, University of Guelph. [Discussion paper PDF]
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Ljungqvist, Fredrik Charpentier, 2010, A New Reconstruction Of Temperature Variability In The Extra-Tropical Northern Hemisphere During The Last Two Millennia , Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography, Volume 92, Number 3, pp. 339-351(13) [abstract]
Zu, L., et al (2012) An ikaite record of late Holocene climate at the Antarctic Peninsula, Earth and Planetary Sciences Letters, Volumes 325–326, 1 April 2012, Pages 108–115
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McIntyre, S., and R. McKitrick, 2003. Corrections to the Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy database and Northern Hemispheric average temperature series. Energy & Environment,14, 751-771 [PDF].
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McShane, Blakely B. and Abraham J. Wyner [2010] A Statistical Analysis of Multiple Temperature Proxies: Are Reconstructions of Surface Temperatures Over the Last 1000 Years Reliable? The Annals of Applied Statistics 2011, Vol. 5, No. 1, 5–44 [PDF]

FOOTNOTES

“Climate Sensitivity” refers to the warming produced by a doubling of CO₂ levels.

Forcing is a factor external to or introduced to the climate system which affects, for a period, the radiative balance at the tropopause (the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere).

A feedback is a change in another quantity in the climate system as a response to a change in a forcing.

Thanks to Tony Cox for his patience.

Thanks to Tony Thomas for editing advice.

9.5 out of 10 based on 240 ratings

Unthreaded

Report your site and email troubles here (if you can). I gather some people are getting patchy access, and having trouble emailing me.

We moved the site again last night, and the changes propagate throughout the global network some people appear to be losing access temporarily. As it happens my access is faster than ever — so hopefully yours will be too, soon. (Thank Andrew for that).

Perhaps clear those caches… (yes, that’s a message for all the people who can’t read this ;-)).

Somehow I have about ten articles in draft and none of them quite ready. There is a lot on the boil…

9.4 out of 10 based on 42 ratings

Tyrants always want to silence the critics

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

Two hundred and fifty years ago the pamphleteers were the bloggers of the day. The Finkelstein plan in Australia is a modern version of the License of the Press under George III. Another excuse to tell people what they are allowed to read.

One John Wilkes was elected MP for Aylesbury in 1757. George III soon-to-be-crowned King, arranged for his friend the Earl of Bute to get the job of PM. Wilkes wasn’t too happy with that. He thought Bute was incompetent, and so when one supporter of Bute started a newsletter called The Briton, it was only eight days later that Wilkes started his own newsletter, called the North Briton in response. Wilkes wrote anonymously each week, but his 45th edition was too much for George III and Wilkes was charged with Libel for accusing the George of lying, and he was tossed in the Tower. He challenged the arrest and won (eventually). His speeches during the trial became famous and had people chanting “liberty and Wilkes” in the streets. Sadly troops fired on the protesters, killing seven, in the Massacre of St George’s Field. The cry of “45” (from the 45th edition) became synonymous with freedom of speech. Wilkes fled at one point to France, but was imprisoned again. The North Briton was then published by William Bingley, who also ended up in goal, and spent two years there without trial. Risky practice, what, speaking your mind.

John Wilkes, The North Briton, Edition 1 1762

(Click to enlarge)

Britain has a proud history of democracy, but true democracy is such a fragile construct. Wilkes was initially protected by his position in Parliament, but it didn’t last. Apparently he was also challenged to a duel which left him wounded, expelled from the House of Commons, and though he was re-elected three times, the result was overturned repeatedly by Parliament. So much for the choice of the people. Sheer persistence, and masses of protestors meant eventually Wilkes took his place, and went on to create legislation to stop the government from punishing people who wrote political commentary.

Partly thanks to Wilkes, I can write without fear of being tossed in the Tower. But lest we forgot how fragile that freedom is, we ought revisit the struggle. Andrew Bolt may not face gaol, but he is not free to write his considered opinion either. The Irish voted against the EU so the referendum was rerun, but the British haven’t even had the chance to vote once yet, as apparently it’s beyond the United Kingdom’s elected reps to arrange one. The Australians voted against a Carbon Tax, and got one anyway. And just as it was 250 years ago, the tool of pillory keeps many people from speaking their mind. Political correctness being just another form of bullying opponents.

Recently I was lucky enough to handle an original bound volume of these newsletters. The quote below comes from page 1 of the first. I’ve transcribed the first page here (errors are all mine). Click on the image to read the original.

Thanks to Mark

THE NORTH BRITON

Numb. I. Saturday, June 5, 1762

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9.2 out of 10 based on 84 ratings

Bingo! We’re back… :-)

There are many details to iron out, but thanks to some pesky hacks, I now have a bigger support team, a larger network of shared expertise, a much larger server and eventually, as we work through the site, a more efficient, faster site, that is more resilient, more stable, with a better back up system. I’ve also had a few very helpful donations.

We’re not protected by a soft media, a large public purse, and we don’t hide behind a censored fake debate as so many do.

They can attack, but it only makes us stronger.

More soon…

Please report things you notice here that need a fix.

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The Temporary site is still up, and may stay there indefinitely. So if you had a comment or conversation there: Not there yet, Still not there yet, I needed a holiday and “Sunny Days” . Thanks for your patience.

Australian Environment Foundation Conference in Sydney

Meet like-minded people and be a part of some rational science in Sydney on Oct 20 & 21.

David Evans is a keynote speaker, along with Stuart Franks, Alan Oxley, Walter Stark & David Stockwell too. I’ll have more to say on this conference soon. Book your tickets now! Late bookings will miss out on the Harbor Cruise.

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9.3 out of 10 based on 53 ratings

Massive Eltanin Meteor 2.5 million years ago set off mass tsunami, changed the climate?

From the file of “Things that would really be catastrophic”. Did a meteor have a role in a major shift in Earth’s Climate?

The start of the Quaternary period (2.588 million years ago, where the Pliocene became Pleistocene) coincides with evidence of a mega tsunami in the South Pacific.

The Eltanin Meteor fell into the South Pacific 2.5 million years ago setting off a (likely) tsunami that was hundreds of meters high and theoretically pushed mass material into the atmosphere which may have contributed to the cooling the globe had already started on. This meteor was hard to detect because it hit the ocean rather than the land. But researchers have pieced together evidence of the mass tsunami on continents around the pacific rim.

Figure 1. Possible effects of the Eltanin megatsunami. (A) Composite model of wave amplitudes for the South Pacific [modified after Ward and Asphaug (2002) but with a greater decay rate of wave amplitude away from the impact point; this produces lower wave amplitudes on affected coasts, more in line with recent findings but not as low as those proposed by Shuvalov and Trubetskaya (2007)]: ANT, Antarctica; AU, Australia; NZ, New Zealand; SA, South America. (B) Map of
the South Pacific region showing sites discussed in the text (the red dot and concentric red circles highlight the approximate location of the Eltanin asteroid impact, the red dashed line encompasses the geographical extent of
possible Eltanin megatsunami evidence discussed in the text and open blue dots mark locations of sites discussed in the text. (C) Inset of all Antarctic sites discussed in the text. AC, Alexander Channel; BI, Bahia Inglesa; BT, Biscoe Trough; BTr, Bounty Trough; C, Concepcion; Ca, Caldera; CI, Cockburn Island; Cis, Chatham Islands; CR, Chatham Rise; ERS, Eastern Ross Sea; KU, Kurotaki unconformity; MP, Mejillones Peninsula; NSW, New South Wales; PB, Prydz Bay; PC, Prydz Channel; TAM, Transantarctic Mountains; TP, Taitao Peninsula; WB, Wanganui Basin; WI, Windmill Island; WL, Wilkes Land; WRS, Western Ross Sea; WS, Weddell Sea. This figure is available in colour online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jqs

Bob Beale of UNSW via Science Daily.

“This is the only known deep-ocean impact event on the planet and it’s largely been forgotten because there’s no obvious giant crater to investigate, as there would have been if it had hit a landmass,” says Professor James Goff, lead author of a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Quaternary Science. Goff is co-director of UNSW’s Australia-Pacific Tsunami Research Centre and Natural Hazards Research Laboratory.

“But consider that we’re talking about something the size of a small mountain crashing at very high speed into very deep ocean, between Chile and Antarctica. Unlike a land impact, where the energy of the collision is largely absorbed locally, this would have generated an incredible splash with waves literally hundreds of metres high near the impact site.

As a ‘cene’ changer — that is, from the Pliocene to Pleistocene — Eltanin may have been overall as significant as the meteor that took out the non-flying dinosaurs 65 million years ago. We’re urging our colleagues to carefully reconsider conventional interpretations of the sediments we’re flagging and consider whether these could be instead the result of a mega-tsunami triggered by a meteor.”

From the paper (paywalled)

The Eltanin asteroid is currently the only known impact into a deep ocean (4–5 km) basin, striking the Southern Ocean about 1500 km SSW of Chile (Fig. 1). Although there is no crater on the seafloor, meteoritic material was found in sedimentary rocks
collected at three places 500 km apart. There were also traces of intense erosion as well as the deposition of eroded material
(Gersonde et al., 1997). Gersonde et al. (1997) estimated the asteroid to be between 1 and 4 km in diameter.

Other more recent estimates suggest it must have been less than 2km “a larger size would cause impact melt on the seafloor and create a bottom crater…”

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9.3 out of 10 based on 40 ratings

McIntyre v Lewandowsky — Can we call in a statistician at UWA to help Lew?

The Lewandowsky view is Drilling into noise. The McIntyre response: Lewandowsky’s Fake Correlation

My favourite Lewandowsky line is: “We cannot get into the details here…”

McIntyre can and does in gory depth. He posts the equations, the code, the tables, everything. He graphs the residuals, and shows the “severe non-normality” of them. He tests the correlation and finds that the two most obvious fake responses heavily affect the results:

“Lewandowsky is absolutely off-base in his assertion that the examination of outliers is inappropriate statistical analysis. In fact, exactly the opposite is the case: proper statistical analysis REQUIRES the examination of outliers.”

“One can readily see that the two super-scammers (889, 963) contribute essentially 100% (over 100%) actually of the negative correlation between CauseHIV and CYMoon in this calculation.”

Lewandowsky says: “no one who has toyed with our data has thus far exhibited any knowledge of the crucial notion of a latent construct or latent variable.”

McIntyre replies: “Principal components, a frequent topic at this blog, are a form of latent variable analysis.”

As a former graduate of UWA, this is embarrassing. Does UWA not teach and use rigorous statistical methods? Is there no one who can help him?

Plus, when will that “in press” paper be published?

Lewandowsky’s paper was in press as of July 27th, when the Guardian announced its results. But it doesn’t seem to have been published in the September edition of Psychological Science. Nor is it mentioned in the “early releases”. Stan points out most of the September stories were first published in late July. It may mean nothing (a delay of a month), or it may mean the paper is being rewritten, or possibly presages a silent “withdrawal”? Certainly skiphil found a comment by Lewandowsky that suggests the moonlanding paper was being “extended” and was not quite the complete and settled science it was presented as being at The Guardian by Adam Corner, and The Telegraph too. h/t to Stan, Barry, Wayne and Skilhil in comments at CA.

64. Stephan Lewandowsky at 22:04 PM on 14 September, 2012

Questions continue to be raised for further information relating to this paper. My response is threefold:
1. I see little merit in treading over ground that is already clearly stated in the paper (e.g., the elimination of duplicate IP numbers).
2. Several questions concern material that is presently subject to an FOI request. I will let that process run to completion rather than pre-empt it.
3. The supplementary online material for the article is being extended to contain additional information (e.g., the outlier analysis from the preceding post). The online supplement will be released when the typesetting of the article is complete.
Time permitting, I may also write another post or two on topics relating to this paper that are of general interest.

This Friday it will be eight weeks since The Guardian article. In this modern era where anyone can self-publish a book in a day on their home computer, it does seem odd that Psychological Science needs nearly 2 months to typeset an article.

Note point 2 also: No Stephan, no one cares if you “preempt the FOI” — there is no penalty for releasing information that is public property. As a public servant and a scientist(?) the emails, the data and the methods belong to all Australians. Sure, redact the private details, but no one should have to FOI those answers in the first place. That you use the FOI as an excuse to delay providing the answers you owe the public sends a message about your dedication to the honest process of discovery and your conscientious duty as a man who is supposed to serve the public. If you had a clear conscience, and were proud of your work, you’d be only too happy to help people understand your careful responsible impartial dependable work, right?

Lewandowsky’s forgotten warning about computer models

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9.4 out of 10 based on 77 ratings

Antarctic sea ice trends at record highs. Fears for shrinking southern ocean, right?

While stories of the Arctic record fall in sea-ice have been all over the news, all over the world, it’s almost as if the Southern Hemisphere didn’t exist. Right now, this week apparently, the sea ice is at or near record highs (bearing in mind that we’re still only talking 30 years of satellite records, but then, these are the same satellites lapping over the arctic, and if the records are longer there, I expect it’s only by an hour and a half).

…

h/t Steve Goddard who asks when the National Snow & Ice Data Centre ( NSIDC) will send out the press releases. They appear to be more concerned about the effects of the Antarctic “thinning” trend on penguins this week. Sunshine hours has graphed it in detail.

Cryosphere compares the relentless fall and rise of Antarctic ice here. Millions of square kilometers in staggering, dramatic melts every spring manage to return in staggering dramatic ice formations each and every year.

(Click to enlarge)

I expect that our non-hemispherist unbiased and diligent newspapers will be running with matching ones very soon. Based on news stories like this:

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8.9 out of 10 based on 84 ratings

Lewandowksy, Oberauer, Gignac – Is the paper bad enough to make history?

Stephan Lewandowsky, Gilles Gignac, Klaus Oberauer

The scathing blog posts are popping up everywhere.

From William Briggs we get a sense of the historical importance of the Lewandowsky et al effort.

One day a terrific psychological study is going to be written on the madness and mass lunacy which arose after climate change swam into the public’s ken…

The cornerstone of this future pathological report may well be the peer-reviewed Psychological Science paper “NASA faked the moon landing—Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science” by Stephan Lewandowsky, Klaus Oberauer, and Gilles Gignac, perhaps the completest, most representative work of its odd era.

“Everything that could have been done wrong, was done wrong. Every bias that could have been manifested, was manifested. Every fallacy pertinent to the matter at hand was made. The conclusions, regurgitated from unnecessarily complicated statistical procedures, did not follow from the evidence gathered, which itself was suspect. In its way, then, the paper is a jewel, a gift to the future, a fundamental text to how easy it is to fool oneself. “

Steve McIntyre goes through the statistical tests, finds questionable practices, questions he can’t answer, and general failure paired with incompetence. Some people wonder in the comments if there is a point to doing this when the methodology and data are flawed beyond hope. While I doubt this analysis will tell us anything about skeptics, it may reveal something about warmists, and in particular the Dept of Psychology at UWA.

Trying (Unsuccessfully) to Replicate Lewandowsky

I wasn’t able to replicate Lewandowsky’s claim at all. I got explained variance of 43.5% in the first factor(versus Lewandowky’s 86%). I notice that the explained variance for two factors was 86%: maybe Lewandowsky got mixed up between one and two factors. If so, would such an error “matter”? In Team-world, we’ve seen that even using contaminated data upside down is held not to “matter”; perhaps the same holds in Lew-world, where we’ve already seen that use of fake and even fraudulent data is held not to “matter”.

There are several instances of similar outcomes. I won’t repeat them here. In comments Steve McIntyre finds more, and drops this gem:

Using my present best guess as to his calculation of latent variables, here is his Table 1 and my estimated correlation matrix. The two resemble one another except for conspiracy where the sign is reversed. OLS methods (of which a correlation matrix is an example) are VERY poor methods for this sort of data set. Lewandowsky may set a sort of incompetence landmark in this respect that will take many years to surpass.

It appears for all the world that Lewandowsky has replied, sort of, mentioning the SEM that McIntyre referred too, but without daring to link to him, or even mentioning Steve McIntyre’s name. Though Lewandowsky is too busy to post up all of the data he collected two years ago he has time to craft deep and insightful lines, like …”it is easily overlooked that data analysis is also a cognitive activity.” …. O’ Really?

He-who-shall-not-be-named has replied in comments on Lewandowsky’s blog.

stevemcintyre at 02:01 AM on 18 September, 2012

I’ve attempted to replicate the factor analysis results reported in the paper and have not been able to do so based on the information available.

Given the sketchy description of methodology in the paper, I suggest that you place the script for your results online. I’ve regularly done this and found that it both clarifies methodology for readers and adds to their interest.

Your assertion that “SEM permits computation of the error-free associations between constructs,” is a very bold statement in statistical terms and a script implementing that claim would definitely be worth sharing.

Tom Fuller, pro survey writer describes some of the flaws

Among other things Fuller describes the medicalization of dissent, a delicate topic if ever there was one, but so apt. Fuller has done over 1,000 surveys himself, and he lists five flaws, two of which I found particularly interesting:

Toodle, Lew

4. Lewandowsky allowed multiple responses from the same IP address. This means that someone could spam the survey, entering time and again to influence the results. Would they? One of the sites that linked to Lewandowsky’s survey has as part of their secret tribe of activists a person who wrote, “...people like us have to build the greatest guerilla force in human history. Now. Because time is up…Someone needs to convene a council of war of the major environmental movements, blogs, institutes etc. In a smoke filled room (OK, an incense filled room) we need a conspiracy to save humanity” and another who wrote of skeptics, “Sometimes you just want to let loose and scream about how you want to take those motherfucking arseholes, those closed-minded bigotted genocidal pieces of regurgitated dog shit and do unspeakable violence to their bodies and souls for what they are doing to the safety of what and who we all hold dear.” So, yes, they would probably do so in support of their cause.

My thoughts about this are that if you, hypothetically, wanted to find a group of people who would feel motivated to fake up a survey to make skeptics look stupid, where else would you go but Deltoid, Skeptical Science or Tamino? (Not that I’m suggesting that was his aim, I’m just putting a perspective on how poor the choice of sites was.)

5. Lewandowsky discussed the objectives of the survey while the survey was open for responses, so those who wanted to prejudice the results knew they could do so. This alone amounts to research misconduct and is cause for throwing out the results of the survey as well as the paper based on it.

Lewandowsky’s inability to address any of these issues, despite writing a paper describing it and hyping it on a weblog with 8 blog posts in the past week, is evidence that he cannot address them. He simply decided before his research began that climate skeptics are conspiracy theorists and gamed a survey to produce the results he wanted.

Lewandowsky’s site Shaping Tomorrows World has deleted about 50 of Thomas Fullers comments. Strange — since we’re told the skeptics were proving the Lewandowsky hypothesis in droves, you’d think they’d want to leave all the samples of “denier” comments up for show?

Did you see That Survey in 2010? We want to know

Watts Up is looking at participation. See The Lewandowsky participation question: for everyone who did and didn’t notice the survey two years ago. Please help out with a comment. There are 898 responses, mostly of people who didn’t see the survey.

If you saw the survey two years ago, then please also add a comment at this WATTS UP page here. So far there are only 23 responses.

Replicating the Lewandowsky survey (Your chance to answer these questions)

The survey is titled “Climate Skeptics Views Survey” and it is hosted on SurveyMonkey.com. The data collection period is currently set to run until 5 October 2012 at 3:00PM ET (UTC 20:00). I will use the Oct 6th weekend to examine the initial data and plan to publish preliminary results the following week. Final results will be published sometime thereafter (it really depends on how much free time I have to finish the analysis and paper prep).

Your blog readers may access the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TZC6MNS or by clicking on the following to take the Climate Skeptics Views Survey. (UPDATE: Two skeptics had the same idea. This is not the same as the A Scott survey (password REPLICATE), I am talking behind the scenes to try to compile the two duplicate replicates).

You can also Vote on Watts Up: Has Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky usurped Dr. Michael Mann as the most irrationally emotive spokesman for climate alarmism?

Debate is fierce in the thread. Commenters are undecided, but Foxgoose takes a leaf from Shaping Tomorrows World. Those who have read Lewandowsky will appreciate it.

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9.6 out of 10 based on 63 ratings

Government burn $70 billion a year subsidizing renewables, and wild claims of “fossil fuel subsidies” debunked

When activists protest about “fossil fuel” subsidies, it is a case of extreme-wordsmithing. Like chinese-whispers, the truth gets turned 180 degrees. It takes a string of half truths stacked in a series to come up with something which is so completely counter to reality it is meaningless.

The reality is that governments around the world are paying billions each year to prop up an industry that is inefficient, uncompetitive and unproductive. It’s money that is desperately needed in health or in real medical and scientific research.

“More than US$70 billion of support is provided by governments to renewable energy production and consumption worldwide.”

[IEA (The International Energy Agency, which promotes “green energy” in it’s header)]

That’s an annual figure. And the plan seems to be even more subsidies. (I thought the plan was to make renewables competitive?)

Graph of government support for renewables.

Source: IEA Key Graphs…

Source: IEA Key Graphs

Could it be $200 billion?

This UN group has an even higher number. I don’t know exactly how they define “green stimulus” spending, perhaps it was a one-off:

[UNCTAD]

“Green government procurement will also be essential in the early stages of a transition to a green economy. In 2009, global green stimulus spending reached $200 billion.”

To put that in perspective, the combined profit of the largest five oil companies (BP, Conoco, Exxon, Chevron, Shell) was $140 billion.

To earn those government subsidies renewables produced about 1% of global energy, while those five companies produced 15 million barrels of oil a day.

But wait, aren’t fossil fuel subsidies even larger?

According to the IEA “Yes”, ten times larger! E’Gad. But something seems fishy about that, after all we know that every time we fill the tank at the bowser we personally subsidize the government and not the other way around. So let’s look more closely at what those subsidies mean. Everyone wants these evil fossil fuel subsidies to stop, it could provide half the answer to climate change (who knew subsidies to fuel companies were half responsible for floods, droughts, storms and sea levels rising?)

In Western nations, they mean “tax deductions” for fossil fuel companies. Where a subsidy for renewable energy is a handout from the government, a “subsidy” for fossil fuel company means the government lets them keep some of the money they earned.

Here’s how the SMH phrased it when discussing the situation in Australia:

The biggest fossil fuel incentives were in unclaimed revenue, including about $5 billion in fuel tax rebates for greenhouse-intensive industries.

More than $1.1 billion was spent on fringe benefits tax concessions for company cars.

Groups like Greenpeace and The Australian Conservation Foundation argue that really, Governments are helping fossil fuel companies far more than green ones. But while governments rewrite national economies to help “green” companies, about half of the help for fossil fuels is simply that the government didn’t take as much off them as it could. The net flow of money is still from Big-Fossil-Energy towards Big-Government. It takes a special kind of grand entitlement to call that a subsidy.

Indeed you could argue that fossil fuels subsidize the government. Exxon paid 17.6% tax (2008-1020 data). That may sound a lowish rate, but how does it compare to other companies in other sectors? If there is a “tax avoidance” issue, how is that unique to fossil fuels? Doesn’t every big company do their best? GE after all, earned $21 bn for renewables, and paid 0% tax.

National Geographic have done an excellent interactive map — here’s an image from it:

In the National Geographic Map (not here) you can

Source: National Geographic

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9.1 out of 10 based on 74 ratings

Global Carbon Trading System Has “Essentially Collapsed”

When is a free market not free? When it doesn’t do what the bureaucrats wanted it to “freely do”. There is a message from this-pale-shadow-of-a-global-carbon-free-market and it’s telling us that carbon (dioxide) should be free, as in $0, no cost, no fee, no tax.

CDM’s (Clean Development Mechanisms) were set up in 1997 with Kyoto. It is separate from the EU market, and is one of the only “global” carbon markets.

Global carbon trading system has ‘essentially collapsed’

The UN clean development mechanism, designed to give poor countries access to green technologies, is in dire need of rescue

Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent

The world’s only global system of carbon trading, designed to give poor countries access to new green technologies, has “essentially collapsed”, jeopardising future flows of finance to the developing world.

Billions of dollars have been raised in the past seven years through the United Nations‘ system to set up greenhouse gas-cutting projects, such as windfarms and solar panels, in poor nations. But the failure of governments to provide firm guarantees to continue with the system beyond this year has raised serious concerns over whether it can survive.

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9.4 out of 10 based on 79 ratings

Lewandowsky gets $1.7m of taxpayer funds to denigrate people who disagree with him

Stephan Lewandowsky, Gilles Gignac, Klaus Oberauer

Stephen Lewandowsky’s paper, soon to be published in Psychological Science, appears to be drawn from one or two grants from the Australian Research Council that total nearly a million dollars (though it’s not entirely clear which grants apply to the paper).

“If you wonder, like I do, whether the Australian taxpayer gets value for money, ponder that somewhere a cancer researcher was denied funding in order for Lewandowsky to do his work”

One grant, which he shares with coauthor Dr Klaus Oberauer, was for $694,000 for research on “Keeping Memory Current: Updating and Discounting of Information“. Apparently it is of national benefit, because: “Basic research in psychology is of particular national benefit because the available national research funding is commensurate with the requirements of world-class research in psychology.” “World class” does not usually mean research based on a logical error with a sample too small to be statistically significant and using a self-selecting, unsecure, sample from sites that detest the research group. Aside from that, the sentence itself is circular bureaucratese-babble. What does it mean? Is he suggesting that research in basic psychology is useful because taxpayer funds are only given to world class research? Since when was government funding itself a guarantor of “world class”? The other grant, which he shares with co-author Dr Gilles Gignac, was for $244,000 and called “Categorization and Working Memory: Bridging two Pillars of Cognition.” Both of those two grants finished in 2011, so apparently do not provide funding for 2012.

Above this, he has received a grant of $765,000 to further study the role of intelligence in “expertise”. Hmm.

UWA: Achieving International Excellence, or international notoriety?

Who is responsible for the decision to fund this work?

If you wonder, like I do, whether the Australian taxpayer gets value for money, ponder that somewhere a cancer researcher was denied funding in order for Lewandowsky to do his work. Instead of helping people with motor neuron disease, say, or Parkinsons, our government directed money to the overtly politicized team to find reasons why people who speak against government-appointed experts (but not independent experts) are likely to be mentally deficient “conspiracy theorists”, even if they personally have never espoused the conspiracies named in the UWA media release. Surely this is government-funded denigration by association.

If you are concerned, it’s worth focusing on the Australian Research Council (ARC), which made the decision to fund Lewandowsky and UWA so generously (how much does an internet survey cost?). The man responsible for the ARC is Senator Chris Evans, Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research. He needs to justify why our funds are being used this way.

Why does the Australian Labor Party use taxpayer resources for name-calling professors to do incompetent research, to come up with conclusions that are not meaningful for public policy, and indeed which unfairly and flagrantly disparages the views of half the voting public?

Some flaws in Lewandowsky et al 2012:

The entire work is based on a logical fallacy — argument from authority — but particularly, that experts paid by the government are 100% right, and independent scientists are 100% wrong or corrupt. Lewandowsky cannot name empirical evidence to support his base assumptions about a complex scientific phenomenon in an immature scientific field, and does not take into account that committees, associations, the “peer reviewed” scientific process are human activities dependent on imperfect human opinion and potentially corruptible. If his assumption is wrong, everything about his research is meaningless, yet he does not reference empirical climate evidence.
His sample size is too small to be statistically meaningful. This single point on its own prevents any meaningful scientific conclusions about “conspiracy ideation”.
His sampling method was likely to be scammed by fake responses, and if the responses that are likely to be fake are removed his conclusions would be entirely different. He did not take adequate precautions to stop fake responses, even though his conclusions are utterly dependent on them (see Steve McIntyres analysis). His use of vitriolic anti-skeptic sites made the fake responses nearly inevitable, and the nature of the fake responses (like a belief that smoking doesn’t cause cancer) matches misinformation on those anti-skeptic sites rather than any belief ever cited by real skeptics. His work fails by his own standards: He describes a different survey as worthless because they cannot verify the integrity of the data, but he cannot verify his own data.
Lewandowsky has not reported 25% of the answers to his questions, nor the results of a version hosted by an internal UWA site, leaving open questions of “cherry picked” conclusions.
He frequently uses unscientific name-calling that he has not justified either in English or scientific terms. What scientific observations do “deniers” deny, or do “deniers” simply deny that official government positions are 100% right?
He defines “science” as a consensus conclusion which is counter to the scientific method, and breaks a basic tenet of science that conclusions are based on empirical evidence and not on opinions.
Despite basing his conclusions on something called “Conspiracy Ideation” he is unable to define conspiracy scientifically, evidently defining a conspiracy as a theory that he personally does not agree with.
A researcher with an equal but opposite personal bias could produce exactly the opposite conclusion (but without basing their work on a logical fallacy) by creating a self-selecting on-line survey that asks questions about green left conspiracies, posting it on anti-green sites, and with only a sample of 10 positive responses “show” that those who believe in man-made global warming did so because they held anti-free market philosophies, because they gullibly assumed that government funded work was always right, and because they believed in outlandish conspiracy theories that fossil fuel corporations were funding thousands of scientists. These conspiracy theorists denied conclusive documented evidence showing that funding for man-made global warming was 3,500 times larger than funding for skeptics of the theory and that large fossil fuel corporations were actively lobbying for carbon markets(see point 2) rather than against them.

In response to claims that the “faked data” neutralized his conclusions, Lewandowsky retroactively deleted references to it in comments on his publicly funded site, wrote attempted parody instead of an answer, and then finally claimed he was right because he could find at least three examples of people who say things that (without any investigation) appear to be nutty, despite evidence that some believers of man-made global warming espouse equally nutty things. The truth or not of a theory and influence of a group will not be decided by analyzing the fringe extreme. He cannot find a single leader of the skeptic movement who espouses any of the conspiracies he claims are important. There are no blog posts among the “greatly involved” climate skeptics about Diana being murdered, HIV being manufactured nor moon-landings being faked.

Is Psychology a Science?

If the field of psychology wants to be taken seriously as a science, where are the scientific psychologists speaking out against this poor paper with highly unscientific conclusions?

Is UWA “excellent”?

If UWA wants to be taken seriously as “achieving international excellence”, where are the UWA staff members who hold higher standards? Which scientists at UWA are prepared to speak up to say that Lewandowsky is not representative of the standards of their work?

The Bottom line:

This kind of unscientific poor standard work would not get attention or have any credibility if it were not funded by the Australian Government. According to his 28 page CV he claims to have been a part of $4.4m in grants.

Nice work if you can get it.

If we do not demand higher standards and turn off the tap filling this well of personal bias dressed as research, we’re letting good scientists down, we’re letting hard working tax-payers down, and we’re letting our children down.

See below for details of the funding…

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9.1 out of 10 based on 120 ratings

Climate Models: 100% right except for rain, drought, storms, humidity and everything else

Yet more observations from the planet show that modelers misunderstand the water based part of the climate – on our water based planet.

Modelers thought that dry ground would decrease afternoon storms and rainfall over those frazzled parched lands (though I don’t remember many headlines predicting “More Drought means Fewer Storms” ). But observations show that storms are more likely to rain over dry soil. Why? Probably the dry soil heats up faster than moist areas thanks to the cooling effect of evaporation, and that in turn creates stronger thermals over dry land. Modelers assumed that wetter soils means more evaporation and thus more rain, but the moisture laden air is evidently coming from further away.

It’s another example of a point where climate modelers assume a positive feedback, yet the evidence suggests the feedback is negative. Once again water appears to be the dominant force with feedbacks (it does cover 70% of the surface). In a natural stable system the net feedbacks are likely to be negative. Positive feedbacks make the system less stable (and more scary and harder to predict.)

Climate change models misjudge drought: “A four-nation team led by Chris Taylor from Britain’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology looked at images from weather satellites which track the development of storm clouds across the globe.”

“The data trawl covered six continents, looking at surface soil moisture and rainfall patterns on daily and three-hourly time steps, with a resolution of 50 to 100 kilometres, over a decade.

“It’s tempting to assume that moist soils lead to higher evaporation, which in turn stimulates more precipitation,” said Wouter Dorigo of the Vienna University of Technology, a co-author.

“This would imply that there is a positive feedback loop: moist soils lead to even more rain, whereas dry regions tend to remain dry… (But) these data show that convective precipitation is more likely over drier soils.”

Graph of observations of soil moisture and storms

Click to enlarge

Compare it to the model predictions:

model predictions of storms and soil moisture

Click to enlarge

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9.3 out of 10 based on 52 ratings

There goes the biofuels $21 billion dollar industry: Reality bites in EU draft

From Charlie Dunmore, Reuters: E xclusive: EU to limit use of crop-based biofuels – draft law

Another green goodwill project (that just happens to be worth billions) is facing the bad news that the bureaucrats are fingering the axe. A leaked EU proposal to cut public subsidies to biofuels is quite a u-turn. Only three years ago the EU raved about biofuels.

The plans also include a promise to end all public subsidies for crop-based biofuels after the current legislation expires in 2020, effectively ensuring the decline of a European sector now estimated to be worth 17 billion euros ($21.7 billion) a year.

If you are wondering how serious they are, read this:

“The (European) Commission is of the view that in the period after 2020, biofuels should only be subsidized if they lead to substantial greenhouse gas savings… and are not produced from crops used for food and feed,” the draft said.

Well that’s it then isn’t it? If they actually have to reduce emissions that kills it off right there, but just to make sure, they must also not be taken from the mouths of people or animals.

Under the proposals, the use of biofuels made from crops such as rapeseed and wheat would be limited to 5 percent of total energy consumption in the EU transport sector in 2020.

Such a limit will throw into doubt the EU’s binding target to source 10 percent of road transport fuels from renewable sources by the end of the decade, the vast majority of which was expected to come from crop-based biofuels.

Call me a cynic, but I would think the state of the EU basket-case-economy could be forcing some people to do sensible things, though I’m heartened to see that at least they say they doing it because of the science. Someone has noticed that protecting ugly black coal deposits deep underground means sacrificing juicy verdant forests on the surface.

“… crop-based biodiesel has a worse carbon footprint than normal diesel. “

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9.6 out of 10 based on 74 ratings

Lewandowsky does “science” by taunts and attempted parody instead of answering questions

Stephan Lewandowsky is rattled. Not surprisingly. Right now, his blog has gone from a steady run of zero-to-three-comment-posts up to 200, and the skeptics are armed with cutting questions.

But the more he writes, the worse it gets. Skeptics have picked apart his methods, his data, his transparency, and his conclusions. His latest responses are childish taunts with variants of name-calling. What place does an unrelated smear have in a science debate? It’s an effort to distract people.

His paper, in press, has been shown to have a misleading headline, with worthless conclusions based on statistically insignificant number of responses, using a clumsy one-sided test — the aim of which was obvious to most readers. When asked for data he provided answers to 32 questions but still hides the results obtained to a quarter of his original survey, including the basic demographics. He changed the order of questions depending on the blog he sought replies from — effectively putting different versions of the survey up (see below for his explanation). He himself emailed or was named in emails to alarmist anti-skeptic bloggers, while he used an unknown assistant to email skeptical blogs. These non-standard methods were not described in his paper.

It’s an unusual professional demeanor to write as a professor of science in a genre of attempted-parody. The dismissive, puerile efforts to mock those who are seriously dissecting his work are not contributing much to humankind’s knowledge. For a man too busy to answer questions vital to his work, why try his hand at comedy?

Shame about those public funds eh?

The man is supposed to be an expert on the topic of conspiracies, yet can’t define them scientifically, espouses conspiracies himself, and is blind to that because he thinks his conspiracies are proven facts. (Where are all those cheques from Big-oil that have more effect than the billions that are documented as vested interests for the case-for-alarm?) Furthermore, he made the unlikely claim that questions from skeptics about his methodology amounted to proof of “conspiratorial thinking” — despite there being no conspiracy or co-conspirators postulated, just his own incompetent work. If this is how the man defines “conspiracies”, no wonder he has so much trouble writing surveys on the topic. Skeptics asked which blogs he had contacted for his research. He behaved as if it were unreasonable to expect him to back up his statements, or provide emails done for publicly funded work.

UPDATE: A day after we skeptics figured out who four of the five bloggers were, and I updated the page here, Lewandowsky finally gives up the names still claiming (improbably) that he needed special approval to release emails that were never private, and never under an ethical question in the first place. He admonishes skeptics for “outing” his assistant, and says they should have searched their inbox instead — except they did, they searched under “Lewandowsky”, “Oberauer” and “Gignac” (as any rational person would). Lewandowsky still hasn’t explained why he personally contacted the anti-skeptic blogs, but not the key skeptical ones. Stephan claims skeptics do shoddy record keeping, yet he’s the one who didn’t bother searching the internet to find his own survey was hosted by junkscience.

It’s all about the perception

To keep face, and and some semblance of “winning”, he ignores the major flaws in his work, and posts somewhat triumphantly on minor points. The headline result in the paper was, after all, only from four responses from so-called “skeptics” on the moon landing conspiracy, some, or all of which were likely to be fake responses. If he had surveyed the audience he wrote the paper about (instead of asking those who virulently dislike the group in question), it goes without saying (or it ought to) that the results “might” be different.

Despite being a professor of psychology, Lewandowsky was baffled that this was an issue. He seems to think that results would be the same no matter what site the survey was hosted on:

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9.2 out of 10 based on 89 ratings

Steve McIntyre finds Lewandowsky’s paper is a “landmark of junk science”

Steve McIntyre audited Stephan Lewandowsky’s data to weed out the obvious fake responses. That people would “game” the test was predictable given the clumsy nature of the survey, the one-sided nature of the conspiracies investigated, the virulently anti-skeptic sites where it was hosted, and the comments on the threads where it was announced. Obviously the survey hoped to show skeptics were nutters, and when it was posted in front of those who-hate-skeptics, readers obliged.

Steve McIntyre weighs in with a lengthy post, several original graphs, and concludes:

“Lewandowsky, like Gleick, probably fancies himself a hero of the Cause. But ironically. Lewandowsky’s paper will stand only as a landmark of junk science – fake results from faked responses.

As Tom Curtis observed, Lewandowsky has no moral alternative but to withdraw his paper.”

When the number of responses to conspiracies are graphed against the share that is “skeptical” of man-made global warming McIntyre reveals an interesting pattern. The “Oklahoma” point on the bottom right of the graph was the most popular conspiracy theory — but percentage-wise, “alarmists” were more likely to support this theory than so called “skeptics” were.

The line across the graph represents the proportion of the total responses which were “skeptics” (a bit over 20% of the total). So the proportion of “skeptics” who believed the 911 conspiracy — which falls on that line — was exactly the same as the proportion as alarmists who supported it.

Figure 1. For all ‘skeptics’ disagreeing with CO2HasNegChange, showing count for each conspiracy against skeptic proportion. (Steve McIntyre graphs the number of responses to conspiracies against the share that is “skeptical” of man-made global warming. ) Graph: ClimateAudit

The “smoking-doesn’t-cause-cancer-conspiracy” is a signature of a fake response

The points that are on the top left of the graph are the more outlandish conspiracies, especially the “smoking” point which ranks right at the top. In my opinion this is a signature point. Skeptics don’t believe that conspiracy, but alarmists have been trained to think skeptics do. The high rank there is the “Oreskes Effect”.

After 120,000 comments on this blog, I can’t recall a single skeptic who thinks smoking doesn’t cause cancer, nor do I remember reading a comment on it on any other skeptic blog, nor have I even heard a hint of it in an email. But the two issues are often tied in alarmist propaganda. Like here on un-SkepticalScience (“Skeptic arguments about cigarette smoke – sound familiar?”). This “denial-wiki” (“Major targets of denialism include the link between smoking and lung cancer”). See also here (“Smoking Causes Cancer; Carbon Pollution Causes Extreme Weather” ) wikipedia, here (“Climate change is the same as smoking….”) and here. Jim Hoggan (Mr DeSmog himself) said: Soon … these deniers will look as foolish as the scientists who once claimed that smoking did not cause cancer.

Frequently people like Naomi Oreskes claim Fred Singer and others have doubted that smoking causes cancer, something which is an outright misrepresentation (see my point #3 here). Singer wrote about the statistical failures of the passive smoking case, which is scientifically entirely different from the well documented link between smoking and cancer. Given that this dishonest material is circulated widely on alarmist blogs, it’s likely that all 11 of those responding “yes” to that conspiracy question are the fakers, dutifully ticking off the boxes they have been trained to tick.

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9.5 out of 10 based on 65 ratings

Steve McIntyre on Lewandowsky (and Josh)

Steve McIntyre weighs in:

“As others have observed, the number of actual respondents purporting to believe in the various conspiracies was, in many cases, very small. Only 10 respondents purported to believe in Lewandowsky’s* signature Moon Landing conspiracy. These included a disproportionate number of scam responses. Indeed, probably all of these responses were scams.

However, Lewandowsky’s statistical analysis was unequal to the very low hurdle of identifying these scam responses. Lewandowsky applied a technique closely related to principal components to scam and non-scam data alike, homogenizing them into a conspiratorial ideation.”

Josh is so quick these days :- ) Thank you Josh. An excellent job.

* Correction: “Curtis’s” should have been Lewandowsky.

Josh is so quick these days :- ) Thank you Josh. An excellent job.

9.8 out of 10 based on 49 ratings

Lewandowsky hopes we meant “Conspiracy” but we mean “Incompetence”

What can I say? Prof Lewandowsky, expert in conspiracies, thinks we are postulating a conspiracy — but the bad news for him is that we are postulating straight out incompetence, no conspiracy required.

How does Lewandowsky define “conspiracy”? However he wants.

I hate to say I told you so, but I did. Back in May 2010, before Lewandowsky posted his survey, he foresaw the results:

“This attribute of conspiracy theorising applies in full force to the actions of climate “sceptics” who operate outside the peer reviewed literature” [ABC Drum]”

and I foresaw what he would do with them:

“Lewandowsky uses the name-calling to “poison the well” against people who don’t even believe in a conspiracy [about man-made global warming], but happen to also be skeptical…Jo Nova May 2010“

Graham at OnLine Opinion (OLO) has posted Part II of a Fish rots from the Head and it’s quite something to see.

This post will look at the question of what is a conspiracy, and also what constitutes “conspiracist ideation”. The conclusion, just to save you reading to the bottom, is that Lewandowsky has no clear idea so adapts it to what fits his thesis. This is not science because he moves the goal posts to a spot where he will get a positive correlation. It more or less doesn’t matter where he kicks the ball, it will land in the goal because the goal will move to accommodate the ball.

The key point here is that some conspiracies are real, most are not. Those who believe all of them are nutters, but those who believe none are gullible patsy fools. So who has the wand of truth? Who decides what is “real”. As I said in May 2010 “Conspiracy Theorist” is his name-calling fairy dust.

Lewandowsky uses his Magic Fairy Debating Dust to preemptively stop discussions of climate science evidence. If anyone complains against any mainstream position on anything, he can define whatever it is as a “conspiracy theory”. Then his omnipotent powers as a cognitive scientist kick in. I quote: “The nature of conspiracy theories and their ultimate fate is reasonably well understood by cognitive scientists”.He who knows can foresee the ultimate fate of all conspiracy theories. A handy talent which could save us doing expensive Royal Commissions, or Supreme Courts, or heck, we could just use this talent to save us the bother of any courts or commissions or investigations at all.

So God and Lewandowsky, apparently, can always tell the difference between a whistle-blower and conspiracy theorist.

The Prof of Psychology chews through the English language, converting the normal use of the word “conspiracy” into something different:

Lewandowsky tries to define conspiracist ideation in terms of belief in “mad” ideas, such as that the moon landing was faked, but by doing this he ends up with a definition that is really only limited to belief in certain conspiracies, not a tendency to believe in conspiracies per se.

What’s the truth and what’s a false conspiracy? There is often no way to know. The conspiracies which made the list appear to be the ones Stephan “knows” are false:

… his first problem is that what he defines as a conspiracy (which in his terms seems to be something which people believe in, but which he doesn’t believe exists) is that there is no objective test of whether the conspiracy exists or not.

So he decides on a subjective basis what is a conspiracy, which means he has no scientific basis for his definition.

Graham makes the astute observations that some conspiracies were not included in the survey.

There is a conspiracy theory that global warming skeptics are funded by big oil. Lewandowsky excludes this from his list. His writings confirm that he believes in this conspiracy. Why isn’t it on the list? The fact that it isn’t indicates that he isn’t interested in “conspiracist ideation” in general, but only specific conspiracies.

Here’s the big money conspiracy Stephan didn’t ask about, that’s posted on hundreds of blogs. Here’s a typical example:

[Stolen documents that are] Revealing to the public the active, vicious, and well-funded campaign of denial that seeks to delay action against climate change likely constitutes a classic public good.

Who believes this baseless line about the big funds that no one can document? Stephan Lewandowsky (h/t Foxgoose). Any funds sent to Heartland are dwarfed by the money rolling through science, carbon trading and renewables. Who thinks that stealing documents through deception is OK, if it reveals 1% of his pet conspiracy? Professor Lewandowsky.

Who believes that corporate funded media could deceive large segments of the population?

…without vigorous competition and meaningful legal checks, there is no reason why a privately-owned media conglomerate could not create an Orwellian environment that deceives politicians and large segments of the public alike.

Stephan Lewandowsky The Conversation, 29 August 2011

Graham points out that if you only look for “big-government” type conspiracies, but leave out “big-corporate” ones, it’s hardly surprising when you find a link where people who don’t believe official government answers tend not to believe in the biggest big-government theory there is: man-made global warming.

If we looked for people who don’t trust the free market, we’d quite probably also find people who believe big-corporate conspiracies.

——————————————–

Don’t miss Part II of a Fish rots from the Head. Drop in, read it all, and thank Graham

——————————————-

PART I Lewandowsky – Shows “skeptics” are nutters by asking alarmists to fill out survey

PART II 10 conspiracy theorists makes a moon landing paper for Stephan Lewandowsky (Part II) PLUS all 40 questions

PART III here Lewandowsky hopes we meant “Conspiracy” but we mean “Incompetence”

PART IV Steve McIntyre finds Lewandowsky’s paper is a “landmark of junk science”

PART V Lewandowsky does “science” by taunts and attempted parody instead of answering questions

——————————————

REFERENCE:

(If you could call it that)

Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., & Gignac, C. E. (in press). NASA faked the moon landing—therefore (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science.. Psychological Science.

9.4 out of 10 based on 81 ratings

NZ Justice shows courts are useless in a science debate

The NZ court case of skeptics versus NIWA has come down against the skeptics.

The National Business Review does tabloid-style sensational namecalling in the headline (does it consider itself to be a proper newspaper?)

“Climate change deniers shot down in NIWA court challenge”

Judge Geoffrey Venning threw out claims by the NZ Climate Science Education Trust that the Crown Research Institute known as NIWA breached its statutory duties, were mistaken in fact, failed to consider mandatory considerations and acted unreasonably in publishing its work.

NIWA will be entitled to costs, which are yet to be set, as a result of the case, Justice Venning’s judgment says.

Why did the skeptics lose? According to the news report, it was not because NIWA provided good answers, or found the missing data, but because the skeptics didn’t have “authority” to question it.

Some evidence in the case was ruled inadmissible, including that of Terry Dunleavy, a former journalist who is a founding member of the trust and secretary of the associated NZ Climate Science Coalition.

Justice Venning says Dunleavy “has no applicable qualifications” and “his interest in the area does not sufficiently qualify him as an expert”.

He also questioned the credentials of Bob Dedekind, a computer modelling and statistical analyst whose “general expertise in basic statistical techniques does not extend to any particular specialised experience of qualifications in the specific field of applying statistical techniques in the field of climate science”.

Perhaps the judgement is quite different from what the NZ Business Review reported, but unless it is, the outcome had nothing to do with science, but everything to do with a logical fallacy.

What’s unnerving about this is that if “authority” is determined not by behavior, logic or quality of reasoning, but simply by government decree, then the court becomes a de facto arm of the government — because only people who are funded by the government (all “climate scientists” are funded by government) can give evidence that the court recognizes. Who can criticize and hold government or statutory authorities to proper standards? Not the citizens, for they are not “qualified”.

If non-experts protested unfairly at the NIWA results, surely NIWA would find it easy to explain why they were wrong, and a judge would be more than capable understanding, but if NIWA is not even expected to answer those questions then no justice has been done.

The credibility of NIWA staff ought to rest on their record rather than their titles. The unscientific behaviour of Jim Salinger and others is endorsed by the court, apparently, as long as they are paid by the government.

The courts are supposed to be independent of the government. When these two institutions are effectively working together we lose one of the major safeguards of democracy. All the more reason to fight to keep the free press, free. What else is left?

And again, we get the line that NIWA is OK, because it’s just as bad and incompetent as all the other agencies around the world which adjust data without detailed explanations, and which lose data ad hoc:

“I am satisfied that the methodology applied by NIWA was in accordance with internationally recognised and credible scientific methodology,” Justice Venning says.

This decision is all the more preposterous given that even the highly questionable Australian BOM obviously didn’t endorse the NIWA methods and after asking for an Australian BOM review, NIWA went to extraordinary lengths to hide that review. Did they hide that review, because it would have lent support to the very evidence the so-called “non-experts” put forward?

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9 out of 10 based on 60 ratings

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REFERENCES

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It’s all about the perception

The “smoking-doesn’t-cause-cancer-conspiracy” is a signature of a fake response

REFERENCE:

JoNova

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