Roger Pielke Jr's weather disaster essay is too simplistic, and befuddles deniers at WUWT

It's a short article. Short in length and short on substance. I'm referring to a paper written by Roger Pielke Jr. where he attempts to report on whether and how much progress there has been in a small part of one of the seventeen United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

The paper attracted the attention of Anthony Watts, a science denier who runs a blog known as WUWT. Anthony, not being the brightest spark, not even in the dark deniosphere where the bar for brightness is low, got the paper upside down and inside out. More on that later.

Sustainable Development Goals

The UN's SDG has 17 goals aimed at improving societies, the well-being of people, and the sustainability of the planet. Each goal has several parts and, at present, 232 unique indicators. The indicators are for measuring progress toward achieving the goals.

A conversation of substance? Nope, it's about 'ecomodernism"

One of the pluses of having a blog is that you can be self-indulgent from time to time, and use it to let off a little steam.

Derailing a conversation of substance

A short while ago I was informed on Twitter that I'd derailed a "conversation of substance". I thought I'd merely commented on a tweet from Roger Pielke Jr, which wasn't a reply to anything that I could see. Though looking again now, Roger was talking to quite a few people, so it's quite possible he was engaged in a conversation. Therefore I suppose my comment could be considered a rude intrusion on a cosy chat (oddly enough, by @MichaelBTI who, as far as I could tell, was never a part of that conversation either).

Is Anthony Watts denying the flooding in Phoenix?

Is Anthony Watts denying the record rain and flash floods in Phoenix yesterday? (It's yesterday here, but it's probably still today in Phoenix.) Or is he denying something else that he's just made up.

He has a very odd article at WUWT (archived here). First of all he has a headline:

Phoenix flooding – not due to ‘climate change’, extreme rainfall events are not on the increase

I can write suggestive headlines too :)

He's wrong about the second part, but we'll get to that later. In the first part of his headline, he seems very certain about the cause of yesterday's Phoenix flooding.

Now that's got to be the fastest attribution study on record, if that's what Anthony has done.  But has he? Apparently not. He has no data to support his claim that climate change did not cause the Phoenix flash flood. Nor does he point to any claim that yesterday's flood was caused by climate change.

Is it a strawman? It would seem so. Nowhere does Anthony quote anyone claiming that the flash flood was caused by climate change. Which isn't surprising, since it's virtually impossible to single out a single flash flood and work out how much of it (or if it) could have occurred if the world was as cold as it was in, say the 1850s (or even the 1950s). Extreme events are rare. If they weren't rare they wouldn't be classed as extreme, they'd be classed as normal. The very rarity makes it difficult to attribute them to climate change - though not impossible.

Anthony wrote:

Ah the alarmists are out in full force today over a rainstorm. The Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix reported 2.96 inches of rain before 8:30 a.m. local time, beating the old record of 2.91 inches on Sept. 4, 1939. Parts of Interstate 10 were flooded, with the morning rush hour just beginning. Schools closed for the day, and police asked people to stay off the roads. At least 13,000 homes and businesses lost power.

Read that again. The alarmists in this case, according to Anthony, are apparently:

• The Sky Harbor Airport for reporting the record rainfall
• The school authorities for making the decision to close the schools because of flooding
• The police for asking people to stay off the roads
• The people who lost power.

Not one mention of anyone claiming that this particular event was caused by climate change.

The next thing he wrote was a tweet from NOAA's Northwest Weather Service:

IT'S A RECORD!!! Phoenix Sky Harbor 2.96 in. of rain breaks the all-time calendar day record total previously 2.91/1933. #flood #azwx
— NWS Phoenix (@NWSPhoenix) September 8, 2014

Not a mention of climate change in the tweet. So far the only person who has mentioned climate change is Anthony Watts.

Finally, right down the bottom of his article Anthony finds someone who juxtaposed the words climate change and the Phoenix floods - in a tweet. It was Roger Pielke Jr.  Roger, who tweeted:

Phoenix floods, climate change!...

But Roger isn't claiming the record event was because of climate change. He's just tweeted an irrelevancy. He's combined all the rain events over the USA together - the wetter north east of the USA and the drier south west - and claimed - well he didn't claim anything one way or another. He just tweeted an irrelevant chart.

Phoenix floods, climate change! http://t.co/7sxzzvhIM4 Figure below from USNCA shows trends in 1&5 day extreme precip pic.twitter.com/5ZYaaMks8Y
— Roger Pielke Jr. (@RogerPielkeJr) September 8, 2014

Anthony explains that:

The USNCA he refers to is the National Climate Assessment report from NOAA/NCDC. 

He didn't provide a link, so I will:

http://www.globalchange.gov/nca3-downloads-materials

Heavy downpours are increasing nationally...

I came across this chart in the US climate assessment report that Anthony and Roger referred to. I wondered why neither Anthony nor Roger saw fit to include it. It's much more informative than combining regions that are getting less heavy rain with those getting more heavy rain and shouting "look ma, no change!":

Figure 32. Heavy downpours are increasing nationally, with especially large increases in the Midwest and Northeast.99 Despite considerable decadal-scale natural variability, indices such as this one based on 2-day precipitation totals exceeding a threshold for a 1-in-5-year occurrence exhibit a greater than normal occurrence of extreme events since 1991 in all U.S. regions except Alaska and Hawai‘i. Each bar represents that decade’s average, while the far right bar in each graph represents the average for the 12-year period of 2001-2012. Analysis is based on 726 long-term, quality-controlled station records. This figure is a regional expansion of the national index in Figure 2.16 of Chapter 2. (Figure source: updated from Kunkel et al. 201399).

Note the first sentence in the caption. It starts with: "Heavy downpours are increasing nationally..."


Finally, Anthony Watts seems to like the IPCC extreme events report from 2011. The following sentence is from the SREX Summary for Policymakers:

There is medium confidence that anthropogenic influences have contributed to intensification of extreme precipitation on the global scale.

And there's more from the same report:

There have been statistically significant trends in the number of heavy precipitation events in some regions. It is likely that more of these regions have experienced increases than decreases, although there are strong regional and subregional variations in these trends.

So Anthony has run out of legs to stand on. And I can write a suggestive headline just like Anthony Watts!


Let's recap:

• Anthony Watts claims that alarmists are claiming something but provided not one bit of evidence that they claimed what he claims that they claimed.
• That leads one to surmise that he was referring to the record rain in Phoenix and claiming it didn't happen, despite all the evidence that it did
• Anthony claims that extreme rainfall events are not on the increase - but the evidence shows that they are - in some regions of the USA as well as in many parts of the world.
• Anthony refers his readers to a publication that has lots of mentions of extreme precipitation increasing in different parts of the USA.

From the WUWT comments

mark l  eggs Anthony Watts on and supports his using the opportunity to make up stuff and reject climate science:

September 8, 2014 at 10:58 am
Never let a good disaster go to waste.

Although 83 mm of rain in a day isn't the greatest by world-wide standards, when the previous record was 74 mm and that was set 83 years ago, and the city is on the edge of a desert, it can't expect the storm water infrastructure to cope.  I wonder does Olaf Koenders think in a similar way about the heat waves in the USA in the 1930s? I wonder if his arithmetic is as bad as his denial of climate science? (3.29-2.91=0.38 inches) [Edit: Ramiro pointed out that Olaf was referring to the number in the NOAA tweet. I missed that. My number came from Roger Pielke's reference. Sou.]

September 8, 2014 at 4:48 pm
Prognostications of disaster. A measly record broken by a mere 0.05 inches. Seems like someone stopped the car to go pee.

Peter Dunford thinks that climate change may have played a part in the record rainfall, but he's not impressed.

September 8, 2014 at 11:00 am
What was causing such extreme rainfall in 1934?
So 100 parts per million of CO2 added to the atmosphere adds 5 1/100th of an inch to extreme weather events. Yawn.

Oldseadog is a bit simple. His mind cannot grasp that climate change changes drought as well as precipitation. Message to Oldseadog - increasing atmospheric CO2 does a lot more besides. It causes global warming and climate change. It melts ice. It raises seas. It acidifies the oceans. It even makes plants grow more.

September 8, 2014 at 11:05 am
But … but … I thought they were blaming the drought on CAGW.
C’mon, they can’t have it both ways. 

Dave The Engineer isn't the brightest spark either, but he knows his denialist mantras.

September 8, 2014 at 11:14 am
Oldseadog said: “C’mon, they can’t have it both ways.”

Sure they can, it is a cult, reality has nothing to do with it. Eventually to deal with the conflict they will bring out the tubs of “koolaid”. To relieve the pain. Looking forward to it. 

bernie1815  thinks the flash floods in Phoenix Arizona will make up for the extreme drought in California. He's not very good at geography.

September 8, 2014 at 11:10 am
Isn’t this good news with all the drought issues, etc?
If you want gentle rain move to the West of Ireland or the West of Scotland where it rains a bit almost every day. 

Luke Warmist says it rained 4 inches where he was. And he's "pretty sure" that the record will be reported as a "new norm in a warming world".  Funny what deniers are sure about compared to what they don't know.

September 8, 2014 at 1:36 pm
I live about 12 miles southeast of sky harbor where the record resides. We got right at 4 inches, which I’m fairley certain ABC national news will report as the new norm in a warming world. They’ve done it before, and I just can’t see them passing this one by.

nutso fasst is a rare breed at WUWT. He actually heard what climate scientists have been saying.

September 8, 2014 at 2:14 pm
Last I heard, climate models showed wet areas getting wetter and dry areas getting dryer–the latter being specifically projected for the Southwest U.S.

---

Melillo, Jerry M., Terese (T.C.) Richmond, and Gary W. Yohe, Eds., 2014: Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment. U.S. Global Change Research Program, 841 pp. doi:10.7930/J0Z31WJ2. 

Field, Christopher B., ed. Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation: Special report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, 2012. (link)

A skilful counterstrike? John Holdren speaks and Roger Pielke Jr squirms

Roger Pielke Jr on John Holdren - 13 December 2012

@jameswilsdon @alicebell Since becoming sci advisor Holdren has always stayed on safe (boring) ground in his public remarks
— Roger Pielke Jr. (@RogerPielkeJr) December 13, 2012

Roger Pielke Jr on John Holdren - 14 February 2014

@andersbolling That's right, thanks. The zombies will always be with us. But it is brazen for zombie science to show up in the White House!
— Roger Pielke Jr. (@RogerPielkeJr) February 14, 2014

Roger Pielke Jr agrees with John Holdren - 1 March 2014

Just so it is clear - Holdren's 6 pp. rant did not critique any science, we both appear to fully accept CCSP 2008, IPCC 2012, IPCC 2013.
— Roger Pielke Jr. (@RogerPielkeJr) March 1, 2014

John Holdren steps away from "safe (boring) ground"

John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, has upset Roger Pielke Jr.  Now this is being presented, by Roger Pielke Jr, as being all about him and to some extent it is about him.

What it is really all about is the impact of global warming on drought, particularly in the USA. (Science suggests that drought in Australia continues to be exacerbated by global warming - see here.)

It started last week, on 25 February 2014, when a US Senator, Jeff Sessions, apparently accused John Holdren of misleading the American people in statements reported by the press on February 13 this year.

You may recall this little episode, when John Holdren was misquoted by The Hill and the misquote was broadcast all over the deniosphere.  Anyway, according to John Holdren, the republican senator didn't like it when John Holdren linked "recent severe droughts in the American West to global climate change".  That's what started this climate battle between Roger Pielke Jr and John Holdren (who Roger refers to as a "colleague" for some reason, though Roger doesn't even work for the White House, let alone hold a position on par with that of John Holdren).

As "evidence" the good senator quoted from Roger Pielke Jr's testimony to a Senate Committee last July.

You can read John Holdren's account here at Peter Sinclair's website.  In summary, he referred to some of the literature and to Roger's testimony.  John Holdren didn't get everything right but I reckon he comes out of this looking better than Roger Pielke Jr and Jeff Sessions.

How Senator Sessions overlooked a footnote

Now Roger Pielke on his blog, pointed out that he did bury a little statement in a footnote, which Senator Sessions overlooked.

Oops.  No. That's not what Roger did.  Roger didn't point out that Senator Sessions was wrong and that he overlooked the footnote.  That's what he could have done and should have done and that might have been enough to end the matter.  Roger could have simply said: "John Holdren makes a good point that I de-emphasised the link between drought in the USA and global warming and only mentioned it in a footnote, which Senator Sessions and John Holdren missed seeing."

But he didn't.

Instead Roger posted a long article saying how it was John Holdren who was wrong because in fact Roger did mention the link between drought in the USA and global warming.  See it's right there, in a tiny footnote.

Yes - it might be an idea to go back and read those three paragraphs again :)

Or you can read this: Rather than say that the Republican Senator Sessions didn't tell the whole story, Roger Pielke Jr instead accused John Holdren of not telling the whole story.  What John Holdren missed was that Roger Pielke wrote a footnote that Senator Sessions missed.

Got it now?  Good.

A fine distraction, worthy of any fake sceptic

Of course, Roger has been successful in distracting attention from the main point.  By faking umbrage at what John Holdren wrote, he's distracted the dumb deniers from the main point.  The main point being that west and south western USA has been in the grip of a dreadful drought that has been exacerbated by global warming.

Does Roger Pielke agree with that?  Well, is Roger pretending to be an "honest broker"?  He hides in a footnote the bits that he doesn't want people to read.  That doesn't strike me as being either honest or brokering information.  When he's called on his omissions he points to his footnote and claims that he didn't omit it (he just buried it).  That doesn't strike me as being open and honest either.

So let's look at Roger's testimony back in July last year and the reaction to it by the denialati.

Claim: Roger Pielke rebutting claims?

Here is how Pielke Jr was reported by WUWT at the time:

Pielke gave an excellent seven point summary rebutting the claims that recent extreme events are unusual, more frequent, and causing greater losses than the historic record shows. He went on to say that the humans influence climate, including by emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), but many claims cannot be substantiated. False claims about extreme weather events can lead to poor decisions and it may take decades, or more, before the human influence can be substantiated.

Roger Pielke's "take home points"

Here are Roger's "take home points" from his testimony (my bold italics):

• It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally.

• It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases. 

• Globally, weather-related losses ($) have not increased since 1990 as a proportion of GDP (they have actually decreased by about 25%) and insured catastrophe losses have not increased as a proportion of GDP since 1960. 

• Hurricanes have not increased in the US in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1900. The same holds for tropical cyclones globally since at least 1970 (when data allows for a global perspective). 

• Floods have not increased in the US in frequency or intensity since at least 1950. Flood losses as a percentage of US GDP have dropped by about 75% since 1940. 

• Tornadoes have not increased in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since 1950, and there is some evidence to suggest that they have actually declined. 

• Drought has “for the most part, become shorter, less frequent, and cover a smaller portion of the U. S. over the last century.”

• Globally, “there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.”

• The absolute costs of disasters will increase significantly in coming years due to greater wealth and populations in locations exposed to extremes. Consequent, disasters will continue to be an important focus of policy, irrespective of the exact future course of climate change. 

Notice his "take home points" about drought!  (I won't even start on his other "take home points".)

"Um, hello?" The KEY STATEMENT is right there, in the small print, in a footnote in the small print, you dummy!

Now, following John Holdren's testimony, Roger Pielke Jr has changed his tune.  Now he is pointing out that if you look past his "take away points" and look past the body of his testimony he makes a very important point to the US Senate.  It's just that he relegated this very important point to a footnote (my bold italics):

What is that sentence in question from the CCSP 2008 report that Holdren thinks I should have included in my testimony? He says it is this one:

"The main exception is the Southwest and parts of the interior of the West, where increased temperature has led to rising drought trends."

Readers (not even careful readers) can easily see Footnote 21 from my testimony, which states:
CCSP (2008) notes that “the main exception is the Southwest and parts of the interior of the West, where increased temperature has led to rising drought trends.”

Um, hello? Is this really coming from the president's science advisor?

Holdren is flat-out wrong to accuse me of omitting a key statement from my testimony. Again, remarkable, inexcusable sloppiness.

See that?  Roger is now calling it a "key statement".  So why did he bury this "key statement" in a footnote?  Why didn't he include it in his "take home points"?

Finally, Roger is making much of the fact that a report from the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), "Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate" (2008), states that "increased temperature has led to rising drought trends" in Southwest and parts of the interior of the West of the USA.

Roger didn't exactly make this "key statement" a big point of this in his testimony on drought? Did he make a "point" at all? See for yourself - and note what Roger emphasised, versus what he relegated to a footnote:

Seeing Roger Pielke seemed to rely on CCSP (2008) quite a bit, I thought it might be useful to see what it said, remembering that since it was written back in 2008, the US Southwest has experienced a whopper of a drought (my bold):

Averaged over the continental U.S. and southern Canada the most severe droughts occurred in the 1930s and there is no indication of an overall trend in the observational record, which dates back to 1895. However, it is more meaningful to consider drought at a regional scale, because as one area of the continent is dry, often another is wet. In Mexico and the U.S. Southwest, the 1950s were the driest period, though droughts in the past 10 years now rival the 1950s drought. There are also recent regional tendencies toward more severe droughts in parts of Canada and Alaska (Chapter 2, section 2.2.2.1).

There's more. This 2008 prediction seems to be on track:

It is likely that droughts will continue to be exacerbated by earlier and possibly lower spring snowmelt run-off in the mountainous West, which results in less water available in late summer (Chapter 3, section 3.3.4 and 3.3.7). 

Thing is, that much of western and south western USA is prone to drought.  And it looks as if that tendency could emerge more strongly as global warming kicks in this century.  It is important that governments in the USA recognise that, particularly for heavily-populated, highly productive regions like California.  It was wrong for Roger Pielke Jr to relegate his comment to a footnote, while highlighting in bold, and making this his "take home message" that 'Drought has “for the most part, become shorter, less frequent, and cover a smaller portion of the U. S. over the last century.'

Roger pouts and protests at an imagined grievance.  But he's the one who is downplaying the impact of climate change on the USA.

Here's the link again to John Holdren's article at Peter Sinclair's website.

Update:

I've found out there are a few other places covering this small episode, which is hopefully not prefacing the climate wars, including Greg Laden's blog and SkepticalScience. Sou.

And now Eli at Rabbett Run, who provides a transcript of Senator Sessions' questions accusations.

And now Joe Romm at ClimateProgress (with thanks, Joe.) Odd that while HotWhopper was worthy of a special mention, ClimateProgress refuses to let me comment. I blame Facebook :(

From WUWT - A skilful butt-covering "counterstrike"???

Anthony Watts reckons that Roger Pielke Jr responded "with a skillfull counterstrike" (sic).

So what was the "skillfull counterstrike"?

What it boiled down to is that Roger squeaked that he did include a statement (albeit in a footnote), that in regard to drought in the USA: "The main exception is the Southwest and parts of the interior of the West, where increased temperature has led to rising drought trends."

Some skill. Some counterstrike.  Roger is saying that John Holdren is correct, not incorrect.  Roger is trying to cover his butt.

As for what the crowd at WUWT are saying in the comments.  Almost all of the commenters missed the point that whereas John Holdren was pointing out deficiencies in Roger's testimony, Roger's "skillfull counterstrike" is that he agrees with John Holdren about global warming and drought.  Roger admits that the science points to increased temperature leading to rising drought trends in parts of the USA.  Global warming is pointed to as the culprit!

Some of the WUWT-ers don't have a clue who Roger Pielke Jr is, for example:

rob m. says:

March 1, 2014 at 11:44 am
” the previous July by Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., a University of Colorado political scientist.”
Political huh?

Udar says:

March 1, 2014 at 12:04 pm
Why is Holdren calling Roger Pielke Jr, “a University of Colorado political scientist”? 

Perhaps because Roger Pielke Jr is a political scientist from the University of Colorado?


hunter says:

March 1, 2014 at 11:16 am
Holdren is part of the Ehrlich/Schneider school of science that is
1- proven to be wrong
2-over many decades
3- is willing to make the message achieve the societal goal, even at the risk of misrepresenting the science
Holdren is holding true to form.

john says:

March 1, 2014 at 11:20 am
It appears typical of this administration to employ individuals who care less about the truth and more about the party line.

ferdberple, referring to the Daily Caller, probably upset a few ardent right-wingers as well as Anthony Watts (who relies on Alexa) when he refers to the Daily Caller as an "obscure web-page" and says:

March 1, 2014 at 11:22 am
Why would the Presidents Scientific Adviser quote an obscure web-page unrelated to Dr Pielke as evidence of Dr Pielke’s views? This appears to be a political smear campaign much like the McCarthy era of American Politics.

Except it wasn't "unrelated to Dr Pielke" was it - not here and not here.


Lou invokes Joe Stalin and says:

March 1, 2014 at 11:23 am
Yikes. That wasn’t much difference than what Stalin’s “science adviser” did… Except for the killing part though but warmists did call for similar actions against skeptics. Scary times….

pokerguy says it's "libel" (and you thought all WUWT-ers were all in favour of free speech no matter what):

March 1, 2014 at 11:40 am
Clear case of damaging libel. He’s probably immune from lawsuits though in his current public capacity. Too bad.

Ric Werme thinks John Holdren taking three days to respond to Senator Jeff Sessions is way too long. Or maybe he didn't read what John Holdren wrote. Take your pick.:

March 1, 2014 at 11:42 am
It’s interesting that Holdren took so much time to write a response. I think he’s feeling threatened that someone he’d rather have outside of mainstream science is being taken seriously by the legislature.

rob m. is a dumb denier.  He didn't twig that Roger made so much of his footnote and seems to think that Roger Pielke Jr rejects human caused global warming.  He's wrong of course.  Roger accepts it but downplays it.

March 1, 2014 at 11:57 am
David: The facts don’t support global warming as they define it. All they have left to do is smear and discredit those who oppose their agenda.

Wondering Aloud seems to think it should rain everywhere all the time, and doesn't know that all that water can come down in buckets at once, and not where it's needed, and says:

March 1, 2014 at 11:58 am
Since the entire premise of the CO2 caused climate change requires an increase in evaporation; how can anyone rationally try to pretend that increased drought is a likely consequence? More water vapor =increased drought? Just plain dumb. Unless they really don’t believe their premise at all?

This was the only comment I found where the writer got the point, out of 118 WUWT comments (so far).  It's a shame he didn't write it more clearly.  DMA says:

March 1, 2014 at 12:56 pm
So Holdren is finding fault for Pielke putting in a footnote instead of the testimony body the sentence Holdren picked to support his point while excluding the meat of the paragraph that underpinned Pielke’s testimony. This seams to be a very pot to kettle type argument to me. I would say that his quote of the salient part in his rebuttal says more about his own bias for not including it in his Senate testimony than anything else. 

Kevin Trenberth's microwaves are disgusting...

Manfred, over at WUWT, says a microwave grill is disgusting:

February 19, 2014 at 8:23 pm (excerpt)
The microwave grill is in one disgusting league with the Hiroshima bomb analogy.

I've never seen a microwave grill. I used to have a combined microwave/grill oven, but it wasn't the microwaves that did the grilling.  The oven didn't really grill either.  It was a pseudo-grill.  One might argue the process was analogous to a grill but not really.  It was nothing like a barbecue grill :D

Does Manfred do any cooking I wonder? Maybe, given his comment, Manfred is a vegetarian who has never cooked with a microwave oven.



Anyway, what Manfred was complaining about was an analogy made by Kevin Trenberth to describe how much the earth is warming.  Kevin Trenberth was reported by Roger Pielke Sr as saying (archived here):

You can add up how much of that heat there is and over a six month period it’s equivalent to running a very small microwave over every square foot at full power for about ½ hour

Roger, with a lot of repetition, said that Dr Trenberth said the above "in the discussion on added heat during droughts that is due to the increase of atmospheric CO2".  I couldn't get the broadcast to work, so I can't vouch for whether that's what Dr Trenberth said or the context.  But that's not the main point of this article.  My point is that Roger Pielke Sr feld so strongly about this analogy that he wrote an article for Anthony Watts pseudo-science blog trying to dispute it.

Roger wrote that it was "scientifically wrong for several reasons".  Let's look at his reasons:

First, the reduction of long wave radiation emitted to Space due to the added CO2 occurs over the six month time period, not in a short duration burst. Clearly, a short ½ burst of such heat would have a very different effect than when this heat is distributed across a six month time period.

I think he meant to write "a short ½ hour burst".  And he'd be correct.  It would have a very different effect.  But I don't see that as a reason to complain about the analogy.  Dr Trenberth was wanting to help people understand how much energy is being retained on earth because of global warming.  His analogy would work for many people.

Roger's next objection was as follows:

Second, the effect of long wave radiative flux divergence on surface temperatures from added CO2 (or other greenhouse gas including water vapor) is much larger at night. This is because during daylight, most of the time, vertical turbulent mixing dominates. The atmospheric boundary layer is typically much deeper during the daytime, so that added heat from the increase of CO2 is distributed through a much deeper depth. While the effect on nighttime minimum temperatures can be significant as we showed in our paper

This was a chance for Roger to give a plug to a paper he co-authored.  It seems to me to have little to no relevance to the analogy made by Dr Trenberth.  Roger complained that: "Kevin did not properly inform the audience how the added heat would be processed differently during the day and night."  Was the audience all agog waiting for an explanation of how the "added heat was processed"?  It looks to me as if Roger has missed the point and is making a mountain out of a molehill and is barking up the wrong tree - to use a bunch of analogies :)

Roger's used his third complaint in the same manner, to plug another paper he co-authored.  This paper was about the biological effect of doubling atmospheric CO2.  The authors modelled (Horror of horrors! Oh My! How could they?) the impact on central grasslands of the USA.  Again, I don't see the direct relevance.  Roger seemed to think it was relevant, however.  He wrote:

The ½ hour of added heat from the microwave forcing that Kevin presented, when properly input over the entire growing season would only result in a trivial effect on maximum temperature (ie. The hottest part of the day)!

Interesting that in complaining about the analogy Roger himself used the analogy.  That doesn't seem very logical to me.  Nor is it terribly relevant to the point Dr Trenberth was reportedly making, which was simply to help people visualise how much extra energy is being retained on earth by the added CO2.

From the WUWT comments

Roger's article dropped like the proverbial lead ballon at WUWT (to use another analogy).  Even sillier than Roger's complaints was the reaction at WUWT (archived here):

Pamela Gray doesn't see the point of Roger's article and says:

February 19, 2014 at 7:46 pm
So basically, in spite of a poor analogy, all this is supposed to show up at night, and a bit during the day, and in large scale weather patterns. Sorry. I just don’t see it. And I don’t buy it. It seems to me that the two of them are arguing over the size of the cooties on a gnat’s head.

Firey says irrelevantly:

February 19, 2014 at 8:04 pm
Oh, I thought it was hiding in the deep ocean.

Truthseeker says:

February 19, 2014 at 8:10 pm
Stick with the stuff that matters – land use and weather event mitigation choices. Talking about the disputed effect of trace gases in a free flowing atmosphere is arguing about the insignificant with regard to the pointless.

rgbatduke says that heat magically disappears out of the system (excerpt - as usual, the batty duke has much, much more to say than this:

February 19, 2014 at 8:17 pm
There is little point to an analogy such as this one. Suppose one DID run a microwave oven for half an hour on every square foot of the planet. Is there anyone who thinks that any of that additional heat would still be around in, say, six months? Exponential decay back to the running not-exactly equilibrium is the only thing that would be observed, with a time constant of at most hours.

Rud Istvan (who has been favoured by Judith Curry) says that Roger Senior should keep Roger Junior in line:

February 19, 2014 at 8:27 pm
The stupid burns. See rgbatduke lest you cannot grok for yourselves.
RP sr, how did you not counsel JR into not getting into such a situation.
Debating with morons cannot end well. Never did, never will.

And how's this for radiating a convective mess from the mountains to the oceans - from jmorpuss who says:

February 19, 2014 at 10:07 pm
@ Hysteria
The pause lines are were the atmosphere stops working up and down (convection) and air moves north south (conduction) these pause lines are electromagnetic field lines and create a closed system NO greenhouse effect without this process. As man digs away the crust we speed up the natural radiative decay process created by the 6000k core. Winds at the surface are created by the interaction of aerosols positive ions (high pressure system) working in the down direction and electrons negative ions (low pressure system) working in the up direction . There is a scattering from mountain ranges and land mass both in the atmosphere and oceans because of rotation.

---

Eastman, Joseph L., Michael B. Coughenour, and Roger A. Pielke. "The regional effects of CO2 and landscape change using a coupled plant and meteorological model." Global Change Biology 7, no. 7 (2001): 797-815. DOI: 10.1046/j.1354-1013.2001.00411.x

McNider, R. T., G. J. Steeneveld, A. A. M. Holtslag, R. A. Pielke, S. Mackaro, A. Pour‐Biazar, J. Walters, U. Nair, and J. Christy. "Response and sensitivity of the nocturnal boundary layer over land to added longwave radiative forcing." Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (1984–2012) 117, no. D14 (2012).  doi:10.1029/2012JD017578

Roger Pielke Jr sez we can still afford more weather disasters and WUWT protests at all and sundry

Roger Pielke Jr argues that the cost of weather disasters hasn't (yet) outstripped the increase in gross domestic product - in the USA and in the world as a whole.  However he warns that absolute costs will continue to rise and that "The inability to detect and attribute increasing trends in the incidence of hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and drought does not mean that human-caused climate change is not real or of concern".

US House Subcommittee on Environment - Hearing on Weather and Climate

As they do from time to time, the U.S. House Subcommittee on  Environment had a hearing on weather and climate.  The House Committee called on three people: John Christy who has a reputation for spreading disinformation not based on science, Roger Pielke Jr who always seems to be the one who gets trotted out to give evidence about the cost of adapting to and recovering from extreme weather events (more the latter than the former from what I've read) and Rear-Admiral (ret'd) David Titley, who was nominated by the Democrats to give testimony.

The purpose of the hearing was "to examine the links between climate change and extreme weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, and floods".  Here are links to the written testimony of John Christy, Roger Pielke Jr and David Titley.

The House Subcommittee was putting on a political show.  They were (probably deliberately) asking the wrong question of the wrong people and even then had to leave out half the testimony to report the answer they wanted to get.

Some comments on part of Roger Pielke's testimony

I'll just make some observations about part of Roger Pielke Jr's written testimony. He wrote:

Globally, weather-related losses ($) have not increased since 1990 as a proportion of GDP (they have actually decreased by about 25%) and insured catastrophe losses have not increased as a proportion of GDP since 1960...

...The absolute costs of disasters will increase significantly in coming years due to greater wealth and populations in locations exposed to extremes. Consequent, disasters will continue to be an important focus of policy, irrespective of the exact future course of climate change. 

The inability to detect and attribute increasing trends in the incidence of hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and drought does not mean that human-caused climate change is not real or of concern. 

It does mean however that some activists, politicians, journalists, corporate and government agency representatives and even scientists who should know better have made claims that are unsupportable based on evidence and research. 

Such claims could undermine the credibility of arguments for action on climate change, and to the extent that such false claims confuse those who make decisions related to extreme events, they could lead to poor decision making. 

...The remainder of this written testimony provides data and references to support the claims made in the “take-home points” above.

I didn't find anything in his testimony to support his claim that  "scientists who should know better have made claims that are unsupportable based on evidence and research" - although I suppose he didn't have to.  I guess John Christy's testimony (see below) would have been sufficient. (Nor does he give a clue as to the nature of such claims.)

Roger quotes himself a lot, such as in his representation of tornadoes, saying "there is some evidence that they have declined" (in the USA).  He doesn't say what that evidence is but does refer to his own paper.  I looked at his paper and it seemed to be ambivalent on the issue, making statements that appear to be inconsistent (my bold italics):

On climate time scales there is no indication of increasing incidence of tornadoes, and the increases documented over the short (sub-climate) period 2000 – 2011 are strongly influenced by the large number of events documented in 2011. However, the decreased frequency of high damage events in recent decades as compared with previous decades is a notable feature in the time series and provides strong counter-evidence to claims found in the scientific literature that the atmospheric environment that spawns tornadoes has intensified leading to more intense events on climate time scales (e.g. Trenberth, 2012).

...The most recent review by the IPCC found no basis for claiming an increase (or decrease) in tornado incidence or intensity (IPCC, 2012).

...The degree to which this decrease is the result of an actual decrease in the incidence of strong tornadoes is difficult to assess due to inconsistencies in reporting practices over time. However, an examination of trends within sub-periods of the dataset is suggestive that some part of the long-term decrease in losses may have a component related to actual changes in tornado behaviour. Further research is clearly needed to assess this suggestion.

So have they increased, decreased or is the data insufficient to say?  Roger says they've decreased but then again he makes his "difficult to assess" claim and he also talks about them increasing.  I couldn't see that his paper that he refers to supports his claimed "decrease".


I checked Roger's reference to Trenberth12 above and Kevin Trenberth does not claim that there have been more tornadoes.  In fact his paper states:

Trends in the tornado record are not reliable, as increases in population over previously rural areas lead to more reporting of tornadoes, but the exceptional nature of the 2011 spring is not in doubt.

Global warming does not contribute directly to tornadoes themselves, but it does contribute to the vigor of the thunderstorms that host them through the increased warmth and moisture content (moist static energy) of the low level air flow. 

As an aside, in Roger's paper, his normalisation does not appear to account for preparedness or adaptation. That is, if the cost societies have incurred in regard to adapting to higher seas, increased precipitation and severe storms were added in, how would that affect his sums?  Major and minor initiatives like the Thames barrier, stricter building codes, better bridges, flood mitigation works etc aren't cheap at the local level nor at the global level.  I expect that they would have cost less than not adapting and trying to repair the damage afterwards instead.  (Take Katrina as an example of the cost of not adapting sufficiently and trying to make up after the event.)  In his written testimony Roger writes:

The peer-reviewed literature on this subject is extensive and robust. Neumayer and Barthel (2011), in a study conducted at the London School of Economics and supported financially by Munich Reinsurance conclude:
“[B]ased on historical data, there is no evidence so far that climate change has increased the normalized economic loss from natural disasters.”12

Here is the full quote from that paper (my bold italics):

Applying, therefore, both methods to the most comprehensive existing global dataset of natural disaster loss, in general we find no significant upward trends in normalized disaster damage over the period 1980 to 2009 globally, regionally, for specific disasters or for specific disasters in specific regions. Due to our inability to control for defensive mitigation measures, one cannot infer from our analysis that there have definitely not been more frequent and/or more intensive weather-related natural hazards over the study period already. Moreover, it may still be far too early to detect a trend if humaninduced climate change has only just started and will gain momentum over time. 

Some other parts of Rogers testimony could also appear to be contradictory on first reading.  For example, he wrote:

• Similarly, on climate timescales it is incorrect to link the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases. 
• Globally, weather-related losses ($) have not increased since 1990 as a proportion of GDP (they have actually decreased by about 25%) and insured catastrophe losses have not increased as a proportion of GDP since 1960. 

On closer examination, the two statements are not necessarily contradictory.  What Roger is saying is that although the cost of disasters has increased, GDP has risen more.  So far, the world has managed to keep one step ahead of the extra cost not just of adaptation (building codes, planning schemes, flood mitigation works, water storages, storm barriers etc) but also the cost of preparedness, response and recovery from weather disasters.  Bearing in mind that I don't think Roger has factored in the cost of adaptation.  In any case, Roger doesn't give any indication of how much longer we'll be able to stay on top of this as climate change kicks in this century.

John Christy admits he's all at sea when it comes to climate science

In his written testimony, John Christy indicates that he has difficulty he has with some climate-related topics.  Early in his written testimony he said he thought that in order to define a weather event as statistically unusual, he would need 1,500 to 2,000 years of data.  He's not very good at data analysis. 

John also admits he doesn't understand how climate models can be used to determine the extent to which global warming is caused by increased greenhouse gases and the extent to which it's caused by solar and volcanic forcing.  He's not too bright all around. He wrote that it doesn't make sense to him:

First, the IPCC relies on climate models to distinguish “natural” from “human” caused climate change because instruments can’t. However, as demonstrated, these same models on average fail by a significant amount to reproduce the climate of the past 35 years (the years most directly impacted by rising greenhouse gas emissions.) But in conclusion, the IPCC now has even more confidence that the models can distinguish “natural” from “human” change over a period the models clearly fail to simulate well. It doesn’t make sense to me. 

Apart from finding data analysis all too hard, the other reason it might not make sense to John is because he's got climate models all wrong.  If he'd taken the time to look at the model outputs, he'd have known they've been quite close to observations over most of the past 35 years.  He thought they "failed" over the past 35 years, silly boy.  

I don't know of any models that hindcast cooling since 1977 outside of denier "models".  Anyone?

Do you think John Christy was confusing scientific climate models with those of Denier Don Easterbrook?  Like this one from 2001?

Here is a shot of the CMIP5 models vs the full record of GISTemp actual anomalies:

Data Sources: NASA and Climate Explorer 

And here is the record going back over the last 35 years:

Data Sources: NASA and Climate Explorer

It's only the last few years where there is any divergence.  If the surface temperature had gone up more after 2005 no-one would be using the words "pause" or "hiatus".  John Christy is trying to fool people with this "35 years".

From WUWT

I see Anthony Watts has his knickers in a knot over the fact that the Democrats in the USA issued a press release after the hearing.  Anthony didn't (or couldn't) do his own write up. Posting the Democrats version of the event seems a bit odd for a science denier. He could have posted the press release from the Committee Chair who, going by his statement is a science denier.  Not that it matters so much any more, as Ryan Cooper points out in his blog at the Washington Post. (The WUWT article is archived here.)

Anthony complained that the Democrats press release didn't quote the testimony of Roger Pielke Jr and John Christy.  Well, the Committee itself didn't quote any of the testimony from any of them that showed how climate change is affecting the weather.  The committee was more concerned that the administration shouldn't scare people.  Although they denied or ignored the known links between global warming and extreme weather events, at least in the press release the GOP majority didn't deny climate change.

What's odd too is the reaction from the WUWT peanut gallery to the Democrat's press release.  A few of them seem to be accepting that temperatures are rising but they seem to think that's "natural".  Some are even calling it a "random walk".  Random?  If it were random it would be going down as much as up.  But it's not.  Others are saying that "it's cooling".

Here is a sample of comments (archived here).

dp decides the USA has gone to the dogs and says:

December 12, 2013 at 11:46 pm
The US is the world’s newest Banana Republic. Maybe Blazing Saddles would be a better metaphor.

Willis Eschenbach doesn't trust the free market and private sector and says:

December 12, 2013 at 11:47 pm
Talk about fools. Taking climate advice from the Reinsurance Industry is like asking your barber if you need a haircut …
w.

gopal panicker is a bit lost for words and reaches for the word he hears most often:

December 12, 2013 at 11:49 pm
crazy

ivor ward doesn't know what anyone at the hearing wrote or said, but he knows what he knows and says:

December 12, 2013 at 11:53 pm
Even when they listen to the truth they are determined not to hear it.

ronald was in a great rush to see his words in print, but had a few problems with sticky keys:

December 12, 2013 at 11:58 pm
Isendt that what they alway do in the AGW curch? If you cant use it dump it. We now cane only hope that someone coms out and says what going wrong.

Doubting Rich thinks if the baseline is shifted up, it might get cool again - or CO2 will lose all its properties, or something:

December 13, 2013 at 1:44 am
Wow, no concept of a random walk! It is hard not to laugh at the idea that the climate refers back to a time period over which the science of meteorology was developing rapidly, just before computers developed sufficiently to make crude climate modelling possible, to decide what temperature to be.

Is there some weather god up there thinking “ah, yes, I’ll use the 1961-1980 mean as a reference; lets flip this coin to see whether this year’s base temperature will be higher or lower. Of course man-made CO2 will then influence the temperature from that point.”

Alan the Brit doesn't seem to know or care what he's responding to and mutters something irrelevant:

December 13, 2013 at 1:54 am
The madness starts when the lies are believed, & the lies are perpetuated to the point of religious fervour, when the “Emperor’s new clothes” become the norm. Truly we live in an insane mad world! Maybe Man is destined to “die-off” sooner rather than later?

johnmarshall lives underground in a cave and thinks the world above him is turning into an ice block:

December 13, 2013 at 2:13 am
Warming world??? How about a cooling world!!!!!!!
Extreme weather is part of the chaotic weather mix, GET USED TO IT.

Rob is another one who doesn't know how to express his thoughts, or maybe he doesn't have any:

December 13, 2013 at 2:30 am
I don`t even have words for this.

---

Simmons, Kevin M., Daniel Sutter, and Roger Pielke. "Normalized tornado damage in the United States: 1950–2011." Environmental Hazards 12, no. 2 (2013): 132-147.

Trenberth, Kevin E. "Framing the way to relate climate extremes to climate change." Climatic Change 115, no. 2 (2012): 283-290.

Neumayer, Eric, and Fabian Barthel. "Normalizing economic loss from natural disasters: a global analysis." Global Environmental Change 21, no. 1 (2011): 13-24.

Okay, I'll bite...should scientists be "neutral"?

PS For a related follow up go here.


Young Tamsin Edwards has written an article that's apparently been generating a bit of discussion.  Tamsin is a climate scientist who works at the University of Bristol in the UK.  She lists her area of interest as being uncertainty in earth system models.  Her doctorate was in quite a different field - particle physics (bosons).  As far as I can make out she switched to earth systems modelling because of a personal interest in the broader environment.

I haven't ever paid her much attention.  I follow her on Twitter IIRC, but don't see too many of her tweets, partly because we are in different time zones but also because I follow many (too many?) people so her tweets probably pass me by.  I believe she comments on denier websites like Bishop Hill.  The main denier site that I keep an eye on is WUWT and, rarely, Judith Curry's blog and I almost never bother with other fringe anti-science or half-anti-science blogs (aka "lukewarmers").  This article of Tamsin's appeared on WUWT as well as on Judith Curry's blog, which is how I caught it.

Not knowing much about Tamsin's work won't stop me from voicing some comments on the article in question.  What she seems to be arguing is that climate scientists ought to stop short of suggestions that could be seen as policy responses to science.  After a bit of an intro about people suggesting to her that she speak publicly about her political beliefs (sic) and her disagreeing, she writes:

I believe advocacy by climate scientists has damaged trust in the science. We risk our credibility, our reputation for objectivity, if we are not absolutely neutral. At the very least, it leaves us open to criticism. I find much climate scepticism is driven by a belief that environmental activism has influenced how scientists gather and interpret evidence. So I’ve found my hardline approach successful in taking the politics and therefore – pun intended – the heat out of climate science discussions. They call me an “honest broker”, asking for “more Dr. Edwards and fewer zealous advocates”. Crucially, they say this even though my scientific views are absolutely mainstream.

But it’s not just about improving trust. In this highly politicised arena, climate scientists have a moral obligation to strive for impartiality. We have a platform we must not abuse. For a start, we rarely have the necessary expertise. I absolutely disagree with Gavin that we likely know far more about the issues involved in making policy choices than [our] audience.

Even scientists that are experts – such as those studying the interactions between climate, economy, and politics, with “integrated assessment models” – cannot speak for us because political decisions necessarily depend on values. There are many ways to try to minimise climate change (with mitigation or geoengineering) or its impacts (adaptation) and, given a pot of money, we must decide what we most want to protect. How do we weigh up economic growth against ecosystem change? Should we prioritise the lives and lifestyles of people today or in the future? Try to limit changes in temperature or rainfall? These questions cannot be answered with scientific evidence alone. To me, then, it is simple: scientists misuse their authority if they publicise their preferred policy options.

She's wrong of course.  Not that I'm suggesting she should speak out about her political "beliefs".  That's her own personal choice.  And she's pretty young and while it looks to me as if she'll probably travel that path eventually, it's not a bad idea for her to get a feel for the broader world beyond science before sticking her neck out too far.

Where she's wrong is in telling other scientists what they "should" do.  She's mentioning people who are recognised widely and way beyond the scientific world as having expertise in science, but also as leaders.  She mentioned Gavin Schmidt, for example.  He's in a totally different world to Tamsin, who is young and just starting out.  Her bio page lists her as a "research associate".  She's got quite a way to go before policy makers turn to her for advice.

Why is she wrong?

Although it may be true (or not) that she doesn't have the knowledge or experience, it doesn't follow that other scientists don't have it.

People who develop policy don't have answers, they have questions first and foremost.  They weave answers from others into solutions.  Their expertise is rarely at the technical level.  It's in policy formulation itself.  Policy developers and advisers turn to the technical experts for advice.  Those technical experts will work in science, economics, finance, human services and other arenas.  There are no sharp lines dividing technical experts from each other or dividing the technical experts from the policy developers and advisers.  Some scientists will end up in policy development roles.  They won't suddenly jump from working in a laboratory to working in the west wing or a Minister's office or on the executive floor.  They will be drawn into the role gradually.  For example, they may be tapped on the shoulder to sit on a committee or two.  They may be invited to take a short term assignment in a research advisory role or a management role.

In the same way, these people who will help shape the future will not suddenly find their ideas fully formed as they venture into these roles.  It doesn't happen like that - or if it does it's rare and I'd say it's not a good thing when it does, being more likely some ideological driver rather than new skills learnt or a gradual appreciation of the subtleties of policy development and the myriad implications of broad-ranging policy alternatives.

Tamsin's also wrong in her comment about values.  Values arguably influence everything we do.  One cannot balk at taking a position because one is scared of the impact on the lives of others.  Tamsin's choosing to write her blog would, I presume, be influenced by her value set.  And almost certainly her opinion that scientists should be passive and neutral is strongly driven by her values.  And if scientists decided to go along with it, would have huge ramifications for the lives of people.  (Doing nothing often has as big an impact as doing something.)

I see nothing essentially wrong with Tamsin sticking to science and avoiding any comment about her personal opinions on areas beyond what she regards as acceptable boundaries for her.  But she's wrong on another count.  She writes:

I believe advocacy by climate scientists has damaged trust in the science. We risk our credibility, our reputation for objectivity, if we are not absolutely neutral. At the very least, it leaves us open to criticism. 

It's not advocacy by climate scientists that has damaged trust in the science.  It's advocacy by the opponents of science that has done what damage has been done.  Too often I come across people willing to cop the blame for wrongs that are not of their making.  Not all people are fools and the people who count are rarely fools.  They can tell the difference between a scientific opinion and a personal opinion. A policy developer who can't tell the difference shouldn't be in the job.  Scientists are human beings.  Some will choose to be activists, some will choose to be communicators.  Some will choose to work quietly on their research and avoid the limelight altogether.  As for worrying about being "open to criticism" - if one lived their life by that tenet one would never get up in the morning.

Tamsin has arguably already chosen to go beyond the science by taking on the added role of science communicator.  She is probably quite good at it too.  It's not a great leap to move from the role of engagement with the public to the role of advising on scientific policy.  And then it's not a great leap to move to a broader role of policy development.  I'll be surprised if Tamsin doesn't develop her career in this way.  Where she stops will be up to her and to some extent limited by the opportunities that come her way and those she chooses to accept.  Even this blog article of hers has taken her into the policy arena, even though she might not recognise that it does.  She is touting a policy for scientists (ie to stay out of policy) and promoting her policy widely in the public arena.  I believe her article was published in The Guardian, which takes her influence way beyond the laboratory and the computer room.

As an aside, Judith Curry is lauding Tamsin's approach and pretending that she herself isn't a policy advocate.  Laughable. Need I say more?  I think my readers are sadly all too familiar with Curry and her policy positions.  Many of us don't agree with her but it's wrong to argue she shouldn't contribute to policy.

Tamsin quotes Roger Pielke Jr - an economist.  He does not hesitate to make his opinion on certain policy actions very clear from time to time.  Again, we might or might not agree with Roger but in fact we need these differing views.  The best policies emerge after a wide spectrum of options have been considered, pulled apart, put back together and the process repeated till the main options and implications are worked through and the wrinkles are ironed out of the final product.

You'll excuse my jumping around I hope.  This isn't the best, most well presented essay.  It's a bit of a ramble.  It's just a blog remember.  And I rarely deviate from it being a snark blog.  But policy development is an area I have experience in.  Not only that, but this experience includes the interface between science and policy, so I'm not just spouting ideas off the top of my head.

What I would like to emphasise is that the best policy development people I've worked with have a knack for it - they can deal with ambiguity, they are mentally strong and mature, and they are prepared to have to make Sophie's choices on occasion.  Most have had at least one mentor along the way.  All have been thrust into unfamiliar territory more than once and have shown they can rise to the occasion.

By now you'll probably be saying that I'm talking about something different to what Tamsin was referring to.  You may be thinking that Tamsin was talking about political activism.  I don't read it that way.  Nor do I think you can distinguish easily between types of influence - whether that influence is in a board room or on the street or in a television studio or at a senate committee hearing or chained to a tree in a forest at risk of logging.  People who have a talent or impetus to help shape the future may find themselves in any or all of those environments.

The point I'm getting to is that sound policy is an art and a science.  It takes maturity and most of all experience.  If one doesn't allow oneself to get that experience one will never gain the maturity required to have a positive influence on the world.

I'll reiterate - some people will find themselves in a role where they influence policy.  Some won't or will choose to avoid it.  Just as not every scientist has the skills or desire to communicate directly with the public, not every scientist will have the attributes or motivation required to influence or develop policy.  However to insist that scientists avoid policy because they are scientists is wrong-headed.  That's not the way the world works and neither should it be.  The world needs brilliant minds in policy just as it needs brilliant minds in science.  And some people can and should do both very well.

One more thought.  If anyone knows about climate and the impact of climate change it's climate scientists.  If climate scientists don't think climate change warrants getting out of their lab coats and telling the world what it means and suggesting ways to deal with it, then why would anyone else be concerned?

Finally - I'm not advocating that any or all scientists should become activists or move into policy roles.  All I'm saying is that it's wrong-headed to suggest that scientists should not do that.  The world would be a much poorer place without the influence of scientists.

Sermon is over, may peace be with you and all that :)


PS For a related follow up go here.

Roy Spencer the half-truther and Roger Pielke Jr the global warming advocate

Update: see below.


I just saw Roy Spencer giving testimony to a USA Senate hearing "Climate Change is Happening Now".

Spencer admitted: "there's a lot of half truths in this business".

Then he proceeded to prove his point.

He said that Antarctic sea ice is increasing but left out more than the half the picture, namely that the Antarctic ice melt from land is contributing to sea level rise, and that the Arctic sea ice is decreasing ever so much more than the increase in Antarctic sea ice.  He claimed that he falls into the 98% of scientists who agree that humans cause global warming, asking "how much do humans contribute" while neglecting to point out that the 98% agree that humans cause most of the current global warming.  At least more than half the global warming according to the Cook et al study that Spencer was referring to.

Spencer who claimed to be a scientist who should know about climate, ended up his speech with "at some point we have to ask ourselves is all of this just mostly part of what the climate system does naturally".   Is he saying he doesn't know?

For an avowed Christian Roy Spencer is a terrific half-truther!

Pielke and Senator Whitehouse agree

Here is some more from the same Senate panel hearing.  Senator Whitehouse and Roger Pielke Jr find much to agree upon:

Whitehouse: We agree that climate change is happening.

Pielke: Yes

Whitehouse: We agree that we should both mitigate and adapt in response to that change.

Pielke: Yes

Whitehouse: We both find the IPCC reports credible?

Pielke: Yes.

Whitehouse: Can we also agree that a body of credible research projects that extreme weather events could increase in frequency and intensity due to manmade carbon dioxide emission.

Pielke: Yes, that's certainly the case and if you look at the literature you'll find many such projections. 

But Pielke quickly switches to hurricanes, his favourite topic.  He went on to say it could be a long time before we can categorically say that hurricanes are increasing in frequency or intensity.

Whitehouse then asks that, given that we're already way beyond the norm in terms of CO2 now at 400 ppm, we should anticipate climate behaviour rather than wait for a signal in every single facet of climate?

Pielke says: Yes, absolutely. And goes on to explain that he's written about adaptation for an awfully long time.

Then he builds a big straw man saying people shouldn't do this or that, which they don't do anyway.  Why does Roger do that?  It's because of his ideology.  Why does he say the droughts of the past were worse?  Because he's judging them in terms of human impact not in terms of weather metrics.  We have adapted so we can cope better with worse droughts and floods than occurred in the past.  But not everyone can.

The question becomes: how much more do we want to rely on adaptation when it is within our power to limit what we will have to adapt to?

Whitehouse is knowledgeable about climate.  He's done a lot of reading.  He asked questions that Roger had to agree to if he wanted to maintain a shred of dignity.  Simple grade school questions that any child could answer.  Like warmer oceans energise storms.  More evaporation leads to more intense precipitation.  "Yes, that's absolutely true" was Pielke's response.

Whitehouse is not just knowledgeable about climate, he's also knowledgeable about Roger Pielke Jr and Roy Spencer.

Then the floor is given to Senator Vitter to ask some questions.  Vitter is different to Whitehouse.  Vitter is interested in what he himself "believes", whereas Whitehouse was more concerned with what is happening in the world.  It was kind of funny to see Vitter bringing the discussion back to extreme events right after Pielke had said that the discussion ought to focus on other matters because he reckons it's not yet possible to detect a signal in (some) extreme events - like tornadoes and hurricanes (tropical cyclones).  I'm sure Vitter didn't intend it, but what Vitter got Pielke to say was that there has been a documented increase in some extreme events, like heat waves and intense precipitation.

Vitter comes up with a whole lot of charts saying they are from Pielke's testimony.  As he unveils each one, Pielke says: "That's not from my testimony".  Oops!

On drought: Pielke says: There are trends in some places of increasing drought and in other places of decreasing drought but over the whole world there is no discernible trend.... That is the point, isn't it.  That climates in different regions are changing.  In those places where there is increasing drought, that's what people are concerned about.

On wildfires: Pielke says it's very plausible that there could be an increase in the number of western wildfires for example.

Finally Vitter unveils one of Pielke's charts - on hurricane landfalls: They aren't hitting the land in the USA right now, says Roger.  We've been pretty lucky in recent years, he says.  And globally there is no trend in landfalls either.  Another panelist pointed out that focusing on landfall is misleading as there have been many more hurricanes than normal in the Atlantic in the past couple of years.  It's just that they didn't hit land.

Spencer says creation "theory" is more scientific than evolution!

A bit later, Senator Whitehouse asks Roy Spencer if the theory of creation has a much better scientific basis than the theory of evolution (3h 23m 10 seconds): Spencer's short answer was "yes".

Mixed reaction on WUWT

Despite the efforts of Anthony Watts, there was a mixed reaction on WUWT to the senate panel hearing.  Anthony led off with the headline:

Watch yesterday’s blockbuster performance by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. and Dr. Roy Spencer at Senate climate hearing

Not everyone agreed that the performance of either was a "blockbuster".


Gary says:

July 19, 2013 at 4:25 pm  Pielke concedes things that he shouldn’t such as agreeing with Whitehouse that the IPCC reports are credible. Some parts are, but some parts assuredly are not. Spencer’s monologue on Cook’s bogus research sounds like he agrees with it. I’m disappointed in the performance of both witnesses. Whitehouse will take their statements to reinforce his position rather than change his position to a reasonable one.

Kev-in-Uk says (excerpt):

July 19, 2013 at 4:47 pm  I have to say, that I wasn’t overly impressed with Pielke Jnr. To me he seemed to be almost crying ‘I’m a warmist but I don’t have the data to support that’? or perhaps, he simply accepts, like most of us – that human co2 is likely to cause some climate effects – but we dont yet know how much?

TrueNorthist says:

July 19, 2013 at 6:07 pm  I am left wondering where the blockbuster performance was. I thought perhaps that I had selected the wrong video but no, it was Pielke and Spencer so it must be the right one. What I took away from this was that Pielke Jr agrees entirely with the IPCC and that Dr Spencer is a creationist. Sorry, but if this is what passes as blockbuster stuff then we should all start getting our heads around paying carbon taxes.

albertalad's comment was snipped by the WUWT mods

July 19, 2013 at 5:39 pm [snip]

Janice Moore lets us in on what the lad said, quoting him as writing:

July 19, 2013 at 6:49 pm  “Spencer’s testimony was destroyed by his stance on evolution – it made him seem like a lunatic!” [Alberta Lad at 5:39 PM 7/19/13]

milodonharlani thinks the Republicans chose Spencer and Pielke Jr deliberately to undermine their denial - (or perhaps he doesn't realise they were nominated by the Republican senators).  He says:

July 19, 2013 at 6:52 pm  Naturally Spencer was chosen from among thousands of qualified skeptics precisely because he questions aspects of evolutionary theory. And Pielke, jr because he’s a lukewarmist, at best. This gives the appearance of balance & fairness without endangering the orthodoxy.

pokerguy says:

July 19, 2013 at 6:56 pm  milodonharlan, exactly right. Total bag job. Spencer should have declined. Where was Judith Curry?  Celebrating this as a skeptic victory is pathetic.

Much of the rest of the discussion was about exactly how loony Spencer appeared to be - was it a lot or a little.  I gather from the WUWT comments that to some extent it depends on whether one is a fundamentalist Christian or not.

UPDATE: (Sun 21 July 13) Catmando at Ingenious Pursuits has written a thoughtful article on Roy Spencer's ideas and intelligent design.