How to go about going against mainstream science - a lesson (about the Anthropocene) for climate sceptics

An article by Bill Ruddiman, a legend in the field of paleoclimatology, has just been posted at realclimate.org. I recommend it be read by:

1. climate science deniers who wrongly think that controversial ideas can't get published
2. budding geniuses, who have had a brainwave that's going to turn science on its head
3. anyone who wants to dispute the claims of 1 above
4. everyone who enjoys reading an article written by a scientist :)

Here's a teaser:

This story began late in 2003 when I introduced a new idea (the ‘early anthropogenic hypothesis’) that went completely against a prevailing climatic paradigm of the time. I claimed that detectable human influences on Earth’s surface and its climate began thousands of years ago because of agriculture. 

Read the full article at realclimate.org.

When did the Anthropocene really begin?

Then go and read this article at MotherJones:

Scientists Are Arguing About When, Exactly, Humans Started to Rule the Planet

Then, if you want still more and can get hold of it, read this new perspective article in Science: Defining the epoch we live in. It's all about how humans started affecting the planet from the time we started hunting and burning, and caused the extinction of many species. And how we started affecting climate when agriculture began. The authors argue that the Anthropocene didn't start in the modern era - it started with us, millenia ago.

Here's a figure from the article - click to enlarge it:

What's in a name? The industrial era has been a time of greatly accelerated environmental changes (1, 2), but it was preceded by large and important transformations, including massive large-mammal extinctions in the Americas and major changes associated with the spread of agriculture, including the spread of domesticated crops and livestock (5), land clearance, forest cutting, habitat transformations (6, 9), irrigated rice paddies (7), soil erosion (10, 11), and anthropogenic emissions of CO2 and CH4 to the atmosphere (8). These anthropogenic changes would not be included if the “Anthropocene” is defined by the first atomic bomb test in 1945 (3). Future changes, e.g., in species extinctions and ocean acidification, are projected to be much larger than those already seen, but are difficult to predict.

Source: Ruddiman et al (2015)

Reference

William F. Ruddiman, Erle C. Ellis, Jed O. Kaplan, Dorian Q. Fuller. "Defining the epoch we live in." Science 3 April 2015: Vol. 348 no. 6230 pp. 38-39. DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa7297

A small facelift

I've been making a few minor changes to the blog, like the "go to top" arrow on the side and scroll bar down the bottom, and other cosmetic changes. I've still got a couple of things to change on the mobile version, though it should still be working the way it is.

I've tested things as far as I'm able, but if anyone notices any glitches when navigating the site or commenting, please let me know.

CO2 and the Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction Events

There is not much happening in deniersville right now. Anthony Watts has another alarmist article by Paul Driessen from the denier lobby group CFACT. It starts off talking about ISIS (I guess WUWT is branching out) and he's trying to link ISIS to both President Obama and climate change - and re the latter, not in the way that most people do.

Judith Curry is asking her denier readers to critique an "essay" she's written. It reads as if it's written hastily for a first term, first year, undergrad Phil101 class. She waffles and meanders from pillar to post in a most unacademic manner, so I don't think she'll get a very good grade. (Her denier fans fawn as usual.)

Given the relative quiet, I figured I'd let you know of two new papers I came across about the Permian-Triassic mass extinction. This was the biggest extinction period in the history of Earth - with different stages, or pulses.

Why 97% is important - Yale US survey on public perceptions of climate change

Fake sceptics, hard core deniers, are pretty well unshiftable in their "belief".

Click here for more of Collin Maessen's excellent videos

As you know, most people who comment at WUWT, for example, already made up their mind well before they heard evidence about climate and what's causing it to change. If they do search for evidence - it's to find "evidence" that they think will support their "belief" - and stop right there. You may recall the confessions of deniers at WUWT (see here and here and here) and at Judith Curry's blog (see here).

But as John Cook said in that short interview, that's not the audience...

Strange results from people in the USA

I'd say at least half the people in the USA still don't have much of a clue about climate change. Yet a majority, in some instances only a very small majority:

• Do understand the global warming is happening (63% agree, 18% disagree)
• Are worried about it (52% agree, 48% disagree)
• Believe it will harm people in the USA (51% agree, 39% disagree)
• Believe it will harm people in developing countries (52% agree, 35% disagree)
• Believe it will harm future generations (61% agree, 26% disagree)

No permafrost bomb - probably

I'm busy working on something at the moment, but saw this article, which might interest some people. It's about a new paper in Nature from a large team from the Permafrost Carbon Network, led by Dr Ted Schuur.

What they figure is that the carbon from permafrost probably won't be released in sudden spurts, it will be more gradual. But that's no reason for complacency, as you'll see.

Below is a press release from the University of Alaska Fairbanks:

The release of greenhouse gases from Arctic and sub-Arctic permafrost may be more gradual and prolonged than previously thought, according to a new scientific synthesis paper published April 9 in the journal Nature.

Scientists say that may allow society more time to adapt to environmental change.

Roy Spencer is comparing himself to Nobel Prize winners!

I just saw this at WUWT, in an article by Roy Spencer (archived here):

Comparing John Christy and me to “scientists who disputed the links between smoking and cancer”, Dana once again demonstrates his dedication to the highest standards of journalism.

Well done, Grauniad.

I prefer to compare us to Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who rejected the scientific consensus that peptic ulcers were due to too much stress or spicy food. While they eventually received the Nobel Prize ...

Steve McIntyre's big blooper - mistaking water mass movement for water temperature!

Update: see below for the latest bit of continuing obstinate idiocy from Steve McIntyre, plus another diagram, plus another reference.

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There are undoubtedly a few knowledgeable people chuckling or groaning over an article Steve McIntyre wrote on his blog last week. In case you are, like me, loathe to visit a blog where the author has a tendency to both conspiracy ideation and alleging the work of scientists is a "scam" and their results "fake", these here are the nuts and bolts (as I understand it).

Steve McIntyre mistook water mass movement for temperature (archived here). Or more correctly, he mistook a measure which was used to indicate water mass movement as being used to indicate water temperature.

If you're wondering how anyone, even a climate science denier, could possibly make such a silly mistake, read on.

WUWT Quote of the Day: Smokey On Cherry-Picking

On the topic of atmospheric CO2 and the fact that it's concentration hasn't been as high in at least 800,000 years, one wonders what Smokey has been smoking.

dbstealey  April 4, 2015 at 2:37 pm (extract)

...I’m not sure myself. But I am pretty sure that CO2 has been up to twenty times higher in the past. Selecting a time frame like ‘800,000 years’ reeks of cherry-picking....

Here's what's been happening with atmospheric CO2. Go towards the end of the video to see the levels over the last 800,000 years.

BTW - put your head in a vice before you read the article by Ronald D "it's insects" Voisin.

Related HotWhopper Articles

• Hitting rock bottom at WUWT: OMG it's insects - Ronald D Voisin is ba-a-a-a-ck!
• It's the Sun, An Ice Age Cometh - Wait! OMG - It's the Insects! ... and more farce from WUWT
• Insects and microbes and OCO-2 conspiracy theories at WUWT
• And more...

They really are a bunch of paranoid twits at WUWT!

It's Easter and I'm taking a day off. Couldn't resist writing about the latest denier conspiracy theory, though. (It will make a nice lead in to an article I'm working on.)

Let me start by asking you a question. If there are five explanations for something happening, which do you think your typical climate science denier will choose?

1. the most likely
2. the next most likely
3. the improbable but possible
4. the least likely
5. the one that nobody in their right mind would contemplate
6. 5. above -- and they'd blame it on a climate scientist.

If you picked the sixth (out of five options), you'd get it right.

More conspiracy theories: WUWT's Tim Ball plus Judith Curry

There is nothing much new at WUWT that I can see. The memes are being recycled.

Tim Ball is writing some of his usual nonsense, this time about a Nature paper from 1996, stolen emails and hockey sticks. He hasn't written anything that shows climate science is wrong, but he has repeated his paranoid conspiracy theories. (Every single one of the nine or so investigations, on two continents, relating to stolen emails was a "cover up", in Tim's paranoid mind.)

Judith Curry's "money, politics and consensus" conspiracy theory

Speaking of conspiracy theories, Judith Curry has come up with a beauty (archived here).