Thursday, June 16, 2016

NC-20 Burton's five 'challenging' questions - a study in deception.

Looks like we've got a debate doing after all.  Dave Burton has challenged me with a series of questions.  It's in the comments section after Dave Dewitt's  "The Changing Carolina Coast: Managing The Threat Of Rising Water," at http://wunc.org/post/changing-carolina-coast-managing-threat-rising-water#stream/0

As these things go it's gotten confused and convoluted in a hurry.  That's another tactic, Gish Gallop, tons of distracting questions that offer nothing, so far a learning is concerned, more like playing catch the ball with a dog, but using a bucket full of balls.

Though I'll admit Dave was kind enough to come up with 5 "straight forward" questions.  In this retelling I've been able to add a little more information.
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Dave Burton to citizenschallengeAE June 15, 2015

Nobody has identified any inaccuracies in what I've written, 
either here or on my web site. {Perhaps that has more to do with your lack of introspection and inability to admit being wrong and learning from said mistake.} But do feel free to try, Pete. Please be specific.  I suggest that you start with my list of five things which are surprising to many climate alarmists:

1. Do you dispute the fact that the new NC Sea Level Rise Report abandons the 2010 Report's erroneous claim that sea-level rise has accelerated due to global warming?

2. Do you doubt that the Obama Administration's Dr. Steven Koonin has acknowledged that sea-level is rising no faster now (at ~400 ppmv CO2 & 1.8 ppmv CH4) than it was 70 years ago (at ~310 ppmv CO2 & 1.1 ppmv CH4)?

3. Do you dispute the fact that incremental increases in atmospheric CO2 levels have a diminishing effect on temperatures?

4. Do you doubt that Scientific American called anthropogenic CO2 "The Precious Air Fertilizer," because it is so dramatically helpful for agriculture?

5. Do you question the fact that most of the apparent rise in sea-level at Duck, NC is because the land near the southern Chesapeake is sinking, rather than because the sea is rising?

Can you answer "yes" to any of those questions, Pete, or do you acknowledge that I am correct about all five?
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Please note, how NC-20 Dave’s response has devolved this into a lawyerly word game.  Tossing down carefully crafted misdirections cloaked in questions, and demanding only a simple Yes/No answer.  No details please.  That’s how political games work.  But, that is not how any of us learn anything, nor how science works.

These global warming dialogues, exchanges, debates (whatever you want to call them) should be about constructive learning experiences so I’ll try to make some lemonade out of the lemons NC-20 Dave dropped at my feet.

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Dave writes: < 1. Do you dispute the fact that the new NC Sea Level Rise Report (MARCH 31, 2015) abandons the 2010 Report's erroneous claim that sea-level rise has accelerated due to global warming? >

CC: Dave, that report is focused on NC Sea Level Rise, it had no reason to make a statement on that particular question, and they basically defer to the IPCC.
I might point out your categorization: "erroneous claim that sea-level rise has accelerated due to global warming” is dead wrong - the science is clear that sea levels have been rising with increasing tempo, but that's another issue.

I do know there was a ton of political pressure to water down the NC Report. Even the devious trick of only considering 30 years. But it does reveal the self-centered shortsighted disconnect so many have from this real living planet and how much we and our children depend on it's good health. But back to your NC study, I found the following quotes quite illuminating.  Why this information means nothing to you, I can't figure out.

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https://ncdenr.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Coastal Management/documents/PDF/Science Panel/2015 NC SLR Assessment-FINAL REPORT Jan 28 2016.pdf 
2.2 Global or Eustatic Sea Level (GSL) 
Sea level movement attributable to changes in the volume of water in the world’s ocean basins, in general responding to cooling and warming, is referred to as eustatic or Global Sea Level (GSL) change.  
There are many forces driving changes in water volume (Table 1, Church et al. 2013) and future GSL is anticipated to be controlled predominantly by the thermal expansion of ocean water and mass loss from glaciers, ice caps, and ice sheets on the Earth’s surface. … 
Page 10) Kopp (2013) examined the findings in the mid-Atlantic of Boon (2012), Sallenger et al. (2012), and Ezer and Corlett (2012) using a different technique, a Gaussian Process model.  
He confirmed a recent shift toward higher than global sea level rise rates in the mid-Atlantic, but noted that the rates were not unprecedented within the available record and would need to continue for two more decades before they would exceed the range of past variability. … Along with these studies of the change in RSL along the Atlantic coast are new studies into the increased frequency of minor flooding.  
Flooding occurs when sea level, typically during a storm or during high tide, exceeds land elevation. Sweet et al. (2014), Sweet and Park (2014) and Ezer and Atkinson (2014) show that water level exceedance above an elevation threshold for “minor” (meaning, not necessarily associated with a storm event) coastal flooding, established by the local NOAA National Weather Service forecast offices, has increased over time, and that minor, nuisance flooding event frequencies are accelerating at many East and Gulf Coast gauges. … 
All of these studies strongly indicate that, as mean sea level rises, the frequencies of flooding will increase at all locations.” 
Page 13) {Regional sea level graphs, each shows steady increase. In other words, life altering sea level rise sure looks real and the closer one looks at the reasons for this sea level rise.}

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CC: Okay, I've gone through the NC Sea Level Rise 2015 report. Interesting stuff, particularly since I one visited the North Carolina coast, long ago.  Near the end of the report there's a summary, I believe these speak to the substance, if not the words, of your first question.

I mean really, asking me if the NC report answered a question that it wasn't tasked to look at. Talk about devious.
From the report: 
"• Inclusion of scenario based global sea level rise predictions from the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report (AR5). Discussion of recent research into the impacts of sea level rise on the frequency of relatively minor coastal flooding not necessarily associated with storms (nuisance flooding). 
• Examination of dredging effects on tide range and sea level signal. 
• Consideration of a 30-year time frame for sea level rise projections as requested by the CRC."
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CC: What about all the information there was in that report that we know received tremendous political pressure to water it down and minimize it's alarm, er findings. Why are today's profits are more important than tomorrow’s wellbeing?

North Carolina's new Sea-Level Rise Report - 9. Summary

Sea level is rising across the entire coast of North Carolina. This report discusses the variation in sea level rise across the state’s coastline and provides projections of future sea level. The following points summarize the results of this report:

1• The rate of sea level rise varies within NC, depending on location. Two main factors affect the local rate of sea level rise: (1) vertical movement of the Earth’s surface, and (2) effects of ocean dynamics (oceanographic influences).

2• There is evidence from both geological data and tide gauges that there is more subsidence north of Cape Lookout than south of Cape Lookout. This contributes to higher measured rates of sea level rise along the northeastern N.C. coast.

6• In a scenario with low greenhouse gas emissions… {CC: Forget that, it’s not happening}

7• In a scenario with high greenhouse gas emissions, projected potential sea level rise over a 30-year time frame would vary from a low estimate of 6.8 inches (with a range 24 between 4.3 and 9.3 inches) at Wilmington to a high estimate at Duck of 8.1 inches (with a range between 5.5 and 10.6 inches {CC: “within 30 years!” Although it should be pointed out that in light of recent observations made on opposite sides of Antarctica, those figures are increasingly outdated.}.

8• Recent research into the frequency of coastal flooding has shown that, regardless of the rate of rise, as sea level increases North Carolinians should expect more frequent flooding of low-lying areas.

Dave, may I ask, 
what point you were trying to make with your question #1?
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2. Do you doubt that the Obama Administration's Dr. Steven Koonin has acknowledged that sea-level is rising no faster now (at ~400 ppmv CO2 & 1.8 ppmv CH4) than it was 70 years ago (at ~310 ppmv CO2 & 1.1 ppmv CH4)?

I do not know about that.
I dare say he was misquoted or taken out of context, because the consensus among the experts studying this is that the rate of sea level rise is indeed accelerating.
I notice you don’t offer a link to read his actual words and their context, what are you hiding?
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3. Do you dispute the fact that incremental increases in atmospheric CO2 levels have a diminishing effect on temperatures?

No I don’t.  
Do you dispute that this diminished insulation ability is tiny?

What you are doing is like arguing over whether we are heading towards that tree at 55mph or is it 60mph, rather that trying to brake.

Incidentally, speaking of warming feedback.
Do you dispute that feedbacks promise to increase warming?
Do you dispute that the Arctic Ice Cap is transforming from a brilliant reflective white surface, to an ocean wide solar heat collecting medium?

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4. Do you doubt that Scientific American called anthropogenic CO2 "The Precious Air Fertilizer," because it is so dramatically helpful for agriculture?

That’s a good one Dave.  I told you I think about challenges and do some research.  I googled “Scientific American called anthropogenic CO2 "The Precious Air Fertilizer” I got a bunch of hits, turns out most of them were linking to you posting pretty much the same message all over the place.  Such as https://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/unnatural-hazards/

I found the article in question.

Carbonic Acid Gas to Fertilize the Air 
by Dr. Gradenwitz, November 27, 1920 
http://sealevel.info/ScientificAmerican_1920-11-27_CO2_fertilization.html

Really!?  That’s just great, tell me Dave what all did the Dr. know about Anthropogenic Global warming back in 1920?  Perhaps that we were burning ever more tons of coal and petroleum based fuels; and that they were emitting ever more CO2; and that CO2 was a proven atmosphere insulate medium (thus it warmed Earth); and that CO2 was vital to plants.  

Not one thing in Dr. Gradenwitz’s paper disputes the fact that the more CO2 increases in our atmosphere the more Earth will warm.  There is not one thing in that study that disputes the fact that our biosphere is set to a certain temperature regime and that increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases the way we have been, will take our biosphere well outside the climate envelope it has know for million and more years.

Dave, it’s this sort of devious behavior that encourages me to call out your malicious intellectual vandalism.  Here’s another gem.
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5. Do you question the fact that most of the apparent rise in sea-level at Duck, NC is because the land near the southern Chesapeake is sinking, rather than because the sea is rising?

Sure, so what?  Does this mean glaciers aren’t melting at an increasing pace?  Or that Antarctica doesn’t have some horrendous surprises brewing?  Or that sea levels aren’t rising with an increasing tempo?


Is sea level rising?
Sea level is rising at an increasing rate.
Records and research show that sea level has been steadily rising at a rate of 0.04 to 0.1 inches per year since 1900. Since 1992, new methods of satellite altimetry (the measurement of elevation or altitude) indicate a rate of rise of 0.12 inches per year. This is a significantly larger rate than the sea-level rise averaged over the last several thousand years.


Study Reveals Stunning Acceleration of Sea Level Rise
 By John Upton February 22nd, 2016

Globally, average temperatures have risen about 1°C (nearly 2°F) since the 1800s. Last year was the hottest recorded, easily surpassing the mark set one year earlier. The expansion of warming ocean water was blamed in a recent studyfor about half of sea level rise during the past decade.

A high-profile effort to track long-term changes in sea levels was based on analysis of sediment layers at a single location in North Carolina. Published in 2011, that study produced a chart of sea levels that bounced up and down over time, changing with global temperatures, and then ticked sharply upward as industrialization triggered global warming.

Monday’s paper combined the data from North Carolina with similar analyses from 23 other locations around the world plus data from tide gauges.

Rob DeConto, a professor at UMass Amherst who researches prehistoric climates, and who was not involved with the study, described the report as a “nice job” that “used a lot more data than anybody else has used in a study like this.”

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By the way Dave, your scattershot approach, which is intent on distracting and confusing rather than learning, is exact what the Gish Gallop is all about.
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Update Friday morning addition.

6" sea-level rise per century is modest and benign.
Weather trends do not "reveal very frightening and destructive events happening with increasing tempo." In fact, just the opposite seems to be true.”  
{NC-20 inserts a graph from Ryan Maue and a tornado count scale, conveniently leaving non-tornado events and destruction}
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6"? "Modest? That's easy for someone who carries no responsibility to say. City and state leader need to be a bit more realistic 

If that 6" occurs within 30 years, as your NC Sea Level Report mentions, that 18" within a century. For those folks who think of themselves as part of an ongoing society there's nothing modest about it, in fact it's rather alarming!

As for More Fun With Graphs

Doesn't that top graph say "Global Tropical Cyclone Frequency" ?

Haven't scientists been talking about, and these days observing, the probability that storm numbers won't (and observations indicate) aren't increasing, >> However, their strength, winds, downpours, barometric differentials, and infrastructure damaging potential is seriously increasing? We have the disasters to prove that this is deathly alarming.

Yet you feel justified proclaiming at every venue that we have nothing to worry about and that experts are not to be trusted.
What kind of man are you?
Why do you feel justified censoring such information out of the discussion???
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For those who want to learn about what increasing heat and increasing moisture in our atmosphere bodes for us:
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INTRODUCTION
Global warming and the associated climate change represent a significant challenge for Americans. As regulators of one of the largest American industries, the insurance industry, it is essential that we assess and, to the extent possible, mitigate the impact global warming will have on insurance. As an initial step in the process, NAIC was involved with climate change since February 2005, when, at the annual commissioners’ conference climate scientists and others presented information about climate change and global warming.
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There's so much more, but I gotta run.

1 comment:

citizenschallenge said...

I want to acknowledge that at Dave Dewitt's "The Changing Carolina Coast: Managing The Threat Of Rising Water"
Dave NC-20 Burton has countered my response. It's an illuminating series of comments and further diversions that I look forward to sharing and responding to as soon as I have the time to work on it.