This is both my personal learning project and my contribution in the struggle to confront the ongoing Republican/ libertarian assault on rational science and constructive learning, as manifested in their malicious strategic Attacks on Science ~ A collection of articles, scientific resources, plus my own essays and indepth critique of various presentations from unidirectional-skeptics ~ Hopefully a resource for the busy, yet discerning, student who's concerned about the health of our Earth
Of course, it’s impossible to discuss climate science findings without also being confronted with the endless repetitive cross-fire from the bullhorns of naysayers and their bias driven unidirectional skepticism and disconnected-from-physical-reality lies.
As a result the folks at SkepticalScience.com made a point of studying contrarian claims and then explaining the real science that climate science “skeptics” consistently choose to ignore.
Republicans have a hubristic confidence in their own self-interest, and because they’ve convinced themselves that they possess God in their back pockets, it’s okay for them to disregard fundamental geophysical evidence and facts. It's lunatic thinking, still here we are.
The real tragedy is that nobody is interested in learning. They only know their personal wants and by their actions and words, they appear to lack intellectual integrity, how else could they so easily refuse to listen, let alone learn lessons, all the while shamelessly repeating the same juvenile nonsense over and over and over again.
A long long time ago John Cook envisioned an internet website dedicated to bringing authentic climate science to an interested lay-public along with publicly archiving easily accessible climate studies. It took tons of networking and creative effort and determination to realize his dream. Starting in August, 2007 SkepticalScience.com realized his vision and SkS has been delivering ever since and building up an impressive Archive (for the rest of this introduction link here) This is part two of SkepticalScience.com Archives
A long long time ago John Cook envisioned an internet website dedicated to bringing authentic climate science to an interested lay-public along with publicly archiving easily accessible climate studies. It took tons of networking and creative effort and determination to realize his dream. Starting in August, 2007 SkepticalScience.com realized his vision and SkS has been delivering ever since and building up an impressive Archive (for the rest of this introduction link here) This is part two of SkepticalScience.com Archives Dec 31, 2014 to Jan 1, 2012.
A long long time ago John Cook envisioned an internet website dedicated to bringing authentic climate science to an interested lay-public along with publicly archiving easily accessible climate studies. It took tons of networking and creative effort and determination to realize his dream. Starting in August, 2007 SkepticalScience.com realized his vision and SkS has been delivering ever since and building up an impressive Archive (which I’ve taken the liberty of copying and pasting into the end of this article for your convenience.).
Time for something a little more thoughtful than jousting with Steele's LandscapesAndCycles snow job. Since Trenberth's talk at Fort Lewis College inspired my previously posted FCFP column; which in turn inspired Mr GOP to share Jim Steele's complain about the lack of debate; which in turn lead to the forgoing series examining Mr. Steele's base disingenuousness and which isn't quite finished yet.
Still, for now I figure it's only fitting that I share the other article I wrote regarding Dr Trenberth's talk. The Four Corners Free Press column was intended for the uninitiated, this essay is intend for climate science communicators and wannabe communicators regarding the under appreciated Map v Territory Problem. Food for thought. Originally written December 10, 2017, revised August 22, 2018.
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On November 9th, 2017 Dr. Trenberth visited our local Fort Lewis College and was the featured speaker at an afternoon climate change symposium.
A Distinguished Senior Scientist (in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research), he is a cartographer if you will. His entire being is about getting the science, the models, the map, as close to representing reality as resources and ability allow. This dedication has made him among the best in his field of climate studies.
As a self-taught Earth and climate science enthusiast I’ve been familiar with his work for decades and have learned a great deal from his articles and in past years talks on YouTube and I was glad to finally have the chance to see and hear him in person.
He gave an interesting talk reviewing many aspects of our warming climate system including hurricanes, where he touched on the recent Hurricane Harvey with its extraordinary longevity and rainfall. Dr. Trenberth went through its vitals, a million people displaced, homes damaged, massive power outage, biblical rainfall.
He pointed out that normally hurricanes ‘peter out’ within on average 27 hours, whereas Harvey went for 70 hours on land making a loop and returning to the Gulf with it’s record warm waters, which fed the cyclone before it made another incursion onto land. Then he discussed the many human factors around Houston that ensure floods will reek maximum havoc, pointing out that, “with climate change you either adapt to it or you suffer the consequences.”
What struck me was that Trenberth didn’t mention the “Brown Ocean Effect” which is a fairly new, but fascinating and important observation based realization. Also, it’s another sure indicator of a warming world.
For starters Trump wants to eliminate all mention of Climate Science and Obama's initiatives. Fortunately, it's too late for that. The records can be found here" https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-record/climate, for the details read on. The muzzling is already beginning.
Trump’s White House Website Now Only Mentions "Climate" in His Plans to Ax Obama’s Policies
Today, the peaceful transition of power took place, with President Barack Obama passing the White House baton over to President Donald Trump.
Behind the glitz and glamor and pomp and circumstance came another key White House transition: the Trump White House has gotten rid of the climate change section of the White House website. The URLwww.whitehouse.gov/energy/climate-change now takes those surfing the internet to a page which “could not be found.”
This post was inspired by one of the comments at the WUNC debate.
Dude to CC:
“You have written perhaps the stupidest justification for producing agitprop garbage and calling it science that I have seen so far.
It would not be fair to ask you how they derive their millimeter precision from measurements that are at best accurate to a centimeter.”
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CC responded:
Why the attitude?
There's nothing wrong with asking the question, or others.
My question is have you ever tried to find the answers to those questions?
Simply because you don't understand something doesn't mean others don’t.
After all, that’s why we have experts who have dedicated their careers and lives to their particular field of expertise. Our society would be impossible without it don't you know.
Let me start with honest curiosity and a constructive question: How do “they” derive millimeter sea level precision from measurements that are at best accurate to a centimeter?
This is a reposting of the last of five responses I made regarding various aspects of Jim Steele's 1/7/15 WattsUpWithThat 'essay' - in light of Steele's recent comment, I think it's only fair to bring it up again.
I wrote this after a good week had passed and the dust settled, and having had a chance to think about the entire episode. I found Jim's behavior so strange, I decided to ask him about it. Of course, no response was received. That's why I now find it curious that he's been creeping around here lately, like a kid with a new pea shooter.
Jim talks big, but there's no substance behind his words. Prove me wrong Jim, let's have that debate. How about it? A thoughtful, substantive one, in writing. Posted at our respective blogs for others to judge.
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Saturday, February 7, 2015
Jim Steele watts up with your venomous self-indignation?
Dear Jim Steele,
With time to reflect, I'm confused by your display of moral outrage in that January 7thWUWT broadside? Come on, lighten up, you should recognized the Shakespearian overtones and appreciate we were made for each other.
Besides, it was you who jumped into my lil climate change sparing camp over at SkepticForum back last spring.... you were the big shot daring anyone to dispute your nonsense. Did you really think I was going to allow your Republican/libertarian "hey no worries, it's all a hoax" challenge to go unanswered? Then in your IEEE 'climate science horror' series and LandscapesAndCycle you're the one that told folks to check original sources. Well, I have and I've received responses including many full texts of published studies from:
The number one dodge and time waster in our global warming public awareness dialogue is the nonstop obsessing over temperatures, taking them, processing them, matching models. Every new study is treated as though this were some kind of ball game with armchair quarterbacks right and left.
Thing is, those temperature numbers are useless information if you don't first grasp the fact of greenhouse gases and how they control our planet's insulation against frigid space. We know this added heat is being absorbed into our global climate system, there's no where else for it to go undetected.
The physics means that everything under that atmosphere will absorb some of that added warmth. Period!
Measuring those varied temperatures moving through the global system 100% is impossible, but why would that change the physics of what's going on?
Besides, we do have overwhelming thermometer-independent evidence.
27 -- The evidence for climate change WITHOUT computer models or the IPCC
What's hideous is all the people who glibly dismiss the geophysics of greenhouse gases which is clearly known to a high degree of certitude. And instead pretend that human's ability to measure the actual heat moving through our global heat and moisture distribution engine is the be all and end all of what they need to know.
With that bit of venting, allow me to introduce you to an excellent primer on how well scientists understand the physics of our atmosphere. By way of a map to Dr. David Archer's excellent college level course, which is freely available at YouTube. This I follow with information about "seepage" from the man who coined the term, Dr. Lewandowsky. Finishing with a couple links to Admiral David Titley, and climatologist Gavin Schmidt who explain a bit more about temperatures and climate models.
Dr. David Archer
Global Warming
Understanding the Forecast
Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast is a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of global warming. Written in an accessible way, and assuming no specialist prior knowledge, this book examines the processes that control climate change and climate stability, from the distant past to the distant future.
I want to make clear that I have a good deal of respect for Jeff Tollefson, on account of how often my searches lead to one of his articles, which are consistently clear and helpful. I even think this article is fundamentally sound and helpful.
However, there's one word that's an stellar example of "seepage" whereby scientists and science communicators unconsciously adopt the contrarian meme, rather than getting back to fundamentals and explaining what's happening to our global heat and moisture distribution engine.
Seepage, impacts of a chimera - Lewandowsky, Risbey, Oreskes study
"An apparent pause in global warming(2) might have been a temporary mirage, according to recent analysis. Global average temperatures have continued to rise throughout the first part of the twenty-first century, researchers report on 5 June in Science1.
That finding, which contradicts (1) the 2013 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is based on an update of the global temperature records maintained by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The previous version of the NOAA data set had showed less warming during the first decade of the millennium. ...
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(1) Contradicts what?
Karl had more information at hand then IPCC did. It's about better information leading to better understanding and more accurate numbers.
The physical reality is that it is exceedingly difficult to measure Earth's temperature with 100% coverage or accuracy, and while scientists are doing an amazing job and getting amazingly detailed, it'll never be enough for the contrarian hearted. So, we allow malicious fraudster to rain contempt and slander on respectable professional humans doing their jobs, on account of the difficulty of their task. It's vicious, mean spirited, and intended to make our public stupid. While too many communicators unconsciously keep falling in line with their malicious misrepresentations.
Karl et al. didn't contradict anything, it incorporated new information and offers another step forward in understanding and refinements, and it updates previous understanding, along with raising some new questions.
While culling through YouTube videos for a project, I came across a NASA Goddard video that presented a text book example of a well meaning, but overly cautious scientist whose's awkward wording and omissions leads to more confusion than clarity. It also highlighted one of my pet peeves - the lack of a coherent and memorable narrative to serve as a skeleton upon which to drape the many varied bits and pieces of information being presented.
(Well look at what I just discovered! Seems that fraudster and PR spinmeister Lord 1000Folly, Monckton's YouTube clone (who's been flooding YouTube with maliciously fabricated misrepresentations of climate science), also discovered this example of NASA's communication failings and does he have a field-day mocking scientists based on manipulating this very video's gross omissions: "NASA - The Mystery of Antarctic Cooling" (1/26/16) no I'm not linking to it.2/17/16,1:45 PM)
A unifying concept, such as "Plate Tectonics" which created a real mental visualizing tool onto which the disparate bits and pieces of geologic knowledge fit seamlessly and became a comprehendible whole. Perhaps a concept along the lines of our "Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine" subtitled "It's The Atmospheric Insulation Silly."
In any event, this quote at 0:55 set me off. - Speaker: "The increase that we're seeing in the Antarctic ice extent is a little bit of a mystery…"
Poor phrasing indeed. Particularly since he never brought it back to explaining how scientists have been uncovering the various geophysical phenomena that have driven the increasing sea ice and solved the one time mystery.
Not confronting that meme and explaining why sea ice has been increasing, they reinforce what an unschooled person might assume and what the contrarian PR machine keeps feeding people. Why, I wonder? After all, it is a pretty clear and straightforward story.
I follow the short video in question by highlighting the pieces of information I'm familiar with; information that offers a coherent physical explanation for why all that extra sea ice has been forming, and why it's part and parcel of global warming's cascading consequences. Items that were unjustifiably omitted from the video but that could have been included. For supporting evidence I link to various splendid short videos and some articles that provide further details to this aspect of our climate engine.
NASA | The Arctic and the Antarctic Respond in Opposite Ways
My last evolution post, {5b} Earth's Earliest Climate - By Angela Hessler, was fairly weighty stuff, so I'm going to lighten it up a bit in this installment. First, I have an excellent 5 minute video that though being a cartoon, is the best short summary of our four and a half billion journey I've been able to find on YouTube. For the intermission I link to Michael Marshall's wonderfully concise list of nearly 70 milestone events along Earth's fantastic evolutionary pageant.
From there we'll consider our Moon's profound influence on Earth's evolution with another short YouTube video. Then it's back to school work with the course outline of a University of Michigan's Global Change Courses, section: "Evolution Of The Atmosphere: Composition, Structure And Energy"
Short animation covering 4.5 billion years. The animation was download from Unit #4 of The Big History Project. Checkout the 18 minute introduction video of the project -- available here: https://www.bighistoryproject.com.
Michael Marshall put together a concise listing of nearly 70 important evolutionary milestone over at NewScientist.com along with links that lead to further details. It's done with clarity and make a perfect quick reference.
The University of Michigan's Global Change Courses, part of the Program in the Environment, offer a modern approach to undergraduate science and social science education. In interdisciplinary courses the topic of Global Change from physical and human perspectives are examined, and case studies are used to explore scenarios for sustainability. Small, GSI-led group sessions promote critical thinking and analysis.
The courses are aimed at first and second year students who want to understand the historical and modern aspects of Global Change and Sustainability. These 4-credit courses include laboratory sections and carry distribution credit. globalchange@umich.edu
Evolution Of The Atmosphere: Composition, Structure And Energy
How did the atmosphere evolve into what it is today?
What gases in the atmosphere are important to life and how are they maintained?
What natural variations occur in atmospheric constituents and what are the important time scales for change?
1. The Earliest Atmosphere, Oceans, and Continents
Oxygen in the Atmosphere
Early Oceans
Early Continents
2. Evolution of the Present Atmosphere
The evolution of the atmosphere could be divided into four separate stages:
Origin
Chemical/ pre-biological era
Microbial era, and
Biological era.
The Biological Era - The Formation of Atmospheric Oxygen
Firstly, Eukaryotic metabolism could only have begun once the level of oxygen had built up to about 0.2%, or ~1% of its present abundance. This must have occurred by ~2 billion years ago, according to the fossil record. Thus, the eukaryotes came about as a consequence of the long, steady, but less efficient earlier photosynthesis carried out by Prokaryotes.
Oxygen increased in stages, first through photolysis (Figure 1) of water vapor and carbon dioxide by ultraviolet energy and, possibly, lightning:
H2O -> H + OH
produces a hydroxyl radical (OH) and
CO2 -> CO+ O
produces an atomic oxygen (O). The OH is very reactive and combines with the O
O + OH -> O2 + H
The hydrogen atoms formed in these reactions are light and some small fraction escape to space allowing the O2 to build to a very low concentration, probably yielded only about 1% of the oxygen available today.
Secondly, once sufficient oxygen had accumulated in the stratosphere, it was acted on by sunlight to form ozone, which allowed colonization of the land. The first evidence for vascular plant colonization of the land dates back to ~400 million years ago.
Thirdly, the availability of oxygen enabled a diversification of metabolic pathways, leading to a great increase in efficiency. The bulk of the oxygen formed once life began on the planet, principally through the process of photosynthesis:
6CO2 + 6H2O <--> C6H12O6 + 6O2
where carbon dioxide and water vapor, in the presence of light, produce organics and oxygen. The reaction can go either way as in the case of respiration or decay the organic matter takes up oxygen to form carbon dioxide and water vapor.
Life started to have a major impact on the environment once photosynthetic organisms evolved.
Banded Iron Formations
Red Beds
The Oxygen Concentration Problem.
The Early Ultraviolet Problem
Fluctuations in Oxygen
3. Composition of the Present Atmosphere
Comparison to Other Planets
Current Composition
Greenhouse Gases
Radiative Properties
Sources and Sinks
Greenhouse Gases (apart from water vapor) include:
Carbon Dioxide
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
Methane
Nitrous Oxide
Ozone
and each have different sources (emission mechanisms) and sinks (removal mechanisms) as outlined below.
4. Summary
We developed a few useful tools for the study of biogeochemical cycles. These include the concepts of the reservoir, fluxes, and equilibria.
Atmospheric evolution progressed in four stages, leading to the current situation. The atmosphere has not always been as it is today - and it will change again in the future. It is closely controlled by life and, in turn, controls life processes. Complex feedback mechanisms are at play that we do not yet understand.
Oxygen became a key atmospheric constituent due entirely to life processes. It built up slowly over time, first oxidizing materials in the oceans and then on land. The current level (20%) is maintained by processes not yet understood.
Sometime just before the Cambrian, atmospheric oxygen reached levels close enough to today's to allow for the rapid evolution of the higher life forms. For the rest of geologic time, the oxygen in the atmosphere has been maintained by the photosynthesis of the green plants of the world, much of it by green algae in the surface waters of the ocean.
Selective absorbers in our atmosphere keep the surface of the earth warmer than they would be without an atmosphere.
