Phil Klotzbach's response to Citizenschallenge Examined - The Map vs. Territory Problem

Phil Klotzbach gave me his permission to share this email and I thank him.  I haven’t changed any of his words, I simply follow along and share my responses as I try fleshing out this Map vs. Territory Problem I'm trying to explain.  By that I mean the attitude that unless you can statistically prove it, it doesn't exist and should be dismissed, even though the physics dictates it must exist and had better be taken seriously.

There’s also the seepage issue, a sort of self-censorship where certain information is being withheld while other information is given inordinate weight - following the contrarian script rather than focusing on conveying the physical reality.

Dr. Klotzbach's words are in Georgia font, while mine are in Verdana.  

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From: Phil Klotzbach
Date: Sat, Sep 9, 2017 at 6:51 AM
Subject: Re: fyi, just posted "Surely you’re joking Dr. Klotzbach, no hurricane global warming connection"
To:  citizenschallenge @ gmail 

           Dr. Klotzbach:  Apologies for a delay, but it's been a very hectic past few days.  

No apology needed, considering your lead author of the Colorado State University Department of Atmospheric Science’s seasonal hurricane forecast, I imagine you’re probably running on four hours of sleep these past few weeks.  I was surprised to receive any response, let alone such a thoughtful one.  I don’t mind admitting I’m honored and thank you for your time and effort.

Explaining your position will allow me to explain mine, which I believe is compatible with the need for vigorous science in all it’s maddening details minutia and uncertainties.

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Dr. Klotzbach:  In answer to your questions, I have spent over 15 years working with historical hurricane data, primarily for the Atlantic but over the last several years with global data, so I do not make statements like I did on NPR and many other news outlets without having spent much time understanding the nuances of the technology going into the analyses.  

I acknowledge your expertise, in fact both Drs. Mann and Tobis made a point of telling me your professional reputation among experts is solid.  Me?  I’m a layperson and my hobby for the past 45 years has been learning about Earth sciences.  Evolution and our planet’s global heat and moisture distribution engine have been of particular fascination to me.  

My position is that while our actual living breathing climate engine is infinitely complex, it follows fundamental and well understood laws - which I believe are too often left behind in favor of obsessing over trying to explain uncertainties that in the end are more irrelevant than not, and only serve to sooth people into complacent disconnect from the changes happening underfoot.  This is what my Map vs. Territory Problem is all about, allow me to explain.

Surely you’re joking Dr. Klotzbach, no hurricane global warming connection?

updated Sept 8, 1:30 PM

Or,  'Did Dr. Klotzbach willfully misrepresent geophysical facts?'

After finishing my previous post I sent Drs. Trenberth, Francis, Mann an email letting them know about my blog post.  

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I also sent an email to Dr Klotzbach regarding this post. 

This morning I received a lengthy email from him, considering my terse introductory email to him and this blog post, it was a wonderfully constructive succinct note outlining his position and I want to openly thank him for that and his civility.

More importantly it has enabled me to reset my attitude toward him and return my thoughts to my real focus.  Namely, trying to explicate the Map vs. Territory Problem.  

His note provides an excellent vehicle to help explain myself, I hope.  

More on that later.  

(September 9, 2017)

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I appreciate that I have a bit of in-your-face about my writing and have offended where none was intended, so this morning I was surprised and gratified that all three responded with valuable thoughts and links to papers that would help round out my understanding of their disagreement.  I would have liked to reproduce the email string, but it was a private dialogue, though I was given permission to write about it.  I was able to spend much of the rest of day reading through their various links in preparation for writing that post.

But, then came the evening's news and Phil Klotzbach blindsided me with a response to a question which sounded like it came straight from a Trump Administration talking head, rather than a serious scientist.  

His response goes way beyond the Map vs. Territory Problem, and raises questions about political bias coloring a trusted expert’s opinion to the point of willful deception.  Specifically his glib dismissal of global warming’s influence on hurricanes is in defiance of basic geophysical laws and the people's need to know!

(At 2:30) NPR asks:” Does climate change have anything to do with either the intensity of the storms or the frequency of the storms as we are experiencing them this season?”

Phil Klotzbach: “You know I mean the Atlantic actually the last years was below normal for hurricane activity and actually September’s of 2013, 13, 15, 16 were all very quiet.  Obviously this is a far cry from that, this has been an incredibly active last few weeks, but historically September is the most active month of the season.  

“When it comes to climate changes impacts on the storms though, most theoretical models really don’t see any change in the frequency, perhaps even going down a little bit.  They say maybe the storms will get slightly more intense.  But I look at the observations, I don’t do much theoretical modeling and in the observations it’s just really too hard to say.”

Powerful Storms Raise Questions About The Science Of Hurricanes

Heard on All Things Considered  -  September 7, 2017

NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist at Colorado State University, about the science of hurricanes and what makes Hurricane Irma so unusual.

http://www.npr.org/2017/09/07/549250104/powerful-storms-raise-questions-about-the-science-of-hurricanes

At it’s most innocent we have an example of something I’ve already mentioned, a people desperately clinging to dreams of yesterday’s normal, like a child desperately clinging to her mother as they're being inexorably torn apart for all time.  Unfortunately, what we refuse to comprehend will harm, nay destroy all we’ve come to love about this world.

Klotzbach’s first paragraph reveals a sadly one dimensional scorekeeper’s mentality that does nothing to help inform people about our situation.