That is essentially the question we ended the lunchtime meeting with today.
What is a big question that needs to be answered definitively by climate science? The idea is to provoke a community wide effort, funneling creativity, effort, and resources toward one big problem. The example in particle physics was the Higgs boson and the construction of the large hadron collider. Is there something equivalent in climate research?
2010-07-09
Muir Russell report is in, findings no surprise
The independent report on "climategate" lead by Sir Muir Russell is in, and they find no major problems. The UEA official response is posted [LINK], and the report is available [LINK]. There are a few news stories I've seen floating around [e.g.], but obviously not as many as when the email were stolen. The climate blogs are covering the issue, as expected [e.g.].
The questions now are:
(1) Is the "climategate" controversy over now?
(2) Will the deniers and/or skeptics accept the findings of the numerous investigations that resulted from emails being stolen from UEA's CRU?
The questions now are:
(1) Is the "climategate" controversy over now?
(2) Will the deniers and/or skeptics accept the findings of the numerous investigations that resulted from emails being stolen from UEA's CRU?
2010-06-22
The Stanford Study
DeSmogBlog covers a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: [LINK]. The study finds that "climate skeptics" are not experts in climate science, while climate scientists are. No surprise, I guess, but a useful rhetorical tool.
2010-06-16
Why make a point when you can just sound like you are?
Just read an article on Reuters with the headline: Whale poo helps offset carbon footprint. Sometimes articles get stupid headlines because the person writing the article isn't in charge of making the headline, but this article actually says this in the text. It's real short, go read it. I doubt you'll be as angered by it as I am, but maybe you'll see how incredibly stupid it is.
The story reports on science, which says that sperm whales in the Southern Ocean defecate in the upper ocean where phytoplankton use the iron from the feces to grow. This in turn, allows the phytoplankton to "absorb" more carbon. The idea is just like iron fertilization.
The point that they article makes is that the cycle actually reduces atmospheric CO2 because the amount of carbon used by the phytoplankton is twice as much as is breathed out by the whales. Thus, Michael Perry (the reporter) concludes, the whales offset their carbon and reduce their carbon footprint.
First off, whales don't have feet, so they have no footprint.
Second, though, whales also don't use fossil fuels, so whales have no carbon footprint.
The science sounds interesting enough, and it seems like they are showing that this aspect of the carbon cycle is a net sink of atmospheric carbon. One caveat that isn't dealt with is that the phytoplankton don't necessarily use the carbon immediately die and sink, there is also a lot of recycling in the upper ocean. So this "carbon sequestration" (which just means that the phytoplankton die and sink to the deep ocean) might not be as strong as this news article would lead us to believe.
A larger point is that in the absence of humans, this would just be one of many small carbon sinks that would balance a lot of carbon sources, closing the carbon cycle. Unperturbed ecosystems, much less individual species, are (over long time scales) in steady-state. Imagine that humans disappear, so all the anthropogenic CO2 stays around, but no more is added. These whales(+phytoplankton) might continue to act as a net carbon sink, but over the long run, they aren't going to suck all the carbon out of the atmosphere. Okay, I'll stop belaboring this point.
What makes this an even better example of lazy science reporting is that the really interesting point about the whales'(+phytoplankton's) role in the carbon cycle is buried in the last sentence:
UPDATE:
An AP story also has most of this, but better covers the whaling angle: [LINK]
The story reports on science, which says that sperm whales in the Southern Ocean defecate in the upper ocean where phytoplankton use the iron from the feces to grow. This in turn, allows the phytoplankton to "absorb" more carbon. The idea is just like iron fertilization.
The point that they article makes is that the cycle actually reduces atmospheric CO2 because the amount of carbon used by the phytoplankton is twice as much as is breathed out by the whales. Thus, Michael Perry (the reporter) concludes, the whales offset their carbon and reduce their carbon footprint.
First off, whales don't have feet, so they have no footprint.
Second, though, whales also don't use fossil fuels, so whales have no carbon footprint.
The science sounds interesting enough, and it seems like they are showing that this aspect of the carbon cycle is a net sink of atmospheric carbon. One caveat that isn't dealt with is that the phytoplankton don't necessarily use the carbon immediately die and sink, there is also a lot of recycling in the upper ocean. So this "carbon sequestration" (which just means that the phytoplankton die and sink to the deep ocean) might not be as strong as this news article would lead us to believe.
A larger point is that in the absence of humans, this would just be one of many small carbon sinks that would balance a lot of carbon sources, closing the carbon cycle. Unperturbed ecosystems, much less individual species, are (over long time scales) in steady-state. Imagine that humans disappear, so all the anthropogenic CO2 stays around, but no more is added. These whales(+phytoplankton) might continue to act as a net carbon sink, but over the long run, they aren't going to suck all the carbon out of the atmosphere. Okay, I'll stop belaboring this point.
What makes this an even better example of lazy science reporting is that the really interesting point about the whales'(+phytoplankton's) role in the carbon cycle is buried in the last sentence:
Lavery said that without whaling there may have been 120,000 sperm whales in the Southern Ocean and, according to her calculations, some 2 million tonnes of carbon may have been removed from the atmosphere each year through this process.So what this says is that if the whale population was what it should be, the carbon source would be ten times larger (there are currently ~12,000 sperm whales in the Southern Ocean). So the interesting twist, in my opinion, isn't that the whales are "carbon negative," but really that whaling represents an increase in atmospheric CO2 by reducing a natural sink. This is just like (though much smaller than) land-use change, which removes carbon-absorbing ecosystems with cropland, removing a terrestrial sink. Does this raise the question of whether over-fishing represents such a decrease in a natural sink? So instead of going off half-cocked to do geoengineering through iron fertilization [e.g.], we should make a legitimate attempt to allow the natural ocean ecosystems to recover from the past couple of centuries of abuse.
UPDATE:
An AP story also has most of this, but better covers the whaling angle: [LINK]
2010-06-15
Mike Wallace Symposium
For those of you with interests in climate dynamics:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/wallacesymposium/
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/wallacesymposium/
2010-06-14
Someday BibTeX's stranglehold will be broken
But probably not by CrossTeX. I'd like to believe. Maybe if Donald Knuth starts using it...
UPDATE:
Also see biblatex and biber, if you're shopping for replacements.
UPDATE:
Also see biblatex and biber, if you're shopping for replacements.
2010-06-11
A word about titles
Most scientific papers have terrible titles. Sometimes they are descriptive, often too descriptive. It's nice to see short titles, especially when they don't sound pretentious. It's even better when the title is short and clever, and that hardly ever happens. It happens so rarely, that I hardly look at titles. Today I realized that a paper I've read probably 5 times over the years, has one of the best titles ever:
THE EPIC 2001 STRATOCUMULUS STUDY
I put it in all caps because that's how they did it in the print version [LINK].
I've heard so much about EPIC, which stands for Eastern Pacific Investigation of Climate, that I never realized that the title of the paper is a play on words! I'm now pretty convinced that the field project was named EPIC just to have that title.
2010-05-28
Latest GRACE data on Greenland ice mass
As a companion to my concerns about polar amplification, see this blog post about Greenland's increasing mass deficit. I don't want to be an "alarmist," but I'm feeling somewhat alarmed by the OBSERVED changes around the Arctic.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=210
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=210
2010-05-27
News from the Arctic, and it's bad
I was just directed to a recent paper in Nature called "The central role of diminishing sea ice in recent Arctic temperature amplification" by Screen & Simmonds [LINK]. The title doesn't quite do justice to the paper. Maybe a better title would be something like, "Staring into the face of polar amplification and knowing fear." To summarize, they use a new "renalysis" dataset called ERA-Interim to show that there is detectable polar amplification over the past twenty years. Renalysis just means a model that is guided by observations, and this one is a more sophisticated one than the more popular ERA-40 or NCEP/NCAR ones. They look at the northern high latitudes and find substantial warming, mostly confined near the surface. The rate of warming is faster than the global mean, and that is the definition of polar amplification. The fact that it is mostly near the surface implicates near-surface processes, and that is actually the key point for arctic researchers because this has recently been a bone of contention. Some previous work suggested that the extra warming was distributed through the atmosphere, leading to the conclusion that changes in atmospheric circulation were most important for the warming. This new paper reaches the conclusion that the mechanism most responsible for the polar amplification is temperature-ice interactions, which many of us like to lump into "ice-albedo feedback." They consider other mechanisms, but the evidence points toward decreasing sea ice being strongly tied to the warming. An implication of the work is that positive feedbacks are already evident in observations, and positive feedbacks destabilizing to the system and can lead to abrupt changes. Insert the phrase "tipping point" somewhere into this discussion, since that is really what we're talking about. The question now is just how far the Arctic can be pushed before things get scary. It is an open question, but clearly needs to be answered soon!
2010-05-24
Bacterial origin of clouds and rain
From Evernote: |
Bacterial origin of clouds and rain |
Ok, there is a lot to say and I don't have the time now to think about it in detail, but consider this a place holder. Basically there is a conjecture floating around that bacteria act as condensation nuclei for cloud formation [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/25snow.html?partner=rss&emc=rss]. First I guess that we have to state that there is a plausible idea, and probably more than that. There have been some recent studies that found bacteria in cloud drops, and while I have been a little skeptical of these results, I guess it is time to look at them more seriously. Second, though, I think it is important to keep in mind that a lot of this work is being driven by the biological side of the story, without a lot of input from the cloud physics side. Whether the bacterial origin can explain much of global cloudiness is up for debate. For now, the argument for bacteria being very important for global climate is on the much weaker side. Deails to come soon.
2010-05-10
Al Gore: The Crisis Comes Ashore
Published on The New Republic (http://www.tnr.com)
The Crisis Comes Ashore
Why the oil spill could change everything.
- Al Gore
- May 8, 2010 | 12:00 am
The continuing undersea gusher of oil 50 miles off the shores of Louisiana is not the only source of dangerous uncontrolled pollution spewing into the environment. Worldwide, the amount of man-made CO2 being spilled every three seconds into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding the planet equals the highest current estimate of the amount of oil spilling from the Macondo well every day. Indeed, the average American coal-fired power generating plant gushes more than three times as much global-warming pollution into the atmosphere each day—and there are over 1,400 of them.
Climate debate gets ugly as world moves to curb CO2
A general overview of the current environment for climate scientists trying to communicate the science to the general public.
Sent from my iPad
2010-05-07
On prospects for energy/climate legislation
From Evernote: |
On prospects for energy/climate legislation |
I just read that Sen. Lindsey Graham is no longer going to support the climate+energy bill that he had been working on with Kerry and Lieberman. Apparently he now thinks that the political climate is not right [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/08/us/politics/08climate.html]. The article goes on to say that Kerry is willing to focus on the energy issues without explicitly dealing with climate, if that is what he can get passed. Graham says no, though, and insists that legislation has to put a price on carbon emissions.
Wha?
I can not understand this line of thinking. Graham has been one of the only conservative politicians willing to consider meaningful policy to mitigate climate change, but now he's pulling support because of politics? That strikes me as disingenuous, and cynical. To just roll over and ignore such an important issue because it doesn't fit the current political trends is equivalent to admitting that the addressing the problem is also just a politically motivated move too. Every year that goes by without better policy is a year lost, and damns our future to a fate of dealing with the egregious impacts of climate change.
It is notable also that both the recent coal mine explosion and the gulf coast oil spill are cited as shifting the political winds. Again, to me, these are both prime examples why the cost of fossil fuels is not really as cheap as is generally thought, and should boost motivation to move away from these polluting fuels to clean and safe ones.
Wha?
I can not understand this line of thinking. Graham has been one of the only conservative politicians willing to consider meaningful policy to mitigate climate change, but now he's pulling support because of politics? That strikes me as disingenuous, and cynical. To just roll over and ignore such an important issue because it doesn't fit the current political trends is equivalent to admitting that the addressing the problem is also just a politically motivated move too. Every year that goes by without better policy is a year lost, and damns our future to a fate of dealing with the egregious impacts of climate change.
It is notable also that both the recent coal mine explosion and the gulf coast oil spill are cited as shifting the political winds. Again, to me, these are both prime examples why the cost of fossil fuels is not really as cheap as is generally thought, and should boost motivation to move away from these polluting fuels to clean and safe ones.
2010-05-03
Maybe attaching lasers to baby birds will make it rain
From Evernote: |
Maybe attaching lasers to baby birds will make it rain |
There appears to be a laser technology that can be fired into the atmosphere to induce cloud formation processes. [http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100502/full/news.2010.213.html?s=news_rss] A "few" challenges remain to take the step from producing some droplets in the path of the beam to producing measurable rainfall. Whether there are any unexpected consequences is an open question. One potential issue is what happens high up in the atmosphere? The way this works is that the laser ionizes oxygen and nitrogen, which then somehow act as condensation nuclei. What happens in the stratosphere when you create ions? I don't know the answer, but I do know that there is a lot of chemistry happening in the stratosphere. We might not to perturb that chemistry if we don't understand the consequences. See also ozone depletion.
A few issues regarding the oil accident in the Gulf
From Evernote: |
A few issues regarding the oil accident in the Gulf |
I have not been following the coverage of this gulf oil spill very carefully, so maybe I've missed something, but it seems like there are a few things that aren't being talked about very much. First, what is being publicized well is the potential magnitude of the situation, and it seems like people are pretty concerned about the ecological damage that the spill could wreak in the coming weeks. A totally separate issue is the energy resources aspect of the story. No, this one platform isn't going to adversely affect the price of oil, and maybe that is why not many outlets have picked up this thread yet. This accident is a great example of the fragility of our energy infrastructure. It may also serve as a learning experience about the real cost of fossil fuels. We go to great lengths to extract oil from the Earth's crust, subsidizing the industry that does the extracting to the tune of billions of dollars. The purpose is to supply "cheap" energy to our society. This accident shows that it is hard to get at this cheap oil these days, I mean, who else gets to build floating cities in the middle of the ocean besides oil companies (and maybe some middle eastern princes using money from oil)? It is enormously expensive to construct these platforms, run them, and transport to oil to the mainland for refining. Now we also see that an accident can send thousands of gallons of oil spewing into the ocean, and into the fragile coastal ecosystems nearby. How much is it going to cost to stop the leak? How much to contain the spill? How much to clean up the coast? Who is going to pay? If the USA federal government pays, is that just another of these bail outs that the "tea party" is so upset about? And how many smaller (or less public) spills happen every year?
What is the alternative? Well, I would just like to posit that leveling the playing field might lead to a more secure, reliable, and cleaner energy infrastructure. Take away the deep subsidies that the oil companies get. Make them responsible for their actions, including paying for spills and clean up. Remove the archaic restrictions facing those seeking to build new nuclear power plants. Reward companies that supply local, renewable energy. I think taking these steps would lead to a revolution in the American energy landscape.
These thoughts can be extended by also considering national security. Wouldn't it be nice to stop supporting foreign governments that are, well, not exactly pro-America? I'm looking at you saudi Arabia.
Anyway those are just some considerations that are rolling around my head.
______________________
blogged from my iPad
UPDATE: Just saw this amusing post by D. Roberts: LINK.
What is the alternative? Well, I would just like to posit that leveling the playing field might lead to a more secure, reliable, and cleaner energy infrastructure. Take away the deep subsidies that the oil companies get. Make them responsible for their actions, including paying for spills and clean up. Remove the archaic restrictions facing those seeking to build new nuclear power plants. Reward companies that supply local, renewable energy. I think taking these steps would lead to a revolution in the American energy landscape.
These thoughts can be extended by also considering national security. Wouldn't it be nice to stop supporting foreign governments that are, well, not exactly pro-America? I'm looking at you saudi Arabia.
Anyway those are just some considerations that are rolling around my head.
______________________
blogged from my iPad
UPDATE: Just saw this amusing post by D. Roberts: LINK.
2010-04-19
Iceland Eruption and risk to airplanes
If you are looking for the best pictures of the ash plume flowing away from Iceland, then check out the NASA page [LINK].
Air traffic has been pretty badly impacted by the safety precautions, with a blanket ban on flights over much of northern Europe over the past five days. Things look to be getting back on track now, with the UK, France, and Germany opening their airspace starting today [LINK].
A troubling aspect of the ban on air traffic is a backlash against it [LINK]. Apparently there are a number of voices saying that grounding the flights is too cautions, including some airlines. These dissenters say that the precautions aren't based on this volcanic eruption, but on "theoretical" approach.
This line of thinking strikes a familiar chord, I think. It seems that there is a general pattern for science-based decisions, which tend toward being conservative, to be questioned by interested parties. Of course, in this case "interested parties" is a euphemism for people/corporations/industries/governments who have a financial or personal stake in the situation. The usual argument goes something like, these scientists are overly cautious (or alarmist) and the problem isn't that bad, and we should be making decisions based on what is really happening and not what some fancy computer model says.
Let us be quite honest in saying that the science-based findings will be conservative. Decision making based on science follows that. This is best summed up by the old phrase, "better safe than sorry." I think this is the right way to go. There are times when calculated risk is the right approach, but when the choice is between people perchance dying in plane crashes (and airlines making tons of money) or people NOT DYING but being stuck somewhere for a couple of days (and airlines losing some money), what is the right approach? Well, I am betting that there would certainly be some questions if planes started falling out of the sky. Better safe than sorry.
Another aspect of this story is that the decision-making process would certainly be better served with better real-time data. There's no doubt that if we had better in situ observations of the volcanic ash plume, then we would have a better idea of whether it would be safe for airplanes to fly. But guess what? There's really no money for these kinds of observations. Not in Europe and not in the USA. Sure, you can turn to the NASA satellites and get a lot of information. But the real-time information that can be gleaned from the satellites is limited, both because of the satellite coverage and technology, and also because of limited personnel who have the ability to analyze the data. I'm guessing a good amount of real science will come from this eruption, but it will take months (and years) to be done. Better observations could be collected by using balloons, mobile observing platforms, and aircraft. These all require the proverbial boots on the ground. There have to be scientists/technicians on the ready, with the equipment ready to go, a way to get to the site, and personnel to ingest the data and provide analysis to decision-makers. There's no doubt the capabilities exist, and there are scientists who would be willing to do the work (and excited to do it), but there aren't usually resources for that kind of science.
So for those who say that we shouldn't rely on models and statistics for decision-making, I think this is a false dichotomy. It is either that or nothing at this point, but the better way to go is to choose both models and statistics along with real-time observations. I'd also be willing to wager that many of those on that side of the debate would not want to put the money on the table for the kinds of observational networks and responses that they are calling for. In the end, isn't the existence of the risk enough to warrant a response? Isn't it better to be safe than sorry? Given the available resources and the collected knowledge about the risk, I can not see any other recourse.
Air traffic has been pretty badly impacted by the safety precautions, with a blanket ban on flights over much of northern Europe over the past five days. Things look to be getting back on track now, with the UK, France, and Germany opening their airspace starting today [LINK].
A troubling aspect of the ban on air traffic is a backlash against it [LINK]. Apparently there are a number of voices saying that grounding the flights is too cautions, including some airlines. These dissenters say that the precautions aren't based on this volcanic eruption, but on "theoretical" approach.
This line of thinking strikes a familiar chord, I think. It seems that there is a general pattern for science-based decisions, which tend toward being conservative, to be questioned by interested parties. Of course, in this case "interested parties" is a euphemism for people/corporations/industries/governments who have a financial or personal stake in the situation. The usual argument goes something like, these scientists are overly cautious (or alarmist) and the problem isn't that bad, and we should be making decisions based on what is really happening and not what some fancy computer model says.
Let us be quite honest in saying that the science-based findings will be conservative. Decision making based on science follows that. This is best summed up by the old phrase, "better safe than sorry." I think this is the right way to go. There are times when calculated risk is the right approach, but when the choice is between people perchance dying in plane crashes (and airlines making tons of money) or people NOT DYING but being stuck somewhere for a couple of days (and airlines losing some money), what is the right approach? Well, I am betting that there would certainly be some questions if planes started falling out of the sky. Better safe than sorry.
Another aspect of this story is that the decision-making process would certainly be better served with better real-time data. There's no doubt that if we had better in situ observations of the volcanic ash plume, then we would have a better idea of whether it would be safe for airplanes to fly. But guess what? There's really no money for these kinds of observations. Not in Europe and not in the USA. Sure, you can turn to the NASA satellites and get a lot of information. But the real-time information that can be gleaned from the satellites is limited, both because of the satellite coverage and technology, and also because of limited personnel who have the ability to analyze the data. I'm guessing a good amount of real science will come from this eruption, but it will take months (and years) to be done. Better observations could be collected by using balloons, mobile observing platforms, and aircraft. These all require the proverbial boots on the ground. There have to be scientists/technicians on the ready, with the equipment ready to go, a way to get to the site, and personnel to ingest the data and provide analysis to decision-makers. There's no doubt the capabilities exist, and there are scientists who would be willing to do the work (and excited to do it), but there aren't usually resources for that kind of science.
So for those who say that we shouldn't rely on models and statistics for decision-making, I think this is a false dichotomy. It is either that or nothing at this point, but the better way to go is to choose both models and statistics along with real-time observations. I'd also be willing to wager that many of those on that side of the debate would not want to put the money on the table for the kinds of observational networks and responses that they are calling for. In the end, isn't the existence of the risk enough to warrant a response? Isn't it better to be safe than sorry? Given the available resources and the collected knowledge about the risk, I can not see any other recourse.
2010-04-18
2010-03-27
Joanne Simpson
This news is now several weeks old, but somehow I forgot to mention it here. Joanne Simpson, a pioneer of tropical meteorology, and specifically a giant in the business of clouds, died 4 March 2010. There's a decent obituary via USA Today [LINK]. That obit also points out one of the stories that I've heard several times, which was that Simpson wanted to study meteorology, Rossby told her to study issues related to tropical clouds saying it would be "an excellent problem for a little girl to work on because it is not very important, and few people are interested in." There's a better piece, with a fantastic photo, on the NASA site [LINK]. In the day or so following her death, the tropical meteorology community was aflutter; the obituaries and news stories aren't exaggerating Simpson's importance to meteorology (and climate science more generally), she truly changed the way people think about the atmosphere and about clouds.
2010-03-19
Streamlining your workflow
Just watched this video showing how one guy keeps his references organized. It's included below, and worth watching. My own citation organization isn't as clean, but uses basically these same tools. (Read that as: this is how I should do it!)
I'll also note that I'm a bit conflicted about whether to use BibDesk to organize my files. The definite pros are that I'm already using it to organize my references and that it is free. I've been using Yep! to organize my documents, which don't always need to be in my bibtex library, and it is a pretty nice application. The downside is that it isn't free (I got it in one of those bundles). I think Yep! is very similar to another application called Papers that I know some people like a lot.
I'll also note that I'm a bit conflicted about whether to use BibDesk to organize my files. The definite pros are that I'm already using it to organize my references and that it is free. I've been using Yep! to organize my documents, which don't always need to be in my bibtex library, and it is a pretty nice application. The downside is that it isn't free (I got it in one of those bundles). I think Yep! is very similar to another application called Papers that I know some people like a lot.
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