Timothy J. Garrett, Climatic Change (Nov. 2009), Are there basic physical constraints on future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide?

Climatic Change (November 21, 2009), DOI: 10.1007/s10584-009-9717-9

Are there basic physical constraints on future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide?

Timothy J. Garrett* (Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, U.S.A.)

Received 12 November 2008; accepted 27 August 2009; published online 21 November 2009.

Abstract

Global Circulation Models (GCMs) provide projections for future climate warming using a wide variety of highly sophisticated anthropogenic CO₂ emissions scenarios as input, each based on the evolution of four emissions “drivers”: population p, standard of living g, energy productivity (or efficiency) f and energy carbonization c (IPCC WG III 2007). The range of scenarios considered is extremely broad, however, and this is a primary source of forecast uncertainty (Stott and Kettleborough, Nature 416:723–725, 2002). Here, it is shown both theoretically and observationally how the evolution of the human system can be considered from a surprisingly simple thermodynamic perspective in which it is unnecessary to explicitly model two of the emissions drivers: population and standard of living. Specifically, the human system grows through a self-perpetuating feedback loop in which the consumption rate of primary energy resources stays tied to the historical accumulation of global economic production—or p×g—through a time-independent factor of 9.7±0.3 mW per inflation-adjusted 1990 US dollar. This important constraint, and the fact that f and c have historically varied rather slowly, points towards substantially narrowed visions of future emissions scenarios for implementation in GCMs.

*e-mail:  tim.garrett@utah.edu

Link to abstract and free, open-access pdf file:  http://www.springerlink.com/content/9476j57g1t07vhn2/

Link to free, open-access pdf file of complete article:  http://www.springerlink.com/content/9476j57g1t07vhn2/fulltext.pdf

"Is global warming unstoppable? "based on paper by Tim Garrett, Climatic Change (edited by Stephen Schneider) 2009,

Is global warming unstoppable?

ScienceDaily, November 24, 2009 — In a provocative new study, a University of Utah scientist argues that rising carbon dioxide emissions -- the major cause of global warming -- cannot be stabilized unless the world's economy collapses or society builds the equivalent of one new nuclear power plant each day.

"It looks unlikely that there will be any substantial near-term departure from recently observed acceleration in carbon dioxide emission rates," says the new paper by Tim Garrett, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences.

Garrett's study was panned by some economists and rejected by several journals before acceptance by Climatic Change, a journal edited by Stanford University climate scientist Stephen Schneider. The study will be published online the week of November 23, 2009.

The study -- which is based on the concept that physics can be used to characterize the evolution of civilization -- indicates:

• Energy conservation or efficiency doesn't really save energy, but instead spurs economic growth and accelerated energy consumption.
• Throughout history, a simple physical "constant" -- an unchanging mathematical value -- links global energy use to the world's accumulated economic productivity, adjusted for inflation. So it isn't necessary to consider population growth and standard of living in predicting society's future energy consumption and resulting carbon dioxide emissions.
• "Stabilization of carbon dioxide emissions at current rates will require approximately 300 gigawatts of new non-carbon-dioxide-emitting power production capacity annually -- approximately one new nuclear power plant (or equivalent) per day," Garrett says. "Physically, there are no other options without killing the economy."

Getting Heat for Viewing Civilization as a "Heat Engine"
Garrett says colleagues generally support his theory, while some economists are critical. One economist, who reviewed the study, wrote: "I am afraid the author will need to study harder before he can contribute."

"I'm not an economist, and I am approaching the economy as a physics problem," Garrett says. "I end up with a global economic growth model different than they have."

Garrett treats civilization like a "heat engine" that "consumes energy and does 'work' in the form of economic production, which then spurs it to consume more energy," he says.

"If society consumed no energy, civilization would be worthless," he adds. "It is only by consuming energy that civilization is able to maintain the activities that give it economic value. This means that if we ever start to run out of energy, then the value of civilization is going to fall and even collapse absent discovery of new energy sources."

Garrett says his study's key finding "is that accumulated economic production over the course of history has been tied to the rate of energy consumption at a global level through a constant factor."

That "constant" is 9.7 (plus or minus 0.3) milliwatts per inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar. So if you look at economic and energy production at any specific time in history, "each inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar would be supported by 9.7 milliwatts of primary energy consumption," Garrett says.

Garrett tested his theory and found this constant relationship between energy use and economic production at any given time by using United Nations statistics for global GDP (gross domestic product), U.S. Department of Energy data on global energy consumption during1970-2005, and previous studies that estimated global economic production as long as 2,000 years ago. Then he investigated the implications for carbon dioxide emissions.

"Economists think you need population and standard of living to estimate productivity," he says. "In my model, all you need to know is how fast energy consumption is rising. The reason why is because there is this link between the economy and rates of energy consumption, and it's just a constant factor."

Garrett adds: "By finding this constant factor, the problem of [forecasting] global economic growth is dramatically simpler. There is no need to consider population growth and changes in standard of living because they are marching to the tune of the availability of energy supplies."

To Garrett, that means the acceleration of carbon dioxide emissions is unlikely to change soon because our energy use today is tied to society's past economic productivity.

"Viewed from this perspective, civilization evolves in a spontaneous feedback loop maintained only by energy consumption and incorporation of environmental matter," Garrett says. It is like a child that "grows by consuming food, and when the child grows, it is able to consume more food, which enables it to grow more."

Is Meaningful Energy Conservation Impossible?
Perhaps the most provocative implication of Garrett's theory is that conserving energy doesn't reduce energy use, but spurs economic growth and more energy use.

"Making civilization more energy efficient simply allows it to grow faster and consume more energy," says Garrett.

He says the idea that resource conservation accelerates resource consumption -- known as Jevons paradox -- was proposed in the 1865 book "The Coal Question" by William Stanley Jevons, who noted that coal prices fell and coal consumption soared after improvements in steam engine efficiency.

So is Garrett arguing that conserving energy doesn't matter?

"I'm just saying it's not really possible to conserve energy in a meaningful way because the current rate of energy consumption is determined by the unchangeable past of economic production. … If it feels good to conserve energy, that is fine, but there shouldn't be any pretense that it will make a difference."

Yet, Garrett says his findings contradict his own previously held beliefs about conservation, and he continues to ride a bike or bus to work, line dry family clothing and use a push lawnmower.

An Inevitable Future for Carbon Dioxide Emissions?
Garrett says often-discussed strategies for slowing carbon dioxide emissions and global warming include mention increased energy efficiency, reduced population growth and a switch to power sources that don't emit carbon dioxide, including nuclear, wind and solar energy and underground storage of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning. Another strategy is rarely mentioned: a decreased standard of living, which would occur if energy supplies ran short and the economy collapsed, he adds.

"Fundamentally, I believe the system is deterministic," says Garrett. "Changes in population and standard of living are only a function of the current energy efficiency. That leaves only switching to a non-carbon-dioxide-emitting power source as an available option."

"The problem is that, in order to stabilize emissions, not even reduce them, we have to switch to non-carbonized energy sources at a rate about 2.1% per year. That comes out to almost one new nuclear power plant per day."

"If society invests sufficient resources into alternative and new, non-carbon energy supplies, then perhaps it can continue growing without increasing global warming," Garrett says.

Does Garrett fear global warming deniers will use his work to justify inaction?

"No," he says. "Ultimately, it's not clear that policy decisions have the capacity to change the future course of civilization."

Link:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091123083704.htm

A. Shiklomanov: A general increase of river discharge to the Arctic Ocean from Eurasia; 30% higher than average in 2007

Dear Readers,

For those who might not realize the implications of increased flow from rivers that empty into the Arctic Sea, permit me to provide some background in my usual non-scientific language.

OK, in areas where there is no permafrost, we have "groundwater" under the ground, right?  This can be quite close to the surface or even very deep as in an aquifer. It flows somewhere, following gravity and the path of least resistance.  Some of it stays underground once it finds its way to a deep area like an aquifer, or it keeps flowing until it reaches streams and rivers.

In areas where there is permafrost, which is usually quite deep, the water is frozen in the ground and doesn't flow anywhere.

But, what can we imagine will occur when the permafrost is no longer "perma"?  Hmm...

Indeed, permafrost is warming up in the regions all around the Arctic Sea, to the point that groundwater is now flowing to the rivers.

This has consequences.  The surface water in the Artic Sea becomes less saline.  And good ol' methane is being released by the permafrost, and as this process continues, the land subsides.  It becomes a big mushy mess basically not good for anything.  Buildings fall over, roads sink, gas belches out of the thermokarst lakes.  The warming in the Arctic amplifies.

River Discharge

A. Shiklomanov

University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH

August 27, 2009

A general increase of river discharge to the Arctic Ocean from Eurasia was observed over the period 1936-2007, with a rate of annual change (defined from the linear trend) of 2.7 ± 0.5 km³/year (Fig. R1). The most pronounced positive (increasing) trend for the six largest Eurasian rivers is observed during the last 21 years (1987-2007), at a rate of 11.8 km³/year. The rate of discharge has continued to increase in the 21st century. The mean 2000-2007 discharge was 171 km³ higher (10%) than the long-term average over the period 1936-1999. A new historical maximum for Eurasian river discharge to the Arctic Ocean was observed in 2007, reaching 2250 km³/year or 30% higher than the long-term mean discharge from 1936-1999, reported in Peterson et al. (2002).

Figure R1. Total annual river discharge to the Arctic Ocean from the six largest rivers in the Eurasian Arctic for the observational period 1936-2007 (updated from Peterson et al., 2002) (red line) and from the five large North American pan-Arctic rivers over 1973-2006 (blue line). The least squares linear trend lines are shown as dashed lines. Provisional estimates of annual discharge for the six major Eurasian Arctic rivers based on near real time data from http://RIMS.unh.edu are shown as red diamonds.

The mean annual discharge to the ocean over 2000-2007 from the 5 large North American Arctic rivers based on data from the Environment Canada and USGS was about 6% (31 km³) greater than the long-term mean from 1973-1999. The river discharge during 2007 was higher than the long-term mean and, taking into account that this year had extremely high fresh water discharge from Greenland (Mernild et al., 2009), we can estimate that 2007 showed record high total freshwater input to the Arctic Ocean from the terrestrial land surface.

Official river discharge data are usually processed and published with some delay, the longest delay often being associated with rivers in cold regions that are ice covered for extended periods (Shiklomanov et al. 2006). To provide for more timely detection and diagnosis of changing conditions, a method to estimate near-real time river discharge from the most important Russian monitoring sites, based on provisional stage measurements and river ice data, has been developed in cooperation with the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) (http://RIMS.unh.edu). The provisional estimates over 2003-2007 show a tendency to underestimate the annual observed values within an error of 5% of the officially released data (Figure R1). The preliminary estimate of annual river discharge to the Arctic Ocean from the major Russian rivers in 2008 was significantly greater than the long-term mean but lower than the historical maximum observed in 2007. The North American annual river discharge to the Arctic Ocean in 2008 was probably close to or slightly higher than the long-term mean. However, this estimate is much less reliable due to gaps in near real time discharge data for major North American rivers.

References

Mernild, S. H., G. E. Liston, C. A. Hiemstra, and K. Steffen, 2009: Record 2007 Greenland Ice Sheet surface melt extent and runoff. Eos, Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, 90, doi:10.1029/2009EO020002.
Peterson, B. J., R. M. Holmes, J. W. McClelland, C. J. Vorosmarty, R. B. Lammers, A. I. Shiklomanov, I. A. Shiklomanov, and S. Rahmstorf, 2002: Increasing river discharge to the Arctic Ocean. Science, 298, 2171-2173.
Shiklomanov A. I., T. I. Yakovleva , R. B. Lammers, I. Ph. Karasev, C. J. Vörösmarty, and E. Linder, 2006: Cold region river discharge uncertainty - estimates from large Russian rivers. J. of Hydrol., 326, 231–256.

James Hansen: Storms of My Grandchildren

Nature Reports Climate Change (published online: 26 November 2009), doi: 10.1038/climate.2009.124

The eye of the storm

Outspoken climate scientist James Hansen has just completed his first book, due for release in December. Interview by Keith Kloor.

James Hansen, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.ARNOLD ADLER

James Hansen, arguably the world's most famous climate scientist, is prone to shouting from the rooftops. The director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, Hansen has, in recent years, become better known for his climate activism than his scientific research. Last July, he said on his website that "the global climate is near tipping points" and that the consequences would "be irreversible — if we do not promptly slow fossil fuel emissions during the next few decades."

His conviction that a climate catastrophe is looming has led Hansen to increasingly take on the role of advocate, sending numerous pleading letters to world leaders and CEOs, and attending well-publicized protests against coal plants with the explicit aim of being arrested. It's also prompted him, at the age of 68, to write his first book. The title, Storms of My Grandchildren, refers to the ferocity of extreme weather events that will greet the next generation if the unmitigated use of fossil fuels continues.

Due out in December, the book is also the silver lining of Hansen's recent fight with prostate cancer. The illness afforded him a six-week recuperative period during which he hammered out the last chapters, Hansen tells me during an interview in mid-November at the rural Pennsylvania home he shares with his wife Anniek. Now cancer-free, Hansen is ready to take on the world again, and with it the politicians who, in his view, are simply failing to protect his grandchildren from dangerous climate change. In a wide-ranging discussion, Hansen focuses largely on the urgency of the climate problem and the political inertia against solving it, both prominent themes in his book. "I am sorry to say," he writes, "that most of what politicians are doing on the climate front is greenwashing — their proposals sound good, but they are deceiving you and themselves at the same time."

According to Hansen, that includes US President Obama. Even former Vice President Al Gore, who perhaps has done more than anyone to raise awareness of climate change, is evidently deceiving himself. "I saw him on Larry King last night," says Hansen, "and what really worries me is that he sounds optimistic that we're now on a track to solve this problem." He lets out an incredulous chuckle. "We're not, however, on a track, and that's clear."

Ahead of the curve

If anyone is well-poised to make this claim, it's Hansen. Often referred to as the "grandfather of global warming," he first publicly aired his concerns about the climate back in 1988, during testimony to the US Senate in which he said that the Earth had entered a long-term warming trend and that man-made greenhouse gases were almost certainly responsible. Hansen based his assertion on climate model projections, which he published later that year and which still hold up today. Over the past two decades, Hansen has published regularly in journals, but he has come to favour historical data from the paleoclimate record over climate models, which he acknowledges are imperfect and — more worrisome to him — confusing to the public.

His foray into the world's ancient climate has led him to change his initial assumption that humanity could make do with a greenhouse gas loading of 450 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere. Hansen is now convinced that even this would be dangerous. "It's crucial," writes Hansen in his book, "that we immediately recognize the need to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to at most 350 ppm in order to avoid disasters for coming generations." He says that keeping the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases (measured in CO₂ equivalent emissions) below 350 ppm should prevent average temperature from rising more than 1 °C above recent levels, which is where Hansen thinks we need to stay in the long term. That corresponds to 1.7 °C above the average pre-industrial temperature, somewhat lower than the 2 °C target officially recognized as the cut-off point for avoiding dangerous climate change. In its 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that keeping warming to 2–2.4 °C would mean stabilizing at about 450 ppm. The 2009 level is 387 ppm.

"There's a huge gap between their public position and the realities of their policies. That's the situation we have now in Congress." James Hansen

But growing recognition that 450 ppm might not be low enough to avoid dangerous climate impacts suggests that Hansen may again be ahead of the curve. Some, however, have started to question whether Hansen's advocacy compromises his authority as a climate scientist. Hansen addresses this in the book's opening pages: "I am aware of claims that I have become a preacher in recent years. That is not correct. Something did change though. I realized that I am a witness not only to what is happening in our climate system, but also to greenwash. Politicians are happy if scientists provide information and then go away and shut up. But science and policy cannot be divorced."

I ask Hansen to elaborate on this point. "There's a huge gap between their public position and the realities of their policies," he says. "That's the situation we have now in Congress," he adds, alluding to the cap-and-trade legislation that is currently being reviewed by the US Senate. He opposes the bill, in large part because of the offsets system that would allow polluters to continue spewing emissions, but also because political horse-trading has brought in provisions that will enable aging coal plants to stay in operation. The only solution, Hansen says, is to "phase out fossil fuels." And the best way to do that, he contends, is through a carbon tax — or, as he puts it, "a rising price on carbon emissions."

Hansen's vocal opinions on the pending bill, which he has called a "temple of doom," are a sore spot for environmentalists, leading to claims that he is making enemies of those who share his goals. Some of his other statements have generated storms of a different sort. Perhaps the most explosive came in 2007, when he equated coal trains with Nazi "death trains" headed to "crematoria" concentration camps. "There were a few people who were offended by it, and I apologized to them, so I slightly changed the wording," Hansen tells me, referring to how he addresses the matter in the book. "I don't use the word 'crematoria.' But I still say coal trains are death trains."

Reality bites

Storms of My Grandchildren is due for release in December.BLOOMSBURY

Hansen is realistic enough, though, to admit that all "the large pools of oil and gas are going to be used...They are owned by countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia, and no [international climate] agreement is going to prevent them from selling those resources." At this, he lets out a mordant chuckle. At least on this matter, he doesn't come across as the uncompromising sort, which is how some of his critics portray him.

He also points out that coal use has increased in recent years and has gone back to being the top carbon emitter. "We're moving back to coal," he says. Indeed, a day after I meet with Hansen, China and the US — the top two emitters of greenhouse gases and the two countries with the largest coal reserves on the planet — issued a joint statement of cooperation on environmental issues, one of them being a pledge to "promote 21st century coal technologies." In his book, Hansen makes it clear that no additional coal plants should go online until "clean coal" technology is in place.

He also believes that any sensible US climate strategy has to include nuclear power. On this score, Hansen again runs afoul of many American environmentalists who are reflexively anti-nuclear. "I don't think the public understands the issue," Hansen says. "You have to compare coal versus nuclear. Neither is ideal, but the safety record of nuclear is unmatched. Also, there are many countries that have it and are going to use it."

I ask Hansen what he thinks about ongoing efforts to encourage citizens to shrink their carbon footprints, and whether he has tried to reduce his own. Somewhat surprisingly, he plays it down, saying that individuals cannot solve the problem. "If you reduce your carbon footprint, one of the effects is to reduce the demand, and if a lot of people do that, it makes [fossil fuel] cheaper so somebody else can burn it," says Hansen. But one of the best actions an individual can take, he allows, is to stop eating meat. "I've almost become a vegetarian," he says.

Returning to the possible future storms of his grandchildren, I ask Hansen how he could close a big gap in people's minds: the gap between a vague, abstract awareness of climate tipping points and their projected impacts in the distant future. He shakes his head and laughs again softly before pointing out the kitchen window at the tranquil blue sky. Yes, he acknowledges, "climate change is an exceedingly difficult problem."

Keith Kloor is a freelance science writer based in Brooklyn, New York.

Link:  http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0912/full/climate.2009.124.html

Global warming challenging Canada's northern infrastructure

Global warming challenging Canada's northern infrastructure

OTTAWA, November 26, 2009 – Six feet of Tuktoyaktuk's coastline disappears each year. A winter ice road fails to freeze north of Yellowknife and the price of bread skyrockets. A lone communications tower in Inuvik goes down from wildfire or thawing ground and takes the bank machines and the spending money of a remote town with it.

These are the new facts of life that climate change is already forcing those in Canada's far north to consider. A new report says governments, businesses and residents are woefully unprepared to deal with the destruction of roads, buildings, toxic waste dumps and communications systems that are founded on the assumption that it's cold up there and will remain that way in the years ahead.

But the changes from global warming are testing the structural limits of that infrastructure and there isn't enough hard scientific data coming from the federal government to help northerners adapt, according to the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, a government-appointed agency made up of environmentalists, scientific experts and business representatives.

"Melting permafrost is undermining building foundations and threatens roads, pipelines and communications infrastructure. Storm surges, wildfires, floods, blizzards and changing wind and snowstorm patters all pose risks to remote and vulnerable communities," the report says.

Federal budget cuts have hurt Canada's ability to monitor environmental changes in the North and to tailor that information to the design of infrastructure; there is no central agency to gather and share information that comes in from remote locations; and there is no "high-level signal" from the government to northern communities and industries that adapting to a changing climate is a priority worthy of urgent action.

The report says Ottawa should take these potentially costly gaps into account as it moves ahead with a new Northern Strategy that focuses on defending Canadian sovereignty, social and economic development, environmental protection and improved governance.

Northerners are learning lessons about government shortfalls the hard way as they wait to see the effects of this new approach.

At the Diavik diamond mine north of Yellowknife, company officials were forced in 2006 to airlift heavy equipment that was "stranded" at the mine site when the single ice road that the firm relies on for transportation didn't freeze thick enough to support its vehicles. If ice roads regularly can't be crossed, the prices of food and other supplies for remote communities-- already many times more expensive than in the southern parts of Canada — are also going to dramatically rise, the report says.

Tuktoyaktuk, sitting on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, has already relocated a school and an RCMP detachment at great expense after its shore was washed away. The report says the town of 1,000 people has been losing about six feet of shore each year because of warming conditions, and has spent $6-million in the last decade trying to rebuild its shoreline with rocks.

The waste dumps of more than 50 abandoned mines throughout the North, known as tailings ponds, were built on the premise that the permafrost would be around to contain the toxic sludge for many years to come.

"About half of Canada's permafrost zones are moderately or highly sensitive to thawing in warmer climate conditions," the report says.

"Given the extensive exploration underway in all three territories ... the numbers of this infrastructure type are likely to increase markedly over the next few years."

If those dump sites leak into the thawing ground, the possibility of environmental disaster is high. The need for action is urgent given that 12 mining projects are currently under review and there are more than 200 sites being explored by mining firms.

"Canada's North is the frontline in the global climate change challenge. Nowhere else in our country, or on our planet, are the early effects of climate change so plain. Nowhere else in Canada are communities and traditional ways of life so clearly at risk due to climate change," the report says.

"Making the roads we travel, the buildings we work and live in, the pipelines that carry our energy and wealth ... secure in the face of looming climate change is not just a challenge to Canada's North, but an obligation to us all."

Link:  http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/730922--global-warming-challenging-northern-infrastructure-report

Jeffrey Park, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36 (2009), A re-evaluation of the coherence between global-average atmospheric CO2 and temperatures at interannual time scales

Geophysical Research Letters, 36 (2009) L22704; DOI: 10.1029/2009GL040975

A re-evaluation of the coherence between global-average atmospheric CO₂ and temperatures at interannual time scales 

A re-evaluation of the coherence between global-average atmospheric CO2 and temperatures at interannual time scales

Jeffrey Park

Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, U.S.A.

Abstract

Frequency-dependent coherence between atmospheric CO₂ and historical temperatures reveals climate feedbacks within Earth's carbon cycle. Coherence between interannual fluctuations in global-average temperature and atmospheric CO₂ has changed over time. Since 1979, at Mauna Loa and other observation sites, interannual coherence exhibits a 90° phase lag that suggests a direct correlation between temperatures and the time-derivative of CO₂. The coherence transition can be explained if the response time of CO₂ to a global temperature fluctuation has lengthened from 6 months to at least 15 months. A longer response time may reflect saturation of the oceanic carbon sink, but a transient shift in ocean circulation may play a role. Coherent annual-cycle fluctuations in CO₂ and temperature are evident in the 1958–1988 time series, but not since 1979. Coherence of interannual CO₂ variations with gridpoint temperature anomalies are strongest in the tropical oceans.

Link to abstract:  http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040975.shtml

Jeffrey Park: Oceans absorbing carbon dioxide more slowly, scientist finds

Oceans absorbing carbon dioxide more slowly, scientist finds

ScienceDaily, November 27, 2009 — The world's oceans are absorbing less carbon dioxide (CO₂), a Yale geophysicist has found after pooling data taken over the past 50 years. With the oceans currently absorbing over 40% of the CO₂ emitted by human activity, this could quicken the pace of climate change, according to the study, which appears in the November 25, 2009, issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

Jeffrey Park, professor of geology and geophysics and director of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, used data collected from atmospheric observing stations in Hawaii, Alaska and Antarctica to study the relationship between fluctuations in global temperatures and the global abundance of atmospheric CO₂ on interannual (one to 10 years) time scales. A similar study from 20 years ago found a five-month lag between interannual temperature changes and the resulting changes in CO₂ levels. Park has now found that this lag has increased from five to at least 15 months.

"No one had updated the analysis from 20 years ago," Park said. "I expected to find some change in the lag time, but the shift was surprisingly large. This is a big change."

With a longer lag time, atmospheric CO₂ can no longer adjust fully to cyclical temperature fluctuations before the next cycle begins, suggesting that the oceans have lost some of their ability to absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere. Weaker CO₂ absorption could be caused by a change in ocean circulation or just an overall increase in the surface temperature. "Think of the oceans like soda," Park said. "Warm cola holds less fizz," Park said. "The same thing happens as the oceans warm up."

Increases in CO₂ levels have tended to precede increases in temperature over the past century, with the human influence on climate accumulating over many decades of burning fossil fuels and clearing forests. However, this relationship is reversed on interannual time scales, with multiyear temperature cycles leading multiyear cycles in CO₂ levels.

Park found particularly strong correlations between sea-surface temperatures and CO₂ levels in tropical ocean areas. Conversely, in places with a lot of trees and other biomass to soak up much of the atmospheric CO₂, there was little or no correlation between temperature and CO₂ on interannual time scales. In those places, such as the vast forests of North America and Eurasia, a large annual CO₂ cycle synchronizes with the seasonal growth and decay of plants.

"Researchers have used climate models that suggest the oceans have been absorbing less CO₂, but this is the first study to quantify the change directly using observations," Park said. "It strengthens the projection that the oceans will not absorb as much of our future CO₂ emissions, and that the pace of future climate change will quicken." 

Park, Jeffrey. 2009. A re-evaluation of the coherence between global-average atmospheric CO2 and temperatures at interannual time scales. Geophysical Research Letters, 36(22) L22704; DOI: 10.1029/2009GL040975

Link:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091124140957.htm

The Manufactured Doubt industry and the hacked email controversy

The Manufactured Doubt industry and the hacked email controversy

Posted by: JeffMasters, 3:07 PM GMT on November 25, 2009

 

In 1954, the tobacco industry realized it had a serious problem. Thirteen scientific studies had been published over the preceding five years linking smoking to lung cancer. With the public growing increasingly alarmed about the health effects of smoking, the tobacco industry had to move quickly to protect profits and stem the tide of increasingly worrisome scientific news. Big Tobacco turned to one the world's five largest public relations firms, Hill and Knowlton, to help out. Hill and Knowlton designed a brilliant Public Relations (PR) campaign to convince the public that smoking is not dangerous. They encouraged the tobacco industry to set up their own research organization, the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR), which would produce science favorable to the industry, emphasize doubt in all the science linking smoking to lung cancer, and question all independent research unfavorable to the tobacco industry. The CTR did a masterful job at this for decades, significantly delaying and reducing regulation of tobacco products. George Washington University epidemiologist David Michaels, who is President Obama's nominee to head the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), wrote a meticulously researched 2008 book called, Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. In the book, he wrote: "the industry understood that the public is in no position to distinguish good science from bad. Create doubt, uncertainty, and confusion. Throw mud at the anti-smoking research under the assumption that some of it is bound to stick. And buy time, lots of it, in the bargain". The title of Michaels' book comes from a 1969 memo from a tobacco company executive: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy."

Hill and Knowlton, on behalf of the tobacco industry, had founded the "Manufactured Doubt" industry.

The Manufactured Doubt industry grows up
As the success of Hill and Knowlton's brilliant Manufactured Doubt campaign became apparent, other industries manufacturing dangerous products hired the firm to design similar PR campaigns. In 1967, Hill and Knowlton helped asbestos industry giant Johns-Manville set up the Asbestos Information Association (AIA). The official-sounding AIA produced "sound science" that questioned the link between asbestos and lung diseases (asbestos currently kills 90,000 people per year, according to the World Health Organization). Manufacturers of lead, vinyl chloride, beryllium, and dioxin products also hired Hill and Knowlton to devise product defense strategies to combat the numerous scientific studies showing that their products were harmful to human health.

By the 1980s, the Manufactured Doubt industry gradually began to be dominated by more specialized "product defense" firms and free enterprise "think tanks". Michaels wrote in Doubt is Their Product about the specialized "product defense" firms: "Having cut their teeth manufacturing uncertainty for Big Tobacco, scientists at ChemRisk, the Weinberg Group, Exponent, Inc., and other consulting firms now battle the regulatory agencies on behalf of the manufacturers of benzene, beryllium, chromium, MTBE, perchlorates, phthalates, and virtually every other toxic chemical in the news today....Public health interests are beside the point. This is science for hire, period, and it is extremely lucrative".

Joining the specialized "product defense" firms were the so-called "think tanks." These front groups received funding from manufacturers of dangerous products and produced "sound science" in support of their funders' products, in the name of free enterprise and free markets. Think tanks such as the George C. Marshall Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, and Dr. Fred Singer's SEPP (Science and Environmental Policy Project) have all been active for decades in the Manufactured Doubt business, generating misleading science and false controversy to protect the profits of their clients who manufacture dangerous products.

The ozone hole battle
In 1975, the chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) industry realized it had a serious problem. The previous year, Sherry Rowland and Mario Molina, chemists at the University of California, Irvine, had published a scientific paper warning that human-generated CFCs could cause serious harm to Earth's protective ozone layer. They warned that the loss of ozone would significantly increase the amount of skin-damaging ultraviolet UV-B light reaching the surface, greatly increasing skin cancer and cataracts. The loss of stratospheric ozone could also significantly cool the stratosphere, potentially causing destructive climate change. Although no stratospheric ozone loss had been observed yet, CFCs should be banned, they said. The CFC industry hired Hill and Knowlton to fight back. As is essential in any Manufactured Doubt campaign, Hill and Knowlton found a respected scientist to lead the effort--noted British scientist Richard Scorer, a former editor of the International Journal of Air Pollution and author of several books on pollution. In 1975, Scorer went on a month-long PR tour, blasting Molina and Rowland, calling them "doomsayers," and remarking, "The only thing that has been accumulated so far is a number of theories." To complement Scorer's efforts, Hill and Knowlton unleashed their standard package of tricks learned from decades of serving the tobacco industry:

- Launch a public relations campaign disputing the evidence.

- Predict dire economic consequences, and ignore the cost benefits.

- Use non-peer reviewed scientific publications or industry-funded scientists who don't publish original peer-reviewed scientific work to support your point of view.

- Trumpet discredited scientific studies and myths supporting your point of view as scientific fact.

- Point to the substantial scientific uncertainty, and the certainty of economic loss if immediate action is taken.

- Use data from a local area to support your views, and ignore the global evidence.

- Disparage scientists, saying they are playing up uncertain predictions of doom in order to get research funding.

- Disparage environmentalists, claiming they are hyping environmental problems in order to further their ideological goals.

- Complain that it is unfair to require regulatory action in the U.S., as it would put the nation at an economic disadvantage compared to the rest of the world.

- Claim that more research is needed before action should be taken.

- Argue that it is less expensive to live with the effects.

The campaign worked, and CFC regulations were delayed many years, as Hill and Knowlton boasted in internal documents. The PR firm also took credit for keeping public opinion against buying CFC aerosols to a minimum, and helping change the editorial positions of many newspapers.

In the end, Hill and Knowlton's PR campaign casting doubt on the science of ozone depletion by CFCs turned out to have no merit. Molina and Rowland were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1995. The citation from the Nobel committee credited them with helping to deliver the Earth from a potential environmental disaster.

The battle over global warming
In 1988, the fossil fuel industry realized it had a serious problem. The summer of 1988 had shattered century-old records for heat and drought in the U.S., and NASA's Dr. James Hansen, one of the foremost climate scientists in the world, testified before Congress that human-caused global warming was partially to blame. A swelling number of scientific studies were warning of the threat posed by human-cause climate change, and that consumption of fossil fuels needed to slow down. Naturally, the fossil fuel industry fought back. They launched a massive PR campaign that continues to this day, led by the same think tanks that worked to discredit the ozone depletion theory. The George C. Marshall Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, and Dr. Fred Singer's SEPP (Science and Environmental Policy Project) have all been key players in both fights, and there are numerous other think tanks involved. Many of the same experts who had worked hard to discredit the science of the well-established link between cigarette smoke and cancer, the danger the CFCs posed to the ozone layer, and the dangers to health posed by a whole host of toxic chemicals, were now hard at work to discredit the peer-reviewed science supporting human-caused climate change.

As is the case with any Manufactured Doubt campaign, a respected scientist was needed to lead the battle. One such scientist was Dr. Frederick Seitz, a physicist who in the 1960s chaired the organization many feel to be the most prestigious science organization in the world--the National Academy of Sciences. Seitz took a position as a paid consultant for R.J. Reynolds tobacco company beginning in 1978, so was well-versed in the art of Manufactured Doubt. According to the excellent new book, Climate Cover-up, written by desmogblog.com co-founder James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore, over a 10-year period Seitz was responsible for handing out $45 million in tobacco company money to researchers who overwhelmingly failed to link tobacco to anything the least bit negative. Seitz received over $900,000 in compensation for his efforts. He later became a founder of the George C. Marshall Institute, and used his old National Academy of Sciences affiliation to lend credibility to his attacks on global warming science until his death in 2008 at the age of ninety-six. It was Seitz who launched the "Oregon Petition," which contains the signatures of more than 34,000 scientists saying global warming is probably natural and not a crisis. The petition is a regular feature of the Manufactured Doubt campaign against human-caused global warming. The petition lists the "Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine" as its parent organization. According to Climate Cover-up, the Institute is a farm shed situated a couple of miles outside of Cave Junction, OR (population 17,000). The Institute lists seven faculty members, two of whom are dead, and has no ongoing research and no students. It publishes creationist-friendly homeschooler curriculums books on surviving nuclear war. The petition was sent to scientists and was accompanied by a 12-page review printed in exactly the same style used for the prestigious journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A letter from Seitz, who is prominently identified as a former National Academy of Sciences president, accompanied the petition and review. Naturally, many recipients took this to be an official National Academy of Sciences communication, and signed the petition as a result. The National Academy issued a statement in April 2008, clarifying that it had not issued the petition, and that its position on global warming was the opposite. The petition contains no contact information for the signers, making it impossible to verify. In its August 2006 issue, Scientific American presented its attempt to verify the petition. They found that the scientists were almost all people with undergraduate degrees, with no record of research and no expertise in climatology. Scientific American contacted a random sample of 26 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to have a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Eleven said they agreed with the petition, six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember the petition, one had died, and five did not respond.

I could say much more about the Manufactured Doubt campaign being waged against the science of climate change and global warming, but it would fill an entire book. In fact, it has, and I recommend reading Climate Cover-up to learn more. The main author, James Hoggan, owns a Canadian public relations firm, and is intimately familiar with how public relations campaigns work. Suffice to say, the Manufactured Doubt campaign against global warming--funded by the richest corporations in world history--is probably the most extensive and expensive such effort ever. We don't really know how much money the fossil fuel industry has pumped into its Manufactured Doubt campaign, since they don't have to tell us. The website exxonsecrets.org estimates that ExxonMobil alone spent $20 million between 1998 - 2007 on the effort. An analysis done by Desmogblog's Kevin Grandia done in January 2009 found that skeptical global warming content on the web had doubled over the past year. Someone is paying for all that content.

Lobbyists, not skeptical scientists
The history of the Manufactured Doubt industry provides clear lessons in evaluating the validity of their attacks on the published peer-reviewed climate change science. One should trust that the think tanks and allied "skeptic" bloggers such as Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit and Anthony Watts of Watts Up With That will give information designed to protect the profits of the fossil fuel industry. Yes, there are respected scientists with impressive credentials that these think tanks use to voice their views, but these scientists have given up their objectivity and are now working as lobbyists. I don't like to call them skeptics, because all good scientists should be skeptics. Rather, the think tanks scientists are contrarians, bent on discrediting an accepted body of published scientific research for the benefit of the richest and most powerful corporations in history. Virtually none of the "sound science" they are pushing would ever get published in a serious peer-reviewed scientific journal, and indeed the contrarians are not scientific researchers. They are lobbyists. Many of them seem to believe their tactics are justified, since they are fighting a righteous war against eco-freaks determined to trash the economy.

I will give a small amount of credit to some of their work, however. I have at times picked up some useful information from the contrarians, and have used it to temper my blogs to make them more balanced. For example, I no longer rely just on the National Climatic Data Center for my monthly climate summaries, but instead look at data from NASA and the UK HADCRU source as well. When the Hurricane Season of 2005 brought unfounded claims that global warming was to blame for Hurricane Katrina, and a rather flawed paper by researchers at Georgia Tech showing a large increase in global Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, I found myself agreeing with the contrarians' analysis of the matter, and my blogs at the time reflected this.

The contrarians and the hacked CRU emails
A hacker broke into an email server at the Climate Research Unit of the UK's University of East Anglia last week and posted ten years worth of private email exchanges between leading scientists who've published research linking humans to climate change. Naturally, the contrarians have seized upon this golden opportunity, and are working hard to discredit several of these scientists. You'll hear claims by some contrarians that the emails discovered invalidate the whole theory of human-caused global warming. Well, all I can say is, consider the source. We can trust the contrarians to say whatever is in the best interests of the fossil fuel industry. What I see when I read the various stolen emails and explanations posted at Realclimate.org is scientists acting as scientists--pursuing the truth. I can see no clear evidence that calls into question the scientific validity of the research done by the scientists victimized by the stolen emails. There is no sign of a conspiracy to alter data to fit a pre-conceived ideological view. Rather, I see dedicated scientists attempting to make the truth known in face of what is probably the world's most pervasive and best-funded disinformation campaign against science in history. Even if every bit of mud slung at these scientists were true, the body of scientific work supporting the theory of human-caused climate change--which spans hundreds of thousands of scientific papers written by tens of thousands of scientists in dozens of different scientific disciplines--is too vast to be budged by the flaws in the works of the three or four scientists being subject to the fiercest attacks.

Exaggerated claims by environmentalists
Climate change contrarians regularly complain about false and misleading claims made by ideologically-driven environmental groups regarding climate change, and the heavy lobbying these groups do to influence public opinion. Such efforts confuse the real science and make climate change seem more dangerous than it really is, the contrarians argue. To some extent, these concerns are valid. In particular, environmentalists are too quick to blame any perceived increase in hurricane activity on climate change, when such a link has yet to be proven. While Al Gore's movie mostly had good science, I thought he botched the treatment of hurricanes as well, and the movie looked too much like a campaign ad. In general, environmental groups present better science than the think tanks do, but you're still better off getting your climate information directly from the scientists doing the research, via the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Another good source is Bob Henson's Rough Guide to Climate Change, aimed at people with high-school level science backgrounds.

Let's look at the amount of money being spent on lobbying efforts by the fossil fuel industry compared to environmental groups to see their relative influence. According to Center for Public Integrity, there are currently 2,663 climate change lobbyists working on Capitol Hill. That's five lobbyists for every member of Congress. Climate lobbyists working for major industries outnumber those working for environmental, health, and alternative energy groups by more than seven to one. For the second quarter of 2009, here is a list compiled by the Center for Public Integrity of all the oil, gas, and coal mining groups that spent more than $100,000 on lobbying (this includes all lobbying, not just climate change lobbying):

• Chevron $6,485,000
• Exxon Mobil $4,657,000
• BP America $4,270,000
• ConocoPhillips $3,300,000
• American Petroleum Institute $2,120,000
• Marathon Oil Corporation $2,110,000
• Peabody Investments Corp $1,110,000
• Bituminous Coal Operators Association $980,000
• Shell Oil Company $950,000
• Arch Coal, Inc $940,000
• Williams Companies $920,000
• Flint Hills Resources $820,000
• Occidental Petroleum Corporation $794,000
• National Mining Association $770,000
• American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity $714,000
• Devon Energy $695,000
• Sunoco $585,000
• Independent Petroleum Association of America $434,000
• Murphy Oil USA, Inc $430,000
• Peabody Energy $420,000
• Rio Tinto Services, Inc $394,000
• America's Natural Gas Alliance $300,000
• Interstate Natural Gas Association of America $290,000
• El Paso Corporation $261,000
• Spectra Energy $279,000
• National Propane Gas Association $242,000
• National Petrochemical & Refiners Association $240,000
• Nexen, Inc $230,000
• Denbury Resources $200,000
• Nisource, Inc $180,000
• Petroleum Marketers Association of America $170,000
• Valero Energy Corporation $160,000
• Bituminous Coal Operators Association $131,000
• Natural Gas Supply Association $114,000
• Tesoro Companies $119,000

Here are the environmental groups that spent more than $100,000:

• Environmental Defense Action Fund $937,500
• Nature Conservancy $650,000
• Natural Resources Defense Council $277,000
• Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund $243,000
• National Parks and Conservation Association $175,000
• Sierra Club $120,000
• Defenders of Wildlife $120,000
• Environmental Defense Fund $100,000

If you add it all up, the fossil fuel industry outspent the environmental groups by $36.8 million to $2.6 million in the second quarter, a factor of 14 to 1. To be fair, not all of that lobbying is climate change lobbying, but that affects both sets of numbers. The numbers don't even include lobbying money from other industries lobbying against climate change, such as the auto industry, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, etc.

Corporate profits vs. corporate social responsibility
I'm sure I've left the impression that I disapprove of what the Manufactured Doubt industry is doing. On the contrary, I believe that for the most part, the corporations involved have little choice under the law but to protect their profits by pursuing Manufactured Doubt campaigns, as long as they are legal. The law in all 50 U.S. states has a provision similar to Maine's section 716, "The directors and officers of a corporation shall exercise their powers and discharge their duties with a view to the interest of the corporation and of the shareholders". There is no clause at the end that adds, "...but not at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public safety, the communities in which the corporation operates, or the dignity of employees." The law makes a company's board of directors legally liable for "breach of fiduciary responsibility" if they knowingly manage a company in a way that reduces profits. Shareholders can and have sued companies for being overly socially responsible, and not paying enough attention to the bottom line. We can reward corporations that are managed in a socially responsible way with our business and give them incentives to act thusly, but there are limits to how far Corporate Socially Responsibility (CSR) can go. For example, car manufacturer Henry Ford was successfully sued by stockholders in 1919 for raising the minimum wage of his workers to $5 per day. The courts declared that, while Ford's humanitarian sentiments about his employees were nice, his business existed to make profits for its stockholders.

So, what is needed is a fundamental change to the laws regarding the purpose of a corporation, or new regulations forcing corporations to limit Manufactured Doubt campaigns. Legislation has been introduced in Minnesota to create a new section of law for an alternative kind of corporation, the SR (Socially Responsible) corporation, but it would be a long uphill battle to get such legislation passed in all 50 states. Increased regulation limiting Manufactured Doubt campaigns is possible to do for drugs and hazardous chemicals--Doubt is Their Product has some excellent suggestions on that, with the first principle being, "use the best science available; do not demand certainty where it does not and cannot exist." However, I think such legislation would be difficult to implement for environmental crises such as global warming. In the end, we're stuck with the current system, forced to make critical decisions affecting all of humanity in the face of the Frankenstein monster our corporate system of law has created--the most vigorous and well-funded disinformation campaign against science ever conducted.

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone, and I'll be back Monday--the last day of hurricane season--with a review of the hurricane season of 2009.

Link:  http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1389

CNN: Sea level rise could cost port cities $28 trillion

Sea level rise could cost port cities $28 trillion

The melting of ice caps in Greenland and the Antarctic could mean sea levels rising by 0.5 meters, the report says.


Possible rise in sea levels by 0.5 meters by 2050 could put at risk more than $28 trillion worth of assets, report says

by Peter Wilkinson, CNN, November 23, 2009, London, England (CNN)-- A possible rise in sea levels by 0.5 meters by 2050 could put at risk more than $28 trillion worth of assets in the world's largest coastal cities, according to a report compiled for the insurance industry.

The value of infrastructure exposed in so-called "port mega-cities," urban conurbations with more than 10 million people, is just $3 trillion at present.

The rise in potential losses would be a result of expected greater urbanization and increased exposure of this greater population to catastrophic surge events occurring once every 100 years caused by rising sea levels and higher temperatures.

The report, released on Monday by WWF and financial services Allianz, concludes that the world's diverse regions and ecosystems are close to temperature thresholds -- or "tipping points."

Any one of these surge events could unleash devastating environmental, social and economic changes amid a higher urban population.

According to the report, carried out by the UK-based Tyndall Centre, the impacts of passing "Tipping Points" on the livelihoods of people and economic assets have been underestimated.

Global temperatures have already risen by at least 0.7 °C and the report says a further rise by 2-3 °C in the second half of the century is likely unless deep cuts in emissions are put in place before 2015.

The consequent melting of the Greenland and the West Antarctic Ice Shield could lead to one such tipping point scenario, possibly a sea level rise of up to 0.5 meters by 2050.

The report focuses on regions and phenomena where such events might be expected to cause significant environmental impacts within the first half of the century.

For example a hurricane in New York, which could cost $1 trillion now, would mean a $5 trillion insurance bill by the middle of the century, the report adds.

"If we don't take immediate action against climate change, we are in grave danger of disruptive and devastating changes," said Kim Carstensen, the Head of WWF Global Climate Initiative.

"Reaching a tipping point means losing something forever. This must be a strong argument for world leaders to agree a strong and binding climate deal in Copenhagen in December."

Link:  http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/11/23/climate.report.wwf.allianz/index.html

Michael Mann Responds to CRU Hack

Michael Mann Responds to CRU Hack 

by DarkSyde, Daily Kos,  

Thu Nov 26, 2009 at 02:30:04 PM PST

Rush Limbaugh says the climate scientists should be 'drawn and quartered.' Glenn Beck touts stolen emails as evidence for a 'scam,' and the Moonie Times says, well who the hell cares. The Moonies are down to 45,000 uber-wingnut subscribers. Last week we explained the story behind one of the stolen emails. Paleo-climatologist Micheal Mann of Realclimate, who was intimately involved in the issue discussed in some of the emails in question, was kind enough to take time out of his holiday week to provide further clarification.

DS: When Phil Jones wrote in 1999, "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline," what did he mean?

Michael Mann: Phil Jones has publicly gone on record indicating that he was using the term "trick" in the sense often used by people, as in "bag of tricks", or "a trick to solving this problem ...", or "trick of the trade." In referring to our 1998 Nature article, he was pointing out simply the following: our proxy record ended in 1980 (when the proxy data set we were using terminates) so, it didn't include the warming of the past two decades. In our Nature article we therefore also showed the post-1980 instrumental data that was then available through 1995, so that the reconstruction could be viewed in the context of recent instrumental temperatures. The separate curves for the reconstructed temperature series and for the instrumental data were clearly labeled.

The reference to "hide the decline" is referring to work that I am not directly associated with, but instead work by Keith Briffa and colleagues. The "decline" refers to a well-known decline in the response of only a certain type of tree-ring data (high-latitude tree-ring density measurements collected by Briffa and colleagues) to temperatures after about 1960. In their original article in Nature in 1998, Briffa and colleagues are very clear that the post-1960 data in their tree-ring dataset should not be used in reconstructing temperatures due to a problem known as the "divergence problem" where their tree-ring data decline in their response to warming temperatures after about 1960.  "Hide" was therefore a poor word choice, since the existence of this decline, and the reason not to use the post 1960 data because of it, was not only known, but was indeed the point emphasized in the original Briffa et al Nature article. There is a summary of that article available on this NOAA site.

There have been many articles since then trying to understand the reason for this problem, which applies largely to only one very specific type of proxy data (tree-ring wood density data from higher latitudes).

As for my research in this area more generally, there was a study commissioned by the National Academies of Science back in 2006 to assess the validity of paleoclimate reconstructions in general, and my own work in specific. A summary of that report, and link to it, is available here. And the New York Times (6/22/06), in an article about the report entitled "Science Panel Backs Study on Warming Climate" had the following things to say:

A controversial paper asserting that recent warming in the Northern Hemisphere was probably unrivaled for 1,000 years was endorsed today, with a few reservations, by a panel convened by the nation's preeminent scientific body...At a news conference at the headquarters of the National Academies, several members of the panel reviewing the study said they saw no sign that its authors had intentionally chosen data sets or methods to get a desired result. "I saw nothing that spoke to me of any manipulation," said one member, Peter Bloomfield, a statistics professor at North Carolina State University. He added that his impression was the study was "an honest attempt to construct a data analysis procedure."

DS: You wrote, "Perhaps we'll do a simple update to the Yamal post. As we all know, this isn't about truth at all, its about plausibly deniable accusations," what's the story there?

MM: This refers to a particular tree-ring reconstruction of Keith Briffa’s. These tree-ring data are just one of numerous tree-ring records used to reconstruct past climate. Briffa and collaborators were criticized (unfairly in the view of many of my colleagues and me) by a contrarian climate change website based on what we felt to be a misrepresentation of their work.  A further discussion can be found on the site "RealClimate.org" that I co-founded and help run. It is quite clear from the context of my comments that what I was saying was that the attacks against Briffa and colleagues were not about truth but instead about making plausibly deniable accusations against him and his colleagues.

We attempted to correct the misrepresentations of Keith's work in the "RealClimate article mentioned above, and we invited him and his co-author Tim Osborn to participate actively in responding to any issues raised in the comment thread of the article which he did.

DS: Phil Jones again wrote "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He's not in at the moment -minor family crisis. Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise."

MM: This was simply an email that was sent to me, and can in no way be taken to indicate approval of, let alone compliance with, the request. I did not delete any such email correspondences.

DS: You wrote, "I think we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal"?

MM: This comment was in response to a very specific incident regarding a paper by Soon and Baliunas published in the journal "Climate Research". An editor of the journal, with rather contrarian views on climate change, appeared to several of us to be gaming the system to let through papers that clearly did not meet the standards of quality for the journal. The chief editor (Hans von Storch), and half of the editorial board, resigned in protest of the publication of the paper, after the publisher refused to allow von Storch the opportunity to write an editorial about how the peer review process had failed in this instance.

Please see e.g. this post at RealClimate. Especially the 3rd bullet item -- see the various links, which lead to letters from chief editor Von Storch, and an article by the journalist Chris Mooney about the incident.

Scientists all choose journals in which we publish and we all recommend to each other and our students which journals they should publish in. People are free to publish wherever they can and are free to recommend some journals over others. For an example of this behavior in daily life, people make choices and recommendations all the time in their purchasing habits. It is highly unusual for a chief editor and half of an editorial board to resign and that indicates a journal in turmoil that should possibly be avoided. Similarly, authors are allowed to cite any papers they want, although usually the editor will note incorrect or insufficient citing.

I support the publication of "skeptical" papers that meet the basic standards of scientific quality and merit. I myself have published scientific work that has been considered by some as representing a skeptical point of view on matters relating to climate change (for example, my work demonstrating the importance of natural oscillations of the climate on multidecadal timescales). Skepticism in the truest scientific sense of the word is good and is indeed essential to science.  Skepticism should not be confused, however, with contrarianism that does not meet the basic standards of scientific inquiry.

DS: "It would be nice to try to contain the putative "MWP".

MM: In this email, I was discussing the importance of extending paleoclimate reconstructions far enough back in time that we could determine the onset and duration of the putative "Medieval Warm Period". Since this describes an interval in time, it has to have both a beginning and end. But reconstructions that only go back 1000 years, as most reconstructions did at the time, didn't reach far enough back to isolate the beginning of this period, i.e. they are not long enough to "contain" the interval in question. In more recent work, such as the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007, the paleoclimate reconstructions stretch nearly 2000 years back in time, which is indeed far enough back in time to "contain" or "isolate" this period in time.

Link:   http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/11/26/807934/-Michael-Mann-Responds-to-CRU-Hack

"Blessed Unrest" by Paul Hawken: book review by Laurie Dougherty of the "Climate Tuva or Bust" blog

Dear Readers,

Please feel free to make comments on this review at the Climate Tuva or Bust blog -- a new blog being set up by a group of people who have been discussing their ideas about our situation as concerned human beings on this planet who feel the need to talk about these ideas with others of like mind, hoping to increase the flow of conversation about where society might go in the coming years.  We are all in this together and there is a need to maintain connections and dialogue because in the coming years things are likely to become more chaotic.  I know I am not expressing this very well, but the more we remain connected and less isolated, even though we are in many different geographic locations, the better things will be in uncertain times.

We look forward to discussions, not of the science, but of ideas for moving forward.  We are not going to be arguing -- we are going to talk respectfully about our ideas and your ideas. 

Climate Tuva or Bust is brand new, so we imagine that it will take a while to catch on, but let me just say that it is not going to be wonky or heavy, but yes, it will be thoughtful.

Please do not be shy.  We are all having thoughts about the future and what it will look like -- let's talk about them because talking exercises the mind, brings clarity to some things, and provides the foundation for developing ideas, and you all know we need this.

btw, I am the admin for that blog.  Comments are not moderated before posting, but don't worry, I will be filtering out later what needs to be filtered, so that we can have a comfortable space together.

Tenney

p.s.  to express your thoughts directly on this book review, go to:


http://climate-tuva.blogspot.com/2009/11/book-review-blessed-unrest-by-paul.html

Book review: Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken

It's fitting to be posting this review on the eve of Thanksgiving
because the book portrays many things I am thankful for.
The review is dedicated to my friend Carol Thomas
whose life is truly one of blessed unrest.*

Blessed Unrest – How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice and Beauty to the World. Paul Hawken. Penguin Books (paperback) 2008.

Blessed Unrest website (The website, hardcover book and linked video of a speech by Paul Hawken at the 2006 Bioneers conference have a different subtitle than the paperback edition reviewed here.)
http://www.blessedunrest.com/

WiserEarth website – interactive database of 110,000+ NGOs
http://www.wiserearth.org/

Blessed Unrest originated in a motley assortment of business cards collected by Paul Hawken during hundreds of speaking engagements over the course of 15 years. As a businessman, environmentalist, author, and founder and executive director of the Natural Capital Institute, Hawken is a widely respected spokesperson for socially and environmentally responsible business. After his speeches, small groups would gather to ask questions, share their own insights and experiences – and exchange business cards. In the course of many years and many miles and many, many business cards, Hawken realized that truly there was a movement of unrecognized proportions functioning under the radar screen of general consciousness, unacknowledged by the mainstream media except in isolated reporting on this or that group, this or that issue; a movement just beginning to become conscious of itself, to link up kindred efforts through networking and ever-shifting alliances.

At the Natural Capital Institute Hawken brought together a team of researchers to create a digital database of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and CBOs (community-based organizations) in an attempt to scope out the nature and extent of this civil society movement. Now online with search capabilities on a wide array of categories and keywords, built-in networking and user-enabled interaction similar to Wikipedia, the database WiserEarth contains at this time over 110,000 organizations and thousands of participating individuals. Hawken considers WiserEarth to be the tip of a much greater iceberg.

Blessed Unrest the book is also a result of that research, an attempt not to catalog, but to characterize and place this movement in context. Hawken first defines three broad sectors of activity: social justice, environmentalism, and indigenous culture. (A very large Appendix defines dozens of subcategories.) Throughout the book Hawken draws on images and metaphors of organic life. The movement is an amalgam of cell-like entities, each with a unique function, each seeking to link its efforts to a larger purpose. The movement evolves, adapts, filling in niches of need and opportunity. The movement is an immune system for the planet, complex, responsive, vigilant and protective of earth and its inhabitants in the face of the corporate global juggernaut marauding across the world without accountability, without any ethic except maximizing profit.

Hawken is a businessman. He is not anti-business, but he staunchly opposes corporate recklessness and exploitation, whether of people or the environment, and applauds those who demand – and practice – corporate responsibility and respect for human and ecological diversity and well-being. If organic life is a metaphor for the NGO movement, it also provides a model for how to do business. Drawing on several threads in ecosystem research, in the final chapter “Restoration” Hawken identifies three core principles that mimic natural ecosystems and which, practiced together, can generate clean, green eco-industrial systems: 1) “cradle to cradle” – recycling end products into new production rather than using up virgin resources; 2) “waste is food” – using the waste and byproducts from one process as source material for another process; 3) operating on current solar income.

Blessed Unrest nourishes hope, encourages connection and shines a well-deserved light on the intertwined movements for social justice, environmental sustainability, and cultural diversity. It challenges ideological rigidity with its picture of grassroots self-organizing activity. Paraphrasing an email he received from Wolfgang Sachs, Hawken says: “Some people think the movement is defined primarily by what it is against, but the language of the movement is first and foremost about keeping the conversation going, because ideas that inform it never end:  growth without inequality, wealth without plunder, work without exploitation, a future without fear.”

I’ve been an activist off and on since the late 1960s. I’ve been involved in my share of struggling non-profits, small collectives and committees from PTA bake sales to Car-Free Day and 350.orgevents. I’ve seen – and sometimes been a part of – more factional discord and broken alliances than is comfortable to recollect. Sometimes I get tired of a tendency toward dogmatism on one hand or lack of coherent purpose on the other; sometimes I get depressed by the scale of the problems we face or terrified by what the future may portend; sometimes I get lazy or overwhelmed by life’s circumstances and just don’t do much. As Hawken puts it, “...I am not questioning whether the human condition permeates the movement. It does so, most surely. Clay feet march in all protests.”

But sometimes – at a meeting or a conference or a march or a rally – I look around and see what else Paul Hawken sees: all kinds of people, young and old, men and women, kids and babies, from a myriad of racial and ethnic groups and walks of life. Turtles and Teamsters united at the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle (at which thousands of people participated peacefully). Banners for all kinds of causes and two little girls with a handmade sign “George you are soooooooo embarrassing us” at a peace march in DC. Scientists, writers, politicians and other citizens gathered on Boston Common to express concern about climate change. I hear people speaking out, in a multitude of accents, with polished eloquence and with heartfelt sincerity. I meet urban farmers who teach women from a homeless shelter and inner city kids to grow healthy food on remediated vacant lots; advocates for sustainable transportation who tirelessly attend hearings and planning meetings; members of community land trusts that provide affordable housing; and conservation land trusts that preserve ecosystems and habitats acre by acre, stream by stream.

These moments are magic, not in any supernatural sense, but for the connection with the deep and vibrant harmony this movement embodies. There is a fundamental truth in the currently popular slogan: “This is what democracy looks like.” In his introduction to the book’s Appendix Hawken says: “It is axiomatic that we are at a threshold in human existence, a fundamental change in our relationship to nature and each other. We are moving from a world created by privilege to a world created by community... The world is a system, and it will soon be a very different world, driven by millions of communities who believe that democracy and restoration are grassroots movements that connect us to values that we hold in common.”

I read this book during the final days of the 2008 presidential campaign. I couldn’t help but think that there is something very fitting and resonant in the fact that Barack Obama cut his political teeth as a community organizer in the blessed unrest of the movement for social justice. The administration’s progress has not been smooth. President Obama inherited many intractable problems. His organizer’s instinct to reach across partisan divides has been rebuffed and counter-movements have erupted. This too is what democracy looks like – a clash and clamor of ideas and interests. In this climate of crisis and shifting political winds it is all the more important to keep faith with those who share our values and our visions and who strive and struggle to build that different world created by community rather than privilege.

*In this spirit I lovingly dedicate this review to Carol Thomas whose life is truly one of blessed unrest. I just learned that Carol will receive the Quiet Courage Award on Sunday 11/29/2009 from the Gainesville, FL, Rosa Parks Quiet Courage Committee. This award is richly deserved, although I don’t really think of Carol as quiet. Her life has been a whirlwind of meetings and rallies and picket lines, a houseful of family and friends, mixed with some jail time for non-violent resistance to injustice. This award comes 40 years after Carol left Gainesville because of threats against her life for her civil rights activities. Now retired she is back in Florida, living near Gainesville and still going strong at 75 years old. In between Carol lived in Louisville, KY, and Boston, MA. I knew her in both cities. I could never begin to keep up with her energy or match her unflagging commitment, but she is one of those people with whom I must keep faith to keep my soul intact.
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20091123/ARTICLES/911231011