http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/ Taking science by the throat... en Copyright 2009 Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:56:32 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.261 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss scienceblogs/stoathttp://feedburner.google.com <p>This stuff just gets weirder; maybe you should just read <a href="http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2009/11/in-lieu-of-actual-climate-change-post.html">Brian</a> for some sense instead. Anyway, so as <a href="http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2009/11/climate_mccarthyism_part_i_joe.shtml">the Breakness Institute</a> (-it all fits together, folks, with the Emeriti) point out, Romm has silently changed his headline from "Meet Trash Journalist Keith Kloor" to <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/11/01/keith-kloor-trash-journalist/">Meet blogger Keith Kloor</a>. But even if you don't remember the original you can tell he's done it, because of the post URL. This is all very funny, because one of the first charges that Romm throws at Kloor is having his Nature post altered.</p> <p>Meanwhile, over at the <a href="http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2009/11/climate_mccarthyism_part_i_joe.shtml">Dark Side</a>, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus try to pretend that Romm is McCarthy. This is absurd, and dull (also, presumably in an effort to wrest the irony prize away from Romm, they "out" Eli in an attempted piece of bullying). They do it, I think, not because they care, but because it serves as a smokescreen to try to defend the indefensible SuperFreako global cooling junk (reminder: <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/superfreakonomics_global_cooli.php">I junked it here</a>; Elizabeth Kolbert <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/091116crbo_books_kolbert">junks them in the New Yorker</a>, if you prefer things slower and gentler. Lots of nice quotes there).</p> <p>While I'm snarking, Romm recently wrote <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/11/08/arctic-multiyear-sea-ice-nsidc-david-barber/">about sea ice again</a> so I put in a comment inquiring if he wanted to increase our bet. Mysteriously, that comment hasn't appeared. How very strange.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/yet_more_snarking.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/RvlcBk1wrDY" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/RvlcBk1wrDY/yet_more_snarking.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/yet_more_snarking.php climate snarking Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:56:32 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/yet_more_snarking.php <p>So says <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=first-look-at-carbon-capture-and-storage">Sci-Am</a>. The article is high on pic and low on facts. Only a small percentage of the CO2 is captured - 1.5% - but that is OK, it is only a demo plant. The key question, of course, is how much extra coal is burnt to achieve this? This vital fact is not clearly provided. The 1.5% is clear <i>And now roughly 1.5 percent of the CO2 billowing from its stack is being captured...</i> but the other half is vague: <i>But the primary benefits of the chilled-ammonia process for capturing CO2 are lower electricity and steam consumption, compared with other potential technologies for carbon capture, such as using amines, another ammonia compound, which can consume as much as 30 percent of the plant's power just to run, says Shawn Black, product manager for Alstom. The goal here is to get that number down to under 15 percent.</i> So is that 15% of 1.5%, which seems to good to be true, or 15% of the total, which seems too bad to be true?</p> <p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage">Wiki</a> says <i>Capturing and compressing CO2 requires much energy and would increase the fuel needs of a coal-fired plant with CCS by 25%-40%.[2] These and other system costs are estimated to increase the cost of energy from a new power plant with CCS by 21-91%.[2] </i> That is more in line with what I was expecting. [2] turns out to be <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srccs/srccs_wholereport.pdf">a 2005 IPCC report</a>. Their table SPM 3 (yes, its true, I didn't get very far through) says that coal, sans CCS, is 0.04-0.05 $/kWh, and 0.06-0.10 with CCS and geological storage. The Sci Am article is consistent with that, saying <i>Cleaner coal will be more expensive, too, adding at least 4 cents per kilowatt-hour to the power Mountaineer produces at roughly 5 cents per kWh.</i> So I think they do mean 15% or 1.5%, but are probably being optimistic.</p> <p>Clearly, until carbon acquires a sensible price (hopefully via a carbon tax) these plants will not be commercially viable.</p> <p>In other news, <a href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/11/martian_landscapes.html">Mars looks good</a>.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/first_look_at_carbon_capture_a.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/1tfKcs-lF18" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/1tfKcs-lF18/first_look_at_carbon_capture_a.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/first_look_at_carbon_capture_a.php climate fuels Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:51:32 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/first_look_at_carbon_capture_a.php <p>Nothing new, but M pointed me at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/a/u/0/Y3dYhC_AlYw">Greenman on sea ice</a> which has a quote from Wadhams (starts around 5:00, quote around 5:20 I think) that is the "the arctic will be ice free in summer in 20 years" or words to that effect (which got noted in my <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/arctic_to_be_ice-free_in_summe.php">Arctic to be 'ice-free in summer'?</a>.</p> <p>I still don't believe it, not that that matters. Watch the video anyway for a glimpse of Wadham's / SPRI's rather haphazrd filing system.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/wadhams_on_sea_ice.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/Y4vjYeVFC5M" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/Y4vjYeVFC5M/wadhams_on_sea_ice.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/wadhams_on_sea_ice.php sea ice Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:54:27 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/wadhams_on_sea_ice.php <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/belette/4078275711/" title="DSC_3177-firework by wmconnolley, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2732/4078275711_54f125b9c4.jpg" width="500" height="334" alt="DSC_3177-firework" /></a></p> <p>To the city fireworks. Park in Mount Pleasant House and walk with the children to the river, when James and Emma and James and Amy are having a party. Arrive in time for the mulled wine to just run out; watch the fireworks (ooh! ahh! how long do these go on for?); tour of the boats (hello Lyra!); hello people; home.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/fireworks.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/wdvy-cVP4n4" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/wdvy-cVP4n4/fireworks.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/fireworks.php misc Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:08:22 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/fireworks.php <p><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/tiljander.php">Tiljander</a> and <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dea.php">od^4</a> refer.</p> <p>Over the past few days, it has become clear to me that the entire issue of "flipping" or "upside-down-ness" of the Tiljander proxy is a red-herring.</p> <p>Here's why:</p> <p>Imagine a climate proxy, accurate over the last 2kyr, that shows (for example, let us suppose) a warm period around 1000 AD and which, undisturbed, would show the recent warming. Further suppose for definiteness that this proxy is of such a nature that increases in the proxy value represent increases in temperature. Imagine this proxy is contaminated with non-climatic signal over the last 200 years, enough that the climatic signal is overwhelmed. Suppose that this contamination is of such a nature that it leads to a strong <i>decrease</I> in the values of the proxy over the last 200 years. Such a proxy (call it A), fed into the Mea algorithm, will be flipped over (due to its negative correlation with recent instrumental temperature) and will contribute a net <i>cold</i> influence around 1000 AD. How much it contributes will depend on how well it correlates to recent times.</p> <p>Now imagine a similar proxy, except the nature of the non-climatic contamination is such as to add a strong <i>increase</i> over the last 200 years. We'll call it B. This time, the proxy won't be flipped over, because its correlation to recent times will be positive. But the variance into the past will be strongly de-weighted (because we've just added an artificially large postiive trend). So it will imply not much change around AD 1000. But now we see this, we can see that the same problem applies to series A: unless, by bizarre co-incidence, the negative non-climate signal just happens to match the true positive instrumental signal, the variance in the past will be wrong. And since we've had to assume that the non-climate signal overwhelms the climate one, its likely that the recent variance will be too large, so the past will be de-weighted.</p> <p>So in either case we can see that the real problem is the addition of the non-climate signal. The flipping is of little relevance.</p> <p>Note to the Fanboyz: the <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2008/08/comment_policy.php">comment policy</a> will be vigourously applied. If you don't like it, <a href="http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/">DenialDepot</a> is your friend. Note to everyone else: don't bother reply to comments you know I'm going to delete ;-)]</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/tiljander_again.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/yx61udU9Qvk" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/yx61udU9Qvk/tiljander_again.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/tiljander_again.php climate science Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:49:52 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/tiljander_again.php <p>Its fish in a barrel time, but Corbyn seems to have had his <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/climates_magnetic_attraction.html">International Conference</a>. It doesn't look very exciting. As RB says: <i>Did the meeting live up to its billing of "refuting, totally, the CO2 theory of warming"? Hardly. Because doing that seriously doesn't mean refuting it to my satisfaction, or yours, or that of the audience scattered about the Imperial College lecture theatre on Wednesday; it means convincing the greater community of climate scientists, and that brings us back to... publishing. What some in the sceptical camp do not appear to appreciate is that published, peer-reviewed science is not only the sole way of establishing and improving theories; it's also, now, the only route to the policymakers they want to influence. Modern-day ministers and their scientifically-qualified advisers are absolutely not going to listen to half-developed, unpublished theories or complaints about fraud and conspiracies.</i></p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/corbyn_again.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/7JGbMfT3h7I" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/7JGbMfT3h7I/corbyn_again.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/corbyn_again.php Piers Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:42:14 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/corbyn_again.php <p>Yes indeed. Sorry. Weeelll. No I'm not, really.</p> <p>Anyway, so I was idly browsing my "shared by" in google reader and came across <a href="http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2009/11/01/my-rebuttal-to-romm/">My Rebuttal to Romm</a> which is by Keith Kloor who I know nothing about other than that I read Joe Romm ranting at him at some point. Kloor defends himself - read it if you're interested - but more amusing was a comment left there which said: <i>I'm not sure the whole huge post needs to be answered point-by-point. Morano feels comfortable just pointing to Romm posts and letting them speak for themselves</i> though it didn't say where this Morano linking occurred. But http://www.climatedepot.com/ (an amusing parody of <a href="http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/">denialdepot</a>) seems to do it (in the interests of sanity I haven't linked it): look at the current front page and there is a link to http://climateprogress.org/2009/11/01/keith-kloor-trash-journalist/, under what is a fairly neutral link-text. You do have to wonder, as the commentator suggests: what does it tell you about Romm that Morano is happy to link to him? </p> <p>Why does Romm hate Kloor so much? I don't know. Probably he is jealous of <a href="http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2009/10/countdown_to_copenhagen_3.html">Kloor's column in Nurture</a> :-). You'll immeadiately notice the rabid scepticism in that piece, of course.</p> <p>[While I'm here: don't miss <a href="http://mikekr.blogspot.com/2009/11/wheres-science-at-scienceblogs.html">Where's the Science at ScienceBlogs?</a> - thanks mt :-)].</p> <p>[Update: Malformed html somewhat mangled this post; fixed at 2009/11/03:18:50 UK time -W]</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/oh_no_more_snarking.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/q4ZOFr35qf4" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/q4ZOFr35qf4/oh_no_more_snarking.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/oh_no_more_snarking.php climate communication Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:06:57 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/oh_no_more_snarking.php <p><img src="http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/WindowsLiveWriter/clip_image003_2.gif" width=80 height=80 align=left> [This one for James, of course.]</p> <p>I do so love the word "seminal", it brings back my public school days. Anyway, <a href="http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2009/11/our_emissions_532151027622_and.html">Nurture writes:</a> <i>Oxford climatologist Myles Allen and collaborators, who, in April this year, published two seminal papers in Nature...</i>, which were <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7242/full/nature08019.html">Warming caused by cumulative carbon emissions towards the trillionth tonne</a> and <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7242/full/nature08017.html">Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 °C</a>. I'd say both are mere headline-grabbers of little scientific novelty and doomed to be rapidly forgotten.</p> <p>And do you know, as I was driving in this morning, I was thinking to myself " you know I really ought to try to be nicer and more positive about things".</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/the_seminal_myles_allen.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/TmblI4Rrhjc" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/TmblI4Rrhjc/the_seminal_myles_allen.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/the_seminal_myles_allen.php climate communication Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:47:59 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/the_seminal_myles_allen.php <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/belette/4064614724/" title="DSC_3091-ash-man-and-witch_crop_resize by wmconnolley, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3494/4064614724_55073e8b60_m.jpg" width="206" height="240" alt="DSC_3091-ash-man-and-witch_crop_resize" align=left /></a> Halloween. I went as the Spirit of the Night though Patrick thought I was Ash Man. It came off, fortunately.</p> <p>Sunday was wet, so over the new bridge to the <a href="http://www.museumoftechnology.com/">Museum of Technology</a> which is a rather odd place, housed in the former sewage pumping works and city rubbish burner, now housing a miscellaneous collection of engines pumps and random electical items from Cambrdige's industrial heritage; and run by a collection of enthusiasts. Its great failing (compared, say, with the FitzWilliam) is that it doesn't have a decent cafe, or indeed a cafe at all really (though they will sell you a coffee at the ticket kiosk)).</p> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/belette/4065382006/" title="DSC_3106 by wmconnolley, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3507/4065382006_1aeef028eb_m.jpg" width="161" height="240" alt="DSC_3106" align=right></a> They were hosting a <a href="http://www.teslacoiling.co.uk/events">Teslathon</a> which was an occaision for an even odder bunch of enthusiasts to gather and mostly show each other their endeavours, though incidentally the public too. I later find some stuff <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_coil">on wiki</a> about this, and find I'd guessed some of it right - the spark-gaps are to generate AC but the hair-dryer isn't there to cool it down, it affects the frequency. On guy had managed the trick of getting them to play music, and had a version that would rotate round as the sparks exited. The bigger machines were very very noisy - the spark gap I think. Sadly they didn't have much in the way of explanation available on site.</p> <p>Daniel thought that the rock crushing machine was the best. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/belette/4065396490/" title="DSC_3124-rock-crushing by wmconnolley, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3512/4065396490_0af9d51617_m.jpg" width="240" height="161" alt="DSC_3124-rock-crushing" align=right/></a></p> <p>Incidentally: from the Rubaiyat: <blockquote>Ah, fill the Cup:---what boots it to repeat<br /> How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:<br /> Unborn TO-MORROW, and dead YESTERDAY,<br /> Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!</blockquote> - why does this make sense? Why not "unborn yesterday and dead tomorrow"? Someone explain it to me. [Update: Sidd has done so; my thanks. Unborn/Dead refer to the days, not to the people. La! -W]</p> <p>[Update: http://picasaweb.google.com/thouky/CambridgeTeslathon2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCMHLkJO254G_LQ&feat=directlink# too -W]</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/ash-man_and_teslathon.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/0IeHs9m_ErI" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/0IeHs9m_ErI/ash-man_and_teslathon.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/ash-man_and_teslathon.php misc Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:29:27 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/ash-man_and_teslathon.php <p>It seems like everyone wants to talk about Tiljander. I don't, particularly, but you gotta give the customers what they want, so here is a thread to discuss it if you like. The <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2008/08/comment_policy.php">comment policy</a> still applies, but I'll be laxer. Comments incorrectly paraphrasing others will be harshly dealt with. Vague rantings unsupported by clear evidence or links, ditto. Repeating what everyone else has already said, ditto (this isn't a vote).</p> <p>Some useful links you may want:</p> <ol> <li><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/105/36/13252.abstract?ijkey=985f79239964e965937cfa1585a27574a5c64b9b&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha">Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia</a> (Mea; includes supplementary info) <li><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/E10.full?ijkey=6054afc9aeb848de052d626d7d74d9d42eb8291f&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha">McI's comment on Mea</a> <li><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/E11.full">Mea reply to McI</a> <li>[Update: <a href="http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/supplements/MultiproxyMeans07/">Supplemental Information for PNAS Article</a> at Mann's website, plus updates</ol> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/belette/4056990134/" title="mann-supp-fig8 by wmconnolley, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3518/4056990134_e9e68ca2ca_m.jpg" width="240" height="161" alt="mann-supp-fig8" align=right /></a> Hopefully, people have read the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2008/09/02/0805721105.DCSupplemental/0805721105SI.pdf">Mea supplemental info</a> where they say <i>Potential data quality problems. In addition to checking whether or not potential problems specific to tree-ring data have any significant impact on our reconstructions in earlier centuries (see Fig. S7), we also examined whether or not potential problems noted for several records (see Dataset S1 for details) might compromise the reconstructions. These records include the four Tijander et al. (12) series used (see Fig. S9) for which the original authors note that human effects over the past few centuries unrelated to climate might impact records (the original paper states ''Natural variability in the sediment record was disrupted by increased human impact in the catchment area at A.D. 1720.'' and later, ''In the case of Lake Korttajarvi it is a demanding task to calibrate the physical varve data we have collected against meteorological data, because human impacts have distorted the natural signal to varying extents''). These issues are particularly significant because there are few proxy records, particularly in the temperature-screened dataset (see Fig. S9), available back through the 9th century. The Tijander et al. series constitute 4 of the 15 available Northern Hemisphere records before that point.</p> <p>In addition there are three other records in our database with potential data quality problems, as noted in the database notes: Benson et al. (13) (Mono Lake): ''Data after 1940 no good-- water exported to CA;'' Isdale (14) (fluorescence): ''anthropogenic influence after 1870;'' and McCulloch (15) (Ba/Ca): ''anthropogenic influence after 1870''. We therefore performed additional analyses as in Fig. S7, but instead compaired the reconstructions both with and without the above seven potentially problematic series, as shown in Fig. S8.</i></p> <p>So you can look at S8 - I've inlined it - to discover that the Tiljander series don't affect the overall result much.</p> <p>[Didn't like this post? You want <a href="http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/2009/10/scientists-admit-sun-is-only-factor-in.html">DenialDepot</a>]</p> <p>[Update: one thing that has puzzled some people is how little effect the Tiljander proxies have on the overall reconstruciton: see S8, which I inlined. But look at S9, and you'll see that the Tiljander proxies are remarkably flat before 1800. This would be consistent, for example, with recent non-climatic artifacts producing more variation than is naturally present. But it also means that the effect of these proxies on the total reconstruction pre-1800 is likely to be extremely slight (which explains fig S8). This is because the scale-this-proxy-to-termperature thingy is done on the overlap with the instrumental period -W]</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/tiljander.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/qbl_9LiHGqI" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/qbl_9LiHGqI/tiljander.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/tiljander.php climate science Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:10:13 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/tiljander.php <p>Please don't force me to write another of these, I'll run out of "oh dear"s.</p> <p>The issue is RP Jr <a href="http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/point-resolved-in-hockey-stick-wars.html">venturing into areas of climate science he doesn't understand</a> (see <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2008/05/losing_the_plot.php">losing the plot</a> for the last one I remember) and dragging <a href="http://cruelmistress.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/peer-review-game-on/">Cruel Mistress along behind</a>, though to be fair CM doesn't fully commit herself.</p> <p><a href="http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/point-resolved-in-hockey-stick-wars.html?showComment=1256594440835#c6742601215885761273">AndrewT has already expalined the truth</a> to Roger, but it doesn't look like he wants to know it :-(.</p> <p>And I still haven't written up Larklight or Saturn's Children.</p> <p>[While I'm here, and since I can: <a href="http://chasemeladies.blogspot.com/2004/09/you-are-more-likely-to-die-in-car.html">HH on foxes</a> -W]</p> <p>[Update: you may want to know about my <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2008/08/comment_policy.php">comment policy</a>. Please put any tedious whines about censorship in there. Or go read <a href="http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/2009/10/superduperfreakonomics.html">DenialDepot</a> -W]</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dea.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/VSkHpQK4U54" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/VSkHpQK4U54/oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dea.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dea.php climate science Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:46:03 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dea.php <p>There is a <s>slightly weird</s> AP news article by <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gGAa00xryzkYa7FUhfip-CDPM_tgD9BIUU5G0">Seth Borenstein</a> which purports to show that <i>In a blind test, the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented. The experts found no true temperature declines over time.</i> All very well, taken literally, but I thought the world was supposed to be warming, not not statistically cooling.</p> <p>But it gets worse:</p> <p><i>The AP sent expert statisticians NOAA's year-to-year ground temperature changes over 130 years and the 30 years of satellite-measured temperatures preferred by skeptics and gathered by scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Statisticians who analyzed the data found...</i></p> <p>Are we really supposed to believe that the statisticians who received this data didn't recognise it? You have to be fairly out of touch not to know what the global temperature record looks like. </p> <p>[Update: <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g3pZF3gbssfBNMkLR3ICMGGAVu-wD9BITVL01">a bit more detail here</a>. See-also the comments re the "blind" aspect. This story has tickled a number of fancies: for example <a href="http://cruelmistress.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/blind-numbers/">CM</a>, <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/statisticians-confirm-no-global-cooling-despite-skeptic-spin">DSB</a>, <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/26/global-cooling-myth-statisticians-caldeira-superfreakonomics/">JR</a>. And <a href="http://rabett.blogspot.com/2009/10/statisticians-reject-global-cooling-on.html">Eli</a>, naturally.</p> <p>I've struck "slightly weird" - on reflection, that wasn't called for -W]</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/ap_impact_statisticians_reject.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/p8eg8wL9hh0" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/p8eg8wL9hh0/ap_impact_statisticians_reject.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/ap_impact_statisticians_reject.php climate science? Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:38:58 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/ap_impact_statisticians_reject.php <p>In training for Boston, I did a 1 hour erg cos the ladies were doing them, and sort of enjoyed it. And then we did <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/09/the_boston_marathon.php">Boston</a> which was 50 km, but we weren''t really racing. And so I wondered how long an actual marathon (42.195 km) would take. And the answer is 3:20:58.4 (almost. I confess that I set the erg to 42125 because I forgot the true distance; I've re-scaled my time linearly which I think is fair). My split was down to a contemptible 2:25 towards the end before I "sprinted" for the finish at 2:05. I beat <a href="http://www.concept2.co.uk/marathon/past_results">some of the folk at the concept2 sponsored marathon</a> but I like to think that that is a self-selected group of the Leet.</p> <p>I don't think I recommend it. It wasn't much fun; only the ipod saved my sanity. At the end my arms, knees, back and bum all hurt, which is sort-of good: all bits were getting tired. Probably my thighs don't hurt enough. As for Boston, on the off chance it helps someone, I'll tell you I: drank 5 little cups of water and ate two little marzipan bars. That was enough.</p> <p>An interesting question is how I should compare my time to running-on-the-road (the subject of <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/04/rowing_and_running.php">Rowing and Running</a> a while back). From the C2 website I find that the record for age 20-29 (irritatingly you have to specify an age range rather than "all scores"), heavyweight (ditto; I'm 78 kg just on the border of lightweight and could probably get there if I wanted to) is ~2:40 whereas a road marathon record is ~2:06. So scaling my time by 2:06/2:40 (clearly a valid procedure) gets me an adjusted time of 2:38, which marginally beats my hero for all things Marathon, Maz, who has 2:47 and is like a whippet (although he is too elegant to be a real whippet; perhaps Dan Staite deserves the whippet title more, hopefully that won't offend him. Dan's ergo times are unreal).</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/ergathon.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/M0fPj_TnZ6A" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/M0fPj_TnZ6A/ergathon.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/ergathon.php rowing Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:49:48 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/ergathon.php <p>Not Vicki this time. No, its the one about those naughty <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8324124.stm">left-footers poaching the bums on our seats</a>. Speaking of bums, apparently the apostates say: "The Church of England is, in the view of many of us, ceasing to be the church of Jesus Christ and becoming the church of political correctness, not only the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate - to which we object - but also in many attitudes to human sexuality from divorce and remarriage, to homosexuality."</p> <p>As an observer of all this, I find it confusing. Suppose I was to believe in Christianity - Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Bible is true, etc etc - how could I possibly know which church to join, if at all? As <a href="http://pw201.livejournal.com/95249.html">Paul is wont to say</a>, please give me back my passport and let me out of here... not, that's not right, he says <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/whynotchristian.html#silentgod">God is Silent</a>. Choice of C of E or Catholicism seems to be very largely a social construct. There are indeed real differences in relgiious practice - Catholics cannot stick bits of rubber on their willies - but those religious practices themselves are pure social constructs, since the bible says nothing about rubber (don't take my word for it; <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=rubber&qs_version=NIV">I've checked</a>). The bible, whilst vague on whether you should be Cath or Prot, is quite explicit on some other issues, for example <a href="http://bible.cc/luke/12-33.htm">Sell your possessions and give to the poor</a>, not a sentiment that has ever been popular with any rich church. So why should I care if C of E folk join the Caths, or vice versa, any more than I care if Arsenal fans go off and join Spurs?</p> <p>I'd like to say "it isn't very clear why you need a church at all, now that we can all read the bible for ourselves" but this is all to clearly not true. Anyone, who knew nothing of our conventional faith, who settled down with a copy of the bible and tried to work out for themselves what it meant would be very confused indeed. Clearly you do need someone to pick and choose for you which bits to take seriously and which to ignore and which bits to add in. But why that is "religion" I don't know.</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/poachin_pope.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/p4tPkYoYRsQ" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/p4tPkYoYRsQ/poachin_pope.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/poachin_pope.php religion Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:00:17 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/poachin_pope.php <p>Roger is having a spot of trouble: <a href="http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/giant-fish-big-fish-and-minnows-of.html">everyone is being nasty to him</a>. Once upon a time the mighty Prometheus bestrode the world like a Colossus and ate big fish for breakfast, but now it seems Roger swims with the minnows and it isn't a nice world down there. <a href="http://rabett.blogspot.com/2009/10/going-from-step-3-to-4-first-they-fear.html">Eli shows him no mercy</a> - wabbits are a vicious bunch - and <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/pielke_pity_party.php">Tim Lambert is not kind either</a> but <a href="http://whiskeyfire.typepad.com/whiskey_fire/2009/10/bitter-fish-in-crude-oil-sea.html#comments">Whiskey Fire</a> probably has the best take on all this.</p> <p>Incidentally, it isn't really Roger's fault but he does seem to be attracting the wacko septics in the comments, for example <i>Of course DeepClimate consistently refuses to publish my charts documenting the on-going, unbroken 10,000 year cooling trend in both the <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cHhMa7ARDDg/SsZbFvC5SJI/AAAAAAAABLY/uZxh6g17bmE/s1600-h/GISP2_10Ke.jpg">northern hemisphere</a> AND the southern hemisphere.</i> Yes, DeepClimate doesn't publish that because it is rubbish. Sigh. Roger really needs to weed out the wackos. A comment policy that deletes irrelevant rubbish is *good* not bad.</p> <p>Still, <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/06/foaming_at_the_mouth_with_joe.php">I'll take Pielke over, say, Romm any day</a> but this recent post does him no favours.</p> <p>[Updates: Romm says <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/24/delong-and-deltoid-roger-pielke-jr-train-wreck-rabett-meltdown-the-most-debunked-person-in-the-science-blogosphere/">Roger Pielke Jr. is the most debunked person in the science blogosphere, possibly the entire Web</a> but this is twaddle. </p> <p>More interestingly (thanks Hank) I've finally found fame and fortune in Nature (Louise, eat your heart out):</p> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/belette/4042329778/" title="nature-blogo-stuff by wmconnolley, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2457/4042329778_b916bcff84_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="nature-blogo-stuff" /></a></p> <p>Why has the man got a penis-shaped fish resting against his backbone? I'm baffled -W]</p> <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dear.php#commentsArea">Read the comments on this post...</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~4/XGK--_C1gxY" height="1" width="1"/> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/stoat/~3/XGK--_C1gxY/oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dear.php http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dear.php climate communication Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:49:08 -0500 http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dear.php