Arguments
2013 SkS Weekly Digest #5
Posted on 3 February 2013 by John Hartz
SkS Highlights
SkS readers will find it a lot easier to post comments on SkS articles thanks to the new WYSIWG system created by Sphaerica and Paul D, "Try it, you'll like it."
Dana's Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama generated the most comments of the materials posted during the past week. Commentors veered into a discussion about the future of fossil fuels and renewable energy.
Toon of the Week
Reprinted with permission from Neil Wagner.
Quote of the Week
Ultimately we have a moral responsibility to the most innocent victims of adverse climate change. Those who will suffer the most are the people who are the most innocent: the world’s poorest citizens and those yet to be born. There is an ancient Native American saying: “We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” A few short decades later, we don’t want our children to ask, “What were our parents thinking? Didn’t they care about us?”
From US Energy Secretary Steven Chu's Feb 1, 2013 letter announcing his decision to not serve a second term as Secretary.
Rebuttal Article Updated
Dana updated the Intermediate version of the SkS rebujttal article, How the IPCC is more likely to underestimate the climate response by adding a paragraph highlighting the bsic finding of the peer-reviewed paper, Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama? by Bryesse et al published in Global Environmental Change, Volume 23, Issue 1, February 2013, Pages 327-337. This paper is also the subject of Dana' article, Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama.
The Week in Review
- Video 16 more years of Global Warming available with German voice-over by Baerbel W & Oliver Marchand
- WYSIWYG Comments Feature by Sphaerica
- The Climate Show #32: a Cook's tour of the Aussie heat by Gareth
- 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #5 by John Hartz
- Introducing Climate Change Science to College Students by Rockytom
- Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite? by MarkR
- New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming by Dana
- Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama by Dana
- Australia's Great Barrier Reef: Last Chance to See? by Rob Painting
- Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome by Dana
Coming Soon
- Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian - Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012) (Dana)
- Icy contenders weigh in (Jason Box)
- Reconciling Two New Cloud Feedback Papers (Dana)
Lukewarmerism, a.k.a. Ignoring Inconvenient Evidence (Dana) - The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom (John Mason)
- How much new climate related science is there every day? (Ari Jokimäki)
- No alternative to atmospheric CO2 draw-down (Andrew Glikson)
- 16 years - Frequently Asked Questions (Kevin C)
- 2013 SkS News Roundup #4 (John Hartz)
- An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate (Dana)
- Analysis of Greenland Ice Cores May Provide Glimpse into Climate's Future (John Hartz)
- New Slideshow on Myth Debunking for Educators and Science Communicators (Ullrich Ecker)
- Drost, Karoly, and Braganza Find Human Fingerprints in Global Warming (Dana)
- How We Know Cosmic Rays are Not Causing Global Warming, In One Simple Graph (Dana)
- Residence Time and Prof Essenhigh (Glenton Jelbert)
SkS in the News
Katharine Hayhoe heartily endorsed Skeptical Science in an excellent article at AITSE.
Neil Wagner on Huffington Post created the Escalator cartoon shown above and linked to Kevin C's informative '16 years' rebuttal.
Dana's NASA Retirees Appeal to their Own Lack of Climate Authority was re-posted on Climate Progress and blodic.us.
Media Matters referenced SkS in debunking a Fox News faux story promoting the debunked claim that climate scientists have exaggerated climate change.
Dana's New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming was re-posted on Climate Progress.
Media Matters referenced Dana's Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome in criticizing Bloomberg for hyping the as of yet unpublished Norwegian climate sensitivity study.
Carbon Brief also has a post on the Norwegian study referencing Dana's post.
Dana's Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama was re-posted on Climate Progress.
David Appell has an interesting story about dueling climate scientists which we will discuss more in a blog post tomorrow, and links to the SkS trend calculator tool.
Jeffrey Bennett at Beyond UFOs created a global warming primer that references several SkS resources.
SkS Spotlights
Founded by acclaimed mountaineer, photographer, and filmmaker David Breashears, GlacierWorks is a non-profit organization that vividly illustrates the changes to Himalayan glaciers through art, science, and adventure. Since 2007, GlacierWorks has undertaken ten expeditions to document the current state of the glaciers, retracing the steps of pioneering mountain photographers in order to capture new images that precisely match the early photographic records. Over the past five years, they have recorded losses and changes to glaciers that are inaccessible to all but the most skilled climbers.
Congratulations on getting your "Side of Least Drama" article getting into CP. I've done what I can to spread that important message to as many sites as possible
In the mean time, methane seems to be emerging from the ice-free parts of the Arctic in ever-increasing concentrations:
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/02/dramatic-increase-in-methane-in-the-arctic-in-january-2013.html#more
I know, I know, the article is from AMEG which has not always been, how shall we say, as scientifically meticulous as they could be. But the relevant methane maps are from Yurganev, who is, as far as I can see, beyond reproach. So is something going on with Arctic methane right now, or not? Is this methane from methanogens thriving on the newly opened ocean surface, or from seabed permafrost and clathrates starting to dissociate?
Is this methane on its way to the stratosphere? If so, what will it do there, and what will it's effects be on the global climate?
(For the record, in case anyone thinks I am some kind of AMEG troll, I think nearly any kind of geo-engineering is an exercise in hubris, when the most fundamental problem we are facing is human hubris.)