Comments on: It’s official: Arctic sea ice recovered in March http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3029 News & Perspective from the Center for Environmental Journalism Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:05:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Tom Yulsman http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3029&cpage=1#comment-6454 Tom Yulsman Fri, 09 Apr 2010 04:10:01 +0000 http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3029#comment-6454 John: Concerning Roger Pielke, Jr., surely you know that he believes that unmitigated emissions of greenhouse gases pose a significant risk to societies, and that we ought to be doing a lot more to reduce them. In fact, in his latest blog posting, Roger takes Paul Krugman to task for emphasizing energy efficiency and conservation over energy technology innovation. As Roger puts it, "This matters of course because anyone who thinks that we can stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations at a low level via conservation while de-emphasizing technology just doesn't have a good grasp of the problem." (Source: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/04/does-paul-krugman-advocate-energy.html) I don't know about you, but to my ear this sounds like someone who is concerned about the prospects for climate change. Anyway, feel free to cherry pick this that or the other thing and ignore the bigger picture. In this country at least, people are entitled to mislead themselves. John: Concerning Roger Pielke, Jr., surely you know that he believes that unmitigated emissions of greenhouse gases pose a significant risk to societies, and that we ought to be doing a lot more to reduce them. In fact, in his latest blog posting, Roger takes Paul Krugman to task for emphasizing energy efficiency and conservation over energy technology innovation. As Roger puts it, “This matters of course because anyone who thinks that we can stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations at a low level via conservation while de-emphasizing technology just doesn’t have a good grasp of the problem.” (Source: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/04/does-paul-krugman-advocate-energy.html)

I don’t know about you, but to my ear this sounds like someone who is concerned about the prospects for climate change. Anyway, feel free to cherry pick this that or the other thing and ignore the bigger picture. In this country at least, people are entitled to mislead themselves.

]]> By: Tom Yulsman http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3029&cpage=1#comment-6450 Tom Yulsman Thu, 08 Apr 2010 22:18:59 +0000 http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3029#comment-6450 John: Uhm, no, you're putting words in my mouth. The point I actually made is based solely on the objective record, which shows unambiguously that ice fluctuates on short time scales as a result of weather and natural climatic variability, but that this saw-tooth pattern is superimposed on a longer term decline over 30 years. I also said that a 30-year period is not dispositive. But also that no one thing is in climate science is. As I said before, this is one small piece of a much larger puzzle built with many, many lines of different kinds of evidence. If you want to focus on one blip on one graph while ignoring the context, that's fine. I choose to look at both the puzzle pieces and the big picture overall. John: Uhm, no, you’re putting words in my mouth. The point I actually made is based solely on the objective record, which shows unambiguously that ice fluctuates on short time scales as a result of weather and natural climatic variability, but that this saw-tooth pattern is superimposed on a longer term decline over 30 years.

I also said that a 30-year period is not dispositive. But also that no one thing is in climate science is. As I said before, this is one small piece of a much larger puzzle built with many, many lines of different kinds of evidence. If you want to focus on one blip on one graph while ignoring the context, that’s fine. I choose to look at both the puzzle pieces and the big picture overall.

]]> By: John Zulauf http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3029&cpage=1#comment-6448 John Zulauf Thu, 08 Apr 2010 21:39:16 +0000 http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3029#comment-6448 By meter and rhyme -- c.f. Pielke Jr. guest post on consistently one-sided (to the "Doom" side) misrepresentations in the IPCC AR4. If all the outliers are one side, the mean and the error bars are in the wrong place! By meter and rhyme — c.f. Pielke Jr. guest post on consistently one-sided (to the “Doom” side) misrepresentations in the IPCC AR4.

If all the outliers are one side, the mean and the error bars are in the wrong place!

]]> By: John Zulauf http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3029&cpage=1#comment-6447 John Zulauf Thu, 08 Apr 2010 21:36:36 +0000 http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3029#comment-6447 So your point is Arctic Ice fluctuates, we don't have enough data to know if this is natural or unusual, agreed. In other words... -- "nothing to see here folks, move along." This isn't the tenor of the climate change storyline at all. Gore was touting an ice free arctic as a strong argument for rapid decisive action in Copenhagen. That's what I object too. The great and powerful Oz crying "Doom" and when Toto pulls back the curtain, "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" -- nobody is saying "Doom!" Maybe you're right, maybe I'm wrong, but "death spiral!" rhymes with "wolf!" in this context, and I'm not sure why I'm supposed to ignore the meter or the rhyme. So your point is Arctic Ice fluctuates, we don’t have enough data to know if this is natural or unusual, agreed. In other words… — “nothing to see here folks, move along.”

This isn’t the tenor of the climate change storyline at all. Gore was touting an ice free arctic as a strong argument for rapid decisive action in Copenhagen.

That’s what I object too. The great and powerful Oz crying “Doom” and when Toto pulls back the curtain, “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” — nobody is saying “Doom!”

Maybe you’re right, maybe I’m wrong, but “death spiral!” rhymes with “wolf!” in this context, and I’m not sure why I’m supposed to ignore the meter or the rhyme.

]]> By: Tom Yulsman http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3029&cpage=1#comment-6439 Tom Yulsman Thu, 08 Apr 2010 02:23:12 +0000 http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3029#comment-6439 John: You're absolutely right — we shouldn't overly weigh data spanning 30 years. And I'm not sure who you think is doing that, but I've never seen any climate scientist make a case for anthropogenic climate change based solely or even mostly on Arctic sea ice, or any other single factor for that matter. The reality is that the case is built on many, many lines of evidence, including physics, multiple observations of past climate change on a very wide variety of time scales, multiple measures of current changes, and simulations of the climate system. Concerning observations of change, shrinking Arctic sea ice is just one small piece of a much bigger puzzle that includes the undeniable evidence of glacial melting all around the world; accelerating melting on the Greenland ice sheet; dramatic melting on the Antarctic Peninsula as well as evidence for significant melting in other parts of Antarctica; sea level rise; changes in seasons . . . I could go on. But as I've said before, it's pointless. This is a circular conversation that goes nowhere. Besides, wise energy policy does not depend on agreement on these climate issues between people like us. John: You’re absolutely right — we shouldn’t overly weigh data spanning 30 years. And I’m not sure who you think is doing that, but I’ve never seen any climate scientist make a case for anthropogenic climate change based solely or even mostly on Arctic sea ice, or any other single factor for that matter. The reality is that the case is built on many, many lines of evidence, including physics, multiple observations of past climate change on a very wide variety of time scales, multiple measures of current changes, and simulations of the climate system.

Concerning observations of change, shrinking Arctic sea ice is just one small piece of a much bigger puzzle that includes the undeniable evidence of glacial melting all around the world; accelerating melting on the Greenland ice sheet; dramatic melting on the Antarctic Peninsula as well as evidence for significant melting in other parts of Antarctica; sea level rise; changes in seasons . . . I could go on. But as I’ve said before, it’s pointless. This is a circular conversation that goes nowhere. Besides, wise energy policy does not depend on agreement on these climate issues between people like us.

]]> By: John Zulauf http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3029&cpage=1#comment-6437 John Zulauf Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:50:28 +0000 http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3029#comment-6437 Given that climate change is also measured on scales varying from decades to millenia, is not equally important not to overly weigh the data from a given 30 year period? Is this not especially true when the start point date for the period was at a local temperature minima? Given that climate change is also measured on scales varying from decades to millenia, is not equally important not to overly weigh the data from a given 30 year period? Is this not especially true when the start point date for the period was at a local temperature minima?

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