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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Mar 20, 2015 - 11:51am PT
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Yeah it will be interesting to see what their internal investigation concludes. Willie Soon takes the fall and rightly so because his name is on papers where journal policy explicitly calls for disclosure. But back at the Institution, someone else went along and cashed checks.
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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Mar 21, 2015 - 08:41am PT
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Apparently, the California drought has been getting warranted attention.
Is climate change implicated in the 2013–2014 California drought? A hydrologic perspective†
Abstract
California has experienced severe drought in 2012–2014 (which appears to be continuing into 2015), with especially low winter precipitation and mountain snowpack in winter 2013–2014. However, the extent to which climate change is implicated in the drought, if at all, is not clear. By applying modeling and statistical approaches, we construct a historical record of California snowpack, runoff, and other hydrological variables of almost 100 years in length, and use the reconstructed records to analyze climate trends in the Sierra Nevada and their impact on extreme drought events in the historic record. We confirm a general warming trend and associated decreasing trends in spring snowpack and runoff. We find that the warming may have slightly exacerbated some extreme events (including the 2013–2014 drought and the 1976–1977 drought of record), but the effect is modest; instead, these drought events are mainly the result of variability in precipitation.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL063456/abstract
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 21, 2015 - 09:26am PT
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I've read predictions that say the snow level in California will raise in elevation, meaning it will rain more at elevations where it once snowed.
(I know, I'm not stating this in terms that would please a climate researcher!)
Only time will tell if these predictions will come true.
With that, what do you think the trend is with the California ski resorts?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 21, 2015 - 10:43am PT
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...instead, these drought events are mainly the result of variability in precipitation.
interestingly, we have a different reaction to this phrase. Right now, the ability of climate models to inform on short term, regional variability is probably not very accurate. This is a critical component in future planning, as the current drought illustrates.
There was some noise about the lack of California state planning, but interestingly, historic records are used to indicate the likely futures. The obvious problem being that accurate records don't exist very far into the past. And climate change is creating a great deal of uncertainty in the applicability of projecting past climate into the future.
Current paleoclimate research has opened a window on the more distant past, yet these studies are yet to be incorporated into state plans.
The planning is not trivial, the costs are very large for building dams, and even more now as environmental law informs on the plans, but also the engineering costs, and the construction costs are large. So the state of California cannot just willy nilly build for a future of "mega-draughts," it has to have some basis for proposing the budget and committing public resources to that end.
Climate modeling will have to be much better at predicting the regional climatic changes.
The "variability" in the last sentence of the quote is currently taken to be "random," but we have no idea whether or not it is random. At best, the jury is out on that point. But it is a very important point, and a reason why climate modeling is an important, practical, activity.
SFPUC's Calaveras Dam Replacement project, $434M
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calaveras_Reservoir
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monolith
climber
SF bay area
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Mar 21, 2015 - 12:32pm PT
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Factoring in duration and temps, this drought is quite a bit more intense than any in the record. 2015 looks to widen the disparity even further.
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monolith
climber
SF bay area
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Mar 21, 2015 - 02:06pm PT
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Who said climate change caused this drought?
Climate change intensified this drought.
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
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Mar 21, 2015 - 02:38pm PT
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Better yet,Are you saying CC has NOTHING to do with the drought?
Science has been warning of extremes for how long now?
I agree with Monolith.
Just as much ,Why has my local climate of late been some of the coldest in the world.
That is right ,the NE endured harsher weather this year than the Brooks Range and Siberia.
Only twice in my lifetime has this occurred;
From the shore of Lake Ontario.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 21, 2015 - 02:59pm PT
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I'm skeptical of laying this drought at the feet of climate change.
you're not the only one, but many other skeptics have better reason than just a gut feeling.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 21, 2015 - 04:21pm PT
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one of the regional predictions of climate change models is that dry places will get dryer, wet places will get wetter... and that certainly seems to be the recent trends, at least in the USA.
You've got your money riding on the "it will swing back to normal" pony... which is fine, of course, it's your money. But we don't know what "the normal" is anymore, it's changing before your eyes.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 21, 2015 - 06:12pm PT
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You don't seem to understand the difference from that position and partisan...
I understand scientific skepticism fine, but it is true that I might not be able to discern your position as you articulate it.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 22, 2015 - 07:58am PT
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I deplore the endless parade of blog based bullsh#t.
While I understand this sentiment, I don't actually see a lot of blog-based posts on the AGW side of the fence in this thread. I see a lot of science-based considerations.
As for Robert Kennedy's quote above--we know that there is a lot of dark money paying for anti-science campaigns. In the face of what the science says, I agree with him. They are playing a deadly game, and those who purposely cook the books should be called out and hung out to dry.
While only time will tell how accurate the models are, they are consistent enough now to let us know we should be taking strong action. It's pretty hard to deny the models, especially when the empirical evidence upholds what the scientists have been warning us about, for decades.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Mar 22, 2015 - 08:12am PT
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malemute and Rick Sumner are cut from the same fanatical cloth, the only difference is which side they pick.
This is insanity!
Malemute presents science, rick presents opinions and so much BS about science that it makes me ill to read, all he does is insult science and us scientists like we have no idea what were doing, yet he loves science in at every other level since it's part of our modern world, just another wacko hypocrite
One side is respectful, the other side is a fool.
How can that be the same, anyone that thinks that is a fool in my mind
There are No Climate Change Skeptics that do not believe that climate change is being forced by human activity, that it is real and it has been causing them problems we now see.
Skeptics go directly to the experts and read their material to form an opinion.
Deniers listen to the conflict and the BS propaganda and then have doubt about which side is correct.
I am a Climate Change Skeptic, and science will always answer the my questions, denying science is the antithesis of a Skeptic.
Skeptics, deniers, and contrarians: The climate science label game
Describing climate science doubt is harder than describing the science
http://arstechnica.com/staff/2014/12/skeptics-deniers-and-contrarians-the-climate-science-label-game/
http://skepdic.com/climatedeniers.html
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Mar 22, 2015 - 08:18am PT
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Was The Chief banned..?
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Mar 22, 2015 - 08:24am PT
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THE CHIEF is Finally gone!!!
ya mean we can post to this thread again without have getting attacked by the pit bull from hell?
Yea!!
By the way, I'm a Air Pollution scientist, and no one has ever paid me to say anything either way on CC. We are paid to collect and report the data as found, there are no pay offs going on, ever. That's a sure way to lose your job and be discredited forever.
In fact, I think the opposite is true.
Several journals I get for things like minerals and plants avoid all mention of CC just because it's too hot of topic for the editors to broach, they don't want a bunch of wackos writing back about how their journal is now backing a liberal hoax or other lame ass crap.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Mar 22, 2015 - 09:30am PT
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Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/
The troubling story of how a cadre of influential scientists have clouded public
understanding of scientific facts to advance a political and economic agenda.
The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on public health, environmental science, and other issues affecting the quality of life. Our scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers.
In their new book, Merchants of Doubt, historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway explain how a loose–knit group of high-level scientists, with extensive political connections, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. In seven compelling chapters addressing tobacco, acid rain, the ozone hole, global warming, and DDT, Oreskes and Conway roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how the ideology of free market fundamentalism, aided by a too-compliant media, has skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.
“A well-documented, pulls-no-punches account of how science works and how political motives can hijack the process by which scientific information is disseminated to the public.”—Kirkus Reviews
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Mar 22, 2015 - 10:21am PT
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Just curious, by how many posts did this thread shrink when The Chief was banned?
Wasn't banned, he quit, shortly after it was pointed out that he had made well over 6,000 posts (not counting his sockpuppets) to this thread.
Blogs, like books, newspapers or anything else, don't all belong in one basket. On climate topics there are some very good ones by scientists, and good ones by nonscientists who work hard to get science right.
And then you've got what And Then There's Physics characterized as an "anti-science hate site." I think any bright non-ideologue could see the difference pretty soon without being told.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Mar 22, 2015 - 09:58pm PT
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The Blob is supposedly the cause of the high pressure ridge that is parked off the west coast...
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