by Judith Curry
Here are a few things that caught my eye this past week:
Climate BS awards for 2011
The BS stands for ‘bad science.’ These awards have been bestowed by Peter Gleick in an article entitled Climate BS awards for 2011. Before taking a look at who gets the awards, what does ‘bad science’ mean? Published science that is based on false premises or derives incorrect conclusions (e.g. skydragons)? Boring or irrelevant science? Other ideas? Well, Gleick has defined ‘bad science’ as interfering with climate ‘action’.
The winners of the bad science awards are:
- All of the Republican candidates for U.S. president
- Fox News and Murdoch’s news corporation
- Spencer, Braswell and Christy for their lack of climate “sensitivity”
- Koch brothers for funding the promotion of bad climate science
- Anthony Watts for his BEST, and worst, climate hypocrisy
Runners up:
- Harrison Schmidt and the Heartland Institute for “Arcticgate”
- Rush Limbaugh for his consistent falsehoods about climate change
- Seve McIntyre, for his despicable smear of Mike Mann
The only one of these that is actually about science is Spencer, Braswell and Christy. These were discussed extensively at Climate Etc., and are part of active scientific debates:
So what are we to make of this, other than that Gleick confuses science with politics? Looks like the UNFCCC/IPCC ideology at work.
Solar power
Peter Morocombe has an interesting post at BraveNewClimate entitled Solar Power in Florida. I won’t try to summarize the post here, it is well worth reading (and also the comments).
IPCC AR5
gallopingcamel has made available many of the zero-order-drafts of IPCC AR5 chapters for WG1 and WG2. The camel is looking for volunteers:
Inspired by Donna Laframboise’s example I plan to assemble a group to make an objective review of these documents. If you are interested please let me know which of the papers you want to work on. At the very least we should aim to answer these questions:
1. Who are the authors? Scientists, bureaucrats, activists or what?
2. Are there any respected scientists in appropriate fields whose views are being ignored?
Here is a chance for Dorothy to find out who the Wizards of Climate are and to grade their work.
Global monsoon rainfall has intensified
Recent change of the global monsoon precipitation (1979–2008) – Wang et al. Abstract: “The global monsoon (GM) is a defining feature of the annual variation of Earth’s climate system. Quantifying and understanding the present-day monsoon precipitation change are crucial for prediction of its future and reflection of its past. Here we show that regional monsoons are coordinated not only by external solar forcing but also by internal feedback processes such as El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). From one monsoon year (May to the next April) to the next, most continental monsoon regions, separated by vast areas of arid trade winds and deserts, vary in a cohesive manner driven by ENSO. The ENSO has tighter regulation on the northern hemisphere summer monsoon (NHSM) than on the southern hemisphere summer monsoon (SHSM). More notably, the GM precipitation (GMP) has intensified over the past three decades mainly due to the significant upward trend in NHSM. The intensification of the GMP originates primarily from an enhanced east–west thermal contrast in the Pacific Ocean, which is coupled with a rising pressure in the subtropical eastern Pacific and decreasing pressure over the Indo-Pacific warm pool. While this mechanism tends to amplify both the NHSM and SHSM, the stronger (weaker) warming trend in the NH (SH) creates a hemispheric thermal contrast, which favors intensification of the NHSM but weakens the SHSM. The enhanced Pacific zonal thermal contrast is largely a result of natural variability, whilst the enhanced hemispherical thermal contrast is likely due to anthropogenic forcing. We found that the enhanced global summer monsoon not only amplifies the annual cycle of tropical climate but also promotes directly a “wet-gets-wetter” trend pattern and indirectly a “dry-gets-drier” trend pattern through coupling with deserts and trade winds. The mechanisms recognized in this study suggest a way forward for understanding past and future changes of the GM in terms of its driven mechanisms.” [Full text]
More rainfall is good news for the Asian monsoon region. This is a good analysis that illustrates the interplay between AGW and natural variability.
Interesting new paper on Arctic sea ice
On the Arctic Ocean ice thickness response to changes in the external forcing – Stranne & Björk . Abstract: “Submarine and satellite observations show that the Arctic Ocean ice cover has undergone a large thickness reduction and a decrease in the areal extent during the last decades. Here the response of the Arctic Ocean ice cover to changes in the poleward atmospheric energy transport, F wall, is investigated using coupled atmosphere-ice-ocean column models. Two models with highly different complexity are used in order to illustrate the importance of different internal processes and the results highlight the dramatic effects of the negative ice thickness—ice volume export feedback and the positive surface albedo feedback. The steady state ice thickness as a function of F wall is determined for various model setups and defines what we call ice thickness response curves. When a variable surface albedo and snow precipitation is included, a complex response curve appears with two distinct regimes: a perennial ice cover regime with a fairly linear response and a less responsive seasonal ice cover regime. The two regimes are separated by a steep transition associated with surface albedo feedback. The associated hysteresis is however small, indicating that the Arctic climate system does not have an irreversible tipping point behaviour related to the surface albedo feedback. The results are discussed in the context of the recent reduction of the Arctic sea ice cover. A new mechanism related to regional and temporal variations of the ice divergence within the Arctic Ocean is presented as an explanation for the observed regional variation of the ice thickness reduction. Our results further suggest that the recent reduction in areal ice extent and loss of multiyear ice is related to the albedo dependent transition between seasonal and perennial ice i.e. large areas of the Arctic Ocean that has previously been dominated by multiyear ice might have been pushed below a critical mean ice thickness, corresponding to the above mentioned transition, and into a state dominated by seasonal ice.” [link to abstract]