John - you and I are each thinking of different 'consumers' of the data - in
your case managers, etc. who want specific spatial and/or temporal information;
in my case undergrads or other members of the voting public who (hopefully)
will cast their opinions at the ballot box. For my consumers, the long-term
trends in temperature, sea level, ice extent, etc. and our understanding of
global models is plenty sophisticated to justify policy action to reduce C
emissions - or some other policy approach. But denying this evidence is not
reasonable.
Malcolm, I'd love to think that if we ignore the public faces of climate
denial, they will go away. But given the prominent access they're given via
conventional and new media, there's no reason to think that their message will
go away if we bury out heads in the sand.
Jeff
P.s. I'll definitely buy John's first IPA to continue the discussion. Meet 'ya
at Bear Republic!
On Jul 2, 2012, at 11:44 PM, "John Gerlach"
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Jeff, I understand what you are saying but I tend to agree with Malcolm but
take that with a grain of salt as I am no PR or media specialist.
I think that your examples of a rancher, preserve manager, and municipality
show that there is a misunderstanding by scientists as to the relevant time and
spatial scales. I'm talking about ecosystems that span 5 states not ranches.
The fact is that if I drop a 15 km pixel of the Regional Climate Model over
either the Bighorn Mountains or the Powder River Basin of Wyoming that I still
can't come up with specific predictions. Below is an example that is relevant
today with the record hot temperatures and lack of precipitation over the
northwestern prairie. Note that the regional models for western North Dakota,
South Dakota and Nebraska 50 years out at the high CO2 emissions scenario
predict about the same average temperatures and precipitation for the April to
June wet season with a slight shift to more precipitation in April.
If we look at the entire northwestern prairie and want to make a prediction
about how climate change will affect its wet season in 50 years the first
problem we face is that the extreme western margin is dominated by winter
precipitation regimes while the eastern from North Dakota south to Nebraska is
dominated by an April-June wet season.
Let's just look at the eastern margin. Winter is the dry season. As the
mid-latitude jet stream starts to move north in April it is still far enough
south that Rossby waves, the kinks in the jet stream that move downstream, dip
every week or so and are positioned almost north to south along the eastern
side of the Rockies. When the kinks tighten enough they pinch off and create
low pressure systems that spiral downwards from 40,000 feet to 10,000 feet or
so. The high elevation of the Rockies creates a northward flowing lower
elevation jet at about 12,000 feet that streams moisture from the Gulf of
Mexico into the heartland. When the timing of the low elevation jet and the cut
off low are right the moisture in the low jet gets a free ride upward and
creates a regional precipitation pattern as the low is occluded. This happens
periodically during the wet season and requires a high pressure system just
west of the Rockies to work. There is a net increase of moisture from the Gulf
of Mexico into the eastern Plains region. As the polar high shifts further
northward taking the jet stream with it this pattern is eliminated and
precipitation in July and August shits to local convective storms. Other models
of climate change taking a functional approach state thatthe velocity of the
jet stream in the region will grow slower and the kinks will deepen. This will
cause both the wet spells and dry spells during the wet season to become longer
- eg increased variablity but the same amount of precipitation.
The climate literature is just about as dense as the climate change literature
but it is fascinating because you can see it happen in real time on weather
maps and satellite imagery. The problem I have is that all I get from the
Regional Climate model is average precipitation from April through June. Now I
couple that with the other models that tell me that the dry periods and wet
period will become longer. Then I add on our current understanding of the
drivers of current climate. Finally, I try to interpret how an organism or a
vegetation type will respond to all of this.
If we are sitting in a bar and having a couple IPAs I will say something like
HTFSIK what will happen. That is most definitely not what I read in reports and
the literature. Don't get me started on the cottage industry of climate
envelope models coupled with MAXENT species distributions.
Best,
John
________________________________
From: "Corbin, Jeffrey D." <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
To: John Gerlach <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>;
"[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>"
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Sent: Mon, July 2, 2012 1:45:15 PM
Subject: RE: [ECOLOG-L] Confronting climate deniers on college campuses - EOS
Forum
Hey John – Great points. I have two main thoughts:
1) There is a great deal of uncertainty about exactly how climate change will
manifest itself, especially at the local scales that your clients, etc. are
considering. Our science isn’t often precise enough to be able to offer specific
prescriptions for a rancher, a preserve manager, or a municipality as to how their
operations should take action for the future. However, what Monckton, Senator
Inhofe, etc. offer is a very anti-scientific denial of the large-scale research
about the connections between carbon emissions and climate change. I didn’t go into
this in our EOS piece, but I made the specific point at our counter-presentation
that we have a great deal to discuss as to HOW society should confront climate
change – Cap&Trade, Carbon tax, mitigation, etc. But such a discussion must
begin with an acceptance of the understood science.
2) Related to the point above, Monckton et al are a separate category from the
general public who does have difficulty filtering out the conflicting sides of
the “debate”. I specifically referred to the public being “doubtful” or
“skeptical”; but to say that Monckton is doing anything but cynically denying
reality for the purpose of his own political agenda is naive. Monckton trades
in the currency of attacking the credibility of scientists – and the public’s
distrust of science or confusion about climate change is a function of his
ability to command attention.
-Jeff
***************************
Jeffrey D. Corbin
Department of Biological Sciences
Union College
Schenectady, NY 12308
(518) 388-6097
***************************
From: John Gerlach [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2012 9:18 PM
To: Corbin, Jeffrey D.;
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Confronting climate deniers on college campuses - EOS
Forum
Hi Jeff,
I don't want to get into the whole climate change Denier issue directly but I
will add my observations in advising governmental clients on the use of the
various types of climate models (Global, Regional, various types of
statistically down-scaled) for their landscape level planning efforts. I also
have heard an earful from friends at various California state agencies
regarding their opinions.
What the agencies want is clear direction on how to plan for climate change.
Other than the obvious general tactics such as larger preserves are generally
better and connectivity is generally better there is little that the models can
do to provide the level of information that the agencies expect. For on the
ground planning the resolution of the Global models is too coarse (60-100 km
pixels) and they don't really do precipitation so you just have a temperature
increase. The Global models also don't take into effect important features such
as mountain ranges. The Regional models are also fairly coarse resolution (15
km pixels) but do incorporate surface features. One problem with regional
models are that they are too coarse for looking at local effects which the
agencies want but they do pick up regional patterns. Another problem of usage
is that the output of the regional models is not intelligently utilized.
Generally, the data are almost always reported as the average temp or
precipitation per day over a 3 month calendar period which is not biologically
relevant. Even if you were to do the intelligent thing and lump the data by
local seasons you still have to know enough about how the climate actually
works in the region to interpret the data. Sure, most models predict more
variable climate but exactly what does that mean for a wolverine in the middle
Rockies for example? PRISM data are now being commonly used to model climate
data at 800 m resolution but projecting it out to 50 years not to mention 100
gives you false precision even if the data are accurate and there are a some
known issues with the data. Finally, you have to have baseline data to compare
the model data to and that data is also modeled.
So how does this relate to the public's perception of climate change? The
subject of climate change is a very complex thing with lots of almost
unintelligible (to me at least, and my training is in plant physiology and
ecophysiology) moving parts. There is a huge amount of data coming in from
field research concerning the aparent responses of organisms and ecosystems,
there are a huge number of inconsistent climate models that are being misused
without any semblance of protest by the scientists that created them that I
have been able to detect, and finally, there is a huge cottage industry of
climate change adaptation in which regulated entities are connected with
sources of funding by middlemen.
If I get confused and overloaded by all of this what can reasonably be expected
of a lay public? Ultimately this should not be framed as believers and deniers
as science is not a belief system - yes there is a huge field of the philosophy
of science which shows that this is not exactly the case but that is another
huge and complex subject. Given my personal confusion and information overload,
I resort to what I hope are accurate basics. We are doing things to the planet
that are altering its heat balance rapidly and irreversibly for 500 years or so
at the minimum. We appear to be observing a number of phenomena ranging from
organisms to climate that support the altered climate hypothesis.
The problem is that I have to "believe" in the competence and credibility of
the scientists and their interpretation of the data and that is where I feel uneasy.
Given what I perceive in my role as a non-academic and non-research scientist who tries
to understand and use the data, there is a significant lack of open peer evaluation of
the data and that gives me pause as does the the scientist who won't speak up when his
data and conclusions are over-interpreted by users.
By focusing on the "Deniers" you may be winning a battle but losing the war.
Best,
John Gerlach
________________________________
From: "Corbin, Jeffrey D." <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: Sun, July 1, 2012 5:01:00 PM
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Confronting climate deniers on college campuses - EOS Forum
Hello Ecolog - In March, one of the leading anti-minds of the Climate Deniers
movement, Christopher Monckton, visited Union College. EOS, AGU's Newspaper,
just published a Forum article describing our experience and that at our
neighbor RPI. Subscription is required - http://www.agu.org/pubs/eos/ - but
I've pasted the first two paragraphs below. Anyone interested can email me
directly and I'll forward the pdf.
-Jeff Corbin
Union College
"In spite of the fact that 97-98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in
the field accept the basic tenets of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC)
findings (Anderegg et al. 2010), there is a consistent undercurrent of climate skepticism
among the general public (Leiserowitz et al., 2011). To some extent, this skepticism is fueled
by high profile speakers who offer "the real view" of climate science. Our campuses
recently hosted two such speakers: Dr. Ivan Giaever at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and
Christopher Monckton (also known as Lord Monckton) at Union College. (Mr. Monckton's
presentation can be seen at
http://union.campusreform.org/group/blog/live-webinar-lord-monckton-at-union-college.)
While the intention of such speakers is often to muddy the waters with respect to climate
science (McCright and Dunlap, 2010), the effect at our campuses was to galvanize our students
and colleagues to highlight the widely accepted facts of climate change and the nature of
expert scientific consensus on this topic. This communication was achieved using social media
and follow-up events that raised the profile of climate change discussions. These events
proved to be so successful that we offer our experiences so that others can capitalize on
similar visits by climate skeptics by converting them into "teachable moments.""
***************************
Jeffrey D. Corbin
Department of Biological Sciences
Union College
Schenectady, NY 12308
(518) 388-6097
***************************
