A Simple Sea Level Rise Model

... because curve-fitting is so much fun.

Background

Mark Bofill raises an interesting question over at Lucia's:

SLR is evidence warming is occurring. It doesn’t put the A in AGW though, FWIW. It’s always seemed to me that sea level rise started a trifle early for CO2 increase to be the original cause.

There being a number of SLR reconstructions floating about, I asked which one(s) he's been looking at.  He proposed I we have a look at Jevrejeva et al. (2008), Recent global sea level acceleration started over 200 years ago?

Abstract: We present a reconstruction of global sea level (GSL) since 1700 calculated from tide gauge records and analyse the evolution of global sea level acceleration during the past 300 years.  We provide observational evidence that sea level acceleration up to the present has been about 0.01 mm/yr 2 and appears to have started at the end of the 18th century.  Sea level rose by 6 cm during the 19th century and 19 cm in the 20th century.  Superimposed on the long-term acceleration are quasi-periodic fluctuations with a period of about 60 years.  If the conditions that established the acceleration continue, then sea level will rise 34 cm over the 21st century.  Long time constants in oceanic heat content and increased ice sheet melting imply that the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates of sea level are probably too low.

Red Team Blue Team

... old team new team.  Or: why I would support publicly funding research into "legitimate, alternative hypotheses" to explain observation.

Background

Back in February of this year, Dr. John Christy of UAH -- and guru of retrieval algorithms for estimating bulk upper atmosphere temperatures from orbit -- went to Washington.  In his prepared testimony, tucked away near the end of his standard fare, he wrote something not so novel in terms of concept, but in the fact that he actually put some numbers to it:

We know from Climategate emails and many other sources that the IPCC has had problems with those who take different positions on climate change than what the IPCC promotes. There is another way to deal with this however. Since the IPCC activity and climate research in general is funded by U.S.taxpayers, then I propose that five to ten percent of the funds be allocated to a group of well-credentialed scientists to produce an assessment that expresses legitimate, alternative hypotheses that have been (in their view) marginalized, misrepresented or ignored in previous IPCC reports (and thus the EPA Endangerment Finding and National Climate Assessments).

Such activities are often called “Red Team” reports and are widely used in government and industry. Decisions regarding funding for “Red Teams” should not be placed in the hands of the current “establishment” but in panels populated by credentialed scientists who have experience in examining these issues. Some efforts along this line have arisen from the private sector (i.e. The Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change at http://nipccreport.org/ and Michaels (2012) ADDENDUM:Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States). I believe policymakers, with the public’s purse, should actively support the assembling all of the information that is vital to addressing this murky and wicked science, since the public will ultimately pay the cost of any legislation alleged to deal with climate.

Setting aside the editorializing (which is NOT easy for me to do -- "wicked and murky science" -- really?) and extracting the the essence of his proposal from his polemic, I'm very much open to putting my tax monies where his mouth is.

Poor Air Quality is Almost Certainly Unhealthy

... the question is one of quantity.

Background

This post comes out of one point I raised in the Partisan Snark blurb, which further evolved in discussion over at Lucia's in the current open thread.  My leading argument was my usual: nuclear fission has been historically less hazardous than coal-fired electricity generation.  Using statistics I've bookmarked at the ready, the worldwide mortality rate is fully two orders of magnitude different.  That's using the worst-case mortality estimate from nuclear against the best-case coal statistic.

Side note: Brandon Shollenberger finds that the Forbes article I so often cite has been silently changing the stats over time.  Not kewl.

My arguments have long rested on noting that while there's certainly slop in both estimates, a two-order of magnitude of difference leaves a room for a lot of slop.  A 95% confidence interval is 1.96 standard deviations under a Gaussian normal distribution.  Must I really do a significance test when the lower bound of the higher risk factor is 100 times larger than the upper bound of the smaller risk factor?

Maybe I do.

Creatively Interpreting the Exxon Dox

... or the ethics of letting your readers (if not yourself) know when you're doing it.

Background

This is a follow-up of sorts on my previous post, Exxon and AGU Funding, to which Shollenberger took exception in comments on my article throwing Cook et al. (2013) under the bus:

I actually think the latest post here on the oil companies is incredibly wrong, and I think blaming "industry liars" for anything is a foolish move that shows a very poor understanding of why the public doesn't call for any strong action to combat global warming.

I agree that the public's attitude toward CO2 mitigation is not simply explained by saying nothing more than "the oil companies diddit".  But arguing that they have not been influential is dubious.  Arguing that fossil fuel interests haven't been actively attempting to influence public opinion would be flat out bonkers.

I clearly don't have a ton of nice things to say about Shollenberger, but batshit crazy hasn't been on the list of taunts.  So I asked:

I would be pleased if you'd trot over to the post itself and describe in comments there which part of it is wrong. Whether it's "incredibly" wrong or right will have to be left to the individual to decide.

He wrote an article on his own blog.  Let's have a peek ...

Partisan Snark

... can be amusing:

Figure 1: Attributed to Daily Kos, but I can't find it on their website. (h/t "Uncle Z")

If you squint hard enough, you might see folks on my side of the argument doing their level best to rearrange the deck chairs.

I'm still getting a good chuckle out of this one:

Figure 2: Credit R. McKee, Augusta Chronicle

Unrealistically bizarre as that might seem, I think this not-pretend argument is even loopier:

End the nuclear age
Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight - vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants.

Apparently, someone didn't get the memo:

---------------

How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt? We Rank The Killer Energy Sources

[...]

Energy Source                 Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)
----------------------------  ---------------------------------------------------
Coal – global average         100,000    (50% global electricity)
Coal – China                  170,000    (75% China’s electricity)
Coal – U.S.                    10,000    (44% U.S. electricity)
Oil                            36,000    (36% of energy, 8% of electricity)
Natural Gas                     4,000    (20% global electricity)
Biofuel/Biomass                24,000    (21% global energy)
Solar (rooftop)                   440    (< 1% global electricity)
Wind                              150    (~ 1% global electricity)
Hydro – global average          1,400    (15% global electricity)
Hydro – U.S.                        0.01 (7% U.S. electricity)
Nuclear – global average           90    (17%  global electricity w/Chern&Fukush)
Nuclear – U.S.                      0.01 (19% U.S. electricity)

It is notable that the U.S. death rates for coal are so much lower than for China, strictly a result of regulation and the Clean Air Act (Scott et al., 2005). It is also notable that the Clean Air Act is one of the most life-saving pieces of legislation ever adopted by any country in history.  Still, about 10,000 die from coal use in the U.S. each year, and another thousand from natural gas.

---------------

Immediate disqualification due to it appearing in Forbes, perhaps?  I once vetted the figures, particularly the coal death numbers and they look legit having derived from sources like the WHO and NIH.

One way or the other, I think rigidly line-in-the-sand ideologies are humanity's biggest existential threat.  Laughing at it seems the only medicine.

OTOH, at least more of the US public seems to be getting the right idea:

Figure 3 - US public opinion of the cause of observed warming over time.  Credit: Gallup.

The Difference Beteween Fraud and Farce, Reflux

... because I must reverse my previously stated positions on Cook et al. (2013)  (hereinafter, C13).  I realize that I can no longer in good conscience defend its design, nor its conclusions as stated.

Summary

Following are some issues that I have previously discounted, but which I now consider serious flaws.  Detailed discussion of each, along with suggestions for improvements/alternatives, are in sections below the break:

1. AGW is inconsistently and therefore ambiguously defined across the eight endorsement categories.  As well, it is vaguely defined in several endorsement categories.
2. The paper reports results in the abstract and body by combining dissimilar AGW definitions into consolidated endorsement buckets, and nowhere reports statistics at the higher detail level of the original eight endorsement categories.

Update 3/27/2016

Brandon Shollenberger has published a reaction to this post here.  The punchline:

So Gates, you know that part where you made a huge fool of yourself by twisting into a pretzel to criticize me on points I was completely correct about? Yeah, suck it

Which hearkens back to a comment in this article:

No consensus? Confused about what "consensus" means? Suck it Shollenberger. At least one oil company grokked it in the early 1980s. Wake up.

Nothing about this ... episode ... doesn't suck for me.  Hence "reflux" not "redux" in the title of this article.  Like slightly bad fish for dinner, it keeps coming back up.  Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

Exxon and AGU Funding

... forgive us Father IF we have sinned?

Background

This note prompted by today's post by Prof. Rabett:

Contrary to the wisdom of many, continents do shift slowly with time, and learned societies do listen to the membership.  Recently a number of members (some very prominent, others not) wrote to the American Geophysical Union asking that the AGU divorce itself from Exxon sponsorship.

This was motivated by a series of articles which exposed Exxon's sponsorship of crank tanks opposing action on climate change, indeed, rejecting the idea that humans are driving climate change in ways that are not so good for the inhabitants, people and other critters.

Eli then quotes part of a letter he received from the Executive Director of the AGU:

In addition to comments on the post itself, over the past three weeks we have received more than 100 emails, letters and phone calls, and countless tweets and comments on Facebook. And the letter referenced in the post, which calls for AGU to sever our relationship with Exxon, has since received additional signatures, growing from 71 AGU members and 33 non-members, to 136 members and 81 non-members (as of 15 March).

This feedback, from AGU members and others in our community and beyond, expressed a wide variety of views, ranging from requests to completely sever the relationship immediately to suggestions for how the relationship could be expanded and made more productive to the view that severing the relationship would violate our scientific integrity. While the social media posts and public comments have tended to be one-sided, the emails received directly from members have been more nuanced and diverse in views expressed. A major theme that emerged is a strong desire among our members to see this issue is treated thoughtfully and with integrity, and to ensure that our discussions be representative of all sides of AGU’s community.

All links in original.