CBS News sinks to new low; publishes crackpot global warming story, attributes it to Associated Press, kills it with no retraction

19 06 2008

Yesterday I posted a story from CBS News: Quake n’ Bake: Global Warming Causes More Energetic Earthquakes?

The main headline was this: Seismic Activity 5 Times More Energetic Than 20 Years Ago Because Of Global Warming

This drew a lot of attention because of the total lack of verifiable science associated with it. I posted some graphs of USGS data showing that the opposite was true, that recent earthquake energy was actually less that in the early 1900’s, and several commenters pointed out that the source of the story, a Dr. Tom Chalko, has some less than stellar associations with what I would describe as “new age” mysticism, such as Thiaoouba Prophecy and “reading your Aura”. He also writes a dandy piece entitled “Global Warming: Can Earth EXPLODE?” which is linked to a website he runs about “bioresonance” where you can buy a “bioresonant” shirt.

So with that sort of science background available on the web for anyone to see in a few seconds of searching, one wonders how CBS News was duped into running a story like this without even bothering to check into the author. This makes the “historic” Microsoft Word documents used by Dan Rather to discredit President Bush’s National Guard Service look like a peer reviewed science paper.

The story gets weirder. CBS attributed the story on their website to the Associated Press (AP) and you can see that clearly in the screen capture of the story below. Odd thing though, there is no dateline, as you usually see with an AP story, and no story author:


Click for a full sized image or see the full text as a PDF file here

After apparently learning of the less than scientific associations of the lead author of the research, CBS removed it from their website as of about 3 p.m. EST on June 19. This was the original link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/18/tech/main4191556.shtml

Here is where it gets interesting, after CBS pulled the story from their website, I did some searches for it on the Associated Press website at www.ap.org thinking it would still be there. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 62 Comments »

Categories : Science, ridiculae

Quake n’ Bake: Global Warming Causes More Energetic Earthquakes?

19 06 2008

At first, when I got an email message pointing out this topic of global warming driving more earthquake energy, I thought it was satire. Then I saw it was on CBS News, so I knew it couldn’t be satire, but something else altogether. I’ll leave deciding what that is up to you the reader.

Today’s Quakes Deadlier Than In Past

Study: Seismic Activity 5 Times More Energetic Than 20 Years Ago Because Of Global Warming

June 18th full story is here

New research compiled by Australian scientist Dr. Tom Chalko shows that global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was just 20 years ago.

Excerpt:

“The most serious environmental danger we face on Earth may not be climate change, but rapidly and systematically increasing seismic, tectonic and volcanic activity,” said Dr. Chalko.

“Increase in the annual energy of earthquakes is the strongest symptom yet of planetary overheating. “

In related news:

Energy release from earthquakes may be up since 1990, but it is still below levels early in the 1900s; see the graph from this page:

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/other/quake1.html

Source data: USGS


Click for a larger image

Estimated total annual earthquake energy release (magnitude 8 earthquake = 1 = 1,000 magnitude 6 earthquakes) in red; 7-year average in grey.


Click for a larger image

Annual earthquake death rate per million population in red; smoothed rates in grey (specifically, linear smoothing with 7-year Hann window). Note logarithmic scale.

UPDATE: I resisted my primal urges of expression on this subject, figuring others with such skills would take care of that for me. Strangely, I now find myself in my first ever agreement with BigCityLib, on this issue.

UPDATE2: Junkscience.com reports that Hansen’s modeling may be the impetus for this idea:

We’ve probably had enough fun at Chalko’s expense but should point out his ‘research’ is based on totally flawed model output from none other than Hansen himself. Remember the infamous “smoking gun” release? In Earth’s Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications Hansen, et al, state: “Our climate model, driven mainly by increasing human-made greenhouse gases and aerosols, among other forcings, calculates that Earth is now absorbing 0.85 ± 0.15 watts per square meter more energy from the Sun than it is emitting to space. This imbalance is confirmed by precise measurements of increasing ocean heat content over the past 10 years.” This is the source of Chalko’s “NASA measurements from space confirm that Earth as a whole absorbs at least 0.85 Megawatt per square kilometer more energy from the Sun than it is able to radiate back to space. This ‘thermal imbalance’ means that heat generated in the planetary interior cannot escape and that the planetary interior must overheat. Increase in seismic, tectonic and volcanic activities is an unavoidable consequence of the observed thermal imbalance of the planet” Unfortunately for Tom, they aren’t “NASA measurements from space” but Hansen’s crappy model output and it’s quite wrong.

When the “Energy Imbalance” paper was written the model output was a fair wiggle-fit with Willis (2004) and Levitus (2004). Like all happy accidents, however, this good thing came to an end, too. We’ll let Professor Roger Pielke, Sr., do the honors:

The Correction To The Lyman Et Al 2006 Paper Is Available – The correction to the Lyman et al paper “Recent cooling of the upper ocean” is available. It is “Correction to ‘Recent Cooling of the Upper Ocean’” by Josh K. Willis, John M. Lyman, Gregory C. Johnson and John Gilson. While this correction eliminates the cooling that they reported in the 2006 paper, the warming of the 1990s and very early 2000s has not continued. This absence of global ocean warming (which is consistent with the absence of a significant global average sea surface temperature anomaly trend for the last few years) is a challenge to the modelers and to the conclusions of the IPCC with respect to the ability to skillfully predict global warming. Indeed, it appears that with respect to the challenge on Climate Science of A Litmus Test For Global Warming – A Much Overdue Requirement, the models have failed so far. (Climate Science)

UPDATE UPDATE!

AS OF 11:20AM PST 6/19/08 CBS NEWS HAS PULLED THE STORY! The link no longer works!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/18/tech/main4191556.shtml

Here is proof however of it’s existence, a small screen cap. Did anyone make any larger ones?

MORE: Associated Press (AP) has also pulled the story:

Story not found in searches at www.ap.org using “Tom Chalko”  “earthquake global warming”
for earthquake(s) we find many stories either side of it
But nothing on the Chalko “earthquakes and global warming” story
FINAL UPDATE: This was never an AP story, which is why it was not found in searches. See the latest on this story in my latest post.

Comments : 131 Comments »

Categories : climate_change, ridiculae