Reprinted here by request from Harold Ambler – Anthony
What follows is an open letter to the Salon writer Peter Dizikes, who recently published an article about a new book by NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt on climate change.
The water level of Lake Powell, like that of all reservoirs in the American West, has fluctuated since the day it was dammed.
Dear Mr. Dizikes:
I recently saw your overview of Gavin Schmidt’s new book as well as your interview with him on Salon.
I was surprised to see that you consider the effects of manmade global warming to be “oddly invisible.” Having studied the subject for a couple of years now, while performing my own research, it has been my observation that newspapers, magazines, and television news sources show images of supposed manmade climate change on a daily basis. Such images include: floods, polar bears, glacial calving, etc. If anything, images of global warming might be said to saturate western media.
As with so many other products generated by the AGW industry, Schmidt’s book Climate Change: Picturing the Science is part of an ongoing effort to frighten the credulous. Its messages include: weather will kill you, our moment on Earth is unique, climate did not used to change.
Had you wanted to fulfill the responsibilities of an objective and hard-hitting journalist, you might have asked Schmidt about the image of Lake Powell on his book’s cover book. Now, of course, we are all told never to judge a book by its cover – but this is a visual book that demands to be judged on visual terms. There are a lot of people, unfortunately, who don’t know enough about the facts to perform this kind of analysis themselves. Failing to do so for them is a pity.
Were you aware, may I ask, of the controversial nature of the damming of the Colorado River that led to Lake Powell? Environmentalists were and are appalled by this particular dam. It has changed an important piece of the American natural landscape. But, like all manmade dams on Earth, it has changing water levels. Dammed lakes in the American west are particularly prone to fluctuating water levels, within single years, year to year, and on the decadal level. Water use varies as well, although it can be counted on to slowly increase. Using an image of lowered water level on Lake Powell, which is a reservoir, sitting in a desert, to indicate anything about climate change is perverse. I would even go to far as to call it anti-science.
The assumption that industrial production of co2 has altered precipitation patterns is exactly that, an assumption. Further, what you are going to find, in the next decade, is that global temperatures are going to remain flat (as they have since 1998) and/or start to decline. What you are also going to find is that science writers in the American media establishment are going to peel off, one by one, from the AGW heterodoxy.
Group-think has affected many societies negatively, and it has not disappeared during our own time. The fact that neither Mr. Schmidt’s editor, nor his publisher, nor you, nor the photographer, nor Mr. Schmidt himself would stop to reflect on the oddity of this cover is enough to give one pause.
Sincerely yours,
Harold Ambler
cotwome (12:51:58) :
Beautiful!! Thank you for that study!
DJ (14:32:41) :
BTW, in browsing through the references to that paper it seemed to me that quite of few of these lads and lassies have latched on to “global climate change” as the “open sesame” for access to funding and publication. They sure are laying it on with a trowel. Of course, I’m sure that all that wonderful stuff was thoroughly peer reviewed.
“” Highlander (12:53:47) : Solar radiation reaching the Earth is 0.036 percent warmer than it was in 1986, “”
Don’t get so excited! That’s just data! 😉
(That’s a joke by the way.)
What next? Gavin’s Global Warming Coloring Book? He could even include a few crayons… Endangered Polar Bear White, Dying Tree Green, Rising Sea Blue and Fire Alarmist Red.
No Science… No Conscience… All Con…
dhogaza (11:15:56) : Defending Schmidt’s book
“Lake Powell hit the low point for the year on April 17th at 3609.7o feet above sea level, roughly 90 feet below full pool. Saturday to Sunday this week saw the biggest vertical increase, which was 2.64 inches in 24 hours…..Spring runoff typically starts slow and then ramps up nearing the end of June. From now until the middle of July Lake Powell should see an increase of 30 vertical feet of water….”
http://www.lakepowellrealty.net/2009/04/29/april09-lakepowell-levels/
Gee Schmidt could have got a good water skiing shot if he had waited a few weeks.
This might have a bit more credibility if Ambler was able to get the writer’s name right (it’s Peter Dizikes), and if anyone had actually managed to read the book they are so exercised about. What, for instance, is the caption to the cover photo? What might the book have to say about Lake Powell and the southwestern drought? (hint, p 105-106). And of course, jokes about Schmidt’s name are the epitome of wit and erudition…. not.
Nice picture. Must have used a nice warm filter to get that lovely orange colour.
Anthony
What about providing a link to Gavin’s book (via Amazon?) and in return ask him to supply a link and background to the free pdf of the new sceptics rebuttal?
I am sure he will play fair on this and provide good publicty to an alternative viewpoint.
Tonyb
Is this what one might consider the academic version as “jumping the shark”?
Even if all the images in Gavin’s picture book indeed show evidence of a warming planet it of course says nothing about the cause. It does not provide proof that CO2 has caused any of the implied warming and it definitely does not link human generated GHGs to warming.
The book is has no scientific basis and is meaningless.
Hank (13:57:16) :
That is exactly right, as Prof. Freeman Dyson also points out. There is no evidence that CO2 is harmful, and plenty of evidence that CO2 is beneficial. Gavin Schmidt is being dishonest by pretending otherwise.
From Charlotte, NC:
This is a little OT but if memory serves me during a La Nina cycle the Southeastern US is supposed to be “drier than normal.” If that is the case, then somebody forgot to tell the rather frequent deluges we have been getting since the Spring. It is again raining here. At one point we had seven straight days of weather with at least some measurable precipitation in May. Today marks the 2nd of three straight days that rain is in the forecast. It’s been raining hard enough for the past 15 minutes or more here so that one could take a shower (pun not intended) outside if so moved. We haven’t cracked 90 degrees but maybe once or twice – and that with probably a suspect MMTS depending on Anthony’s findings. It’s going to be below 80 degrees today, and for the rest of the week it is in the mid to upper 80s. Perhaps that seasonable given the records, but it’s much cooler than the past few years (particularly 2005-2006). I’ve only been here three years, granted, but it’s the rainiest and coolest summer I’ve experienced thus far.
Dan Lee (20:18:48) :
Sheesh, why not take a picture of a half-empty bathtub?
Ha ha, perfect as I was remembering coming home on Sunday nights from weekend camping trips when my 3 kids were 9, 5 and 4, we would fire all 3 through the bathtub if rapid order and when you let the water out, the rings left behind were something to see!
About the same amount of science shown by that photo, and just as relevant.
Mike Bryant (16:00:38) :
This book, Climate Change-Picturing the Science could be followed up with a second book by anagr[a]mming the title of the first book, Anti-Science, The Peer-Clutching Magic.
Excellent! Can that possibly be a coincidence?
If you look reeeeally close and squint just right you can almost see the CO2 in each picture ;o)
H.R.
P.S. Looked through EVERY picture in the book and never found Waldo… oops! My bad. Wrong book.
Lake Powell is a hydro dam. Inflows vary from year to year (obviously).
It’s purpose is to store water to be released through the turbines when the energy produced is most beneficial; whether in terms of revenue or community benefit – I don’t know. However, I believe it is a USBR plant and is probably operated according to some government rules.
The point is that it is a regulated storage and trying to draw conclusions from lake levels without undertstanding the power system into which it is feeding (or the river hydrology), is sheer and utter nonsense.
If you shut down any more coal fired plants, you may find that lake levels will never rise because of the desperate need for replacement energy.
There once was a man from Belgrave
Who kept CO2 in his cave
He said I’ll admit
I’m a bit of a Schmidt
But I think of the credits I crave
Does anyone else find it ironic that the dam at Lake Powell has the potential to generate 1.296 kw of EMISSIONS-FREE energy
That would be 1.3 MW of power – the energy depends on the available water
LOOKS LIKE LIMESTONE TO ME AT THE BASE. Sandstone above
Hands up all those out there who know what a drought is!
Good thing to know
Water Flow into lake Powell in the last three years has been good, average, and this year it could be good to excellent. The snowshed areas for lake powell had suffered from a serious drought for about 8 years prior to these last three years, and a consequence the lake level dramatically decreased. However about a month ago the lake was reported to be 2/3 full, and the depth was increasing about 10 inches/day. The lake Powell snowhead area, has had, a very unusual wet period these last two weeks, which coupled with the snowmelt, should help to accelerate the inflow into the lake. I’ll check the gauging stations for cataract canyon (Just below the confluence of the Green and Colorado River). I expect the water flow through the cataract canyon to be above above 40,000 second feet, which should give a wild wide through big drop rapid (big drop rapid together with crystal, and lava falls in the grand canyon are classed as #10 rapids on the Western Rivewr Guides Rating System).
Gavin Schmidt’s Timing for his choice of cover for his book is pathetic!!!
DJ (14:32:41) :
If I was Gavin I would have put a dead tree on the cover – http://www.pnas.org/content/106/17/7063.full
Skeptics on WUWT have many interests. Mine happens to be plant physiology and I hadn’t read this paper. Thanks for the link, but sorry I did.
After 30 min. of analysis I have “peer reviewed” the paper and found the following glaring errors.
1. Fig. 1, Page 2, “figurettes” C (maximum annual temperatures) and D ( minimum annual temperatures) show the calculated long term mean depicted for the years 1940 to 2004, including the states AZ, NM, CO, and UT. The trend for both min or max temp is flat or slightly negative (cooler), respectively. From your graph, temps. were as warm or even warmer in the 1950’s. The current drought lasted three years versus the comparative 1950ish drought of less duration. Therefore any attribution of effect to increasing temperature should be removed.
2. Mortality from current results are compared to different sites in the 1950’s and the assumption that current mortality is greater when bark-beetle infestation and soil water availability was not recorded at disparate site is inappropriate.
3. Pre-drought stand counts were unavailable. Mortality may be related to increased tree density in response to previous wet years (from your graphs).
4. Soil moisture was only recorded to a depth of 20cm. for a tree specie. Insufficient data to ascribe bark-beetle mortality to temperature versus drought.
5. Previous papers linking bark-beetle mortality and warmer temps are invalid as insect population was not determined. The beetle population may fluctuate on longer term time scales.
I could find more, but why waste my time. Authorship does not include a plant physiologist. DJ, you can now say that this paper has been “peer reivewed” referencing this post.
Dave Wendt (20:07:03) :
bad Dave you READ a paper that someone else skimmed
Thanks to Freddy for the correction on Mr. Dizikes’ name. I had composed my letter as a private e-mail initially and looking up at his email address I saw peterdizikes and mistook it as peterdzikes.
(Moving too fast again.)
I have sent a corrected version of the post to Anthony, iceagenow, icecap.com, and climatedepot.com
I have also sent an apology to Mr. Dizikes directly.
Harold Ambler,
Wouldn’t it have been easier to just have his name legally changed? Just joking, people with integrity admit it when they make a mistake.
Thanks for your quick action,
Mike