I found this press release on the UC Davis website interesting, because it discusses something new to me, “winter chill”. I found it interesting. But immediately, I thought of this study on irrigation by Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama, Huntsville.
Irrigation most likely to blame for Central California warming
Given that the UC Davis researchers seem to have only looked at temperature records to establish trends, it looks like they may have missed a significant contributor to the trends – increased humidity due to irrigation. – Anthony
From UC Davis News: Warming Climate Threatens California Fruit and Nut Production
July 21, 2009
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Winter chill, a vital climatic trigger for many tree crops, is likely to decrease by more than 50 percent during this century as global climate warms, making California no longer suitable for growing many fruit and nut crops, according to a team of researchers from the University of California, Davis, and the University of Washington.
In some parts of California’s agriculturally rich Central Valley, winter chill has already declined by nearly 30 percent, the researchers found.
“Depending on the pace of winter chill decline, the consequences for California’s fruit and nut industries could be devastating,” said Minghua Zhang, a professor of environmental and resource science at UC Davis.
Also collaborating on the study were Eike Luedeling, a postdoctoral fellow in UC Davis’ Department of Plant Sciences and UC Davis graduate Evan H. Girvetz, who is now a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Washington, Seattle. Their study appears July 22 in the online journal PLoS ONE.
The study is the first to map winter chill projections for all of California, which is home to nearly 3 million acres of fruit and nut trees that require chilling. The combined production value of these crops was $7.8 billion in 2007, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
“Our findings suggest that California’s fruit and nut industry will need to develop new tree cultivars with reduced chilling requirements and new management strategies for breaking dormancy in years of insufficient winter chill,” Luedeling said.
About winter chill
Most fruit and nut trees from nontropical locations avoid cold injury in the winter by losing their leaves in the fall and entering a dormant state that lasts through late fall and winter.
In order to break dormancy and resume growth, the trees must receive a certain amount of winter chill, traditionally expressed as the number of winter chilling hours between 32 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Each species or cultivar is assumed to have a specific chilling requirement, which needs to be fulfilled every winter.
Insufficient winter chill plays havoc with flowering time, which is particularly critical for trees such as walnuts and pistachios that depend on male and female flowering occurring at the same time to ensure pollination and a normal yield.
Planning for a warmer future
Fruit and nut growers commonly use established mathematical models to select tree varieties whose winter chill requirements match conditions of their local area. However, those mathematical models were calibrated based on past temperature conditions, and establishing chilling requirements may not remain valid in the future, the researchers say. Growers will need to include likely future changes in winter chill in their management decisions.
“Since orchards often remain in production for decades, it is important that growers now consider whether there will be sufficient winter chill in the future to support the same tree varieties throughout their producing lifetime,” Zhang said.
To provide accurate projections of winter chill, the researchers used hourly and daily temperature records from 1950 and 2000, as well as 18 climate scenarios projected for later in the 21st century.
They introduced the concept of “safe winter chill,” the amount of chilling that can be safely expected in 90 percent of all years. They calculated the amount of safe winter chill for each scenario and also quantified the change in area of a safe winter chill for certain crop species.
New findings
The researchers found that in all projected scenarios, the winter chill in California declined substantially over time. Their analysis in the Central Valley, where most of the state’s fruit and nut production is located, found that between 1950 and 2000, winter chill had already declined by up to 30 percent in some regions.
Using data from climate models developed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (2007), the researchers projected that winter chill will have declined from the 1950 baseline by as much as 60 percent by the middle of this century and by up to 80 percent by the end of the century.
Their findings indicate that by the year 2000, winter chill had already declined to the point that only 4 percent of the Central Valley was still suitable for growing apples, cherries and pears — all of which have high demand for winter chill.
The researchers project that by the end of the 21st century, the Central Valley might no longer be suitable for growing walnuts, pistachios, peaches, apricots, plums and cherries.
“The effects will be felt by growers of many crops, especially those who specialize in producing high-chill species and varieties,” Luedeling said. “We expect almost all tree crops to be affected by these changes, with almonds and pomegranates likely to be impacted the least because they have low winter chill requirements.”
Developing alternatives
The research team noted that growers may be able change some orchard management practices involving planting density, pruning and irrigation to alleviate the decline in winter chill. Another option would be transitioning to different tree species or varieties that do not demand as much winter chill.
There are also agricultural chemicals that can be used to partially make up for the lack of sufficient chilling in many crops, such as cherries. A better understanding of the physiological and genetic basis of plant dormancy, which is still relatively poorly understood, might point to additional strategies to manage tree dormancy, which will help growers cope with the agro-climatic challenges that lie ahead, the researchers suggested.
Funding for this study was provided by the California Department of Food and Agriculture and The Nature Conservancy.
About UC Davis
For 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $500 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science — and advanced degrees from six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.
Media contact(s):
• Minghua Zhang, Land, Air and Water Resources, (530) 752-4953, mhzhang@ucdavis.edu
• Eike Luedeling, Plant Sciences, (530) 574-3794, eluedeling@ucdavis.edu
• Pat Bailey, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9843, pjbailey@ucdavis.edu
And THIS is called science?
Cold Snap Threatens California Citrus Crop
Seems there was plenty of “winter chill” last winter.
Here we have another example of people attempting to influence policy (in this case influence crop selection policy of farmers) by using models that have proved incorrect year after year.
There has never been a climate model produced that has accurately predicted temperatures that far in advance. Every single one has proved wrong. Why are these people insistent on using the output of these models so far ahead as if they represent any relation to reality?
The authors of that “study” need to be taken by the hand to a computer, navigated to NOAA’s NCDC site and show that continental US temperatures have been declining at a rate of 8 degrees per century over the past 10 years. That is using the government’s own data collected using a network that is biased warm due to siting issues of the recording stations. If that kind of cooling keeps up another 10 years, their problem is certainly going to be “winter chill” but not of the sort they imagine.
In the long run reality always win over computermodels!
Especially due to the fact that computers can’t help if the programmers aren’t up to the standard ‘we’ had in early 70’s when I myself studied for and became Systemprogrammer….
Especially when the computers can’t help the old known fact that the output data can’t be better than the input….
Farmers who act on the recommendations of the IPCC and The Nature Conservancy are few and foolish. UC Davis is well-respected, but they are doing their best to shoot themselves in the foot.
The only nuts in California are the idiots who are repealing the protection for Agricultural land (Williamson Act?). So they can be swooped up by developers or sold to foreign interests.
UC Davis would do well to read up on the incessant winds from the period mid 1860’s to mid 1890’s. They portend the same cooling now as they did then.
Coming back to back, are these two items related?
We should regard the regional projections of the chosen climate models as “sufficiently uncertain”
In support of your Irrigation hypothesis it is worth noticing the origin of the data:
“We obtained records of hourly temperatures
for all 205 (active and inactive) stations of the California Irrigation
Management Information System [CIMIS; 29].”
For as long as there have been farmers, there has been complaints about the weather.
“The researchers found that in all projected scenarios,” “IPCC”
No need to worry then.
Just who or what are the nuts.
Hmmm…have you seen the multi-state press release from the Union of Concerned Scientists???
July 28, 2009
Unchecked Global Warming Would Mean More Heat Waves, More Flooding, and Reduced Crop Yields in [INSERT STATE NAME HERE], New Report Finds
Congress Considering Legislation that Could Help [Insert State Name Here] and the Rest of the Nation Avoid Worst Effects
CHICAGO (July 28, 2009) — If the United States does not significantly curb heat-trapping emissions, global warming will seriously harm [Insert State Name Here] climate and economy, according to a new peer-reviewed report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The report also found that a combination of clean energy policies—such as those currently under consideration by the U.S. Senate—would help blunt the extent and severity of global warming in [Insert State Name Here] and nationally….
For Missouri, Press #1
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/missouri-climate-change-report-0264.html
For Indiana, Press#2:
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/climate-change-indiana-0265.html
For Minnesota, Press #3
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/climate-change-in-minnesota-0266.html
For Ohio, Press #4
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/midwest-impacts-missouri-0263.html
So the farmers grow other crops if the predictions eventuate. Might relieve some boredom and add to skills. It’s a bit precious to state production $ now as if they will all be lost in the future. Why, the next lot of crop selection might be much more valuable and profitable. Always look on the bright side.
Delusional like most if not all forms of prophecy
“To provide accurate projections of winter chill, the researchers used hourly and daily temperature records from 1950 and 2000, as well as 18 climate scenarios projected for later in the 21st century.”
I’m almost embarrased to ask this, but having learned that everything, no matter how unbelievable or outlandish, is possible, especially in this realm, is that a typo in the above statement, and should it really say “…from 1950 up to 2000”? They surely didn’t use just two year’s worth of data for this study?
JimB
There is an english phrase which describes these authors well and which they have put in there title.
A bunch of fruits and nutcases
Didn’t CA already decide the Central Valley and it’s entire crop are no longer important? Didn’t they cut off the flow of irrigation to the entire central valley to save the tiny Delta Smelt? I think the solution here is to paint all the barns and silos in the central valley white! 🙂
OT, perhaps, but this Canadian radio interview with respected Environmentalist
Lawrence Soloman is, IMHO, unmissable! It’s nearly an hour long but its the clearest explanation I’ve ever heard about the background to the superstition of AGW and the dangers to the Envirnment posed by anti-carbon activities.
http://probeinternational.org/media/ideas-deniers.mp3
And from the latest fish before people report.
Turning off the water to save the smelt and starving the people.
Mr. Howitt estimates lost farm revenue in the San Joaquin Valley could top $2-billion this year and will suck as many as 80,000 jobs out of its already-battered economy.
“This is one of the classic, really difficult trade-offs we are faced with in hard times: environmental values versus human suffering,” he says.
“The rest of California should care about this because what’s happening in Fresno is a forerunner of the essential environmental and economic debate that we’re going to have because our environmental rules were set up before people were confronted with the real effects of an economic downturn.”
The bottom line, Mr. Howitt says, is that “we are going to have to make fundamental choices. … It’s fish versus jobs and communities.”
snip
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/how-green-was-my-valley-californias-drought/article1230646/
And at what point will researchers realize that as long as they continue to stop at 2000, they will have NO credibility?…we’re half way through 2009 already…almost a full decade of data that they chose to ignore. And yes, I got the double-play of “cherry picking” 🙂
Pamela, glad to see you here. Hadn’t seen you post in awhile, and you’re one of the regulars that I enjoy reading. Hope all is well.
JimB
Just now broadcast on the BBC’s lunchtime news:
Explaining how the Met Office have been wrong about the last three summers a spokesman said ” it is much easier to predict 50 years ahead than to predict a few months ahead”. I would like to nominate this as a quote for the week.
Those who live by the IPCC forecasts will “die” by the IPCC forecasts.
There is trouble for those who actually believe and base actions according to AGW forecasts — whether it is planting olive trees in England or trying to kayak to the North Pole. Meanwhile, we are not changing seed-corn maturity dates to a longer growing season; although it would nicely increase our yields if we could count on a longer growing season.
“Winter chill”, is a real phenomenon. I live in Ontario Canada, where there are lots of plants called trilliums. Our main variety of these plants, grandiflorum, can only survive if we have very cold winters, which is why they thrive here.
Not to be cynical (well, okay maybe a little bit) here, but shouldn’t one early paragraph read:
““Depending on the pace of winter chill decline, the consequences for California’s fruit and nut industries could be devastating,” said Minghua Zhang, a professor of environmental and resource science at UC Davis {WHO RECOGNIZES THE VALUE OF FEAR MONGERING IN ATTRACTING GRANT MONEY AND DOESN’T RECOGNIZE THAT AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES, NOTABLY IN CALIFORNIA, ARE NOT STATIC THROUGH TIME, BUT CHANGE IN ACCORDANCE WITH MARKET DEMANDS/OPPORTUNITIES AND CLIMATE.}
Take a look at all the acreage in the Sierra Foothills that has been used for harvesting walnuts and now grapes and olives (and likely other ‘crops’ by the earlier Native Americans–never mind the ‘harvesting’ of gold from the same areas). Sorry, Professor, but this ain’t the end of the world here. And from here in Sacramento, there’s been PLENTY of chill in winters of late–notably resulting in some serious citrus losses locally.
Anthony, I’ll understand if you ‘snip’ my comments. This stuff just irks me. Sorry if that came across as character assassination of the good Professor.
If they base this on IPCC projections, it is more likely that all the trees will freeze.
“found that between 1950 and 2000, winter chill had already declined by up to 30 percent in some regions.”
So has fruit and nut production decreased by some corresponding amount?
“Each species or cultivar is assumed to have a specific chilling requirement”
You know what they say about assumptions.
“Each species or cultivar is *assumed* to have a specific chilling requirement”
I really don’t understand science where assumption plays a large part in reaching conclusions which are then expressed as fact.
They are warning us that California will produce fewer nuts????? And they think this is BAD????
OT: Drudge Posts Pilmer :
Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites
Geologist Ian Plimer takes a contrary view, arguing that man-made climate change is a con trick perpetuated by environmentalists
By Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver SunJuly 28, 2009
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Global+warming+religion+First+World+urban+elites/1835847/story.html
Who are the researchers on this study? What research have they already published? I would like to add their names to my list of prevaricating (you know what I mean) (pseudo)-scientists. And guess what. They used perfect dates to fudge their findings.
California farmers know better. They have signs up along much of I5 informing the millions of drivers how much agriculture has been destroyed/taken out of production by the current politicians.
“A better understanding of the physiological and genetic basis of plant dormancy, *which is still relatively poorly understood*”
And all these predictions rest on poorly understood plant dormancy factors, which are then related to poorly performing computer models of climate? And they’re using a temperature history from poorly sited stations, right? And they’re *assuming* the specific chilling requirements for each species? And the winter chill index is arbitrarily centered around certain temperatures, making the percentage change essentially meaningless?
More like alchemy than science…
Anyone got idea of the frost line in California? that’s more accurate than ‘winter chill’.
Also, how about Urban Heat Islands-ya think that might be a factor too?
I smell grant money!
The Oakland Fire back in Oct. ’91 was made worse by the dead eucalyptus trees,
that were still scattered about from the nasty winter of ’89. I just missed that little clambake by one week-back in my Aerial Firefighting days..
I moved to Bakersfield in 1950 when the San Joaquin Valley was hot and DRY.
Subsequent “AGW” was caused not by CO2, but by increasing water vapor from increasing irrigation. Since then, the major valley weather stations as found on USHCN show no increase (or slight decline) in mean MAXIMUM temperatures. However, the mean MINIMUM temperatures are rising as much as one degree per decade. To say the general climate is warming is false. The truth is the regional humidity is increasing and affecting the weather, a situation NOT present in areas outside of the Valley.
Sam
Can any of the 30% reduction be attributed to the mandatory water rationing handed down from Cal Gov? I know Central Valley farmers are fighting for their lives because of the water shortage. I can’t think of one year over the last decade where there was a winter lacking the right conditions for “safe winter chill”.
I’m looking forward to the next Iceage change or yellowstone caldron showing the world what a real volcano can do. Otherwise worring about it is like stepping out your front door and being hit by a bus. Theres nothing you can do about it.
Is it time for another evolutionary step. Has everything stagnated and we need a push. Has a natural population control begun. This terrarium has become a bit crowded.
Wispers in the dark.
Rob in the US.
The best of your post: “No more cherry picking?” …it will produce great suffering where these are used most: In Boulder, Colorado.
As we all know, PDO changed to cool phase, which means drier weather.
As Aron put it the other day: “Hey kids, repeat after me: warm brings rain, cool brings drought”
We all knew, also, about the Napa valley frozen grapes. What is it happening now?
Last question: IPCC and gwrs. statistics froze at 2000, the y2k bug or just a consequence of all California´s green measures?
So science is now extrapolated fantasy, no data, no cause and effect. From what I’ve seen of irrigation effects modulating overnight temps, long term it will increase average of minimum. Haven’t read Cristy’s paper yet, but Anthony covered this with Tucumcari, NM.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=tucumcari%2C+nm
At Roger Pielke Sr. ‘s site, he cites a paper that finds cooling from irrigation.
It’s all beyond me. Apparently, if you irrigate a dry area, the additional moisture at night creates net warming but if you irrigate an fairly moist area, the additional daytime evaporation makes for net cooling.
Pielke, Sr.’s favorite points are (a) human impact on climate is lot more complex that CO2 emissions and the scientific approach should reflect that; (b) surface temp measurement is probably a lousy metric–we should use ocean heat content in some uniform fashion. I find these points highly persuasive.
I’m just bemused by the whole study which can be summarised as: IF computer models are correct THEN these particular crops will decline, causing $x worth of losses. This is all so moot anyway, since IF computer models are correct, then human civilization will cease (or so they tell us). It’s like a study that finds that IF an asteroid strikes the earth, then the peanut industry in Tennessee will loose $93,899,00. But IF the models are wrong, then the amount of money lost is zero.
As Geoff Sherringham alluded to in his post, in reality, all that would happen is that a different crop will be substituted. This is just basic economics and really, so much common sense, a commodity that seems to be in short supply. If any conclusion can be drawn at all, it is that Pamela Gray is right on the button when she says – there are already too many nuts in California!
I thought this quote by Thomas Jefferson-possibly the greatest and certainly the earliest keeper of a detailed diary on American Weather-was pertinent
This extract is especially relevant as it refers directly to the problems caused by climate change to fruit growing in the mid 1700’s.
” A change in our climate however is taking place very sensibly. Both heats and colds are become much more moderate within the memory even of the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent and less deep. They do not often lie, below the mountains, more than one, two, or three days, and very rarely a week. They are remembered to have been formerly frequent, deep, and of long continuance. The elderly inform me the earth used to be covered with snow about three months in every year. The rivers, which then seldom failed to freeze over in the course of the winter, scarcely ever do so now. This change has produced an unfortunate fluctuation between heat and cold, in the spring of the year, which is very fatal to fruits. From the year 1741 to 1769, an interval of twenty-eight years, there was no instance of fruit killed by the frost in the neighbourhood of Monticello. An intense cold, produced by constant snows, kept the buds locked up till the sun could obtain, in the spring of the year, so fixed an ascendency as to dissolve those snows, and protect the buds, during their developement, from every danger of returning cold. The accumulated snows of the winter remaining to be dissolved all together in the spring, produced those overflowings of our rivers, so frequent then, and so rare now.
Thomas Jefferson
This is from;
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/JEFFERSON/ch07.html
(Go to the second to last paragraph at the end)
Plus ca change…
Tonyb
“Global Warming to Threaten California Fruits and Nuts?”
It won’t help to threaten Nancy Pelosi . . . she just ignores them.
Generally I have a lot of respect for UC Davis but in this study …
“Using data from climate models developed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (2007), the researchers projected that winter chill will have declined from the 1950 baseline by as much as 60 percent by the middle of this century and by up to 80 percent by the end of the century.”
[emphasis mine]
Models, models, and yet more models – pretty well says it all.
The biggest threat to agriculture in California are the bureaucrats. Many farms on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley have had to let their crops and orchards go fallow due to the Fed and California Dept. of Water Resources shutting off water supplies from the Sacramento Delta, creating a man-made drought. All because of the plight a little minnow called the Delta Smelt, a dish genetically non-distinct from other minnows found throughout the US. And if that’s not enough, the east side of the valley will see its share of water diminish exponentially as the Powers That Be have forced the continuous release of water from the Friant Dam to revive and restore permanent water flow to the now dry San Joaquin River, in order to restore the migration run of salmon, something even the environmental advocates admit may never happen. Fish are more important than people and jobs. At this rate, the San Joaquin Valley will be a dust bowl within three years. Seeing as we grow as much as 25% percent of the nations food supply, everyone get ready for prices on produce to increase dramatically in the next two years.
Rant Off.
Scientists by their nature generally look at their work with a “black/white” “true/false” perspective. They are not generally good at assessing how species will adapt to changes in their environments.
There were a series of devastating freezes in Florida in the 1970s that nearly wiped out the citrus groves north of Orlando. The industry responded by planting new groves further south. Today there remains an abundant supply of Florida grown oranges and grapefruit.
I am certain that even California’s fruits and nuts will be able to adapt to future climate changes, be they colder or warmer.
Wow! Glad I read the whole post. Reading just the headline I thought they were talking about some friends of mine in San Francisco….. No really, i do have friends there, having lived there for a long time.
As a matter of fact I remember the day John Muir and I, heading to the Sierras from SF first gazed upon the great San Joaquin Valley in – the spring of 1868 – i think it was. What a sight! Far as the eye could see, north to south, and from our feet to the mountains on our eastern horizon – flowers! Every color imaginable but mostly orange. Poppies! Millions of poppies! Ah yes, I remember it well. Then just a few months later upon our return trip, it became clear why California is called the Golden State – everything had died and dried up and turn to straw. It was a desert! HOT and DRY! As we crossed, we wished for the rains and cool of winter…..
Now, any summer day in Modesto is HOT and MUGGY and I am continually astounded by the massive transformation we have brought forth upon the valley and the CONTINUAL shifting of crops from area to area as conditions AND markets change. Yes, COTTON still reins as KING of the valley but RICE and grapes are not far behind and fruits and nuts continue their LONG decline as a percentage of overall land area. I guess they just don’t do that well in a humid climate…. shame really, their flowering in the spring so reminded me of my days with John….
Alas, time marches on.
Pathetic.
The REAL problem with the California Fruits & Nuts . . . the Fruitcakes & Nutters
Wanna guess how she voted ?
Winter 2006-07
California Freeze Threatens State’s Citrus Crop
Mid-Spring 2008
Late freeze harms Northern California crops
When will all of these “scientists” realize that these climate models are basically useless? Look at how weather models were 20-30 years ago. They were not reliable. Only through repeated cycles of verifying their predictions and updating / rewriting the code have they now become reasonably accurate out to 7 days. Yet they still get many details wrong are not reliable except for getting ideas of the overall pattern past 7 days. Yet climate scientists think that our climate is so simple they can plug in some variables and accurately model things out for decades? It just doesn’t make sense. Even if everything was being done properly, it will probably take decades if not centuries to have enough information available to be able to tweak the models to be anything useful. And we’re supposed to make trillion dollar decisions based on this now? Just ridiculous.
This will be the first time in history with so many people complaining that their nuts aren’t cold enough.
Not only do they miss the impacts of irrigation, they are also apparently clueless about all the urbanization along the 99 and 80 corridors. Like there is no heat flux from any of that! Right!
it is much easier to predict 50 years ahead than to predict a few months ahead”.
Considering that it won’t be verified in most peoples lifetimes, I would suppose that’s right.
A few random thoughts here. First I remember while growing up here in the central valley it was normal for the frost report to be given for farmers. I’m actually certain Anthony remembers probably having to do those. At the time I also remember driving past grove after grove of fruit trees with smudge pots under them.
That is why I was so surprised a couple of years ago when so many groves were damaged by winter frost. My question was… why didn’t the farmers simply put their smudge pots out like they used to. [Note for those unfamiliar with them a smudge pot is basically an oil burning stove that is put out in the orchard to raise the temperature of the area above freezing. You use a number of these to heat the entire orchard.]
Additionally since the mid 50’s several artificial lakes have been created. I’m know that general weather patterns around Oroville changed as the lake filled. So are they taking these kinds of factors into account when analyzing temperature trends?
Isn’t California noted for it’s fruits and nuts? 😉
obstruksion (09:36:44) …and worried indeed, as gwrs nuts are threaten by climate. 🙂
Tom T:My question was… why didn’t the farmers simply put their smudge pots out like they used to..perhaps they got cheated by all the global warming propaganda.
That is why I was so surprised a couple of years ago when so many groves were damaged by winter frost. My question was… why didn’t the farmers simply put their smudge pots out like they used to. [Note for those unfamiliar with them a smudge pot is basically an oil burning stove that is put out in the orchard to raise the temperature of the area above freezing. You use a number of these to heat the entire orchard.]
I believe they’re now illegal, thanks to global warming fighting CARB regulations.
REPLY: They also aren’t very effective and the smudge causes damage to the stomata of the tree leaves as well. Wind turbines and helicopters do a better job of circulating air in orchards, water sprinkler systems are also employed. These are only effective to certain temperatures though. – Anthony
The few times we get into freeze conditions, the farmers will hang lights to slightly increase ambient temps, and use big fans to circulate the air in the fields, which helps prevent freezing of the citrus and other fruit still on the trees.
With any more help, there will be nothing grown in
California.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/how-green-was-my-valley-californias-economic-meltdown/article1230646/
This is a general comment on global warming. ( don’t see any recent posts that I can reply to with these remarks.)
Why doesn’t this site publish or link to real scientist climate sites if you claim to be objective? Why not also link to the IPCC’s and Real Climate websites, two of the most authoritative sites?
Why would you not be skeptical of your own biases, realizing that you yourself–nor any one person, for that matter–could possibly know enough about the climate to determine whether global warming is occurring mostly because of human activities? There must be consensus, reached by trained scientists, based on science using agreed-upon standards and procedures, reviewing each others’ work–again with agreed-upon standards and procedures–for any science to be deemed valid.
RealClimate.org is a website run by real climate scientists. Not weathermen, news reporters, commentators, hoaxers, pseudo-scientists or egotistical, bloviating engineers, all of whom mistakenly believe they can gather and interpret the data that only real, trained scientists can.
A 2007 report by the US Senate: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report casts doubt on the work of real scientists by quoting such nonscientists and purporting their credibility. This website reveals the lack of credibility behind such doubters:
http://www.fohguild.org/forums/general/36323-yet-another-article-global-warming-8.html#post1083641
From the site, Tea on Tuesday writes:
“You can nearly count the number of actual climate scientists on that list with your fingers.
The list is largely composed of economists, TV weathermen, social scientists, and people in fields unrelated to climatology. Most of the wittings from these “experts” are things like newspaper articles and editorials in various forms of print media. The few peer reviewed studies coming from the group are mostly published in Energy and Environment, ~snip~. It has an absurdly low scholarly circulation, it’s peer review process is highly abnormal (namely: authors get to chose who edits and reviews their submissions), and it was founded for the express purpose for publishing ~snip~ papers on climate change. Those that have published studies in more legitimate and mainstream journals have been seriously criticized for extreme methodological shortcomings. The ~snip~ want you to believe that their work is being supressed, but it’s no different than with ~snip~. They are being ostracized and shunned from the climate community because they are doing ~snip~ science.
“The more important point though is that no one on that list has offered any serious, legitimate, scientific dissent. A list of names, no matter how qualified, is meaningless if their position isn’t justified. Most the people on that list (some of them aren’t even ~snip~ and never have been) are rehashing the same old ~snip~ claims that the rest of the climate community moved on from years ago.”
When people make claims about the validity of various aspects of the climate, global warming and climate change, it’s vital to verify their credentials and ability to do climate-related science, and not continue to spread ~snip~.
~snip~ Some of these articles include “Lindzen: point by point,” “George Will-misled and misleading,” and “Freeman Dyson’s selective vision.”
On disinformation
For example, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are responsible–as are many others ~snip~ for spreading a great deal of disinformation and misinformation. They are populist radio broadcasters who don’t use logic, and certainly aren’t trained in science to any degree.
They tend to trust only those with a similar conservative mindset, which is a dangerous bias for two reasons:
1) It reinforces their own point of view, excluding facts and information that contests their ideology
2) The bias is toward keeping a status quo that protects their personal interests based on capitalism, a system that leaves out many from its economic benefits. The status quo has proven inadequate to serve the needs of the poor, underprivileged, and the main ecological needs and health of the Earth.
If capitalism had run rampant in the 1960s without protest and blowback from the ecology movement, much more of the world and the US would likely be as polluted as Love Canal, New Jersey–a dangerous toxic waste dump and reminder of the excesses of the typical corporate agenda: make money and grow, no matter what. Just look at the rampant pollution in China, a country with virtually no citizen voice in governmental affairs and industrial progress (or regression, as it is ecologically in many cases).
This website, while it reports apparent facts and offers some valuable investigative reporting, also ~snip~
“So why do the ~snip~ still use arguments that are blatantly false? I think the most obvious reason is that they are simply not interested (as a whole) in providing a coherent counter story. If science has one overriding principle, it is that you should adjust your thinking in the light of new information and discoveries – the ~snip~ continued use of old, tired and discredited arguments demonstrates their divorce from the scientific process more clearly than any densely argued rebuttal.”
I appreciate skepticism–it’s at the heart of science. We must trust someone. In fact, to survive we must trust many. We are too interdependent not to do so.
But if we misplace our trust in the wrong people, what we get are regimes run by those who only have their narrow interests in mind: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Congo, Bush-era (both of them) United States, North Korea, China, Russia and many other regimes that ~snip~ real science, human rights, the need for ecology–which are all intertwined with values that sustain life and health.
There are too many who subsume human health and sustainability to economic power and aggression.
This will never be a perfect world. ~snip~ already screwed it up too much.
But those of us who are both compassionate and intelligent must keep working to act as stewards of species and people without voices in the existing power structure, and keep those without those qualities out of power and influence. Please be on our side–the side of everyone and every species, in balance with our planet.
For a way to influence what research happens on earth and climate issues, anyone, scientist or not can go to: http://www.icsu-visioning.org/
The website, run by The International Council for Science (ICSU), is taking comments till August 15, 2009:
“The International Council for Science (ICSU) has launched an online consultation to gather questions that will help direct the future of Earth system research. ICSU invites the scientific community—natural and social scientists—as well as technology experts, decision-makers, and the general public, to contribute by visiting http://visioning.icsu.org, until 15 August 2009.”
The title of this thread is SOOOOOOOOOOOO not PC. ROFLMAO 😀
Just as local weather does not predict global weather (“all weather is local”)–and meteorologists, of all people, should know this–anecdote is not the singular of data.
Bottom line: The effect of climate or irrigation or whatever on California fruits and nuts isn’t necessarily a bellwether for the entire planet–or a chink in the vast array of evidence for human causes of global warming.
This is the same sort of obviously flawed reasoning that people who doubt global warming use: “But this winter was a lot colder than last year’s.” I’ve actually heard this comment several times in conversations on the topic!
One more datum to demonstrate global warming IS happening:
Mr. Watts, your entry in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Watts_(blogger)#cite_note-8) notes the report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that refutes skepticism about rising temperatures:
The report asks “Q: Is there any question that surface temperatures in the United States have been rising rapidly during the last 50 years?”
A: “None at all.”
In other words, the surface of the US is warming, despite the skepticism of local weathermen like yourself. You’re not the smartest person in the world, and I hope you start listening to those who are smarter and better trained in climate science.
Excessive global warming is human caused, poses a threat, and is created by pollution. Whether you’re pro-pollution (just about equal to a global warming contrarian) or against, we’d better do something to reduce it–drastically.
By the way, several reports have noted that a new, green sustainable economy will create and increase the number of jobs worldwide. And that the devastating consequences of global warming, if unchecked, will cost trillions of dollars as well as untold human and wildlife suffering.
Too many nuts in California for AGW or any other fantasy to have an impact.
offtopic:
I just wanted to make Mr. Watts aware of a new youtube post directed at him, should he wish to respond:
part of the video makes the claim about various ‘markers’ such as flower bloom times, plant growth, mountain ice melt, etc. to state the earth is warming. The poster also takes issue in particular with the surface station project.
It seems that San Joaquin minimum winter temps have increased from 1906 to 2006 by about a degree, while the Sacramento Valley temps decreased. IF the current rate continues all of the current farmers and most of their grandchildren will be dead before anyone notices that the bad crop years are increasing.
Wow! So much…
California is known as the Granola State, since everyone who isn’t a fruit or a nut is a flake (with apologies to the few Californians who ARE sane, but they already know who they are and, in my experience, already know who they’re surrounded by).
Well, now we’ve heard concern about the fruits and nuts FROM the flakes. Amazing.
Here’s a clue: the REASON it’s easier to predict 50 years ahead is that NOBODY WILL CALL YOU ON IT. Not only do you not have to be remotely close to right, but nobody will care (or remember) either way.
I wonder why it seems to be so easy for climate scientists to avoid looking out the window. And why are they all so obsessed with straight trendlines??? There’s never been one in the past, what makes anyone think there will be in the future?
I’ve spent enough time in California to know that ANY agriculture changes are more likely to be due to direct human meddling than “climate” anyway.
Sorry for rambling, but… seriously, the article is just so… obtuse!
Thought UC Davis was the very place funded by CA taxpayers to produce those potential cultivars with lower winter chill requirements. Instead of chiming in on the monotonous AGW chorus, why don’t these pampered, parasitic twenty-somethings get busy on some useful work? Maybe they could develop a minnow that doesn’t need water?
During World War II it was decided to give a special subsidy for rice farmers in the Imperial Valley (desert East of San Diego). In order to replace rice supplies from Asia, an act of Congress gave a special subsidy for Colorado River water for rice growers in Southern California. The subsidy continues unchanged to this day as far as I know. There was much complaining about it w few years back from farmers of other crops who must pay hundreds of times more per acre foot of water than the rice farmers who are paying the same amount now that they were paying in 1942 but as it is guaranteed by the US Congress, it would take an act of Congress to reverse it.
So that is why you have rice, one of the most water intensive crops there is, growing in the middle of the California desert while people complain that there isn’t enough water.
“To provide accurate projections of winter chill, the researchers used hourly and daily temperature records from 1950 and 2000, as well as 18 climate scenarios projected for later in the 21st century.”
Which weather stations were used for the temperature records ? No urban heat island effect ?
crosspatch (12:51:19) :
To substitute is human: To subsidize endlessly is Congressional sandbagging.
Think Life:
You go on and on, setting up your strawman that the climate has warmed, then you knock down that strawman, you brave strawman killer, you [“One more datum to demonstrate global warming IS happening”].
But in fact, no one argues that global warming hasn’t occurred [although recently the planet has been cooling, despite a steady rise in CO2, thus falsifying the runaway global warming scaremongering by the AGW crowd]. You don’t need to convince anyone here that global warming has been occurring since the last great Ice Age.
Cherry-picking an arbitrary “50 years” is very convenient for your strawman, no? Had you arbitrarily picked 5 years instead, you would see that the planet has been cooling.
The planet has been gradually warming from the LIA, and the climate fluctuates above and below that trend line on a multi-decadal time scale. Sometimes the Earth cools for decades; sometimes it warms for decades. But human activity has nothing measurable to do with it [if it does, let’s see the real world measurements proving AGW].
You then change your claim to… “Excessive global warming is human caused, poses a threat, and is created by pollution.” All false statements. Every one of them.
I challenge you to try and prove those claims, one by one. Not with always-inaccurate computer models, but by measurable, real world, falsifiable, reproducible evidence. You know, the kind of evidence required by the Scientific Method.
If you fail to provide solid evidence showing that GW is caused by human activity, or that the small fraction of a degree rise in temperature is any kind of a “threat”, or that the small, entirely natural rise in temperature traceable back to the LIA is ‘created by pollution’ [Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??], then you are simply another True Believer drinking the CO2=AGW Kool Aid. But believing doesn’t make it so.
You have zero empirical evidence that human activity is causing global warming. Zero! Prove me wrong. If you think you can.
On the other hand, if you are able to provide solid evidence [reproducible and falsifiable, please, as required by the Scientific Method; no GCM ‘evidence’ allowed], then you will be well on your way to convincing me. But keep in mind that you will be the very first one who has ever produced that kind of evidence anywhere. Your polemic above is merely an emotional rant by a crank who avoids the Scientific Method like the plague. That will get you nowhere here. This is the winner of the “Best Science” site [while your censorship-prone realclimate echo chamber got only one-tenth the number of votes as WUWT, and their site traffic is far less].
Finally, your last paragraph tells us all we need to know about your wacky belief system: “…a new, green sustainable economy will create and increase the number of jobs worldwide.”
Only an economic illiterate would believe that new, government created, bureaucratic “green” jobs, paid for with $Trillions in new taxes on productive workers, will produce on balance a net increase in the total number of jobs. Where is the aggregate demand curve for those jobs? Inquiring minds want to know.
By that wacky assumption, a 100% income tax would bring about a zero unemployment rate through the creation of endless government make-work green jobs. Hey Presto, problem solved… Not.
Better give that silly conjecture a little more thought, since we’re talking about the real world here — not the fevered imaginings of red faced, spittle-flecked, alarmist arm wavers.
Yes, Global Warming in California is threatenging the fruits and nuts, the real ones. You see, the hot air source has been previously located: The State Capitol.
Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to desalinate.
Maybe we could use saltwater to cool a nuclear power
plant. No, no, then we’d have to contend with all that
pesky steam. What was I thinking? Stupid boy!
ThinkLife just Read your Blog after your Wiki based assault on logic and sanity in the blogosphere against Anthony Watts.
I have never read a more partisan and vile attack on conservatives, if this is your starting position for conversations then be sure you will not be treated well when you leave your Utopian Progressive Socialist bubble and venture out into the real world, IMO you are simply a poster child for the “Intolerant Left” that claims to be the “Progressive” movement when in reality you are supporting a regressive society ruled by intellectual elites ( like during the Middle Ages when Advisors and Fanatics were the true Power behind the Thrones of Europe) ruled by telling the unwashed what they should do and think.
Your intellectual bigotry is far more dangerous than any racial or class distinctions you attribute to conservatives. You seem to think you are better than others based on the simple fact that YOU cannot accept that when presented with the same information anyone with any sort of intelligence could possibly come to another conclusion than you have been told to support (see AGW for example). You did not decide this you fell victim to an appeal to authority, just as you base your comment on.
So you attack the character and integrity of these people who you feel should be shunned from society for their “disruptive” views but claim free-speech to allow you to spread your intolerence, you marginalize and persecute them not based on race, gender or class but on their ideas. Which runs counter to the Progressive Position of acceptance and tolerence but because it is not gender, race or class based then you justify it internally.
If that is not a a segregationist and bigoted policy based on traits you feel make someone inferior than please explain what is. I would attempt to persuade you on AGW but you are beyond any sort of reasonable discourse on the subject. In the future I would suggest less confrontation will elicit a better respone than this one.
Think Life – you need to do fact checking. Now where is Love Canal? (As an aside, you can always count on an ideologue to mention past media worthy environmental issues, as a means of demonstrating their “street cred” and get the attention of the masses. “Oh yeah, Love Canal … verrrrry bad … US capitalists … verrrrry bad … ergo, oil companies / fossil fuels / current American life style … verrrrry bad).
Obviously , ThinkLife has never visited this site before .
Lol – I once dated a girl like “ThinkLife”. It was the most fascinating few weeks of my life. I mean, she despises racists, ALL OF WHOM ARE WHITE. I love observing contrary logic in someone who believes themselves “intelligent”.
Once the whole stupid scare has been called off, what will people like “ThinkLife” do? I’d bet real money they’ll claim that all along they knew it was just sexed up BS (Bad Science).
Other than failing to notice that RealClimate IS linked, prominently on each and every page of this site, what else struck me about “ThinkLife”‘s little missives up there? An apparent inability to recognize the fallacy of “appeal to authority”. Sorry, sunshine, but NOBODY is an authority in what is a brand new field of study.
Thinklife wrote:
“Why doesn’t this site publish or link to real scientist climate sites if you claim to be objective? Why not also link to the IPCC’s and Real Climate websites, two of the most authoritative sites?”
It does to the first (and a few others), under “Pro-AGW Views,” in the right-hand column. (Click page-down twice.)
Want a translation of this whole report? Look in the final paragraphs. Does it say, more research is needed and please send the money here?
If there is any area of agricultural production that has used genetics, hybridization, cloning and other manipulation techniques to widen or narrow the ecological requirements of its cultivars, its got to be commercial orchardists. I suspect that the entire range of temperature that a fruit such as peaches (all species) can be grown is wider than the variation in temperature observed in the central valley for the last 100 years. Same would go for almost every fruit and nut now grown in the CV. In addition, crop set, productivity and yield are not one-dimensional correlations (e.g. minimum average temperature) to a single environmental factor. Also basing predictions on IPCC data is compounding the weaknesses of their conclusions.
I am sure Anthony can correlate the 205 stations they used with the station survey data accumulated to date and we can see if they are mostly poor or good stations and if they exhibit UHI and other effects.
BTW, anyone want to do a reply article for the Journal they published in? Their are enough weaknesses in this research that one could draft up a pretty tight rebuttal based on facts and science.
One would California orchardists would worry more about the prospect of global cooling than global warming. Don’t their oranges (and sometimes even their trees) suffer heavy damage from too much “cooling”? So why don’t they favor more CO2 that would make their trees grow even better and maybe even produce more? Maybe the clue is in the title of this story about the “threat to California’s fruits and nuts.” Doesn’t California have a plethora or fruits and nuts, and aren’t a lot of them not necessarily restricted to the orchards?
ThinkLife (12:07:07)
I’m sure you care, but why are you so ready to line up?
Do you know the history of those who line up? There
are always alternatives, it’s not necessary to accept
draconian solutions when others will present. The
man with the eternal sandwich board “The world
will end tomorrow”, is not correct. Don’t follow him.
I live in the northern Sacramento Valley and had bumper crops in my home orchard, berries vines and grape vines this year as opposed to total failures of all in the previous year. Weather had nothing to do with it, however. It was the frequent application of a 12 gauge shotgun that provided immediate results.
Think life assumes just because you do not drink the AGW kool-aid you are:
A. racist white man (no I’m part “white’ but also native American and Barbadian
-“Banjan” to use the correct term) I don’t need a tanning bed, to put it bluntly.
B. A Rush Limbaugh listener, no, I can’t stand him.
C. No scientific background -Major: Biology-unused,but I’m more qualified than Algore
to comment on such matters.
D. Deny the obvious warming. Well every time it’s the least bit warm the warmists
scream SEE!LOOK!-yet when we convert food to fuel and have crop failures-Denial ain’t a river in Egypt…
Oh CodeTech (14:45:41) : I think I dated her Mother….
ThinkLife wrote in part:
“If capitalism had run rampant in the 1960s without protest and blowback from the ecology movement, much more of the world and the US would likely be as polluted as Love Canal, New Jersey–a dangerous toxic waste dump and reminder of the excesses of the typical corporate agenda: make money and grow, no matter what. Just look at the rampant pollution in China, a country with virtually no citizen voice in governmental affairs and industrial progress (or regression, as it is ecologically in many cases).”
C’mon now. Pick one. Is it capitalism or socialism that’s the bad guy? Or is it just everyone who’s not compassionate and intelligent?
Thanks for that post. I was beginning to miss the 60’s but now I remember why I don’t.
Thinklife: I read your screed and you’ve absorbed all the green IPCC propaganda masterfully. But you are not a scientist, I presume, so I will, rather than respond point by point, quote a review of Ian Plimer’s book Heaven and Earth, by one Roger McEvilly. Plimer is a scientist and a skeptic, who skillfully destroys nearly all the arguments of the AGW alarmists with wit and incisiveness. Evilly’s review, which is not entirely complimentary, can be found on Amazon, Here is part of the review by McEvilly, which offers up two sections of bullet points for you to ponder:
\\There are serious claims in this book; a general one being that data and debate about climate change is being suppressed by green ideology. Here are some assertions:
* There is no scientific consensus on the causes of recent (~last 150 years) global warming.
* Data and debate from solar physics, geological, archaeological, and historical circles is ignored in the media and within the political process.
* Gross, unscientific, major distortions of data and debate is occurring, largely due to ideological agendas, and parallels Soviet Union agricultural science and policies.
* Amongst other examples, scientific fraud has been committed with relation to the `hockeystick’ graph of Mann et al. regarding temperature in the last ~1000 years, which has been widely circulated (eg IPCC 2001), and which shows distorted temperature trends.
* The influence of changes particularly in the sun, and in cloudiness, cosmic rays and volcanoes on climate changes has been under-estimated.
* There is a correlation between solar activity and earth temperatures, including in the last 150 years of warming.
* Recent global warming since about 1850 is minor and largely not related to human activities, but part of a natural climatic variation since the Little Ice Age.
* There has been no global warming since 1998 (at May 2009), and analysis of solar activity suggests a natural cooling trend in coming decades, which has already begun.
* Influence of increase in C02 level on temperature in the atmosphere tapers off once a certain level is reached. (Rather than `runaway greenhouse’, we have ‘atmospheric buffer’)
* The `precautionary principle’ is not a scientific principle, it is a social and political one (I concur).
* There is no such thing as a `tipping point’ in science (I disagree-e.g. the term `catalyst’ comes to mind).
* IPCC climate models do not accurately model observed temperature trends since 1998, undermining their projected global warming models.
* Computer models used by the IPCC are `computer games’, as global climate trends are too big and complicated to meaningfully forecast.
* The global climate is too big for humans to have any meaningful effect.
The books strength is the variety of data, the weakness is the convoluted writing style. At worst, one might contend that Plimer is guilty of obfuscation, but at least there is a broad overview, including real gems you won’t hear from extreme greens:
* the very small size of the Amazon rainforest during the last ice age,
* Strong legal disclaimers about climate projections from the very same agencies that want to enforce major legal changes using such data,
* the strong correlation between sunspots and earth temperature
* solar activity has increased in the last ~few hundred years
* that warm periods in human history generally occur with human prosperity,
* Siberian Soviet-age historical temperatures were fudged below -15C because towns received a vodka levy when -15C was reached,
* Parts of Greenland have been cooling since the early 20th century,
* The US, France, Italy, and UK squabbled over ownership of a new volcano in the Mediterranean in the 1800s, which then promptly sank beneath the ocean (which Plimer hopes will happen to global warming advocates).
* Global temperatures have been warmer on several occasions in the last several thousand years, with no adverse effects, rather, they generally correspond to human prosperity.
* C02 has been much higher in longer geological history, with no adverse effects.
* The use of the `precautionary principle’ in banning DDT use resulted in an estimated 40 million deaths from malaria
* Ice is a rock
* Water vapour is the main greenhouse gas
* Many western cities have water shortages because new dams are not being built due to green politics,
* `Being creative and riding the waves of change is the only way we humans have survived’, `sustainable living’, on the contrary `is such that with the slightest change in weather, climate or politics, there is disease, mass famine, and death’.
Suffice to say in short review, there are some good examples of environmentally-driven distortion and cherry-picking of data, in the worst cases fraud (e.g. Mann’s hockeystick), but I suspect, there is also errors on his side.//
Thinklife – the Love Canal is in New York State, I think – not New Jersey.
Pamela Gray (06:42:06) :
They are warning us that California will produce fewer nuts????? And they think this is BAD????
Now THAT’S the quote of the week 😉
DaveE.
I get the jist of the article. I just don’t think any warming pattern has been established by a long shot. I’ve planted some fruit trees here in Southern California. I had two apple trees. A fuji and a gala. They have been in the ground for 3 years now. Planted from root stock. The first year they were too young to fruit. The next year we had several freezes that killed most of the citrus in this area, which is primarily an area devoted to citrus and avocado agriculture. A disaster for the big farmers. The apple trees loved the cold that year. I had too many apples that year, so many that the weight of them was breaking the branches. This year we had a relatively mild winter and a relatively cold spring, but the temperatures did not go below 40 degrees often enough for the apple trees to produce in abundance. So I’ve got a rather paltry crop.
On the other hand, my lemon and orange trees are doing fine. Some years are just like that. Some years are not.
“Researchers used hourly and daily temperature records from 1950 and 2000”
Why? Do they not have the data from 2000 to 2009? It’s computerized data, surely it can’t be too hard to get recent data that they have to use data that’s 10 years out of date!
After spending a considerable amount of money that could have been put to better use, it was demonstrated that the disease and illness rates of the people who lived in the Love Canal subdivision were no different than a well matched sample group who lived elsewhere. Find Aaron Wildavsky’s book: “But is it True?”for the demolition of all the green chemical scare stories.
Re California:
Says it all. Sorry 🙂
(Qualifier: YES, I know this is atypical… right?)
CodeTech,
Thank you for that. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
Me too, if you were to substitute hours for weeks.
ThinkLife – Thank you for reminding me why I am a sceptic. In one long post you manage to go from consensus appeal through personal attacks and on to your vision of the bright new utopia that will follow our acceptance of the faith. Not bad going by any measure.
This wouldn’t be the same University of California that recommended the AXR1 rootstock to the exclusion of all others for wine grapes, would it? That worked out well.
to Smokey:
I don’t need to prove anthropogenic global warming. Real scientists do that. Their calculations are beyond me, but I can follow the basic arguments. When most scientists agree with articles published in peer-reviewed journals, that’s good enough for me.
I agree with skepticism–but do it with real science, not rehashed and debunked pseudo arguments that most real scientists already know don’t hold water. It’s the public that is still fooled, because disinformation and doubt is easier to spread than complicated equations.
Here, by the way, is an example response to your claim that “small fraction of a degree rise in temperature” poses no threat: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Is-the-climate-warming-or-cooling.html
“The most popular skeptic argument in recent times is that global warming has stopped and we’re now experiencing global cooling. For example, if we fit a linear trend line to global temperature from 1998 to 2008, we find no statistically significant trend. However, if we fit a trend line from 1999 to 2008, we do find a strong warming trend. It’s all too easy to cherry pick start and end dates to reinforce whatever point of view you wish to promote. But what is the most appropriate way to view temperature data?”
“So what’s the take home from this paper? Climate is variable. This is why climate by definition deals in trends greater than a decade. It is simply not appropriate nor particularly illuminating to draw definite conclusions on where climate is headed based on short term trends. When you read an article stating global warming has ended based on the last 10 years or less, treat the conclusion with much skepticism.”
And many have a vested interest in keeping the status quo because, as we all know, some changes are difficult. And people just like their lives EASY in fat, overfed America.
Like in “There Will Be Blood,” the film tale of Standard Oil’s ruthless, sociopath founder, the corporate motto is: “I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!”
Just eat McDonald’s every day! Why change to organic or whole grains or meatless? Hell, McDonald’s is just good-tasting food, right?! (Actually there are about 30-40 ingredients in these so-called “100% beef” burgers–most of which lay persons can’t pronounce and don’t know the effects of.)
Wrong! It is addictive bullcrap (full of salt, sugar, fat, coupled with delicious pictures to lull you into a salivating trance) fed to you by marketing scientists, food scientists, mega-millionaires and those who only care about money, not people and health. (America, with the “greatest” health care system that conservatives boast about, and its standard of living, is 50th in the world in longevity! That’s shocking! And it’s a huge indictment of capitalism, corporate privateering, pollution and the capitalizing of health care.)
What I criticize is people not doing enough research to investigate the science and follow the arguments. Then they decide what’s “true” based on lack of evidence and disinformation, coupled with blindness to their own biases and beliefs.
Finally, if there’s really *no problem* with the climate, global warming and pollution, why do so many credible scientists believe so, and why are so many with vested interests in highly polluting industries (oil and coal production, mainly) against it?
Very coincidental, to put it sarcastically. Of course it’s in one’s own interest to promote the business that pays you millions each year! But it’s anti-human to pollute while feeding yourself. (Look at vampire billionaire government/industry revolving door expert Dick Cheney–whose perhaps only good act was to accept his daughter’s gay orientation–and only because she’s his daughter? He probably would not have stepped up to that plate if she were not related.)
Now the crazies are up in arms against our Chocolate Jesus, the black President, Barack Obama–who happens to be more intelligent than most of them, and more successful–which makes them doubly crazy and angry. (Like Bill Maher says, conservatives opposing Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination are only against racism if it’s reverse racism–never mind the regular kind of racism they perpetrate on blacks, Hispanics and anyone else with different ideas or skin color. Back to the global warming “controversy.” Only controversial because of rampant ignorance, disinformation and misinformation!)
I’ve looked at contrarian arguments, and wondered if they were true. I started to doubt AGW, and did more research–but I’ve seen the contrarian arguments refuted point by point by scientists who just made more convincing and reasoned arguments, with data to support those.
Real Climate is probably the best single source for those refutations.
Another source: http://www.skepticalscience.com/
Climate Heretic:
I’m not a critic of skeptics, I’m a critic of stupidity, acting like a lemming and blind support of vested interests. Limbaugh, Exxon-Mobile, George Will, et al, are examples of all the above.
When will the facts stand up for themselves? What is the problem skeptics have understanding those facts or believing rigorous analyses of facts?
From what I can see, it’s mostly about being stuck in an ideology that refutes any new fact or information. And that attitude is anti-science, it’s anti-reason, and it leads to antihumanism and, down a long, admittedly slippery slope, to atrocities and even genocide. (This aside relates in terms of mindset: LIke Bill Maher says, “If you’re a racist these days, you’re probably a Republican.” Conservatives seem to be the ones refuting science and wanting to go back to the redneck, rebel-yell pre-Civil War society of powerful, rich, only-white males.)
Read the Real Climate rebuttals to climate change skeptics’ typical responses. (link already posted above) That just about covers it all.
Honestly, it’s just words and thoughts. It can’t hurt you! You have a right to distrust, fail to understand or otherwise disagree with it. But you can’t refute its intelligence and good sense.
I trust science over bloviation because I am intelligent. Others trust bloviation because they are not. Period. Gullible is another word to describe it. PT Barnum knew the audience well, as does Limbaugh, and Hannity; they make their millions off of fools and those who simply cannot use their heads. You can tell by the comments on those shows.
Here’s a good one: Limbaugh praised industry–yes, industry–last month for their own good sense in preventing pollution over the last 30 years. What? Whattttt????? He wants to rewrite history!
It was the good sense of people like Ralph Nader and environmentalists who pushed for the Clean Air and Water Act! What a liar Limbaugh is! Total bull!
We’ve seen how well industry polices itself. Union Carbide’s Bhopal, Exxon Mobile’s Valdez–they’re STILL fighting paying the health claims on that one!–and the aspartame scandal few know about, pushed through acceptance in a scam run by Don Rumsfeld, friend of Nixon and Bush I, who pushed through this health hazard even though 3 of 6 government FDA panelists said “No.” Then back into government (revolving, self-interested door–his reward??) to help Retard Bush II make a mockery of ecology enforcement, and destroy American respect for human lives at Abu Ghraib (en.wikipedia.org/…/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse) and Guantanamo–shredding our human rights reputation along the way.
Let’s please put truth before lies, sanity before tomfoolery, compassion before dangerous self-interest. How is it so many are so fooled? (Related: see this great movie, Idiocracy, to see the future of the dumbing of America that we’re seeing now. Made by Mike Judge, who created the brilliant Beavis and Butthead cartoon series.)
I hope those who believe that polluting the air, soil and water endlessly, and reproducing endlessly–over 6 billion now on Earth, which is INSANE–that doing so will result in some kind of common good–that they just wake up to their obvious blindness and insanity. WAKE UP! PLEASE!
As Carl Sagan used to say famously, and hopefully, about the Cold War, the nuclear threat, “When sanity breaks out…” there will be no nuclear threat.
The only creatures who sh*t where they drink and eat are fish and *some* humans. Not me, not environmentalists, not Al Gore, not real climate scientists. Not people who care for other people.
to The Duke:
I’m no scientists, but smart enough to parse out bullsh*t from intelligent inquiry and analysis. Who here has a strong enough “bullsh*t meter” to do the same?? And who is simply overestimating their own intellect? (Like Limbaugh, Hannity and Will, to name some of the famous-yet-ignorant.)
Simply look at the trail of money. That will tell you where the vested interests lie, and who they support, and why. Not current or recent money or smart green, sustainable investments–it makes sense to support a sensible industry with government funding. Look at the rancid, corrupt history. Oil money in wars. Government revolving doors with industry, especially the military-industrial complex–wolves guarding the henhouses. (Originally Eisenhower wrote “congressional-military-industrial” complex! How prescient! This from the International security consultant Susan Eisenhower, recently on Bill Maher’s Real Time. And by the way, why is it comedians have to tell us what’s wrong with America? You get more news, cogent analysis and truth on Maher’s show in a half hour than has been broadcast on Fox News in the last year!)
I’ve heard claims that environmentalists hope to make millions and that’s the impetus for supporting AGW.
There is no good reason for supporting AGW other than to support sustainability, to change to a green sustainable economy. It’s simply too difficult to start up businesses, develop new technologies and market them.
Far easier to dredge oil from the ground, or invest money into Exxon or BP stock. A few clicks on Ameritrade can do that. Anybody who is both smart and greedy is supporting big oil. Anyone smart, creative and compassionate is for green jobs and sustainability. But it’s no easy road, thank God (Chocolate Jesus?) that it’s getting easier.
It just makes sense. Use your senses, not your ideology, and observe.
Regarding Plim’s point, “* C02 has been much higher in longer geological history, with no adverse effects.”:
Who was around to measure or feel this lack of effects in “longer geological history?? Did we have billions of dollars of real estate to be destroyed on waterfronts? Is it possible to determine how many species destroyed, relocations of wildlife and people as likely will happen with rising oceans?
And as for “Parts of Greenland have been cooling since the early 20th century.”:
Hello! I already stated “all weather is local”–something any weather forecaster could tell you.
How often must it be repeated? I’m sure anyone can find parts of the world where temperatures have continually risen or fallen in recent times. It’s the overall temp, of course, that poses concern.
To 3×2, who wrote that I “manage to go from consensus appeal through personal attacks and on to your vision of the bright new utopia that will follow our acceptance of the faith.”:
I never pushed for faith or blind acceptance. Duh! It’s about science, and science embraces skepticism. Progress requires it. But please be smart about it! Most of the posts here are not.
It’s almost a Christmas song of posts here: “Six knees a-jerking, five golden rings!”
Personal attacks? I attack only lemmingism, stupidity, ignorance and lack of reason. These are actions–behavior, not personalities. I don’t criticize the people who suffer from those conditions.
Well, you’re right in some cases: But Bush is fair game, since he arrogantly failed to realize that he was too stupid to lead. So are Limbaugh and Hannity, who should know better, but choose not to spread truth, out of greed–the profit motive, as they would lose their audiences and look like laughingstocks if they did any real, unbiased research and actually learned!)
Those who suffer from it–I feel sorry for them (or you?). But the disinformation must still be dragged out and sat down in the sun to shrivel under the light of fact and truth and reasoned analyses.
to any and all:
People who doubt the good intentions of these AGW-supporting climate scientists and environmentalists–you just reveal your greedy, self-centered nature. You yourself cannot fathom altruism, caring about others as well as yourself–so you attribute their goals to some kind of greed or self-interested motive. The only motives you know. That makes sense, though it’s sad. Sad for those who want to save ourselves. Because we know that you CANNOT care–you may be too damaged to do it. (Like a PTSD sufferer who can’t help but yelp at a loud noise or stop himself from shouting when someone startles him or inadvertently aggravates him.)
It’s impossible for some conservatives to envision that some people just love truth and other people as much as you love your money and your Hummer and your Type II diabetes from eating as much beef as you can stuff into your faces, regardless of how many others are starving outside your own chemical-ridden backyard or polluted pond or coiffed-by-max-polluting-garden tractor-cut golf-course yard!
It’s blindness! It IS insanity. It’s greed, too, in some cases. It’s a condition, or a disease.
And you’re merely pissed off that we’ve caught you red-handed and are stopping you. Stopping the racism. Stopping the overpopulation. And stopping the pollution.
Of course, only those who feel offended must be the offenders. I’m only targeting the guilty. And so the guilty will take offense. Because I do hope to offend and out them.
(By the way…Did you know that the granddaughter of Eisenhower recently quit the Republican party out of disgust over its regressive policies, membership and ideologies? Is it any wonder the GOP hired Michael Steele to gloss over their racism problem–mistakenly thinking a conservative black loose cannon, who liberals laugh at, will fix their image? Lunacy! Self blindness turned into a real life joke–like most of Fox news!)
It just GALLS you, and you’re screaming with rage and embarrassment. Now we know why! You are OUTED. The Internet (which Gore humorously and ironically claimed on Letterman was his child–and which he could “take away”–stamps the damning scarlet letter on your foreheads.
So….suffer. Shout all you want. Scream. Post on blogs.
Call your retard Inhofe congressfool (who NEVER should have been let out of his pigfarm backyard to mislead in government, see http://www.counterpunch.org/jackson05122004.htmlhttp://www.counterpunch.org/jackson05122004.html), or his mentally defective replacement or clone.
It will get you absolutely nowhere.
The truth is choking you down your throat…and now, you can’t “drink anothers’ milkshake.”
Thinklife:
Must be difficult living in a world surrounded by us mere mortals.
“Author: ThinkLife
Comment:
to Smokey:
Problem for you ThinkLife is that not one single real scientist has done that, no matter what they published in peer-reviewed journals or not!
Problem is that the figures measured in regards of temperatures in the past, and sometimes even today, aren’t the figures used as facts in the so called ‘real scientists’ works! Never ever seen so much circleproofs and non-valid arguments used as if they were valed and solid fact instead of unproven assumptions/thesis/hypothesis.
An other big problem is that if you add together all the stations used and the area they can vouch for had their correct data been used, You will not have more than 2% of all land and sea area covered. Not to mention that the absense of analyse due to different biotops between areas haven’t been entered to satisfaction at all, mostly they aren’t even taken into consideration.
“obstruksion (09:36:44) :
This will be the first time in history with so many people complaining that their nuts aren’t cold enough.”
And that right there’s funny…I don’t care who you are.
Great way to start the day…thnks.
JimB
Okay. I am almost speechless. Almost.
“Thinklife:
It’s blindness! It IS insanity. It’s greed, too, in some cases. It’s a condition, or a disease.
And you’re merely pissed off that we’ve caught you red-handed and are stopping you. Stopping the racism. Stopping the overpopulation. And stopping the pollution.
Of course, only those who feel offended must be the offenders. I’m only targeting the guilty. And so the guilty will take offense. Because I do hope to offend and out them.”
Dude…you REALLY need to sit back, relax, breathe, and roll up a good d…..
Ah, forget it. Another mind lost.
JimB
Thinklife said
“What I criticize is people not doing enough research to investigate the science and follow the arguments. Then they decide what’s “true” based on lack of evidence and disinformation, coupled with blindness to their own biases and beliefs.”
I can only assume you came across this site and went in to print without reading the numerous articles that underpin it. You have preformed the opinon that anyone ‘sceptical’ is an ignorant right wing shill of big oil who has given the matter no thought whatsoever, and only you have the correct answers.
As for myself, I am a vegetarian who walks and cycles on most journeys, buys local food in season locally, ‘own’ some rain forest to prevent deforestation and is an enthusiast for wave/tidal power renewables. Our host drives an electric car and uses solar panels. How do we (and many other ‘liberals’ here) fit into your world view of sceptics? Yes, from my spelling of that word you can see I’m British.
A good percentage of the people blogging here would at one time have believed the AGW mantra until they started researching it-myself included. Being British I am in the fortunate position of being close to history. It is apparent that climatically we have passed this way many times before as real records from real people tell us this constantly. From Ancient Middle East and Bronze age civilisations , the Roman and Byzantine empire, The Venerable Bede, Vikings, Domesday book, Mayas, Aztecs, Pepys, Thomas Jefferson- they all tell us about frequently changing climate throughout the world.
Not twenty miles from my home is a bronze age settlement abandoned when the climate cooled, and a medieval settlement abandoned when the climate cooled (again) in the 14th century.
Despite what you believe therefore the current episide is neither unprecedented nor even unusual, and temperatures have been higher and lower in the past. Greenland is by no means an isolated ‘local’ effect, there have been numerous studies, cited here many times, demonstrating the worldwide warming and cooling through the millenia.
Sea levels in mans recorded history have been higher than today and are showing no abnormal rise.
It all comes down to the Hockey Stick, where Michael Mann sought to minimise the LIA and the MWP (he said the MWP is an outdated concept) Greatly fluctuating temperatures at pre industrial constant levels of co2 at 280ppm do not fit in with the concept of a fairly constant temperature which, according to him, went wild when man increased co2 levels to 380ppm.
Even those pre industrial levels are in doubt. Look (objectively) at Ernst Becks work-as I have done- and you may feel uncomforatble that the IPCC discounted 150,000 co2 reading in the period 1830 to 1957 (many compiled by Nobel winners) showing fluctuating co2 at around current levels, in order to get on board with Charles Keeling-someone who never in his life had taken co2 readings before.
As for Global temperatures, the concept of a single temperature is absurd especially when you learn how they are compiled. Its all based on Hansens (excellent) paper from the 1980’s which used data from a tiny number of stations from 1880-Hadley use 20 stations worldwide from 1850. Those stations have fluctuated in number and location ever since.
The science is riddled with inconsistencies and I directly refute your suggestion that people such as myself ‘do not do enough research’ in order to reach our own conclusions.
Please treat us with a little more respect and recognise that the arguments you put forward have been refuted numerous times here if you would care to search the archives.
You cite Greenpeace many times on your web site-I suggest you google Agenda 21 to see what one of the pillars of AGW is all about, you might then like to put it into a wider context by reading H.L.Mencken who wrote:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
By the way I quoted Pepys earlier, who coincidentally wrote this in the year the Royal Society was created, demonstrating that nothing is unprecedented (yes I know its only ‘weather’)
” January 1660/61:
It is strange what weather we have had all this winter; no cold at all; but the ways are dusty, and the flyes fly up and down, and the rose-bushes are full of leaves, such a time of the year as was never known in this world before here.”
Hope you stick around but please don’t treat us all as right wing idiots intent on destroying the planet.
tonyb
I could do a point by point rebuttal, but I think you could do no better than to visit http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Curious.htm where Lucy Skywalker will take you on a reasoned journey from AGW belief to a still open minded but realist point of view. Dare you ?
Referring to Thinklife of course.
Or is water management the bigger threat?
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/drought/2009-07-27-drycalifornia_N.htm
Think Life.
I admit I didn’t read your ramblings all the way through.
For USA temps see http://i44.tinypic.com/29dwsj7.gif
Now tell me that the past 50 years have seen unprecedented warming in the USA Lower 48!
Hansen was forced to correct errors with respect to 1934 & 1998 & their relative temps back in 2007. Turns out ’34 was warmer than ’98…
BUT was it? Not now! Last time I looked, they were tied. WUWT?
DaveE
To Thinklife. We haven’t had such a laugh here since Gary Strand! At least he used his real name.
ThinkLife
You babble on for miles unnecessarily.
Your entire point can be condensed to a sentence.
How dare you ordinary people question real scientists.
It may come as a shock to you but your real scientists are
just flawed people.
In my view there are two aspects to this.
Human nature and the climate.
One eternally unchanging the other eternally changing.
We have no ability to modify human nature. That debate IS over.
The debate regarding mans effect on the climate IS NOT over.
To say so is the height of arrogance. An example of the first aspect.
Well… now that I’ve had a chance to catch my breath (laughing convulsively for over an hour HAS to be bad for you, right?)…
Well, “Thinklife”… let’s sum this up: anyone who doesn’t see the world the way you do is stupid. Is that about it?
“Chocolate Jesus”? Are you serious?
Man, that post is going out to my email list… most of whom will think it was made up as a parody of a clueless git…
CodeTech (08:46:59) :
Thanks for the Chocolate Jesus quote. I would never have read all of that post without it LOL
Fine rhetoric ThinkLife and about as much science in it as you will find on RealClimate.
One thing you notice about RC is that they don’t actually publish any data, at least not before it’s been tortured sufficiently to confess 😉
DaveE.
Think Life-simply put: give a college kid a beer and a couple of Joints and they think they are H.L.Menken.
There must be consensus. There MUST be consensus. THERE MUST BE CONSENSUS!!!!!!!!!!!
yawn…….
The need for consensus in this lunatic alarmist crowd supersedes the need for the scientific method. Consensus is only good as long as it holds up. Here is a fine recent example. Gavin and Mann and the others are ever vigilant to knock down any challenge to their model of the way global warming works. Fine. This in of itself is not a criticism. Most, if not all scientists are very passionate about their work. But it goes far beyond that. What the folks at RealClimate and others try to do is shut people up, and not allow any challenge to their pet theories. The scientific method demands that it be tested, poked, and prodded, and not just buy the select few that the “consensus” approves of, but by all comers. ThinkLife, this is not acceptable to you or the so called consensus. You must be right, at the expense of both the economy and science.
This whole thing has become a circular argument anyway. We say some of the methodologies used to prove AGW are wrong, and the AGW’ers come back and say that we’re wrong because their methodologies say we’re wrong. Well, I would say there is a problem. You’re finding more and more published, peer reviewed literature that drifts from the alarmist biased studies published just a few years ago, and now the AGW’ers find themselves more and more relying on older, outdated studies to prove their point, a criticism that used to be aimed our way. The bottom line here is, the real-world measurements are, at the moment not conforming to the predicted path of the models – slowing temp rise in both surface and troposphere temps, and slowed ocean level rise in both Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with most of the recent rise occurring in the Indian Ocean. I absolutely agree it’s way too soon to start sending out e-mails saying we told you so! But it’s not nearly soon enough to confirm the world is coming to an end either.
ThinkLife (00:20:11)
Boy, you’re going to blow a gasket. I have a little trick
I use when I get frustrated with all the unenlightened
simpletons. I say to myself, “What would Sarah Palin do?”
Try it. I hope this gives you all the peace and tranquility
you deserve!
ThinkLife wrote in part (upon which I comment):
“[…]And you’re merely pissed off that we’ve caught you red-handed and are stopping you. […]”
(Who is “we”? I just see you posting. Your posse gonna’ show later? And who is “you”? Ya’ got me confused there with those pronouns. You’re not stereotyping or anything like that now, are you?)
“[…] (By the way…Did you know that the granddaughter of Eisenhower recently quit the Republican party out of disgust over its regressive policies, membership and ideologies? […]”
(Gosh, you hyper-intelligent people just get me SO confused! Now remind us slow learners again just what Eisenhower’s granddaughter has to do with AGW or anything climate-related? Thanks. Much appreciated.)
That’s a remarkable second post, ThinkLife. Both of your posts are keepers and are a great public service. Both posts should be read by parents to their children each and every day as a reminder that a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
My goodness, one must wonder how pistachio trees ever managed to survive the eons of history without a concerned AGW hand-wringer watching over them.
Douglas DC (10:31:26) :
“Think Life-simply put: give a college kid a beer and a couple of Joints and they think they are H.L.Menken.”
Think Life has gone very quiet. Meybe he/she is sleeping it off…
To Think Life again:
You say:
“It is addictive bullcrap (full of salt, sugar, fat, coupled with delicious pictures to lull you into a salivating trance) fed to you by marketing scientists, food scientists, mega-millionaires and those who only care about money, not people and health.”
This is just about as articulate a description of AGW as any other I’ve heard. Well done!
ThinkLife (00:20:11) : Some people are a dumbA$$ and know they are a dumbA$$. Others are a dumbA$$ and don’t know it.
Let us assume the US Davis people understand trees and know nothing about climate science.
That means that the IPCC is committing crimes against humanity by inducing the reduction of the food supply with bad data.
that note from TonyB (08:39:27) about Thomas Jefferson’s observations on “climate change” is priceless! Sounds exactly like the same type of “hard data” that AGWers argue all the time! Thanks Tony