A few months back, I posted a critique titled: Gavin Schmidt’s new climate picture book: Anti-Science?
I found it ironic that Dr. Schmidt used photos to depict climate change, while at the same time promoting open criticism of my surfacestations.org project on realclimate.org. That project also uses photography, combined with measurements and a NOAA sanctioned rating system, to gauge thermometer siting issues. Oddly, there seems to be no complaints from the usual suspects when Dr. Schmidt uses artistic composition photography to illustrate climate change issues.
It is only fair then that since Dr. Schmidt has responded to the original author of that critical piece, Harold Ambler, that I repost Dr. Schmidt’s response here. Harold has invited me to republish that piece here.
A note to readers, Harold is going through a rough patch financially while waiting for his new book, Don’t Sell Your Coat, is to be published in November 2009. Royalties from it won’t come in until mid-2010. So if anyone is so inclined, please visit his web page and give him a boost in the tip jar. – Anthony
Guest post by Harold Ambler
As most of my readers know, I posted a critique of Gavin Schmidt’s book, Climate Change: Picturing the Science, not quite three months ago. Dr. Schmidt has responded in the last few days:
The point of a photo is always the context in which it’s seen. Lake Powell is a long way below it’s 1990’s peak, and that is due to a combination of reductions in rainfall upstream and additional demands on it’s water downstream. The last two years have seen a small rise in water level, and as you state correctly, it is important not to read too much into a short term record.
However, the real point of the photo (and as we discuss in the chapter that uses it), is that climate change is really only an issue because of the impacts – whether on human society or ecosystems. Areas that are already under water stress, such as the American South West are very vulnerable to changes in rainfall regime. And in fact, there is some evidence that long-term trends in precipitation in this region are already being affected by ongoing changes.
We have a long discussion in the book about being careful with the problem of attribution in imagery and we try to make that clear in the captions.”
The science concurs:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0213/p25s05-usgn.html
“Last week, Dr. Barnett published additional work in the journal Science attributing 60 percent of the reduction in snowpack, rising temperatures, and reduced river flows over the past 50 years to global warming.
The latest work “not only shows that climate change is a real problem. It also shows it has direct implications for humans – and not just in the third world,” says Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, Calif.”
So yes, it’s a combination of things, as stated in the book (if you bother to read past the cover photo) and in the scientific literature.
My Response to Dr. Schmidt (Plus a Note to Readers):
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and lived through a few droughts, including the very serious one of 1976 to 1978. Again and again, my family and I saw water levels in the local reservoirs (and others in the state) decline to worrisome levels before they were, thankfully, replenished. One perspective on the phenomenon of alternating drought and wet in the West is that it is terrifying, and should be brought to as many people’s consciousness as possible as a new menace, part of global warming, etc. Another, more like my own, would point out that the astonishing agricultural productivity and explosion of population throughout the Southwest are proofs of humanity’s ability to adapt to its natural surroundings in very effective ways.
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Please read the remainder of the story at Talking About the Weather and don’t forget the tip jar 😉 – Anthony
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Anthony, there is a crooked link when you click at “Talking About the Weather” with the following message:
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Please read the remainder of the story at Talking About the Weather and don’t forget the tip jar
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this link does not work as of Sunday p.m.
REPLY: Fixed thanks- A
It would be advisable to send all these “new age” scientist back to elementary school, to take the third grade again.
Repeat after me:
“Sun heats water of the oceans, then water evaporates, clouds form and rain falls” This is called, kids, the “water cycle”.
Warming does not produce drought, cold sea waters does it.
Cold PDO=drought. The same happened in the 1930´s (read: John Steinbeck´s “Grapes of Wrath”)
Something wrong with the last link. It gives an error
Frankly the whole concept of “Picturing the Science” is ABSURD from the get go.
Unless labeled, unless quatified and compared with dates times, unless put in context PICTURES ARE WORTH VIRTUALLY NOTHING.
I cannot help but think the the classic picture of the Vietnamise Col. putting a bullet through the head of a Viet-Cong, used to great effect for PROPAGANDA here in the US.
The US Media had an “unwritten agreement” to not let us know that the Viet Cong being EXECUTED (Yes!) had killed 4 members of the Col.’s FAMILY a few weeks before.
I was just recently reviewing the summer of 1988 with some friends at dinner time. In Minnesota we had an almost complete drought. Water levels on many lakes dropped 3 to 5 feet! Dire predictions of Minnesota becoming a desert were made.
The next year? FLOODS…
Pictures taken in 1988 would certainly have demonstrated the devastating effects of “Global Warming”. (Ah, thankfully the AWG bulldozer had not started moving yet!) And such claims based on “pictures” would have been meaningless.
Again, just as the Met. office megaflop device qualifies under, GIGO…
So does trying to make “climate change” claims with photos have marginal utility.
Hugoson
Beautiful pictures abused by Gavin Schmidt to serve the alarmist’s agenda.
Thanks to Harold Ambler for effectively debunking the conclusions of Schmidt’s book.
The link for the rest of the story didn’t work for me . However , I don’t buy that decreassed river flows are the fault of reduced snowpack in the last fifty years . Snowpack varies from year to year – I know because I lived either in , or within sight of the Rockies for over thirty years . Much of the problem lies in increased downstream usage and generally sloppy water management . Water usage , water law and water management are extremely complicated issues and are often contradictory throughout the Western states . Most of the people involved try their best to resolve these issues , but it is still a mess .
REPLY: Try using the REFRESH button
“Anti Science” covers it quite effectively.
Mark Hugoson (11:02:15) :
Frankly the whole concept of “Picturing the Science” is ABSURD from the get go.
Unless labeled, unless quatified and compared with dates times, unless put in context PICTURES ARE WORTH VIRTUALLY NOTHING.
I agree wholeheartedly with this astute observation. However, using pictures to illustrate is epidemic, and among educators, widely believed to have great pedagogical value for those who are “visual” learners. For several year I used Serway’s popular textbook for college physics, but gave it up partially over these meaningless images. For example, in one case Serway showed a photograph of a set of “smoke” stacks at a power plant allegedly on a day when the electrostatic precipitators were operating (thus producing almost no emissions), against another photo showing copious emissions on a day when the precipitators were allegedly not working.
There was nothing to prove the difference in appearance was related to anything other than differences in environmental temperature and RH, and in fact no substantiation that precipitators were non-functional in either photo, or even any indication that the cloud coming from the stacks was simply condensing water vapor. In fact, the photos promoted a sort of pseudo-science because they gave the impression that one could look at the condensing water vapor and assess the state of pollution control equipment. I complained, but got no response, so I stopped using the textbook.
Link fixed , thanks . Also decreased has only one s – sorry .
60% of the reduction is due to “global warming”? Hm, so if GW is even half natural, then the AGW component of such a reduction would be…30%. Big deal.
More to the point. Does AGW cause drought? Doesn’t look like it to me:
http://devoidofnulls.wordpress.com/2009/08/30/drought-history/
Yes, I’m picky — but I do find it hard to take a so-called scientist seriously whose grammar is so bad. Tell the good Dr. Schmidt that “it’s” means “it is”. I presume that he meant “its” in his email.
REPLY: A caveat, this post has gone through several transformations. From email, to a Mac, to WordPress, to a PC and back to WordPress. It is entirely possible some punctuation was lost in the conversions, though I can’t be sure. – Anthony
Gavin Who?
As the Green Peace Director said (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC7bE9jopXE) when he was asked why his prediction of an ice free Arctic in 2030 doesn´t come true; emotionalization is okay with AGW.
“The science concurs:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0213/p25s05-usgn.html“
Um, no, Gavin, it doesn’t do any such thing (leaving aside the issue of his “peer-reviewed” source being the Christian Science Monitor…). A couple of authors state this is what they believe from their science. C’est tout.
We have a long discussion in the book about being careful with the problem of attribution in imagery and we try to make that clear in the captions.”
Which begs the question, therefore, other than being a pretty coffee table book , the purpose of the book is to … ?
Cherry Picking Data(pictures) to promote an agenda:
Current, and historical data for Lake Powell
The dam at Lake Powell was completed in the late 1960s, and it took about 17 years to fill the dam to capacity 27 million acre feet, by 1980. In the year 2000 the max filling was at 22 million acre feet. Because of a severe drought in the next 5 years, the max filling fell to 8 million acre feet for 2004-2005 years. This year the max filling is at 16 million acre feet.
I can Cherry Pick a similiar data set to reach an opposite conclusion. The Great Salt Lake(watershed covering a smaller but similiar area as lake powell) reached historically low levels in the first half of the 1930s. This correlated with extreme record breaking winter historical low temperatures.
Gavin’s pictures need footnotes of a thousand words.
Areas that are already under water stress, such as the American South West are very vulnerable to changes in rainfall regime. And in fact, there is some evidence that long-term trends in precipitation in this region are already being affected by ongoing changes.
While this is true what Gavin does not say is that the ongoing changes are mostly due to natural and somewhat predictable cycles such as the PDO / AMO / ENSO / etc. Joseph D’Aleo has produced several terrific articles and graphs which reflect this. Unfortunately, the Gore disciples prefer to ignore such things and blame the changes on CO2 levels / man / and temperatures. Essentially…. they speak not the truth.
Gene Nemetz (12:35:14) : “Gavin Who?”
That’s DOCTOR Gavin Who. (no relation to the famous Dr. Who)
Oh yeah, and water stress?
Just a reminder for everyone:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/30/is-climate-change-the-%E2%80%9Cdefining-challenge-of-our-age%E2%80%9D-part-3-of-3/
[snip – sorry none of that reference to WWI Germany here – Anthony]
Dr. Schmidt resorted to employing one of the more odious of insults. A comment that never belongs on either side of the discussion; “if you bother to read.” Here we have an ongoing worldwide discussion with planetary consequences and there are people out there who are basing their positions upon assumptions that the other side isn’t even reading the literature.
Dr. Schmidt’s minor grammar errors are his own. It is a journalistic convention in quoting electronic communications not to alter the text in any way. If he requests, I will fix what I see (including “American South West”).
He has also referred in an interview to the notorious snow-producing coastal storms along the Eastern Seaboard as “Northeasterly storms.”
For someone who allegedly knows a great deal about climate, he might want to learn a little bit about the actual weather where he lives.
The label “Climate Change” is so fraudulent. We now have a generation that has been, thanks to Gavin & the rest if his Hysterical Team, brainwashed into thinking the normal state of a climate is static, that a climate that changes is bad, is wrong and is the fault of man and his SUV’s.
By definition, climate is a dynamic & chaotic system. Applying the descriptor “change” to the noun climate is as silly as applying the descriptor “wet” to the noun water.
And if people walked around talking about “water wet”, we’d all fall over laughing.
Actually many of us are falling over laughing at Gavin & his Team Members as they make scientific fools of themselves in pursuit if their political & funding objectives.
These guys will do anything to keep their gravy & fame train rolling on. But we know who they are and as the planet cools off and the ludicrousness of their AGW theory continues to fall apart, we will remember their names.
It is their careers on the line, their reputations at stake.
They are, but for a bit more time, toast,
Toast Gavin . . . toast.
Lake Powell is currently at the highest level in the last eight years.
http://lakepowell.water-data.com/