Guest post by Marc Hendrickx
A little over a month ago reports appeared in the press (eg. Butterflies ‘fly early as planet warms’) that the common Brown Butterfly (Heteronympha merope) was emerging 10 days earlier than it was 60 years ago all due to global warming attributed solely to CO2 emissions. The report was based on a paper published in Biology Letters. The article was titled “Early emergence in a butterfly causally linked to anthropogenic warming” by Michael R. Kearney, Natalie J. Briscoe, David J. Karoly, Warren P. Porter, Melanie Norgate and Paul Sunnucks was published online on 17 March 2010. The abstract can be accessed HERE.
The basis of the study was opportunistically collected observational data of butterfly emergence based on museum records and private data collected between 1941 and 2005 in an area centred around Melbourne, Australia, a city of about 4 million people. No links to the original data or location information of observations were provided in the published article.
The authors gauged the temperature dependence of Heteronympha merope under laboratory conditions and used historical weather data for 1945–2007 (Bureau of Meteorology, Australia) from Laverton (37.868 S, 144.768 E), a “rural” site close to Melbourne, to model the physiological response of H. merope to temperature. The authors claim that this weather station is a ‘high-quality’ site, unaffected by changes in exposure, urbanization, instrumentation, etc., during the study period. Weather records (mean monthly maximum and minimum air temperature, wind speed and cloud cover) were translated into microclimates experienced by immature H. merope using biophysical modelling software (NICHE MAPPER, http://www.zoology.wisc.edu/faculty/Por/Por.html#niche).
The observed temperature trends at Laverton were compared to output from extended climate model simulations for the single-model grid box overlying Melbourne and Laverton. Anthropogenic climate forcing included observed increases in greenhouse gases and estimated variations of anthropogenic aerosols, whereas natural external climate forcing included estimated changes in solar irradiance and volcanic aerosols.
The results are summarised in Figure 1 from the paper
I found a number of issues with this paper that pointed to strong confirmation bias and quickly put together a comment that I submitted to Biology Letters on 19 March 2010, just two days after the article was published on line. A copy of the manuscript appears below. I received notification this week that the manuscript was rejected. The reviewer comments make interesting reading (see below) and I thought I would share them with WUWT readers, with a view that the collective brain of WUWT readers would help find the necessary references such that I might be able to re-submit the comment to Biology Letters sometime over the next few weeks. I’d also be interested in hearing the views of the authors and invite them to add their comments.
Comment on Kearney et al., 2010: Early emergence in a butterfly causally linked to anthropogenic warming.
Kearney et al. (2010) examine phenological change in Heteronympha merope (Nymphalidae) to test whether (i) the phenological shift could be explained by air temperature change, and (ii) that the associated change could be attributed to human influences. Kearney et al., contend their results support:
- a shift in the mean emergence date for H. merope of 1.6 days per decade over a 65 year period over 12,000 km2,
- an increase in local air temperature of 0.14ºC over the same period, and
- attribution of the phonological and temperature change to anthropogenic warming, due to greenhouse gas emissions.
There are significant issues with the study outlined below that negate the conclusions:
1. Observed emergence times for H. merope were based on opportunistically collected data over an area of about 12,000 km2 (geographic area-37.60-38.54 Lat, 144.17 to145.48 Long.) centred on the Melbourne CBD. The location of individual observation locations is not provided and there potential for location bias is not discussed. Nor is there a discussion of the potential effect of confounding influences that may affect emergence times. These influences include: human impact on habitat (Kobayashi et al., 2009), pollution, coincidence in emergence of H. merope with changing emergence patterns of its food stock, food availability and variation over time. These factors may have provided adaptive stresses favouring earlier emergence.
2.The methodology for determining thermal dependence of development rate for eggs, larvae and pupae did not account for other variables that might be a factor in emergence such as: atmospheric CO2 content or affect of atmospheric pollutants such as CO, and ozone common in urban environments. There is a considerable body of evidence demonstrating that effects of elevated CO2 on plants can influence insect herbivore performance (Watt et al. 1995, Bezemer and Jones 1998). Changes in leaf chemistry for instance, such as decreased leaf nitrogen and increased carbohydrate and polyphenolic concentrations at elevated CO2 (Cotrufo et al. 1998, Penuelas and Estiarte 1998), might affect insect development (Slansky 1993) and potentially effect emergence timing. These factors were not taken into consideration and as such the link between emergence timing and temperature cannot be conclusively stated.
3.To assess whether the observed change in climate could be attributed to human influence, the observed April-October mean temperature trend for 1944-2007 for the weather station at Laverton (Bureau of Meteorology-BOM ID 87031) was compared to climate model simulations. Laverton is affected by urbanisation effects from significant changes in land use over the period of observations. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS 2008, ABS 2008a) data show an increase in population in the area from 7854 in 1933 to 132793 in 2008 (ABS, 2008, 2008a). Hence to define the station as “rural” is a misrepresentation. NASA GISTEMP defines the station as “Urban” with a population of 2.7 million (GISTEMP, 2010). A station at the western edge of the study area with records spanning the period 1903 to 1998 shows no substantial warming (Figure 1). This station, Durdidwarrah BOM ID 87021, is located in the Brisbane Ranges National Park in an area that has not experienced significant land use change since the 1870s when dams were constructed (Catrice, 1997). A comparison between Durdidwarrah, Laverton and the Melbourne CBD station (BOM ID 86071) indicates substantial warming over the Melbourne Region. The disparity between the rural station and the two urban stations suggest this warming is due to urbanization, rather than increases in greenhouse gases. The temperature increases due to urbanization are similar to those reported in China (Jones et al., 2008).
References
ABS 2008. Australian Bureau of Statistics 3105.0.65.001 – Australian Historical Population Statistics. www.abs.gov.au (accessed 18 March 2010).
ABS 2008a. Australian Bureau of Statistics 3218.0 Regional Population Growth, Australia. www.abs.gov.au (accessed 18 March 2010).
Bezemer, T. M., & Jones, T. H. 1998 Plant–insect herbivore interactions in elevated atmospheric CO2: quantitative analyses and guild effects. Oikos 82, 212–222.
Catrice D. 1997 Brisbane Ranges National Park. Parks Victoria. Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Melbourne Victoria (accessed 18 March 2010)
Cotrufo, M. F., Ineson, P. and Scott A. 1998 Elevated CO2 reduces the nitrogen concentration of plant tissues. Global Change Biology 4, 43–54
GISTEMP 2010. NASA GISS Surface Temperature Analysis – Station Data ‘Laverton’ GISTEMP ID 501948650000 (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501948650000&data_set=0&num_neighbors=1) (accessed 18 March 2010).
Goverde, M., Erhardt, A., & Niklaus P. A. (2002) In situ development of a satyrid butterfly on calcareous grassland exposed to elevated carbon dioxide. Ecology 83(5), 1399-1411
Jones, P. D., Lister, D. H., and Li Q. (2008), Urbanization effects in large-scale temperature records, with an emphasis on China, J. Geophys. Res., 113, D16122, doi:10.1029/2008JD009916.
Kearney, M. R., Briscoe, N. J., Karoly, D. J., Porter, W. P., Norgate M. and Sunnucks P. 2010 Early emergence in a butterfly causally linked to anthropogenic warming. Biology Letters (doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.0053)
Kobayashi, T., Kitahara, M., Suzuki, Y. and Tachikawa, S. 2009. Assessment of the habitat quality of the threatened butterfly, Zizina emelina (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae) in the agro-ecosystem of Japan and implications for conservation. Transactions of the Lepidopterological Society of Japan 60(1), 25-36.
Penuelas, J., & Estiarte M. 1998 Can elevated CO2 affect secondary metabolism and ecosystem function? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 13, 20–24.
Slansky, F. 1993 Nutritional ecology: the fundamental quest of nutrients. Pages 29–91 in N. E. Stamp and T. M. Casey, editors. Caterpillars: ecological and evolutionary constraints on foraging. Chapman and Hall, New York, New York, USA.
Watt, A. D., Whittaker, J. B. , Docherty, M., Brooks, G., Lindsay, E. and Salt D. T. 1995 The impact of elevated atmospheric CO2 on insect herbivores. Pages 197–217 in R. Harrington and N. E. Stork, editors. Insects in a changing environment. Academic Press, London, UK.
=================================
Rejection Letter received April 20 , 2010. Dear Mr Hendrickx
I am writing to inform you that we have now obtained responses from referees on manuscript RSBL-2010-0263 entitled “Comment on Kearney et al., 2010: Early emergence in a butterfly causally linked to anthropogenic warming.” which you submitted to Biology Letters.
Unfortunately, your manuscript has been rejected following full peer review. Competition for space in Biology Letters is currently very severe, as many more manuscripts are submitted to us than we have space to print. We are therefore only able to publish those that are exceptional and present significant advances of broad interest, and must reject many good manuscripts.
Please find below the comments received from referees concerning your manuscript, not including confidential reports to the Editor. I hope you may find these useful should you wish to submit your manuscript elsewhere.
We are sorry that your manuscript has had an unfavourable outcome, but would like to thank you for offering your work to Biology Letters.
Yours sincerely
Publishing Editor
Editor’s comments:
I am rejecting this in view of the strong criticisms by refs. 1 and 3. If the author can deal with these comments, we could consider this for e-letters.
Reviewer(s)’ Comments to Author:
(MH-I have added comments in italics)
Referee: 1
Comments to the Author(s)
The ms is a critique of a recent publication by Kearney et al in Biology Letters. But I am not convinced by any of the author’s three criticisms of the paper.
The first criticism is that the data presented in Kearney et al does not support evidence of a change in emergence times over the study period. Kearney et al note in their paper that while “the opportunistically collected data probably adds considerable noise to any signal of phenological shift, there is no reason to expect such data to be chronologically biased”. To me, this proviso seems sufficient (MH-this seems difficult to justify as no actual data is presented). For the criticisms in the current ms to be supported, the author should present some evidence that this species or others are shifting their phenology related to some of the other factors suggested, or some evidence that in fact the data does not support a shift in phenology. (MH-Can WUWT readers help out with suggestions?) I also do not know where the author has extracted the “area of 12000 km2” data from (MH-this was based on the geographic coordinates provided in the paper) , or that the data were drawn from “disparate, genetically diverse groups” (MH-This was an assumption I made that there would be significant genetic variation over a large geographic area-the area covered by the study contains a range of geographies and sub-climates that may provide local variation in emergence timing. The absence of location data for observations makes it impossibel to judge the potential affect of geographic bias).
The second criticism is that the physiological model did not account for other possible variables. No, but the fit of observed phenology to that modelled based on climate was extremely close. For this criticism to be justified the author should again present some empirical evidence that the other variables listed influence emergence times in this species or similar species. (MH-Can WUWT readers help out with suggestions?)
I am most concerned about the third criticism levelled by the author, that the temperature increase noted for the meteorological station in the Kearney et al paper is dependent on urbanisation effects. The author here presents data from a rural met station and argues that it has shown no increase in temperature over the same period of time. However, the comparison is not valid, because the regression of temperature against year in Fig 1 for the Durdidwarrah station is run from 1903 to 1998, rather than 1944 to 2007, as in the Kearney et al paper. Examination of the figure shows that had data for the approximate 1940 to 2000 period been analysed for Durdidwarrah, there would have probably been a significant increase in temperature, comparable to that reported for the Laverton station by Kearney et al. In this case it is essential to compare like with like, as the Kearney et al paper is not looking at changes to butterfly phenology since 1903, but from the 1940s. (MH-Durdidwarrah is a good station but suffers from a number of breaks in reporting. The reviewer is correct in arguing that a trend through Durdidwarrah from 1940 through 2000 would yield a decadal trend similar to Laverton, however virtually all this warming occurred in the late 1940s, the trend since 1950 has been flat).
There are a few presentational errors: various spellings of “phenological” and “effect” and “affect”, “Nymphalidae” spelt incorrectly, Fig 1 could be presented more clearly.
Referee: 2
Comments to the Author(s)
In the short intro, the author writes twice “phonological changes”. I guess that would be “phenological changes”? (MH based on this I take it that Ref 2 was generally happy with the manuscript)
Referee: 3
Comments to the Author(s)
The author makes some relevant and potentially relevant points in his comment on Kearney et al., (MH-my bold) but this manuscript does not bring this criticism in a sound way, as it stands. It needs major revision before it may become acceptable for publication.
1) Point 1 – Hendrickx is criticizing the use of opportunistically collected data. Kearny et al have made the assumption that there is no obvious bias in these data. So, here the author should more convincingly show that there is indeed bias that may impact on the conclusions. It is not enough mentioning the opportunistic nature of the data. This point needs more work. (MH-again any references that demonstrate effect of other influences on emergence appreciated)
2) Point 2 –CO2: that may be a valid issue that has not been considered as an alternative (or interaction) effect by Kearney. Another relevant paper would be Mevi-Schultz et al. 2003. behave Ecol Sociobiol 54: 36-43 (MH-this appears to be generally supportive of my point 2).
3) Point 3: I don’t get this point. How can you distinguish between urbanization and an increase in greenhouse gasses per se? What would be the direct and the indirect effects of urbanization for the system considered. Again, the author is not making his point in a clear way (MH-I would have thought the comparison between the three stations clearly demonstrates a UHI effect over the Melbourne region).
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In the document linked to by Baahumbug they say:
“Our prediction of what should have happened based on Nat’s data and the monthly climate data (air temp,cloud, wind speed,humidity) for those years runs right through the middle! ”
So their prediction equation was (is?) not soley based on temperature.
They also appear to have tried two different temperature datasets and come up with two different sets of predictions.
Given a permutations of months and the many met. variables that could be included (and a choice of stations) it would, of course, be hard not to get a bit of a match to 14 data points! So we really need to see a copy of the paper.
“For this criticism to be justified the author should again present some empirical evidence that the other variables listed influence emergence times in this species or similar species. (MH-Can WUWT readers help out with suggestions?)”
I see introduced species of grasses that are more suited to the climate, and are regularly watered.
Calculate the Lawn density in the urban environment vs. the rural. People sculpt lawns, feed them and surround them by flower beds. Find the bedding season; you get that information form the gardening centers. Cynodon dactylon is grown in hot salty soils and is dinner for Heteronympha merope. Have a look and see what type of grasses are sold in Melbourne. My guess is that you will have had the introduction of non-native species in the 70-‘s and especially in the late80’s and early 90’s
Pennisetum clandestinum , most often called kikuyu grass, was introduced to Australia and grows much better than native species.
Kentucky blue grass,Poa pratensis, was also introduced and is essentially caterpillar rocket fuel.
The standard grass, used for lawns in Melbourne, is Couch grass. Couch grass is of course a general purpose food for Butterfly larvae,
http://www.hgturf.com.au/inl_4seasons.html
It is my observation that all of these “AGW is causing earlier (fill the blank)” studies are near or in large cities.
The warmists are creating a huge mess for themselves. 20 years of papers will need to be thrown out or be heavily revised when this house-of-cards crashes. Careers will end.
May Day! May Day! Arctic ice extent about ready to crash into brown butterflies! http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
My suggestion: Send the Arctic copter rescuers, if they aren’t too busy, out to rescue brown butterflies! They seem experienced in rescuing folks plagued with bad assumptions.
@ur momisugly Richard Hill (00:17:32) :
Wikipedia states:
Wow – barely 10 miles from the central Melbourne business district.
The immediate town to the WSW from Laverton is Werribee, and Wiki has this to say:
Obviously is Werribee is considered part of Greater Melbourne, then Laverton, just over half the distance from the central Melbourne business district cannot be a rural station, much less a high quality one. Karoly is an idiot.
I imagine part of THIS is what is used to delineate Laverton as “high quality” for the warmers (Wiki again):
With the population increasing by only 162 over 45 years, the warmers salivate over an urbanized site 17 km from a central downtown area like this. There probably aren’t many in the world as choice (based solely on population numbers) as Laverton. Looking down a table of population over time, Laverton must be a gold mine for them. Claiming it as a rural site, it would argue well that even rural sites have had large temperature increases.
I agree with Marc H that reviewer #1 had a good point. This is very much the same point Anthony made recently about longer time periods having lower linear trends.
But with the population being only 390 in 1947 and then jumped up 6-fold by 1961 – only 14 years – then 1961 should be the basis for a trend line, since the 1961-2006 period is the stable period. Reviewer #1 chooses the low point as a starting point – but one when the population WAS indicative of a rural site.
Now, looking at the Greater Melbourne area (Wiki again):
Christ! It’s half the size of the Chicago population! And Laverton is only 17 km from its center – some “quality rural site”! Yeah, quality, as in if you just look at tables it looks great!
So, the population in 1940 was about 1,150,000. (There was a large influx of foreigners after WWII, which certainly made the 1945-1956 growth more than the 1930-1940 growth, so the curve is more parabolic from 1930-1956 than linear.)
This means the population nearly quadrupled of Greater Melbourne from 1940 to 2010. And even though the population of Laverton per se was static after 1961, the areas surrounding it more than tripled. Werribee, for example went from 3,348 in 1940 to 36,641 in 2006, an 11-fold jump.
Now, for the coupe de grace:
I am TRYING to pop in an image labeled “Melbourne from Laverton Station” here:
If it did not display, please go to http://www.panoramio.com/photo/33826785
Nope, it doesn’t look like it worked. But DO go to the link and look at that view.
From the image is CLEAR that Laverton is an URBAN location, despite the population stability of Laverton. It looks like the view of Chicago from Oak Park, which is about 15 km from Chicago’s Loop. No one would ever confuse Oak Park with a rural site. Another close-in, low population, town is Bratenahl, Ohio, 6km from dowtown Cleveland (metropolitan pop. 2,600,000). With its very stable population of 1,300, one might argue it is rural. Nothing could be further from the truth. MANY other low-population close-in suburbs exist around the world. Looking only at population is a VERY POOR way to designate a site as “rural.”
Conclusion: Laverton is not rural. With that view and an 8-lane freeway bisecting the town, who is trying to kid whom?
Conclusion: Laverton’s population growth since 1940 is over 6-fold.
Conclusion: Laverton is not and cannot BE a “quality rural station.” It might be a nugget of gold for warmers when taken from a table that would show its growth from 1961 to 2006 was almost zero. In ANY other sense, Laverton is an URBAN site.
[Can anyone tell me why the tool doesn’t work for me?]
Oops!
Conclusion: Laverton’s population growth since 1940 is over 6-fold. –>> Conclusion: Laverton’s population growth since 1940 is over 11-fold.
What is so irksome about AGW theories? There seems to be a lot of politics involved in this?
OK, here’s the fatal flaw in their study. First, the data:
Year, Temperature, Emergence
1945, 11.13, 11.61
1950, 11.14, 11.28
1955, 11.37, 11.64
1960, 11.26, 11.38
1965, 11.73, 11.51
1970, 11.3, 11.22
1975, 11.65, 11.43
1980, 11.65, 11.35
1985, 11.59, 11.21
1990, 11.88, 10.97
1995, 11.67, 11.36
2000, 11.66, 11.3
2005, 12.3, 11.23
The fatal flaw is there is no statistically significant correlation between the two. Here’s the statistics:
Trend: -0.23 emergence months per degree warmer
Std Err Trend: ±0.15
R^2: 0.18
F statistic: 2.39
Deg. Freedom: 11.00
From this, we can calculate that the trend is not statistically different from zero (p=0.15), and the r^2 is not significant (p=0.14).
In other words, there is no statistically significant relationship between the temperature data and the emergence data.
Q.E.D.
I also note that if they had used the BOM adjusted data rather than the unadjusted data, the situation is much worse, viz:
Trend: -0.17 emergence months per degree warmer
Std Err Trend: 0.15
R^2: 0.10
F statistic: 1.28
Deg. Freedom: 11.00
P value trend: 0.28
P value r^2: 0.32
Gotta love these AGW folks. When the adjusted data suits their case (which is most of the time) they use that. When it doesn’t suit their case, they use the unadjusted data.
From the discussion section of the paper:
“The observed shift in air temperature of 0.148C per decade in the vicinity of Melbourne can very likely be explained through the effects of greenhouse gases emitted by humans (figure 1d). Our analysis thus provides direct causal linkages between the emission of greenhouse gases by humans, a shift in local air temperature, and the physiological response of a butterfly resulting in earlier spring emergence.”
From an ABC (Australian ABC) interview: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2848336.htm
SIMON LAUDER (reporter) : Climate modelling for the study was done by Doctor David Karoly from the university’s school of earth sciences. Doctor Karoly says the change the Common Brown butterfly has experienced is an example of seasonal shift due to climate change.
DAVID KAROLY: This is the first time that we’ve been able to link the change in a natural system like a butterfly to regional warming and then link that regional warming to increases in green house gases due to human activity.
Thanks for comments so far. My main point of contention has to do with attribution of warming to greenhouse gases when the station comparison already presented shows such a strong UHI effect,and such a range in trends over the time of the study. I’ll endeavour to re-write the comment around this point. I’ll add a few more station trends and superimpose these on a satellite map of the area that shows the limits of urban development. The three stations already presented show a range of trends depending on siting. These already conflict with the suggestion in the study that the trend over the study area is uniform. The modelling done by Karoly assumes a uniform rate of rise for the Melbourne area (see figure 1d) , this clearly is not supported by factual evidence (range 0.04-0.28) and clearly shows that model outputs don’t explain the warming.
Note I sent the lead author a brief email inviting him to comment here.
Should the paper have been titiled:
“Early emergence in a butterfly casually linked to anthropogenic warming”.
VERY O/T (apologies)…
@ur momisugly andyS (02:40:34) :
According to Wikipedia’s article on Pangaea,
While I consider all these early dates to be pulled right out of their arses (and I personally think Pangaea itself to be incorrect), the consensus seems to be that the Atlantic has existed since quite a bit before 137,000,000 years ago.
And BTW, the “climate change killed the dinosaurs” claptrap is just one concept out there, and IMHO nonsense. The runaway greenhouse effect of Carl Sagan was based on Venus, which has an atmosphere that is 95% CO2. Any comparisons to Earth, with 0.038% CO2 in its atmosphere are ludicrous. Venus’s atmosphere has 2500 times more CO2 by percentage than does Earth. Trying to extrapolate from one to the other is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of.
Sagan came up with that hypothesis because Immanuel Velikovsky (whose Worlds in Collision we have to thank for all the 1950s catastrophe movies) had successfully predicted that Venus’ surface temperature would be between 800F-900F. It is now understood to be 860F. Up until the first probes sent back that temperature range, all the supposedly know-everything astronomers had solidly stated that the temp on Venus was in the 200F-300F range.
Caught with their pants down and the idea that the infamous Dr Velikovsky would be trumpeting his correct prediction as verification for his theories, astronomers needed some quick PR spin. Sagan saved their asses with his runaway greenhouse effect hypothesis, which has to this day has been accepted as fact. When Hansen pulled the CO2 thing out of his individual arse, he used Sagan’s hip shot concept – and the world has never been the same since.
The runaway greenhouse effect is NOT fact. It is only a surmise, created in a panic situation, as an argument against the man who is still considered the Evil Dr V – and whose name shall forever NOT be mentioned in proper astronomical circles.
Since 1994, when Comet Shoemaker-Levy made multiple impacts on Jupiter, all of a sudden catastrophe became an acceptable scientific concept for the first time since Lyell and Darwin and Agassiz succeeded in putting together a concept – Uniformitarianism – to overthrow “conclusively” the catastrophe concept that had held forth since the Bible mentioned Noah’s Flood. Science NEEDED that overall concept to get out from under the shackles of the Church, once and for all.
But Shoemaker-Levy overthrew THAT overthrow. All of a sudden, with Earth-sized plumes from the impacts (which would have been far, far larger in Earth’s gravity, had they impacted here), it was obvious that planet-wide catastrophes not only happened in the dim past, but could happen here at any moment.
Since then, many an astronomer has stolen Velikovsky methods and factites, and nary a one has chosen to attribute Velikovsky.
Velikovsky was incorrect in much of his conclusions, but some of his ideas do have some validity.
Let it be known that since the late 1940s when his first book came out astronomy has had MANY of its own ideas tossed into the garbage can as well. One of them – IMHO – will be the runaway greenhouse effect. Just give it time.
In other words, put this article in the garbage, too. It will end up there eventually, since it is based on an erroneous understanding of how atmospheres work. As long as the models have the mechanics of the greenhouse effect set up so that it can “runaway,” their models will be wrong. What do they know about atmospheres now vs Sagan’s day? A lot more – but the his concept is causing a long delay in getting it right, since it is a wrong idea. They don’t even know yet that they are down a blind alley.
YES, CO2 – at the levels found on Earth – has some ability to trap heat. But that capacity is not strong enough to overcome other counter-balancing effects (that is where Hansen – and Sagan before him – got it wrong). The most notable counter-effects so far are water vapor and the iris effect of Richard Lindzen. THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS. Other such mechanisms will be discovered in the future – some with positive temp effects and some with negative effects. The understanding is FAR too low at this time. Low levels of understanding lead to incorrect models and incorrect subsequent theories.
Claiming effects hundreds of millions of years ago is just nonsense, based on jumped-to conclusions and thinking they have it all understood now. They are HOW many (few) decades into the study of the climate? And they’ve had how many years with computers that can actually help them? In 50 years they will look back and laugh at the things scientists of today thought were real.
Richard Hill is totally correct in his statements.
I drive the 8 lane highway highway from Melbourne to rural Geelong, and I pass adjacent to the RAAF base often at night in a car fitted with an accurate external temperature sensor. This is a heavy traffic area day and night feeding western Victorias industry with supplies.
Laverton is on average 2 degrees celcius higher than the rural Geelong area that I go to. Geelong has about 300,000 people, and it’s rural areas compare in temperature stability to the Brisbane Ranges readings .
Laverton is definitely a suburb of Melbourne, not rural as it was in the 1940’s.
Keep up the good work Marc.
Here’s what Karoly said about his temperature grid-box technique in
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI3565.1
“The statement that the observed trends are consistent with the model response to GS forcing is not a strong attribution statement, as there are other climate forcings that may be more important at local rather than global scales. We have not considered the possible responses to land use or land cover changes, nor to increases in carbon black aerosols, any of which may be important contributors to the observed warming trends in some grid boxes.”
Judging by that statement, and the large error bars in Fig 1. (d), I’d say they had failed to causally connect greenhouse gasses and butterfly emergence dates, but they may have connected UHI and emergence dates. UHI being an anthropogenic source, then I guess they do show “emergence in a butterfly causally linked to anthropogenic warming”, but not in the way that they had intended.
Jordan, I think you misunderstood my answer since I did mention other factors besides temperature. The point is that temperature has significant, independent effects on rates of insect development (keep in mind that insects are cold-blooded). Being independent, these effects do not depend on other factors such as food. This is not my opinion, it is a thoroughly documented fact. You can hold food, humidity and light/dark cycle constant and groups of insects held at different temperatures will show different rates of development. In fact, the authors of this paper apparently performed just such an experiment and showed this temperature-dependent effect. That result would generally not justify publication in a serious journal, since it’s bloody obvious and barely worthy of an undergraduate research project.
We’re not talking here about egg hatching or larval development, as other posters here seem to think. We’re talking about the emergence of adults, in the spring, from an overwintering pupal state. Linking this to temperature is a way of making sure that the adults emerge when food is available and food plants for the larvae will be available (these are, of course, the egg-laying sites for most butterflies). In cropping systems, degree-day calculations are frequently used to predict the date of first appearance of pest species.
I’m not sure why anyone would think the results of this paper are surprising. If the temperature records are correct, you would expect the emergence dates of many insects to vary with the temperature records. Of course, the important number is not “average” temperature, but rather the degree-days accumulated after a certain critical date (which may be based on a minimal day length). As I noted before, light pollution effects may also be important here and if they wanted to do a careful study the authors should have run the constant temperature/longer light cycle experiment also.
With all that in mind, it’s still entirely plausible that UHI effects could be responsible for this. The fact (if true) that the butterflies are emerging earlier due to warmer winter temperatures says nothing at all about the reason behind the warmer winter temperatures, and it’s specious to argue otherwise. The authors seem to be using the insects as a smoke screen to make an argument about something entirely separate.
graham g, what are the verges of the roads like? Do you have green/grassy verges on either side of the roads?
Do the people of Melbourne do lawns, more especially, do they feed and water them in the spring?
I’m afraid the paper didn’t pass my ‘so what?’ test.
Marc, I can only assume you are wanting to play David to the AGW Goliath. Suffice to say the ‘butterfly’ paper is about politics, not science, which is not to infer that it cannot be countered by science, adequately provided by some of the responses here.
For the benefit of those who may be missing the Karoly factor in the AlGorithm , here’s a bit more –
‘Professor David Karoly is Professor of Meteorology and an ARC Federation Fellow in the School of Earth Sciences. He is an expert in climate change science and was involved, through several different roles, in the preparation of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in 2007. The IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, jointly with Al Gore, “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”.’
more – http://research.science.unimelb.edu.au/profile/eminent/karoly
davidmhoffer wrote:
“Sorta like that clown taking Anthony to task for it’s versus its. I am now using itz in protest in all cases.”
David, I am not a clown, nor do I deserve this treatment from you. I attempted to point out an error in Anthony’s speech, it was neither a criticism of him or his intelligence. It was an attempt to improve a mistake that Anthony commonly makes (as do some of those “eminent” climate scientists at RC). So please refrain from this childish attitude towards other posters, it does nothing to enhance the merit of your arguments.
My (non-scientist) 2 cents.
This is not about butterflies, it’s about climate models. That butterflies
are emerging earlier as a result of warmer winters is all well and good.
The claim being made is that models with a high forcing factor reflect
reality better than models with a low forcing factor. What hasn’t been
justified is the use of a high forcing factor for CO2, and a low forcing
factor for solar variability. Therefore, the use of the term “anthropogenic”
in the paper’s title is unjustified.
Hi,
I did not read through all the comments, so some (all) my points may already have been mentioned, but I would like to point out some problems with the reviewers understanding of statistics:
Ref. 1
“”there is no reason to expect such data to be chronologically biased”. To me, this proviso seems sufficient ”
This is not an exercise in believing, or at least should not be. “I think my data is Ok” and “I think it is enough if you think so” is pretty unacceptable as a scientific standard.
“The second criticism is that the physiological model did not account for other possible variables. No, but the fit of observed phenology to that modelled based on climate was extremely close.”
Ref. 1 ignores that the fit “per se” is no proof that other factors are absent, which is elementary statistics material. E.g. if A is a cause and B is highly correlated to A then we would see a “close fit” between B and our effect even though they have nothing to do with each other. There is an “extremely close” fit between the amount of ice cream sold and violent crime, in some cities , so based on Ref 1’s logic there is a link as well.
“For this criticism to be justified the author should again present some empirical evidence that the other variables listed influence emergence times in this species or similar species”
For this criticism to be NOT justified the authors of the article should present empirical evidence that other correlated factors do NOT influence the emergence of this species. If not, their findings are as meaningless as the ice-cream findings were.
Ref2 is a joke. I wonder why the rejection letter considered his remark a “strong criticism”?
Ref 3:
“Kearny et al have made the assumption that there is no obvious bias in these data. So, here the author should more convincingly show that there is indeed bias that may impact on the conclusions.”
Now this would be an interesting methodological change. It seems that it is enough for the researchers “to make the assumption ” that their data is not biased and then it is the duty of their critics to prove this assumption wrong (or right, of course). E.g. if I make the claim that I can read minds, present some anectdotes and publish the results in this journal, it would be OK as long as I make the assumption that my data is not biased??
“It is not enough mentioning the opportunistic nature of the data.”
But is should be. A methodological error is a methodological error.
“This point needs more work.”
Fully agree. The authors of the published article should clear these points.
To DocMartyn
Lawns in Melbourne.! Your kidding.
Victoria used to be called “The Garden State” in Australia.
Due mainly to the poor government planning and the green movement, lawns are a relic of past decades. No water available. End of the story.
Re. road verges in the Laverton RAAF base area,some grass struggles to survive on the unused airstrip side areas, but the on the sides of the road are mainly industrial buildings.
Re suggested UK funding changes:
“to give more support to the few scientists who can “really move the needle” by making major discoveries.”
I just wonder, how many young scientists would ever make it up into the circle of the chosen “few”. Probably only by doing their PhD’s and postdoc studies there. I see no chance of a fresh-start scientist or new area of research emerging from chronically underfunded “commoner’s” labs of other specializations that would surely result from such a system…
Robert Kral (17:18:08) : “Jordan, I think you misunderstood my answer since I did mention other factors besides temperature”
Thanks for your more detailed explanation. It helps people like me to understand a little bit more about possible issues with the paper.
O/T again (Sorry also) Feet2.
Wikipedia, on entry Atlantic Ocean, History section states that
“Apparently it (the Atlantic Ocean) did not exist prior to 130 million years ago, when the continents that formed from the breakup of the ancestral super continent, Pangaea, were drifting apart from seafloor spreading.”
Furthermore, the Telegraph artice, sentence two reads,
“While studying fossils and minerals from the Arctic Svalbard, Norway, they concluded the sudden change in the Atlantic Gulf Stream during the Cretaceous period would almost certainly have wiped out the ”abundance” of the world’s dinosaurs.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/dinosaurs/7624014/Dinosaurs-died-from-sudden-temperature-drop-not-comet-strike-scientists-claim.html
Perhaps the North Atlantic Ocean of 137 my ago Pangea was not today’s Atlantic Ocean. I’m uncertain, as what seems to be the consensus. Looking at the ‘modeled’ histories I am finding (i.e. http://www.historyoftheuniverse.com/cd0.html, and I share your doubts here), NOA at the time was comparable in size to the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean seas combined and latitudanly comparable to the Bermuda Triangle of today.
It seems that the writer, scientists or both, are be trying to transpose a modern idea about the Atlantic Ocean and it’s place in the Thermohaline Circulation (and possibly locationally lat/long) into place that didn’t exist yet.
Price of Plymouth Uni says ““If they were unable to migrate south they could have been wiped out. Climate change is now very much on the agenda in trying to determine how the dinosaurs became extinct.”
This is an evelope being pushed on part of the scientists, it would appear.
Although there is some sloppy writing, like.
“the sudden change in the Atlantic Gulf Stream during the Cretaceous period would almost certainly have wiped out the ”abundance” of the world’s dinosaurs.”
A one word quote? That’s how book raves misquote bad reviews.
Plymouth seems to want us to know that climate change in “greenhouse climates” like our own, is more dangerous than a Chicxalub-sized impactor. Working against ‘consenus’ to gather more ‘proof’ that humans are facing the most ‘dangerous’ challenge ever.