Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Once again, I return to that endless font of misinformation, the Waxman Markey website. In this case, I look at their claims about Alaska. This one will be short and sweet. Their claim is that Alaska is roasting, as in the picture below:
Figure 1. The dessert known as “flaming baked Alaska”. Ice cream covered with meringue, doused with brandy, and set on fire. Sweet.
The Waxman Markey website page on Alaska says:
Over the past 50 years, Alaska has warmed by 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit, much more than anywhere in the lower 48 states. This dramatic temperature change is causing the landscape of Alaska to change faster than anywhere else in the United States, threatening infrastructure, wildlife, and Native Alaskan culture.
I fear that these numbers must from the well-known Government Misinformation Agency.
Figure 2 shows the real numbers:
Figure 2. Alaskan temperatures, as the average of all first-order stations in the state.
There are a few things we can see here. First, Fig. 1 clearly shows the dependence of Alaska temperatures on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The PDO is a long-term shift in Pacific sea surface temperatures. The PDO has a warm phase and a cool phase, as shown in Figure 3. It shifts from one phase to the other every thirty years or so.
Figure 3. Cool (positive) and warm (negative) phases of the PDO. IMAGE SOURCE
The PDO shifted to the cool phase in the late 1940s. It went back to the warm phase in 1976-77. And recently, it has gone back to the cool phase. This is clearly visible in the Alaska temperatures. As much as Waxman Markey wants to blame the shift in Alaskan temperatures on “global warming”, the science says otherwise. The changes are due to the shifts in the PDO.
Second, their claim that Alaska has “warmed by 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit” is not true. The largest trend to 2009 in the Alaska temperatures is 1954-2009, which is 3.24 degrees.
I also note that they are using a very different period from the one they used in their claims about the US Northeast, where they used the trend from “the 1970’s”. Obviously, they are picking their time period to exaggerate their claims …
The main point here is that because the PDO gives Alaska warm periods and cool periods, it is meaningless to use any trend starting from a cool period and ending in a warm period, or vice versa. Yes, you can get a positive trend from anywhere on the left half of the graph to anywhere on the right side of the graph … but that doesn’t tell us anything about what’s happening.
Short and sweet.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
While we’re quoting founding fathers, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” — George Washington ……… Again, we’ve forgotten what was once, common knowledge.
The PDO is also clearly seen in salmon populations. Salmon survival is extremely sensitive to temperatures at the time of ocean entry. In the warm phase of the PDO (which commenced in the 1970s) we see a strong decline in the southern populations (California and Pac NW) and an increase in the northern stocks especially Alaska. The relative geographic abundance reverses in the cool phase. A several thousand year record of the PDO is shown in the paper by Gregory-Eaves et al “Diatoms and sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) population dynamics: Reconstructions of salmon-derived nutrients over the past 2,200 years in two lakes from Kodiak Island, Alaska” http://www.springerlink.com/content/wx55814002x7v823/
jeff brown says:
June 30, 2010 at 6:05 pm
> Steve, how does your graph not show Alaska warming?
If you click on the “real numbers” link above the map, it will take you to
Steve’ssite, the Alaska Climate Research Center.There you will see the original confusion about °C and °F, but you can also read:
No one is saying the warming didn’t happen, merely that it’s step signal associated with positive PDO. We’ll be seeing the effects of a negative PDO soon enough.
All Mr Malarkey er um I mean Markey and Mr Was between his ears er I mean Waxman have to do to see that their theory is nothing but **** (self censored) all they have to do is go live in Alaska.
I was in Alaska in 2008, a fine year to be there for the first time ever.( If you like being frozen in two seconds flat) Anchorage had the third coldest October on record and Ft Yukon almost broke the record of -80F.
Last year it wasn’t as cold, does that mean that Alaska is warming? Has anyone seen the Yukon river in June the last few years?
You know you’re in a cold place when there is a 65+ degreeF change in temperature and it’s still only 42 degrees F.
I’ve had several discussions with warmist about Alaska’s catastrophic warming and I just give up because they are typically basing their facts on Waxman/Markey or Hansen or Mann/Jones.
Pat is very much correct about Salmon,
I am an avid Salmon Steelhead fisherman and the local rivers and streams that feed the Lower Columbian basin had a drastic drop in Salmon in the 80’s due to the increase in El Nino activities. The last 5 years has seen a pretty good incline of both Chinook and Coho Salmonids as well as the steelhead trout.
The Alaskan warming is regional. It did not warm Sitka, Alaska as much as it was from 1860 to 1940.
100 years ago, one could make a global warming case by cherrypicking Sitka….and ignoring everything else.
These people must think oscillations are just a bunch of malarkey.
Follow the money … From your pocket to Kenya. And what does Kenya have to do with the climate?
Brad,
The PDO and El Nino are two different events. The PDO operates on 20 to 30 year time scales while El Nino cycles in less than 2 years. http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/fgz/science/pdo.php?wfo=fgz. Both influence salmon abundance. It is interesting that it was a salmon researcher -Steve Hare-that “discovered” the PDO while looking at the cyclical abundance in salmon populations. (There may also be much longer ocean cycles within which the PDO operates)
Scott in VA says:
June 30, 2010 at 6:25 pm
JeffBrown,
So quick to try and find fault. You need to direct your questions to the Alaska Climate Research Center – as they are the source of the map – not Stevengoddard. Please let us know what their response is.
Yes, Jeff, we’ll be waiting to hear. If you are a sincere commenter, I know you’ll follow up on this and report back. On the other hand, if you are a troll hack getting paid by the word, you won’t even bother contacting ACRC.
Willis has it right.
It is a “font” as in “baptismal font” or “font of all knowledge”.
David M Hoffer over at Knowledge Drift does a great job og showing where any purported warming would be most evident. Its closer to the poles and during winter. He uses the IPCC figures. takes the alarm out of, well, alarm.
http://knowledgedrift.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/catastrophic-global-warming-refuted-data-source-ipcc-ar4
Hmm. got the href tag wrong. My link is in the source but hidden. Doh.
REPLY:just type in URL’s as you would a browser, WordPress will automatically make a link. Fixed – Anthony
Thanks Anthony. BTW, I really enjoyed your talk in Adelaide. Sorry if we didn’t laugh at your trekkie humour. That’s just Adelaide. We laugh on the inside 🙂
Here’s what the Apple dictionary defines as a the correct word:
fount 1 |fänt; fount|
noun
a source of a desirable quality or commodity : our courier was a fount of knowledge.
• poetic/literary a spring or fountain.
ORIGIN late 16th cent.: back-formation from fountain , on the pattern of the pair mountain, mount.
You can use either font or fount. The both come from the same latin root.
Google searches:
“font of all knowledge” – 132,000 results
“fount of all knowledge” – 66,300 results
“font of all wisdom” – 18,200 results
“fount of all wisdom” – 48,400 results
The scientific conclusion is, you find more knowledge in fonts, and more wisdom in founts … go figure.
Doug Proctor: June 30, 2010 at 4:14 pm
I used to think that outright lying was not going on, but preferential, self-serving selection. Now I think that outright lying is going on.
As the old aphorism goes, “Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.” But with the present crew in Congress, my money’s on malice.
I believe that should be fount of misinformation not font or front.
@willis
A font is either a typeface or a bowl of baptismal water. A fount is either a typeface or a plumbing fixture that provides a flow of water. Font doesn’t make much metaphorical sense in describing a stream of misinformation where fount is quite apt.
Your ad populum appeal (logical fallacy) showing font is used more often than fount does nothing except prove that it’s a common mistake.
Very interesting, Willis!
However, in order to make the case for a long cyclical pattern work, you need a longer time series than just half a cycle. Are there some longer time series back to 1900 or so? I realize these will be mostly coastal, and so not representative of the interior, but anything would be infomative.
Hu McCulloch
A several thousand year record of the PDO is shown in the paper by Gregory-Eaves et al “Diatoms and sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) population dynamics: Reconstructions of salmon-derived nutrients over the past 2,200 years in two lakes from Kodiak Island, Alaska” http://www.springerlink.com/content/wx55814002x7v823/
And some abstracts fro a conference of the subject
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:yx6W7_AnpTYJ:www.fs.fed.us/psw/cirmount/meetings/paclim/pdf2009/paclim_abstracts2009.pdf+diatom+salmon+pdo+finney&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShYCOg8_Lw9ukkFV7p6aYensOwgPGD9hajoKXZXywGDsD5llvCM_fHk8jJ4DyAFooQ5MeL0VyZbfJutbvR0qk2kxEEHRwq-IrZisBDRqee9XIqRPU6w7APrAdz41FT8ef9l1VVB&sig=AHIEtbQeSazkiMN_VmXa6siaYc02sGvUDg
Dave Springer says:
July 1, 2010 at 6:26 am
The crazy thing about language is that when a mistake becomes common enough … it becomes standard English, and it is no longer a mistake. That’s how the language changes.
Definition of malarky – wind, empty rhetoric or insincere (or exaggerated) talk.
Seems to aptly describe what Markey is trying to do. How can you tell when a politician is lying? ….
The Victorian Fountain at Government House, Annapolis, Maryland
@Willis Eschenbach,
If you can find time to defend your figures of speech, please make some time to defend your science. I noted that your p-values do not match those actually calculated from the data in the first of your Waxman Markey posts. How can you keep posting this series without addressing the evidence that you are making false claims?
Fountain