Example Of Media Overstatement
Guest post by Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.
There are quite a few examples of overstatements and errors in media reports on climate science (and in the associated research paper). Today, I present one example that appears in a UCAR press release
Indian Ocean sea level rise threatens coastal areas
‘The key player in the process is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, an enormous, bathtub-shaped area spanning a region of the tropical oceans from the east coast of Africa to the International Date Line in the Pacific. The warm pool has heated by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, or 0.5 degrees Celsius, in the past 50 years, primarily because of human-generated emissions in greenhouses gases.”
The attribution of the positive temperature anomalies “primarily because of human-generated emissions in greenhouses gases” ignores research that documents in the peer reviewed literature a much more complicated role of human and natural climate forcings and feedbacks in affecting all aspects of the climate system (e.g. see and see).
The current sea surface temperature anomalies are presented below. The attribution of the Indo-Pacific warm pool to human-generated emissions in greenhouse gases without commenting on the reasons for the cooler than average anomalies (e.g. see the developing La Nina and the cool south Atlantic Ocean) illustrates how this UCAR study has selectively chosen data that fits their preconceived assumptions of climate.
From http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/sst/anomaly.html [see also a larger view of the globe at http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.7.15.2010.gif]
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I prefer to look at the measure product, not the anomalous derivation:
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/50km_night/2010/sstnight.7.22.2010.gif
I haven’t come across an anomaly detector or anomaly thermometer yet.
It seems to me that regional warm water expansion would in fact have an insignificant effect, measurable in millimeters with an upper limit that is fixed and equally insignificant. If there is the appearance of rising seas it is more likely receding coastal areas or isolated rising land mass that impacts stable areas in a negative way. The Bay of Bengal is a huge unstable delta area given to massive topographic changes on its own accord. Weather, currents, farming,industry, and tectonics all play an active roll. One visible on a real time basis.
But if you look at their map and compare it to the NOAA map you do not see the La Nina in the Pacific. WUWT?
RockyRoad says:
July 22, 2010 at 7:53 am
P.F. says:
July 22, 2010 at 7:54 am
It’s not a Mercator projection! I’ll grant you it’s not equal area, but but it’s no Mercator projection.
Ric Werme says: July 22, 2010 at 9:55 am “It’s not a Mercator projection! I’ll grant you it’s not equal area, but but it’s no Mercator projection.”
You are correct, sir. It’s actually a Platte Carre centered on Asia. My bad. I’ll do better next time.
Sea Levels Rising in Parts of Indian Ocean; Greenhouse Gases Play Role, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (July 13, 2010)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100713101412.htm
Patterns of Indian Ocean sea-level change in a warming climate
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo901.html
While the media does overstate AWG at times [http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/online/1053/climate-porn], this is not an example. GHG do play the major role here and everyone knows there are other factors like deforestation and natural cycles. Why should a story about human caused sea level rise in one region report on natural cooling in another? I don’ see Pielke’s objections as valid in this case.
Robuk says:
July 22, 2010 at 8:59 am
“Good old telegraph,
Malaysia closes diving reefs to save coral”
Wonderful logic in that article. Global warming kills corals, so you close the area for divers to help them recover. Not only does global warming cause everything, no, now completely unrelated measures are a remedy.
BTW, i looked at
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
and off the west coast of Africa at the equator there is a blob of very cold water that looks like a La Nina, only smaller. Is this a well-known phenomenon? Does it have a name?
BarryW
Regarding your excellent questions:
“Two questions come to mind. Why does the warm pool exist in the first place, and why would “global” warming selectively cause that too warm more than other areas? I thought that CO2 would cause more warming at the poles.”
First, just as with the associated atmospheric circulations, circulation features in the oceans result in regional patterns of temperatures which vary with time of year and over the long term. For periods of time, therefore, regions are above and below a longer term average. This is what we see in the SST anomaly figure I posted. The El Nino and La Nina ocean SST anomaly patterns are good examples of such time varying patterns (where we clearly see the signature of the new La Nina in the figure).
For course, there is a human component to the ocean temperatures as there is with the atmosphere. We know this, for example, for the Indian Ocean with respect to the heating from black carbon (e.g. see http://www-indoex.ucsd.edu/) and land use change (e.g. see
Kumiko Takata, Kazuyuki Saitoa and Tetsuzo Yasunari, 2009: Changes in the Asian monsoon climate during 1700–1850 induced by preindustrial cultivation PNAS published online June 1, 2009, doi:10.1073/pnas.0807346106.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/06/01/0807346106.abstract,
that the temperatures are different than they would be without the human disturbance. Of course, the still unresolved question, is the size of this effect relative to natural regional variations.
In terms of the radiative forcging of CO2, it is larger at the higher latitudes where the overlap with the radiative forcing of water vapor is much less (since there is much less water vapor in the atmosphere there than in the subtropics and tropics). This is indeed where the IPCC models predict the largest warming.
I hope these replies are useful!
24 Apr 2010 … “Bangladesh’s landmass has increased in recent years, thanks to sedimentation in its southern rivers, a study has revealed.” more….
“Climate scientists have expressed surprise at findings that many low-lying Pacific islands are growing, not sinking…..The findings, published in the journal Global and Planetary Change, were gathered by comparing changes to 27 Pacific islands over the last 20 to 60 years using historical aerial photos and satellite images.” more…
See Floating Islands [27 January, 2010]
“When the sea rises, the atoll rises with it, and when the sea falls, they fall as well.
Atolls exist in a delicate balance between new sand and coral rubble being added from the reef, and sand and rubble being eroded by wind and wave back into the sea.
When the sea falls, more sand tumbles from the high part, and more of the atoll is exposed to wind erosion.
The atoll falls along with the sea level. When the sea level rises, wind erosion decreases. The coral grows up along with the sea level rise.” more…
IPCC – “Based on the few very long tide gauge records, the average rate of sea level rise has been larger during the 20th century than the 19th century. No significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise during the 20th century has been detected” more…
Is this the Indo-Pacific cold pool in the months ahead?
ALWAYS REMAIN SCEPTICAL!
Remember the episode of “Gilligan’s Island” where the Professor thought the island was sinking, but it was just Gilligan moving the Professor’s measuring stick to catch lobsters??
DirkH says:
July 22, 2010 at 10:41 am
BTW, i looked at
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
and off the west coast of Africa at the equator there is a blob of very cold water that looks like a La Nina, only smaller. Is this a well-known phenomenon? Does it have a name?
Yes. It is called the “Benguela Nino”, and it starts off the coast of Angola.
Like the current La Nina building rapidly in the Pacific, the Benguela Nino is building from the same source: The ever-expanding Antarctic cold. Now, all one really needs is for the Arctic to simultaneously cool unexpectedly (DMI 80N ?? is it doing that??) and you have your global cooling running amok.
We just had a mass of Antarctic Air run up the spine of S. America, which the MSM nonchalantly ignores.
RockyRoad says:
July 22, 2010 at 7:53 am
Maybe they haven’t heard of “gravity”… that indomitable force that brings the surface of liquids to the same elevation if given enough time. Certainly, 50 years would be sufficient; nay, 50 weeks would be sufficient, even on a body of liquid the size of the “Indo-Pacific warm pool.”
Seriously, could somebody explain this? I mean 50 years? 50 weeks? I would think 50 seconds. Wouldn’t you have to empty an absolutely massive amount of water into the ocean all at once to have some sort of local sea level effect? And even then wouldn’t it have to be very close to the shoreline where you’re measuring the anomoly? And wouldn’t it dissipate very quickly?
Try as I might I just can’t think of how gradually rising global sea levels could possibly translate into any significant, consistent sea level difference from one point on earth to the next. Sure the tides might behave differently. And depending on the grade of the shoreline an x cm rise in global sea level might translate into different amounts of land area lost. But I don’t think that’s what they’re talking about here:
“Global sea level patterns are not geographically uniform,” says NCAR scientist Gerald Meehl, a co-author. “Sea level rise in some areas correlates with sea level fall in other areas.”
How does that work? Is the surface of the ocean bulging out in certain areas? If so, why? Yes, I know that’s what’s happening with tides, but again, as far as I can tell they’re not talking about tides here, they’re talking about global average sea level. (Or are they? If a sea level rise in one place has a corresponding sea level fall in another, is it fair to say the sea level has risen?)
It just seems so fundamental so I can only assume I’m missing something. Can anybody explain this… I mean even if you disagree with the conclusions of this study, is there even an ostensible explanation for how this could be possible? Seriously curious.
Mike says:
July 22, 2010 at 10:22 am
You need to explain how you have separated the human component from the naturals before you make that rather banal statement.
“Indian Ocean sea levels are rising unevenly and threatening residents in some densely populated coastal areas,”
The bit of the Indian Ocean outside my front door shows no sign of rising (apart from its annoying habit of going up and down every six hours or so). But if I stare hard and long at that bit a little short of the horizon, I get the feeling that I can detect the point where it starts to go uphill. Should be pretty good for water skiing.
Billy says:
July 22, 2010 at 11:14 am
…It just seems so fundamental so I can only assume I’m missing something. Can anybody explain this… I mean even if you disagree with the conclusions of this study, is there even an ostensible explanation for how this could be possible? Seriously curious.
_______________________________________________________________
I think the key here is “Indian Ocean sea levels are rising unevenly” This is an active tectonic area. You can see this in the “Recent Earthquakes – Last 8-30 Days” map The earth it’s self is moving not the ocean.
Now that I have solved that mystery, where is my share of that million dollar grant money???
Most of the commentors are responding to the visual impact drawing their thoughts and attention to the Temperature effects, I chose to address the original context of the Earth Observatory article. ________
“”In fact, the more researchers study the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere, the more they are finding that such large-scale cyclical and near-cyclical variations in ocean temperature and air pressure appear to occur all across the planet at many time scales. Some can stir up the weather across half the globe, while others may only affect the coasts of a single country. Some recur twice every decade on average, while others come around every year.
[snip]
The effects and origins of these oscillating waters, however, remain something of a mystery. For the past three years researchers based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, led by atmospheric scientist Vikram Mehta, have been trying to unravel some of the questions surrounding the warm pool. They have been poring over atmospheric and sea surface temperature data from the western Pacific to the eastern United States looking for answers as to why the warm pool oscillates and what effects this oscillation may have on the world’s climate. What they found is that the warm pool’s vacillations may be felt as far away as Arkansas and may be powerful enough to broaden the extent of El Niño.””
__________________
The cyclic periods driving the oscillations of the warm pool, are the long term effects of the Lunar declinational tides in the atmosphere interacting with the global mountain ranges and basin patterns of resonance as it shifts from Min, Max, and back every 18.6 years. If they are reading this here is a link they can maybe use;
http://research.aerology.com/aerology-analog-weather-forecasting-method/
Describing the processes in action and why the patterns come and go so as to become predictable, the interactions of the global circulation patterns result in repeating features that have been given names, but are not yet looked at as the secondary effects that they are.
What I wanna know is what is the net effect?
On Tallblokes site I read about Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi who resigned from NASA due to “space agency’s lack of scientific freedom.” See his pdf paper titled ‘Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary Atmospheres’ which has apparently remained unrefuted which encourages climate scientists to think again about whether the greenhouse gas (GHG) theory truly offers an explanation of Earth’s climate. source.
rbateman says:
July 22, 2010 at 11:12 am
“Yes. It is called the “Benguela Nino”, and it starts off the coast of Angola.[…]”
Thanks a lot! Now, it seems that everything is going our way. This is the triumph of the skeptics. And i don’t like heatwaves anyway.
I wonder what Mr. Pielke Sr. would make of this study of ocean temps at deeper levels:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SGE66J00K.htm
At least some of Trenberth’s missing heat may be found…
REPLY: Dr. Roger Pielke senior. While I know he doesn’t care, since people get grumpy here if people leave it off Dr. Hansen or Dr. Mann, I figure you can do the same courtesy – Anthony
R. Gates says:
July 22, 2010 at 12:05 pm
“I wonder what Mr. Pielke Sr. would make of this study of ocean temps at deeper levels:”
That is not a study. It is a sensationalist yellow-press writeup. They interview a person from CSIRO, an Australian organisation known for their wrong weather forecasts and alarmist stance. There seems to be no study published. Or did i miss it?
R. Gates, I think you are assuming quite a bit from an article that makes no such assumptions. The fact that a few measurement over a relatively short period of time can be connected to the spurious notion that greenhouse gasses can heat oceans is quite a reach. The article says that the mechanism behind these findings is not understood. I doubt Dr. Pielke is worried about it, as he likely understands that such a jump as you make is not supported by the research you cite.
Sea levels rising unevenly.
That would be the Moon then !!!
Gail Combs:
“Now that I have solved that mystery, where is my share of that million dollar grant money???”
=======
No Money For You—you’ll only get the cash when you tie tectonic shifts to AGW.
Jimbo says:
July 22, 2010 at 12:01 pm
“We find that sea level has decreased substantially in the south tropical Indian Ocean whereas it has increased elsewhere.” Nature Geoscience
What I wanna know is what is the net effect?
Great big slosh.