I’ve read a number of the testimonies before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment yesterday. It had a number of excellent presentations, and you can watch the entire video here. 
One presentation made me chuckle though, and that’s the one from Dr. Heidi Cullen.
It was probably the most lightweight presentation of all of them, and was mostly a history lesson combined with overused and well known talking points. It was a bit like watching An Inconvenient Truth. For example, does her Climate Central graphical treatment of the Keeling CO2 curve (at left) make it impart the information to viewer any better than the original?
When I was in TV news, it was called “swish”. “We need more swish on that.” i.e. “we need to add some bling and sound effects because the viewer has the attention span of a gnat and if we don’t make it pretty they’ll change the channel”. Yeah, in retrospect, maybe that works with Congress too.
One of her statements though, made me bust out laughing. It’s a prime candidate for Quote of the Week but I’ve already named one this week.
Here’s what she had to say:
And the urgency is that the longer we wait, the further down the pipeline climate travels and works its way into weather, and once it’s in the weather, it’s there for good.
Is it just me, or do you all get the impression the Dr. Cullen really doesn’t understand the differentiations of weather and climate?
Weather has always been in climate, it doesn’t suddenly appear “in climate” based on some imagined metric or maxim. It’s always “been there”, not the inverse.The Merriam Webster dictionary says:
I could forgive her if this was an off the cuff poorly considered ad-libbed remark under pressure before congress, but she wrote this ahead of time. This is just nutty thinking.
She adds:
We are currently in a race against our own ability to intuitively trust what the science is telling us, assess the risks of global warming, and predict future impacts. So when we look at a climate forecast out to 2100 and see significantly warmer temperatures (both average and extreme) and sea level three feet higher, we need to assess the risk as well as the different solutions necessary to prevent it from happening. The challenge is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, replace our energy infrastructure and adapt to the warming already in the pipeline.
Three feet huh? Okay, let’s run the numbers. Here’s the satellited measure University of Colorado Sea level graph from our WUWT ENSO/Sea Level/Sea Surface Temperature Page
Let’s see, at the current rate of 3.1 mm per year, with 90 years remaining, we’ll have 279 mm (0.91 feet) by the year 2100. And of course, if we get some changes in ocean patterns, AMO, PDO, etc, we might very well see a lower rate. Or, it could be higher, but even being generous, and doubling that rate, gives only 1.82 feet.
Scary huh?If I lived on the coast, I’d worry more about hurricanes and strong ocean storms than I would sea level changes. And, what will coastal development look like in 100 years? Who knows? People 100 years ago certainly couldn’t predict what our coastal development would look like today. In fact, who could have predicted that Australia might consider banning coastal development due to such overblown fears?
But, it is often unreported that we’ve had sea level rise all through American history. Of all the talk about sea level rise, it is interesting to point out that at least in Boston, man has easily outraced the sea. The worry about sea level is real, but the ability of man to adapt is clearly illustrated in the comparative maps. See here: The rubbish is coming! One if by land, two if by sea
You can read her entire testimony here: Cullen_Testimony_10-17-2010
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I watched the event live beginning from Lindzen’s testimony to the very end and, yes, Cullen’s performance was the lightest of them all. Frankly, the only question that popped into my mind as she made her case was what she was doing there. That’s a fair question, I believe, considering how readily CAGW cultists dismissed Anthony Watts as a mere “TV wheatherman”.
Plus she drinks bottled water 🙂
Heidi Cullen? Why didn’t they just ask Paris Hilton to testify? I’m sure the input would be just as meaningful.
wow. so it’s not just high schools graduating functional illiterates these days.
I think she was there to be a “climatebabe.”
Bjorn Lomborg says it well in Cool It. Imagine asking and old lady in AD2000 what she regarded as the most important developments in the 20th century. She might mention the two world wars, the rise and fall of communism, the invention of TV and computers, the WWW, etc etc. But you can bet she would never add, ‘and, oh yes, sea levels rose by about a foot’.
The last IPCC-Report 2007 claims that there are important differences between weather and climate, by saying that:
”A common confusion between weather and climate arises when scientists are asked how they can predict climate 50 years from now when they cannot predict the weather a few weeks from now. The chaotic nature of weather makes it unpredictable beyond a few days.
___Projecting changes in climate (i.e., long-term average weather) due to changes in atmospheric composition or other factors is a very different and much more manageable issue.
___As an analogy, while it is impossible to predict the age at which any particular man will die, we can say with high confidence that the average age of death for men in industrialised countries is about 75.”
The text is from the section FAQ 1.2 : “What is the Relationship between Climate Change and Weather?”, and obviously intended to create the impression that ‘climate science’ is more reliable than weather forecasting. Is this impression wrong? More at: http://www.whatisclimate.com/
I live in N E Alabama. I remember when Ms. Cullen recommended the desertification of any skeptical meteorologists. My thoughts then and now are that science is based on questions. Our good scientists are supposed to be skeptical, if they cease to ask questions, look at other options, opinions, or studies they cease to be scientists and become advocates. Ms. Cullen isn’t a scientist any longer. But by her actions and statements in opposition to the scientific method and the use of threat of sanctions to deny voice to opposing view, opinions, and studies assings to herself the roll of biased advocate.
Her thoughts haven’t changed even with nearly a decade of conflicting data. Perhaps she should be calling for more freedom to those that are independently studing the climate/weather. After all climate is the result of long term weather and long term weather is the definition of climate. She may have to look back farther than her own memory.
Just my humble opinion for what it is worth. (not much)
Bill Derryberry
“against our own ability to intuitively trust what the science is telling us,”
======================================================
fail
and that’s the problem they have, our intuition is telling us this is all BS……..
I take back what I said about Dr. Curry. A real scientist can make some sense even when speaking in Marxist jargon. A moonbat can’t make sense no matter what language they try to use. Does Dr. Cullen’s brain function?
What incoherent nonsense. Time for a joke.
Three blonde eco-zealous atmospheric scientists were walking through the forest when they came upon a set of tracks.
The first blonde said, “Those are deer tracks. Worse, it must be ill or dying, just look at the way it is dragging its feet. A sure sign of Global Warming damage to the ecosystem.”
The second blonde said, “No, those are polar bear tracks. And it is much worse than anyone thought – polar bears should not even be around these parts at all! This is a sure sign that the ice caps are melting and destroying their habitat.”
The third blonde said, “You’re both wrong, those tracks are too straight to be anything but a couple of alligators dragging their long tails. It is way worse than we ever thought. Alligators have never been seen this far North! A sure sign we are all doomed!”
Well in the end, it turns out that the third blonde was right because the three blondes were still arguing when the train hit them.
The witness statements are all available in pdf form at http://science.house.gov/publications/hearings_markups_details.aspx?NewsID=2947
Obviously, the written statements are not identical to the verbal ones, but so far I haven’t found the time to watch 3+ hours of testimony but have been able to quickly scan several of the written testimonies.
They should follow up the hearings with a panel discussion on NPR with Heidi, Al Gore, Tina Fey, Bono, DiCaprio, and Paris Hilton, so they won’t use all those “high-falutin'” big words the scientists use that just confuse the average NPR listener. It would have to be quick, since their limos will be outside idling.
On second thought, they could probably memorize the science jargon—maybe even with an English accent??
ArndB says: “The last IPCC-Report 2007 claims that there are important differences between weather and climate, by saying that…Projecting changes in climate (i.e., long-term average weather) due to changes in atmospheric composition or other factors is a very different and much more manageable issue. As an analogy, while it is impossible to predict the age at which any particular man will die, we can say with high confidence that the average age of death for men in industrialised countries is about 75.”
False analogy. FAIL.
Flake.
I’ve always thought of it as, weather is what happens, climate is what we remember.
To project this as looking forward, we’d have to say something like, we will have to have warmer weather so our children remember a warmer climate.
BUT, since the weather anomalies (pick your favorite time frame) we’ve seen can be attributed to stalled high/low pressure systems, the weather isn’t warmer or colder, its just different from our expectation…
A very blond comment
Here’s a little something I found on the web:
External Committee Member (2001-) [for] Heidi Cullen, Ph.D. 2001: external committee member, Columbia University, 2000-01
Okay, your assignment is to guess who this external committee member was.
jorgekafkazar says:
November 18, 2010 at 9:56 am
Well said..
I always remember this example of false analogy (below) from my college logic textbook. (PS. I wonder if Aristotelian logic is taught any more in any schools?):
Employees are like nails. Just as nails must be hit in the head in order to make them work, so must employees.
The fallacy stated by Hypothetical Heidi is, more precisely called a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter; “in English, called the converse accident, or arguing from the qualified to the general, whereupon an acceptable exception is simplified or eliminated.
Thank you Weather Channel, for firing her. How is she even relevant enough to testify on Capitol Hill?
Ms Cullen produced a segment for The News Hour last year:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/jan-june09/georgiacoal_05-19.html
Here’s an excerpt:
HEIDI CULLEN:…Laura Devendorf lives on the coast, some 40 miles south of Savannah. She’s starting to see change, too.
LAURA DEVENDORF, Sunbury, Georgia: We’re worried about sea level rise, indeed. I think everyone on the coast is. You can just sit there and see the tides getting bigger.
NOAA reports the following from the Ft Pulaski gauging station:
The mean sea level trend is 2.98 mm/year with a 95% confidence interval of +/- 0.33 mm/year based on monthly mean sea level data from 1935 to 2006 which is equivalent to a change of 0.98 feet in 100 years.
Check it for yourself at:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.shtml
Ms. Cullen’s authoritative sources must have remarkable vision.
jorgekafkazar says:
November 18, 2010 at 9:56 am
yes – of course it’s a false analogy – thats why the IPCC used it!
This adds to the golden archive:
“i feel global warming when flying a plane, you know, that instability”
“if too many people, Guam could tip over”
“climate will creep into weather and stay there”
Didn’t NBC buy the Weather Channel? Explains a lot.
They should have sent the apprentice.
OK, this is just too delicious to not post: http://thegwpf.org/ipcc-news/1877-ipcc-official-climate-policy-is-redistributing-the-worlds-wealth.html
Eventually the truth comes out.