Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
“Out of passions grow opinions; mental sloth lets these rigidify into convictions”
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
Anthony discussed the press release about the paper Past and ongoing shifts in Joshua tree distribution support future modeled range contraction. I didn’t have a copy so I wrote to the lead author, Kenneth Cole, to request one. He responded immediately and sent me a copy. My thanks to him, that’s science at its best. Other than the ritual obeisance to the climate models, the paper tells an interesting story about Joshua trees and the extinct Shasta ground sloths.
The Joshua “tree” is a cactus not a tree, it’s one one of the famous Yucca tribe of cacti spiny spiky things that aren’t cacti according to folks who know better than I do. Calling it a tree is merely the other cactus’s Yucca’s polite way to try to make it feel better about its funny appearance and desolate condition. It grows where almost nobody else can grow, in a very restricted climate range in the American Southwest. Not too hot, not too cold, not too much rain or too little rain, just right.
The fruit of the Joshua tree is a seed pod that was a favorite food of the Shasta ground sloth. The sloth appears to have been the only major seed dispersal mechanism for the Joshua tree. Which is hardly surprising, since other than pack rats and ground sloths, there’ve never been many herbivores hanging out where the Joshua tree grows. It’s way dry in that corner of the US.
The black stars in Figure 2 (from their paper) show the current location of Joshua trees, in and around the Mojave Desert in the hot Southwest.
Figure 2. The authors used rainfall and temperature maps to determine where Joshua trees might possibly grow, with green showing the most favorable climates. Map shows the lower parts of California (left) and Nevada (upper middle), along with a section of western Arizona.ORIGINAL CAPTION: … (A) Suitable climate model for Joshua tree created with mid 20th century (AD 1930 1969) PRISM mean precipitation variables and extreme mean monthly temperature events.
Now, to start with their map is interesting. I mean, the Joshua trees are certainly not growing extensively in what is the best part of the their range according to the authors. Unfortunately, much of the area they say is best for Joshua trees is on Nellis Air Force Base, so there’s no information for large areas. On the other hand, some areas with orange or even red (low probability) have a number of Joshua trees. However, nature is never as neat as we’d like it to be, and they’ve done well to generally outline the range by climate variables. And if it becomes desirable to plant Joshua trees, we know where they’ll likely grow.
Fifteen thousand years ago, in the days of the now-extinct Shasta ground sloth, the geological evidence from pack rat middens and sloth dung shows that the Joshua tree was much more widespread. However, humans happened upon the North American scene around that time, and converted all of the ground sloths into ground slothburgers and barbecued them. Which was bad news for the Joshua trees (not to mention the sloths), because no one else had much taste for Joshua tree seeds. As a result, the range of the Joshua tree is much reduced from its former glory.
The authors also show that the current range of the Joshua trees is further north, and at a higher elevation, than in the times of the ground sloth. During the last ice age the range of the Joshua tree extended across other areas that are now too hot or otherwise unsuitable to support them. As it warmed at the end of the ice age, the Joshua trees retreated (and advanced) to their current locations.
The problem is that without the ground sloths, the Joshua tree’s only seed dispersal mechanism is pack rats. The authors estimated the rate of spread from packrats at two metres per year. This seemed low to me, but is explained in the paper. The missing parts of the puzzle were a) unlike sloths, the packrats only carry the seeds a maximum of about forty metres or so to their homes, and b) the trees take twenty years to reach maturity and produce seeds. Result … 2 metres per year rate of spread. Always more to learn.
So far, so good. And if they’d quit there, it would have been an interesting paper. But no, they had to bring in the climate models. Now, climate models are notoriously bad at predicting precipitation (rain and snowfall). So they figured they’d pick the best of the bunch, viz:
Future downscaled GCM projections
To assess potential future changes in Joshua tree’s suitable climate space we compared future projections from several GCM’s for the late 21st century (2070 2099; ~2X CO2). Five individual models and one ensemble of 48 runs of 22 models based upon the A1B carbon emission scenario were obtained from the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI; AR4) archive (available online). The five individual models used were: Hadley Center for Climate predic tion (Hadgem1), Max Planck Institute for Meteor ology (Mpi_echam5), CSIRO Atmospheric Research (Csiro_mk3), National Center for Atmospheric Research (Ncar_ccsm3), and Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (Cnrm_cm3). They were selected because they represent a wide range of future moisture availability conditions for southwestern North America (Seager et al. 2007), and they all were ranked within the top half (of 22 models tested) for their ability to hindcast 20th century precipitation seasonality within the southwestern U.S. deserts (Garfin et al. 2010). These models, especially the Hadgem1 and Mpi_echam5, outperformed most models in replicating the 1950 to 1999 AD geographic distribution of average seasonal precipitation (Garfin et al. 2010).
Then, once they had what they figured were the best five models giving a “wide range” of rainfall results, they ran them and tried to figure where the Joshua trees might live in the future. The models gave differing results, so the authors defined a threshold for suitability (18%). If three of the five models said a particular gridcell would be above the 18% suitablity threshold for Joshua trees, they called it an “area of agreement for future suitable climate (AAFSC)”.
Then they show what those 5 models (and the 22 model ensemble) said would be suitable areas for Joshua trees in the years 2070-2099. Which all sounds vaguely reasonable until we look at their results in Figure 3 …
Figure 3. Results for five models (B-F) and 22 model ensemble (G). Pink areas with thin black outline show current range of the Joshua trees. ORIGINAL CAPTION: … (B G) The Joshua tree future suitable climate model runs for late 21st century (AD 2070 2099 AD): (B) Hadgem1, (C) Mpi_echam5, (D) Csiro_mk3, (E) Ncar_ccsm3, (F) Cnrm_cm3, and (G) Ensemble (44 runs of 22 GCMs).
See, if those results were mine, I’d throw up my hands and say “Not ready for prime time”. Those models are all over the map. They said they picked the models to “represent a wide range of future moisture availability conditions”, but I wasn’t expecting that huge a range. One model is “everything’s fine”, another is “they’re all gonna die!” That’s so wide as to be useless, and these are among the best models.
I don’t see any way that an average of those, or an “AAFSC” of those (area of agreement for future suitable climate), has any meaning at all. One of the models shows a wide area of hundreds of thousands of hectares where the Joshua tree could live, and another shows no suitable area at all.
Finally, once again we have the problem I have called “Models all the way down“. While the model results are interesting, they’ve skipped a big step. I want to see a map, just like the maps above showing possible future distributions of Joshua trees. But I want one showing how well the individual models (and the 22 model ensemble) did at hindcasting the current distribution of the Joshua trees.
I mean seriously – before showing us the model forecasts for 2070-2099 Joshua tree distributions, shouldn’t they show us the model hindcasts for the 1970-1999 Joshua tree distributions? It wouldn’t rescue the paper, but at least it might give some reason to think the selected models might be better than throwing darts at a map of the Mojave region.
Because without that, it’s just models disagreeing and quarreling with each other, all the way down …
w.
Note to readers:
The new photo is of an Iowa sloth, now extinct because they ate all the Joshua Trees in Iowa years ago.
There are probably folks in California who could replace the sloths.
But activism is so much easier because afterward you can go home where there is a warm fire, soft lighting, wine, etc.
If I place my head in the oven and my feet in the refrigerator, on average I will feel pretty comfortable.
It appears that, if you use enough models, the spread of ranges for almost anything will cover whatever it is you wish to promote.
Many here might already know the story of the discovery of the long thought extinct Wollemi Pine here in the Blue Mountains in eastern Australia.
There are less than 100 trees of this 200 million year old species now known to exist, all in the one tiny very isolated rugged mountain area.
But the most remarkable thing is that it was thought that this species, based on the dating of the last known fossils of the genus, had been extinct for some 2 million years.
Yet those trees survived down through the ages in this one small isolated pocket until accidently found by David Cole, a bush walker and a rock climber and fortuitously also a Parks Field officer who recognised that there was something very unusual about that isolated group of trees in the deep gully.
The conservation effort for this species is innovative in itself as rather than locking down the trees, the locations of which are still a closely guarded secret, into a entirely preservation only role, the decision was made to propogate and distribute the trees across as wide a region as possible and ultimately to be distributed nationally and internationally so as to ensure the survival of the species across a vast range of climates and environments.
I try to avoid ad hominems, but this fellow is obviously a complete . . . jerk, and a fool besides.
We don’t care what he thinks. But it is instructive to read his nasty insults just to get a feel for how utterly close-minded the ‘activist’ ideologues really are, and then compare it with the energetic, sometimes opinionated, but generally fair-minded discussion that takes place daily on this blog.
/Mr Lynn
Willis
Good observation: “climate models are notoriously bad at predicting precipitation (rain and snowfall).” Excellent challenge: “I want one showing how well the individual models (and the 22 model ensemble) did at hindcasting the current distribution of the Joshua trees.”
David Stockwell exposed how models used by CSIRO’s Drought Exceptional Circumstances Report on hindcasting gave the OPPOSITE of historical data:
Stockwell, David R.B., 2010. Critique of Drought Models in the Australian Drought Exceptional Circumstances Report (DECR), Energy & Environment, 21:5, 425-436, DOI:10.1260/0958-305X.21.5.425, Link: http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/L4870G0N8Q064377
I had the pleasure of visited Joshua Tree National Park last August. It was warm and dry. Here are a couple of quotes from placards inside the park.
“In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, cattle ranching was an important business here. An average of 10 inches of annual rain fell upon the desert then (compared to 2-5 inches now), and grass ranges were lush and abundant in Lost Horse, Queen, and Pleasant valleys. ”
What is now the park was then part of at least two cattle ranches.
Referring to the Joshua Tree: “Beechy ground squirrels, birds, and deer eat the creamy white blossoms, later fruits and seeds provide food for antelope, ground squirrels and other small animals.”
Hmmmm. The climate changed and multiple critters now seem to participate in eating (and potentially spreading?) joshua tree seeds.
juanslayton says:
“The top of the water is slightly over 200 feet below sea level.”
I wonder how much energy would be generated if a pipe were run from the ocean to the lake, with a Pelton water wheel hooked to a generator?
The lake is already brackish, so sea water wouldn’t make much of a difference.
It would be pretty cheap electricity.
The Joshua Tree. U bloody 2. Bono is up there with the rest of the warmistas, the warmerazzi….
jorgekafkazar says:
“Okay, I’ve read the thread and the post. I have no idea what these seeds look like–color, diameter, shape, toxicity, density. How big are the pods? I’m curious.”
A search for images found this.
Apparently 22 climate models run 44 times created an ensemble that forcast, in aggregate, it will be either; hotter and wetter, hotter and dryer, colder and wetter, or colder and dryer than Joshua Trees can tolerate before the end of the century.
I applaud the decision of the sloths. Pre-emptive extinction has the advantage of self determination with regard to the timing of a species passing into the dusty tomes of the paleoclimatologists. Humans however must remain at the mercy of the models for survival and rely on the paleopackrats to accumulate and analyze the artifacts of humanities endevors or something.
Ken Cole has been studying the Joshua Tree for quite some time. I have located a poster from 2005 in which he made projections of present and future distribution of Joshua trees using the climate models he had available at that time. Since it is a poster, a lot of the details in a full paper are missing.
http://www.climatescience.gov/workshop2005/posters/P-EC4.2_Cole.pdf
One thing he did in the poster, that is lacking in the paper as you describe it, is a prediction of the current range of the Joshua Tree, from the climate model that he used for prediction of the future. It is found in figure 5. He doesn’t compare it directly with the data on the current range. From what I can see on the map, the current climate seems to predict the observed range in Joshua Tree National Monument in the Little San Bernadino Mts.
Willis,
Do you think the paper was publishable is the peer review literature without the model speculation?
What are papers doing publishing conclusions based upon the AR4 models or their successors without a discussion of the diagnostic literature? The diagnostic literature at the time of the FAR already documented both significant correlated and uncorrelated error, and much has been published since then in plenty of time to make it clear to these authors that the models have no regional or quantitative credibility for the purpose they put them too. The IPCC itself published projections bounded only by the range of model results and emissions scenerios making absolutely no attempt to account for the additional uncertainty from problems already documented. The ranges of the projections gave the deceptive impression that uncertainty was disclosed and it wasn’t. This is key reform that needs to be made in both the IPCC process and the quality of peer review in climate science and other research like this one which uses climate science product. Each model team has an obligation to maintain a repository of diagnostic results for their models and new versions of their models that have not explicitly addressed past diagnostic issues. Announcements of new model versions in the peer review literature should not be little more than press releases touting features, but should specifically address past diagnostic issues addressed and unaddressed. The Wentz paper in Science showing that none of the models produced even one half of the observed increase in precipitation, should give any authors addressing droughts and the extent of arid conditions pause.
As a matter of routine, I hereby confess that I am an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate, with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
Willis,
Would it not be appropriate for you, as a climate scientist, to write to the authors and ask them, in the interests of science, to run your hindcasting and let you know the results. You might like to add that if the results were embarrassing, they could do so discretely.
Willis, not throwing darts.
They are throwing chicken bones.
How sad
This is going to sound a bit nuts, but in the Rogue River Canyon upstream about oh 10-15 miles nearer the dry than the wet part of the canyon. in this guy’s yard is-a
Joshua tree.. I though it a palm of some sort until I was based at Fox Field in
Lancaster Ca. There are Joshua’s around there for sure. That was a Joshua
in that guys’ yard.. Don’t know if it is still there. Wife who’d been married to a
Desert Rat of sorts(emphasis on Rat) in her first marriage spent some time around Mojave.
She said it was a Joshua. I said that’s impossible! Well, maybe not…
One of the things I learned about Joshua trees while racing motorcycles between them is that they send out runners from which sprout more Joshua trees. These are impossible to transplant with any degree of success, but people try all the time and the result is a dead Joshua tree start and a wounded runner.
This is not common knowledge, but standing around the fire pit late at night passing the jug around, nothing burns hotter longer than a Joshua tree. The desert sky is generally running at around -50º or so, so the fire is really welcome. And explains why so many Joshua trees seem to be pruned at just about shoulder level. It also ensures you don’t get hit in the face by the spines when riding off into the night on a dirt bike to answer nature’s call. I can easily imagine roasting a slothburger over a Josh fire and keeping it hot with pucker bush limbs. It even works for cowburgers.
The pucker bushes out there burn like gasoline but are out quickly. And bonus – the Joshua trees provide their own skewers for the hotdogs. Wood taken from pucker bushes (also called creosote) looks and smells like cedar and makes fantastic pistol grips and all manner of things turned out from wood craft shops. The grain is so fine it seems not to exist.
The greater threat for them though, is urbanization and a desert wide water grab. You want putting greens or Joshua trees? Can’t have both. If you have time, learn about the Mojave river. Mostly underground, it has a remarkable flow rate. Careful where you pitch your tent!
It will take years (probably 5 or more) to kill AGW. I have come to the conclusion as many others have that too much money/jobs etc, has been invested in it. It will be a slow process.. by the time the polls show that 10% or less believe in it, it will then die. And skeptics, you will not get your pleasure to see this, because it will be “old soldiers fade away, they do not die” phenomena. In other words the warmist will not concede, they will simply disappear over time, probably 5 years as stated above. It is a process that fortunately has already started. For example, hits to real climate etc in massive decline since 2007 and so on.
“However, humans happened upon the North American scene around that time, and converted all of the ground sloths into ground slothburgers and barbecued them.”
Lol…you have a way with words there Willis…
Great thread.. very enjoyable and informative read.
But..
Smokey says:
A search for images found this.
WOAH! Waaay tooo U-G-L-Y!!
Would anyone really care if they died out?
Hang on a minute,Physics Major says: March 30, 2011 at 6:08 pm
How did you figure the sloth was (is) a female?
Willis thank you for the update on the article.
However can you direct me to a more detailed map than provided Fig 2 of the area? I can not place the maps provided in this blog within the US s-west + coast area.
Is this map near the research area?
http://www.sdge.com/sunrisepowerlink/maps.html
(note various parties of interest in http://www.sdge.com/sunrisepowerlink/docs/srpl_whitepaper.pdf )
or this of the Lake Mead National Park area with the bighorn sheep petroglyphs http://www.nps.gov/lake/planyourvisit/maps.htm ?
I note there is a Mojave and Colorado Desert biosphere reserve (UNESCO 1984) with four management units, one of which is the Joshua Tree National Park (source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_and_Colorado_Deserts_Biosphere_Reserve )
I have never viewed so many national parks and crossing state borders. Amazing.
And radiometry (not carbon?) controversy of Nothrotheriops shastensis bones and dung and Harrington
http://www.1st100.com/part1/harrington.html
I would beware of sloths gone mental, too.
I would have to wonder where the heck those things lived because in the areas where I see the most Johsua trees, I wouldn’t think anything that large could survive out in the open during the day and there certainly isn’t a lot of shade to be had.
Yet another great post, Willis, despite a botanical faux pas and noises off from some testy nutter.
I won’t bother to suggest yet again that an anthology of your pieces would be something to treasure…….
If I might offer a small OT comment, I visited Joshua Tree National Park (and stayed in Twentynine Palms – and, no, I’m not a hippy!) a few years ago. I thought the National Park (and all the other US National Parks I have managed to visit) was absolutely wonderful. Even nasty denier types can appreciate nature and scenery.
Just thought I’d like to give the park a little plug on here.
How many silver nails do you have to hammer into the heart of the Greater Fanged Vampire climate model before you kill it, Willis?
Another great post apart from the minor faux pas about genus, but mistakes such as that certainly flush new knowledge out into the open. The silliness from Chris Clark was something of an eye-opener, so I visited his website out of curiosity and was amazed by the gratuitous nastiness toward sceptics of CAGW and to WUWT, the utterly closed state of his mind, his fiercely uncompromising warmist stance and his awe of RC as a ‘resource for real science’ (wow!), but then another poster kindly provided his bio and everything clicked into place for me.
Was it the Clovis culture that is accused of making too many slothburgers, and wiping out the sloths? Apparently they hired a lawyer, and now are better defended.
I grew up reading the Clovis culture wiped out all the big game in North America, much like cowboys did to the buffalo with repeating rifles. After they wiped out their food source, they supposedly died out, for, rather than repeating rifles they had big spears, and the spear points disappear along with the big game.
However I think the timing of the extinctions caused problems. Someone figured out all the big game vanished at the same time, as did the Clovis culture. This would have required the Clovis culture to go coast to coast on interstates, whipping spears about like crazy.
The Clovis culture lawyers came up with a new idea: A comet smashed into North America, causing a return of the ice age world wide, and hurting North America worst. Not only did all the big game die off, but so did the Clovis culture.
Therefore the Clovis culture lawyers request that you remove the insinuation they are responsible for the extinction of ground sloths. Heck, can’t fellows even have a burger in peace?