Guest essay by Kip Hansen, St Thomas, USVI
The AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY just published a Special Supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society titled: EXPLAINING EXTREME EVENTS OF 2012 FROM A CLIMATE PERSPECTIVE edited by Thomas C. Peterson, Martin P. Hoerling, Peter A. Stott, and Stephanie C. Herring. [hereafter EEE2012].
Kenneth Chang at the New York Times reported on the findings in an article, “Research Cites Role of Warming in Extremes”, on 5 September 2013. In this piece, Chang includes the following paragraph, which was picked up and repeated in the Andy Revkin’s NY Times Opinion Page blog, Dot.Earth, filed under Climate Change:
“The articles’ editors likened climate change to someone habitually driving a bit over the speed limit. Even if the speeding itself is unlikely to directly cause an accident, it increases the likelihood that something else — a wet road or a distracting text message — will do so and that the accident, when it occurs, will be more calamitous.”
This is unfortunate, for two reasons:
1) The articles’ editors said no such thing.
2) Even if they had, what Chang says just happens not to be true in and of itself.
Andy Revkin , doubling down on Chang, says: “Ken Chang’s news article in The Times ….. includes an apt analogy used in the introduction to the studies: [followed by the paragraph quoted above].” This too is unfortunately not true, for the above two reasons, an analogy can’t be apt if it wasn’t made and isn’t true, , and the fact that the analogy being referred to appears not in the introduction, but in the CONCLUSIONS AND EPILOGUE section, written by Thomas C. Peterson, Peter A. Stott, Stephanie C. Herring, and Martin P. Hoerling.
What Peterson et al actually said was:
“To help understand the difficulty of determining the anthropogenic contribution to specific extreme events, consider this driving analogy (UCAR 2012). “Adding just a little bit of speed to your highway commute each month can substantially raise the odds that you’ll get hurt some day. But if an accident does occur, the primary cause may not be your speed itself: it could be a wet road or a texting driver.” Similarly, while climate models may indicate a human effect is causing increases in the chances of having extremely high precipitation in a region (much like speeding increases the chances of having an accident), natural variability can still be the primary factor in any individual extreme event. The difficulty in determining the precise sensitivity of, according to our analogy, driving speed on risks of accidents in particular conditions (wet roads, texting drivers) can explain why somewhat different analyses of the same meteorological event can reach somewhat different conclusions about the extent to which human influence has altered the likelihood and magnitude of the event.” [EEE2012, page 64]
Point 1: The editors said no such thing:
Notice that Peterson says nothing about speed limits, nothing about speeding, and nothing about any subsequent accident being “more calamitous” – nothing at all about any of these three points. Chang makes up his own, new and improved analogy. Why? We can’t know – as a journalist, he should have reported what was actually said.
Point 2: Even if they had, what Chang says just happens not to be true in and of itself.
It is a long term, well understood fact that the safest driving speed on America’s highways is “a bit over the speed limit” – actually, more specifically, a bit over the average speed of the traffic on the road, which is often, on a wide open road, at or just a little bit over the speed limit. This is known as Solomon’s Curve, or the Crash Risk Curve, a graph that shows the least accidents happen to those who drive just a bit faster than the flow of traffic. Note that this has nothing to do with absolute speed (for example, 55 mph vs. 75 mph) but speed relative to the other cars and trucks.
So, was what was said in EEE2012 true?
“Adding just a little bit of speed to your highway commute each month can substantially raise the odds that you’ll get hurt some day.”
If you generally drive slower than the flow of traffic, if you are a strict 55 mph’er on an Interstate that flows at 67 1/2 mph, you’ll be safer if you “add a little bit of speed”, because you be involved in fewer (statistically) accidents. However, if you are recklessly already driving 75 mph on the same Interstate, and add a little bit of speed, you’ll be increasing your risk of accident and increasing the kinetic energy of any resulting crash (the last true for the 55 mph’er too).
On its face, in a plain everyday English sense, I’d say the analogy is false as used, because, well, it depends. But I’ll leave it up to the traffic engineers and statisticians — way too much wiggle-room in the phrases “just a little bit of speed” and “can substantially raise”.
My advice to journalists: Use direct quotes, stick to the facts, don’t make stuff up (and for Andy Revkin – don’t trust other journalists to have done these things, check them yourself).
My advice to Climate Scientists: Use analogies that are proven and demonstrably true – not just ones that seem true or sound nice, stick to the facts and don’t make stuff up.
*****
EEE2012 at http://www.ametsoc.org/2012extremeeventsclimate.pdf
Chang at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/science/earth/research-cites-role-of-warming-in-extremes.html
Solomon’s Curve at http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/fzfeens/trans/Transport-lecture4.ppt , see slides 53 and 55
And of course, if global temperatures don’t rise as predicted then it all becomes irrelevant anyhow.
Old habits die hard…
Kip Hansen,
Andy Revkin rightly deserves this ‘bitch slap’, and he should correct it. You would have made a great editor.
Ironic fact: When the speed limit on interstates was restored to 65 after years at 55, the highway death and serious accident rate went down significantly.
Common sense reason: Drivers more alert at higher speed and not falling asleep as much.
Ah, but the climate has been under cruise control for, like, 15 years.
We were travelling pretty slow for quite a while back there.
(Darn traffic, just ask the Titanic)
Its taken quite a while to get up to a decent traveling speed.
Reducing speed limits inevitably means more traffic congestion (you are on the road longer, therefore more cars are on the road at any point in time).
To visualise this, just think of 50 mph sections on motorways at roadworks. All of a sudden, from a relatively open road, cars are driving nose to tail.
This sort of congested traffic causes many more accidents than doing a bit over the speed limit.
So your advice is that scientists should stop making things up and stick to the facts. And that journalists should accurately report what is said/happened.
Wow, that’s a brilliant idea. How come nobodies thought of doing that already?
It sure would save a lot of time and effort.
The first thing you must understand about journalists is that they merely convey the Party Line.
I’ve noticed over 2 decades that a pre-determined line can enter the Press world suddenly and decisively. It’s often not based on sense, more based on egos, over-reactions etc etc. In the early 1990s, mountaineering in the UK suddenly became a ‘death sport’, with every journalist salivating at the prospect of deaths on the mountain so they could write another piece vilifying mountaineers. Mountaineers rarely kill anyone but themselves……and only do that fairly rarely.
The party line in journalism still hasn’t rejected ‘dangerous warming’, although yesterday’s election result in Australia may represent the high point of global warming hype, as opposed to evidence-based science.
There is nothing ‘unfortunate’ in what journalists write. They write it to get published, giving the editor what they want. They have abrogated their critical faculties to put food on the table.
It’s the editors and publishers you need to change.
Jim A says:
Ironic fact: When the speed limit on interstates was restored to 65 after years at 55, the highway death and serious accident rate went down significantly.
Common sense reason: Drivers more alert at higher speed and not falling asleep as much.
This is very true. If I try to drive at the official speed limit, I start daydreaming, thinking about other things, what I’m going to do later….
A very dangerous occupation. Especially in a time when speed limits are determined not for safest driving but for fuel economy to “save the planet”.
Okay, so, if Mr Chang wanted to use the traffic accident Solomon’s curve analogy correctly, he would have to state, “The ‘least’ (lower probability of) extreme weather events occur when the Global Average Temperature is ‘a little bit’ above average?” Which appears to me to be exactly where we are right now, climate wise. 😉
Mr Chang was simply following the example of our Commander in Chief by appending some implication of disastrous events to make his analogy appear to be ‘dangerous’.
Perhaps Chang was just trying to add a little bit of MSG to enhance the taste and ignore the subsequent heartburn.
“Adding just a little bit of speed to your highway commute each month can substantially raise the odds that you’ll get hurt some day. But if an accident does occur, the primary cause may not be your speed itself: it could be a wet road or a texting driver.” This was the actual quote from Peterson used by K. Hansen. Seems to be a logical fallacy since the second sentence negates the first. Maybe this is how the really smart folks come to the climate induced extreme weather event conclusion.
As someone who’s been riding motorcycles for almost 50 years I’ve concluded the safest place to be on an interstate is in the left lane at a safe distance behind a 4 wheel vehicle, (let them hit the moose…). Excepting a few screwy left lane on and off ramps, (like in CT), there’s no one desperately trying to move into your lane to get off the highway and certainly no need to be on guard for anyone moving into your lane from the left. It also happens to usually be the highest speed lane which brings in the second rule; never be one to hold up a vehicle behind you – better to trust yourself to maneuver around traffic than to have to trust other people on their cell phones or texting or eating or bird watching or sign reading to maneuver around you. Going a little faster than traffic on a motorcycle is MUCH safer than going a little slower.
I have conversed via email with Chang before. To say his scientific understanding is lacking is an understatement. Not sure how he still has a job as a “science writer”.
I agree with a previous post. If there has been no temperature increases[speed increases] for 16 years ,increasing speed is not the prime factor that is causing more severe accidents [ more extreme weather] Matter of fact, the temperatures have actually been decreasing since 2004/2005. There can be many factors that cause more severe accidents . I don’t think we have a good handle on what historically constitutes a higher than normal level of severe.accidents if we only look back at a very short period [30 years ] to compare .
And if it’s not actually more dangerous, and you don’t actually raise your speed, then do like the “climate scientists” do:
ADJUST the speedometer!
Everyone else will think you’re going faster!
And you can write reports on the danger of the “new” higher speed!
It’s simple. It’s fun. It’s profitable!
I’m afraid this post “protesteth too much”. There is enough hanging out there on bad science (and bad journalism) to not have to nit pick faults in details with the analogy by a journalist. The homes and gardens section has just as many errors. A reader is going to spend 2 minutes reading the article and take away the message whether crafted badly or not.
Firstly all analogies are false. This analogy is built around the word “driving”.
[Note: The essence of driving is purpose. Driving vehicles is done with purpose. Driving GCMs is done with purpose. The atmosphere does not have purpose (intent), it is free
(chaotic): it is not “driven”; not by man, nor god, nor GH gas.]
In vehicles driving results in accidents whose multiple causes/ factors to be taken in to consideration in attributing blame, are difficult to quantify. Peterson is suggesting that the factors in climate models are difficult to quantify and hence is suggesting that
alarmist GCM predictions are “accidents”, and that it’s difficult to see which factor
caused the “accident”.
Peterson’s analogy criticises GCM’s, which doesn’t fit the alarmist narrative, so clearly
it had to be changed. Chang changed the analogy from “driving GCMs is like driving cars” to “climate change is like driving cars.”
Likening climate change to poor driving is to suggest not only that we are “driving” the atmosphere (we are not) but that we are doing it poorly such that extreme weather events are “accidents” and we are to blame.
(I’ll bet my nice formatting gets mangled by wordpress.)
Reply to Gary Pearse: I am a bit of a gadfly when it comes to accuracy of reporting in journalism — freely admitted. In this particular case, the journalist, Kenneth Chang, writing in one of America’s “papers of record” (NY Times, the other three being Washington Post, LA Times and Wall Street Journal, maybe add these days, USA Today), not only misrepresents a scientific paper, but misquotes it in such a way as to “sex it up”. He ends up mis-educating his readers about both climate Science and driving, You are right, of course, in the “greater picture” sense — but think where Climate Science would be today if readers and editors had publicly called out journalists for each exaggeration and Climate Scientists had policed their own, calling out their colleagues for excesses of zeal and made them issue corrections in the journals.
The longer you record the weather, the more likely you are to set a new weather record. What is changing is not the weather, rather the length of time you have been recording.
If you sit on a beach and watch the waves, the longer you watch the more likely you are to see a wave bigger than all the waves previous. Do you from this conclude that waves are getting bigger?
If you throw a coin long enough eventually you will get 10 heads in a row. Do you now conclude that the coin has changed?
What we are seeing is nonsense mathematics. The science of grasping at straws.
All of the discussions about extreme weather miss an important step.
Now increased temperature might or might not cause increases in various weather phenomena, but I’ve seen no theory that claims increased C02 can directly cause extreme weather without an intermediate stage of increased temperature.
As we’ve seen no warming for 17 years, CAGW cannot currently be affecting extreme weather — not until some warming shows up.
This post reminded me of a lesson I was taught in Drivers Ed many years ago.
The question was posed, what is the difference between two identical cars colliding head on at 100 mph or a single car at 100 mph hitting a concrete wall.. The answer is no difference at all.
In climate terms an analogy would be what is the difference in temperature between two radiating surfaces with or without an insulator or conductor (CO2) placed between them. The answer is the same.
This is what’s called, “Making a mountain out of a molehill”. Good grief, folks! The true-believers are reduced to admitting a state of uncertainty and that’s a fine development. Now, while they’re bent over, re-tying their shoes…..
Paul Homewood says: September 8, 2013 at 4:27 am
Reducing speed limits inevitably means more traffic congestion (you are on the road longer, therefore more cars are on the road at any point in time).
The number of cars on a stretch of road depends only on the car to car spacing, not the speed. Throughput is greater with increased speed at any spacing, but not the congestion. If you change spacing with speed (1 car length per 10 mph per driver ed) that reduces congestion, but about the time you pull back the proper amount, somebody will surely jump in there and you’re back congested again.
Actually, that is a good analog to temperature. About the time we get a nice stretch of steady climate, HadCRUT and GISS jump in there and homogenize it upward again.
Paul Homewood says: “Reducing speed limits inevitably means more traffic congestion (you are on the road longer, therefore more cars are on the road at any point in time).”
That reminded me of the argument made by James May in an episode of “Top Gear” a few years ago. It was to the effect of: To stop congestion leading up to work zones where the number of traffic lanes are decreased, we need to increase speed (not reduce it) in the work zones.