Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Well, the BBC, which as I understand it is an acronym for “Blindly Broadcasting Cra- ziness”, gives us its now-standard tabloid style headline, that
Climate change is ‘killing penguin chicks’ say researchers
Of course they’ve included the obligatory “awwwww-inspiring” picture, viz:
Naturally, the researchers didn’t say what the Beeb claimed. What they said was in their paper, Climate Change Increases Reproductive Failure in Magellanic Penguins, viz:
Statistical Analyses
We tested whether chick age, amount of rain, or low temperature affected a chick’s probability of dying during a storm using our 28 years of data with multiple logistic regressions.
Mmmm … testing to see whether more young chicks die in extremely cold, rainy weather … seems to me that even city kids would know the answer to that one.
In any case, how does this blinding insight into penguin mortality tie into climate? Glad you asked. It has to do with their model … or rather their models.
Figure 1. A list of the combinations of three predictor variables used in their twenty-one different models. These are used to model the odds of a penguin chick dying in a storm. The three predictor variables are age (a), amount of storm rain (r), and low minimum temperatures (l). Sadly, they did not archive their data … so this is just pretty pictures at present. Click the image to embiggen.
Their logic and observations go like this. They’ve noticed that the period during which the penguins lay their eggs has gotten longer over the last 30 years. Their hypothesis is that this will make them more vulnerable to the storms. Only thing is, how to prove it?
Why, make up a bunch of computer models of chick mortality, of course. Why not? Or as they say:
We simulated the effects of breeding synchrony on chick mortality in storms. We simulated the proportion of chicks likely to die in a storm on a given day by the hatching spread: for 13 days (the mean for 1983–1986) and 27 days (the predicted value for the early 2080s, based on an increase of 0.15 days per year; see results).
I do love the “extend a trend to infinity” logic of saying that by 2080 (or to be exact, the “early 2080s”) the Magellanic penguins will have a 27 day spread in their egg-laying dates … and using that same logic, we can be sure that by the year 2500 they will be breeding randomly throughout the year … but I digress …
So they simulated the chick deaths from storms, and then to connect that to climate change, they say:
Climate models predict that the frequency and intensity of storms will continue to increase.
Hey, that settles it for me. Since the data says there’s been a change in the length of their laying season, and since models say that the storms will kill more chicks if their laying season gets longer, and since they’ve included one sentence to establish that climate models predict more storms in the future, heck, their work is done.
It’s a beautiful chain of imaginary causation, the scientific version of the bumper sticker that says, “God said it – I believe it – That settles it!”, with “Models” in place of the Deity.
I have to say, this all seems to me like a huge waste of good data. These fine folks have done a solid, workmanlike job of collecting a very large mass of data over 28 years … but then they simply waterboarded the data until it confessed. One example of this is their choice of models.
First, while it is legit to try 21 models, at the end of that process the model you find should be pretty amazing, or else you’re just flipping coins until you get seven heads in a row and declaring victory … especially when you just keep adding parameters.
Next, they make a laudable effort to only use real-world variables in their models. For example they say:
We included all 2-way interactions except age × age squared because we did not want to include a cubic fit for age which is unlikely to have biological meaning.
I like that point of view, that the predictor variables should be real-world variables with physical or biological meaning, and age, rain, and low temperatures certainly fit the bill. Now that seems legit until you get to some of the combinations they use. For example, the model that they finally chose has the predictor variables of the following form.
A + A2 + R + A*R + A2*R + A2*L + A2*R*L
where “A” is age, “R” is rain, and “L” is low temperatures.
And that all looks logical … until we factor and simplify it, and we get
R + A (R + 1)+ A2 (L + 1) (R + 1)
So in fact, rather than the 7 variables they say they are using, in fact they are only using 5 variables:
A, R, A2, (R + 1), and (L + 1)
Unfortunately two of these variables that they are using, “rain plus one” and “low temperatures plus one”, have no conceivable physical meaning.
And that, in turn, means that their best model is actually nothing more than curve fitting using unreal, imaginary parameters without biological or physical meaning.
It is for this reason, among others, that I’m very cautious when I make models, and in general I don’t like combination additive-multiplicative models of the type they use. Yes, I’m sure that people can make an argument for using them … I’m just saying that such models make me nervous, particularly when they end up with eight or ten parameters as in their models.
Here’s the strange part for me. Since they have good data on the length of the egg laying season, and good data on storms and chick deaths, why not just use the data to actually calculate the relationship between storm-related chick deaths and the length of the egg laying season? Perhaps I missed it, but I couldn’t find that calculation in all of their work. Instead, they make a complex model of the situation for which they already have data …
I see this as another tragic casualty of the ongoing climate hysteria. But I suppose I’m just being idealistic, and I’m overlooking the fact that in this current insane situation, it’s much easier to get funding if you say “Hey, I’m not just studying a bunch of birds that are too dumb to remember how to fly, I’m doing vital work on the climate crisis! Think of the grandchildren!” …
Finally, despite their whizbang model, I strongly doubt the researchers’ conclusion that the change in the length of the breeding season will lead to more chick deaths. Natural species survive in part because their methods of living and eating and giving birth are flexible, and they are able to change them in response to changing circumstances in such a way as to increase their odds of survival. The idea that the penguins are changing their breeding habits in the direction of communal suicide seems like … well, like an unusual claim that would require supporting evidence that is much more solid than a computer model with imaginary parameters to make me believe it.
Ah, well … onwards, ever onwards …
w.
N.B: If you disagree with me, please quote EXACTLY what it was that I said that you disagree with. A claim that I don’t know what I’m doing, or that I’m just wrong, or that I should go back to school, any of that kind of vague handwaving goes nowhere because I don’t have a clue what has you (perhaps correctly) upset … you could be right and no one will ever know it. So quote what you object to, that way we can all understand what you are referring to.
Gareth Phillips says:
January 30, 2014 at 5:18 am ……………
Gareth, records are broken all the time, The BBC says
“Parts of England have had their wettest January since records began more than 100 years ago, figures show.”
This is normal, next year another part may have a drier or wetter season. You can’t link this to man’s greenhouse gases. As for adaptation to weather and climate we have been doing it since the last glaciation and before.
Don’t adapt to short-term events (variable weather) otherwise you end up with the Australian situation where they wasted billions on de-salination plants only to mothball them after their biblical deluge. There is no such thing as a steady climate state, it changes.
Now here are examples of extreme climate events during the Holocene and before 1850. I will follow up with the great storms of the Little Ice Age.
Gareth check out the Great storms of the Little Ice Age. It seems storminess worse more extreme during that cold period.
Jimbo says:
January 30, 2014 at 10:25 am
Gareth check out the Great storms of the Little Ice Age. It seems storminess worse more extreme during that cold period.
@Garethman
Possibly Jimbo, but what I am referring to here is the rainfall records which have been scientifically collected as formal records. There could have been all sorts of weather throughout the UK before modern data collection, we cannot be exact on that.
The rainfall in much of the UK is already a third higher than the average, and we have another storm arriving tomorrow and further fronts before the end of the month. We can debate the cause, but we cannot ignore these issues. The same freezing weather affecting North America is effecting the appalling weather we are suffering, it’s starting to feel like once in a century storms are happening every few years, and so we have to act.
From my view we should stop quarrelling about the causes and look at what the weather is doing and how we need to address those challenges.I know someone will pop up and say it rained like this in Hicksville in 1926, but this is not 1926 or the Little Ice Age, things are different now and there is substantial cause for concern.
Gareth Phillips says:
January 30, 2014 at 11:16 am
“…things are different now and there is substantial cause for concern”
This is bunkum. There is no more reason to be concerned today than say 40 years ago. Forty years ago there was rain, snow, hurricanes, tornados, wind, fire, disease, etc. We have less reason for concern now if anything. We have better radars, better building materials, better health care, better almost everything.
Steve Case says:
January 30, 2014 at 1:17 am
Actually, to use a lovely Bushism, it appears that you misunderestimate the whole dynamics of the situation.
If nobody posts serious scientific objections to some piece of “B.S.” (to use your term) that’s being passed off as real science, lots of people believe it. I see this all the time. I go into my dentists and the receptionist says something like “Did you read about how people with SUVs are killing penguins?” And this piece of penguin poop has gotten wide coverage both on the web and in the MSM.
I’d much rather be doing my own research … but I’m not going to do what you advise, stay silent in the face of execrable science. That way lies disaster.
It also seems you haven’t noticed the fact that science progresses by falsification. As a result, your sneering at my falsification of the penguin study just reveals your lack of understanding of science and how it works.
Now, you may not like me fighting against bad science … but claiming that I’m just “wallowing in how B.S. in generated”?
Let me just say, Steve … that misunderestimates me greatly …
w.
UK Sceptic says:
January 30, 2014 at 1:47 am
Dang, UK, you missed the subtlety of my placement of the hyphen in “Cra-
ziness”, which was meant to slyly suggest what you say …
w.
John A says:
January 30, 2014 at 2:21 am
Done.
w.
makes you wonder how penguin have managed to last over these many millennia with their much bigger changes in climate .
BS and models all the way and another fat research grant for paying homage to ‘the cause ‘
One sign of the end of climate ‘doom’ will be that we no longer see such ‘shoe-horning ‘ of AGW into research as without the cash the reason fore scare stories goes away.
Another awful article in climate alarmist science by the BBC because it relies only on models that aren’t backed up by scientific observations. Comparing actually decent scientific data set from penguins with made up, what we want make believe model data only makes this overall conclusion farcical. What they should have done is compared this penguin data with real scientific observations and then we might have had something worthwhile.
My point Gareth is there is no need to do anything apart what we have been doing since man walked upright. We adapt as we go. It’s just the weather and not the climate. One flood record is meaningless for goodness sakes. You can look all over the world and records will be broken. So what?
Please do pay attention to my Australian example and the now costly and mothballed de-salination plants. They were preparing for permanent drought!
Q) What do you propose that the British Government do about the climate?
Q) What do you propose that the British Government do about the weather?
Even if they could take action they would not affect the climate in the least. Our co2 output will continue its wonderful, relentless rise. Stop worrying.
Permanent drought
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2007/09/06/201842/australia-faces-the-permanent-dry-as-do-we/
http://www.newsnet5.com/weather/weather-news/climate-experts-predict-permanent-drought-could-end-wine-industry-in-australia
Greg says:
“Climate models predict that the frequency and intensity of storms will continue to increase.”
Err, hang on. Where did the “continue” come from?
————————–
Well spotted Greg. See, that’s how they do it (the brainwashing bit) – it’s so suble few people even notice it. Definitely “British Brainwashing Corporation” for me.
On the other hand, they make it so obvious sometimes – what they’re doing – but they get away with it over and over, from showing people waving Indian flags while claiming to be reporting Libyan uprising, to showing photos of shrouded bodies from Iraq while reporting Syrian chemical weapons and breaking news of a skyscraper collapsing twenty minutes before it collapsed.
They are not to be trusted. The purpose of the (mainstream, corporate) news is not to inform the public, it is to shape public opinion.
The mathematical formulae are way over my head, but great picture of the penguins! Who doesn’t like penguins? They’re great material for a propaganda piece (and we’ve seen a few already on penguins). Simple. So they just cook it up and serve it up to us. By “cook it up” I mean that over a period of many, many years the scientific establishment, mainstream media and political establishment are funded to investigate and promote the “climate crisis” and as their “findings” come in, they are spoon-fed to the unsuspecting public via the MSN so that they will then be willing to give up their money to the banksters and energy companies who are behind the whole scam (IMO).
And the brainwashing works – people think industrial-scale mega-turbines blighting the British countryside is a “good thing” and “necessary”, because they saw it on the flaming telly. They think: “the government and the BBC and the scientists couldn’t be wrong”. Well they don’t actually think that, but that is the underlying mindset which allows the messages promulgated by the MSM to penetrate the minds of the unsuspecting viewing public so easily. It’s a trusting, non-questioning mindset, we just get spoon-fed our ideas. You can see this process in action at any workplace office cooler – people talk about what they saw on TV last night. In the case of TV news, people watch on different channels and see the same news, with different presenters and differing political biases. They can then have a discussion about what they know and have their views and opinions reinforced (since they’re both singing from the same hymn sheet to start with anyway). This is how much power the six corporations who control most of the western media have over peoples’ minds. It’s frightening, if you ask me.
The following clip shows various US new channels reporting the same trivial news, with the same words. Corporate control of “the message”:
johnmarshall says:
January 30, 2014 at 3:02 am
I know … and I love to use those kinds of low-class, trashy words. It’s like the song says:
Heck, the word “twerk” isn’t in the OED either … so what? To me, the beauty of the English language is that we beg, borrow, steal, and make up new words all the time. Whether you like or don’t like it, new words are gonna spring up and old words will die, and I do my best to keep the process happening. My theory is, it’s easier to ride the horse in the direction that it’s going …
In any case, the one thing that we know for sure about the word “embiggen” is that it is perfectly cromulent ….
w.
AP says:
January 30, 2014 at 3:33 am
That’s what I thought (and think) as well, AP. If the risk is a single catastrophic event, wouldn’t spreading out the egg-laying time be an advantage?
They say (or their model says) no, it would be a disadvantage. That’s (one reason) why I was bummed that they didn’t archive their data, boo, hiss, because I suspect that their data could actually answer that question.
w.
Gareth Phillips you need to show us worsening trends. Then after that you need to show that they are not tied to natural climate oscillations also called climate change, because that’s what the climate does.
Here is a primer for you about bad weather in he news. But not in current news but the past. Read through them and imagine those events happening today. I dare you. The problems with alarmists is that they look at all weather events with the lens of
global warmingclimate change. (I hope you like my strke through, it explains a lot my friend.)BAD WEATHER
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/bad-weather/
Wait a minute though. We’re talking about the southern coast of Argentina, right? Violent weather and torrential downpours? Cape Horn?? Tierra Del Fuego? Named 3 or 4 hundred years ago. That place? One of the stormiest, most unsettled weather areas on the planet. Seriously? They’re not talking about Rhode Island here. What absolute nonsense.
Bill Marsh says:
January 30, 2014 at 3:50 am
Whoa, whoa, stop right there, cowboy. Accusing another man of lying about his results or concealing them to his advantage WITHOUT A SINGLE SCRAP OF EVIDENCE is simply not acceptable on my threads. I get accused of this kind of malfeasance all the time, again without evidence, and I hate it with a passion.
As my mom used to say about calling someone a liar, “Them’s fightin’ words!”. Don’t even think of doing it unless you have rock-solid evidence to back up your claims. I make every effort not to make such unsupported claims.
Yes, I call Phil Jones a liar and accused him of hiding his data … but that was because he admitted doing so in the Climategate emails, he was convicted by his own words.
But to accuse without evidence people you’ve never met, people who you know little of (what are their names, without looking at the paper?), people who may be perfectly honest but badly misguided or just didn’t think it through, to accuse them without evidence of scientific malfeasance and concealing their data is just not on.
w.
Thanks Jimbo for you responses ( I appreciate the civility, don’t worry about the strikethrough, I definitely a warmy, I was convinced beyond my initial doubts by Lord Monkton 🙂 )
This is a good site for climate data http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/2013/december,
things have happened before and will happen agin, but the difference now is the frequency of multiple issues affecting our weather, and the final arbiter for me is old gardeners, subjective, but very astute observers of weather patterns.
Donna Quixote says:
January 30, 2014 at 12:54 pm
Wait a minute though. We’re talking about the southern coast of Argentina, right? Violent weather and torrential downpours? Cape Horn?? Tierra Del Fuego? Named 3 or 4 hundred years ago. That place? One of the stormiest, most unsettled weather areas on the planet. Seriously? They’re not talking about Rhode Island here. What absolute nonsense.
Hi Donna, good point, that puzzled me as well. I could not see how any organism living in those regions would not have already evolved to meet this sort of climate.
Frank de Jong says:
January 30, 2014 at 3:59 am
Thanks, Frank. First, your analysis is 100% correct, I gave a simplified version leaving out the constants. However, that just makes things worse, not better. Since x1 and x4 are unrestricted constants, your claim is that something like “temperature + 11”, when temperature has been normalized, “could have” some physical meaning?
Well, I suppose it “could have” some physical meaning, but I sure don’t know what it might be …
In passing, Frank, let me object to “could have” and “might contain” and “will possibly” and “may lead to” and every other kind of weasel words that are so popular these days. For example, it’s true that a doubling of CO2 “could have” the consequence of a runaway greenhouse effect leading to the heat death of the planet … so freakin’ what? Theoretical possibilities are endless.
Either you can come up with a physical meaning for a number like “normalized temperature plus 11” or you can’t … and I can’t. If you can, fine.
If not, saying it “could have” that meaning is redundant, because (within the usual limits) anything’s possible, so yes, normalized temperature plus eleven “could have” physical meaning … so what?
w.
Rob Ricket says: @ur momisugly January 30, 2014 at 8:04 am
….Of course, the alternative hypothesis is, the changing climate forced your goats into unnatural breeding behavior.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I was thinking a change in temp (it was very cool this year and bucks are not fertile if the temp is over 90F – kills the sperm) and possibly a change in the solar UV or other portion of the spectra. I had the equines start growing winter coats in July too. WEIRD. Equines are also solar/time sensitive.
Sounds like a good PhD project for some vet/bio student.
The change in the ratios of solar wavelengths or the temperatures may also have effected the breeding habits of the Penguins.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/solarcycle-sorce.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/science/Solar%20Irradiance.html
Gareth Phillips says:
January 30, 2014 at 5:18 am
Whoa, stop the presses, Gareth has discovered something important:
Renowned Blog Commenter Says UK Climate Actually Changes Over Time
Film at 11:00!
You go on to say …
Dang, more headline worthy discoveries:
Gareth Phillips Appointed Climate Change Judge
“The change is not good”, Judge Warns
Nothing daunted, you continue
Man, you’re on a roll …
Climate Judge Says Humans Never Adapted To Weather Before
“We have to start adapting”, Judge Insists
You take a turn to the paper at hand …
Dear heavens … Gareth, to date the Penguin chicks haven’t shown us a damn thing—read the head post again.
Without any specification of which records you might be referring to, that is totally meaningless.
My free advice, worth every penny you paid for it? Read the head post again. Think about what it says. Stop with the platitudes. Specify what you are referring to.
I regret being so harsh, Gareth, but … really?
w.
What a brilliant study (sarc). I love the insight of this quote from the abstract:
“Storm mortality was additive; there was no relationship between the number of chicks killed in storms and the numbers that starved (P = 0.75) or that were eaten (P = 0.39). However, when more chicks died in storms, fewer chicks fledged (P = 0.05, R2 = 0.14).”
Fledging in this context is not leaving the nest but is growing feathers. What they are saying is – However, when more chicks died, they didn’t live long enough to fledge. Brilliant!!!
steveta_uk says:
January 30, 2014 at 1:03 am
There’s this neat thing I heard about called “evolution”
[…]
Thank you – that needed to be said.
Jeff in Calgary says:
January 30, 2014 at 7:19 am
I love it myself … but these days I check my work with Mathematica. A protip for math lovers without deep pockets to purchase Mathematica, Wolfram Alpha can do this kind of stuff as well … note the odd syntax needed for A^2, click on the “More” button to see other possible factorings.
w.
Gareth Phillips says:
January 30, 2014 at 11:16 am
“From my view we should stop quarrelling about the causes and look at what the weather is doing and how we need to address those challenges.”
Okay, let’s just do that
http://www.halesowenweather.co.uk/ew%20Annual%20Rainfall.gif
That is England & Whales rainfall since the Little Ice Age. That site tries to show the supposed “increase” since the middle of that Little Ice Age (the site is really worried about Global Warming) But when you don’t go back that far to that clearly abnormal period, the rainfall “trend” goes away with rainfall in England/Whales being rather flat (outside of natural fluctuations and trends, of course) since the late 1800s
So, as far as what we should do about it? Well considering nothing is really different, I would say pretty much nothing sounds like a really good plan. You disagree?