The Cooling Rains

Reblogged from Watts Up With That:

Willis Eschenbach / April 29, 2019

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

I took another ramble through the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) satellite-measured rainfall data. Figure 1 shows a Pacific-centered and an Atlantic-centered view of the average rainfall from the end of 1997 to the start of 2015 as measured by the TRMM satellite.

Figure 1. Average rainfall, meters per year, on a 1° latitude by 1° longitude basis. The area covered by the satellite data, forty degrees north and south of the Equator, is just under 2/3 of the globe. The blue areas by the Equator mark the InterTropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). The two black horizontal dashed lines mark the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the lines showing how far north and south the sun travels each year (23.45°, for those interested).

There’s lots of interesting stuff in those two graphs. I was surprised by how much of the planet in general, and the ocean in particular, are bright red, meaning they get less than half a meter (20″) of rain per year.

I was also intrigued by how narrowly the rainfall is concentrated at the average Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). The ITCZ is where the two great global hemispheres of the atmospheric circulation meet near the Equator. In the Pacific and Atlantic on average the ITCZ is just above the Equator, and in the Indian Ocean, it’s just below the Equator. However, that’s just on average. Sometimes in the Pacific, the ITCZ is below the Equator. You can see kind of a mirror image as a light orange horizontal area just below the Equator.

Here’s an idealized view of the global circulation. On the left-hand edge of the globe, I’ve drawn a cross section through the atmosphere, showing the circulation of the great atmospheric cells.

Figure 2. Generalized overview of planetary atmospheric circulation. At the ITCZ along the Equator, tall thunderstorms take warm surface air, strip out the moisture as rain, and drive the warm dry air vertically. This warm dry air eventually subsides somewhere around 25-30°N and 25-30S of the Equator, creating the global desert belts at around those latitudes.

The ITCZ is shown in cross-section at the left edge of the globe in Figure 2. You can see the general tropical circulation. Surface air in both hemispheres moves towards the Equator. It is warmed there and rises. This thermal circulation is greatly sped up by air driven vertically at high rates of speed through the tall thunderstorm towers. These thunderstorms form all along the ITCZ. These thunderstorms provide much of the mechanical energy that drives the atmospheric circulation of the Hadley cells.

With all of that as prologue, here’s what I looked at. I got to thinking, was there a trend in the rainfall? Is it getting wetter or drier? So I looked at that using the TRMM data. Figure 3 shows the annual change in rainfall, in millimeters per year, on a 1° latitude by 1° longitude basis.

Figure 3. Annual change in the rainfall, 1° latitude x 1° longitude gridcells.

I note that the increase in rain is greater on the ocean vs land, is greatest at the ITCZ, and is generally greater in the tropics.

Why is this overall trend in rainfall of interest? It gives us a way to calculate how much this cools the surface. Remember the old saying, what comes down must go up … or perhaps it’s the other way around, same thing. If it rains an extra millimeter of water, somewhere it must have evaporated an extra millimeter of water.

And in the same way that our bodies are cooled by evaporation, the surface of the planet is also cooled by evaporation.

Now, we note above that on average, the increase is 1.33 millimeters of water per year. Metric is nice because volume and size are related. Here’s a great example.

One millimeter of rain falling on one square meter of the surface is one liter of water which is one kilo of water. Nice, huh?

So the extra 1.33 millimeters of rain per year is equal to 1.33 extra liters of water evaporated per square meter of surface area.

Next, how much energy does it take to evaporate that extra 1.33 liters of water per square meter so it can come down as rain? The calculations are in the endnotes. It turns out that this 1.33 extra liters per year represents an additional cooling of a tenth of a watt per square meter (0.10 W/m2).

And how does this compare to the warming from increased longwave radiation due to the additional CO2? Well, again, the calculations are in the endnotes. The answer is, per the IPCC calculations, CO2 alone over the period gave a yearly increase in downwelling radiation of ~ 0.03 W/m2. Generally, they double that number to allow for other greenhouse gases (GHGs), so for purposes of discussion, we’ll call it 0.06 W/m2 per year.

So over the period of this record, we have increased evaporative cooling of 0.10 W/m2 per year, and we have increased radiative warming from GHGs of 0.06 W/m2 per year.

Which means that over that period and that area at least, the calculated increase in warming radiation from GHGs was more than counterbalanced by the observed increase in surface cooling from increased evaporation.

Regards to all,

w.

As usual: please quote the exact words you are discussing so we can all understand exactly what and who you are replying to.

Additional Cooling

Finally, note that this calculation is only evaporative cooling. There are other cooling mechanisms at work that are related to rainstorms. These include:

• Increased cloud albedo reflecting hundreds of watts/square meter of sunshine back to space

• Moving surface air to the upper troposphere where it is above most GHGs and freer to cool to space.

• Increased ocean surface albedo from whitecaps, foam, and spume.

• Cold rain falling from a layer of the troposphere that is much cooler than the surface.

• Rain re-evaporating as it falls to cool the atmosphere

• Cold wind entrained by the rain blowing outwards at surface level to cool surrounding areas

• Dry descending air between rain cells and thunderstorms allowing increased longwave radiation to space.

Between all of these, they form a very strong temperature regulating mechanism that prevents overheating of the planet.

Calculation of energy required to evaporate 1.33 liters of water.

#latent heat evaporation joules/kg @ salinity 35 psu, temperature 24°C

> latevap = gsw_latentheat_evap_t( 35, 24 ) ; latevap

[1] 2441369

# joules/yr/m2 required to evaporate 1.33 liters/yr/m2

> evapj = latevap * 1.33 ; evapj

[1] 3247021

# convert joules/yr/m2 to W/m2

> evapwm2 = evapj / secsperyear ; evapwm2

[1] 0.1028941

Note: the exact answer varies dependent on seawater temperature, salinity, and density. These only make a difference of a couple percent (say 0.1043 vs 0.1028941). I’ve used average values.

Calculation of downwelling radiation change from CO2 increase.

#starting CO2 ppmv Dec 1997

> thestart = as.double( coshort[1] ) ; thestart

[1] 364.38

#ending CO2 ppmv Mar 2015

> theend = as.double( last( coshort )) ; theend

[1] 401.54

# longwave increase, W/m2 per year over 17 years 4 months

> 3.7 * log( theend / thestart, 2)/17.33

[1] 0.0299117

Solar slump continues – NOAA: “we are currently approaching a Maunder-type minimum in solar activity.”

Reblogged from Watts Up With That:

Anthony Watts / April 5, 2019

Solar experts predict the Sun’s activity in Solar Cycle 25 to be below average, similar to Solar Cycle 24

April 5, 2019 – Scientists charged with predicting the Sun’s activity for the next 11-year solar cycle say that it’s likely to be weak, much like the current one. The current solar cycle, Cycle 24, is declining and predicted to reach solar minimum – the period when the Sun is least active – late in 2019 or 2020.

Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel experts said Solar Cycle 25 may have a slow start, but is anticipated to peak with solar maximum occurring between 2023 and 2026, and a sunspot range of 95 to 130. This is well below the average number of sunspots, which typically ranges from 140 to 220 sunspots per solar cycle.

Graph via Twitter from
NOAA’s Space Weather Workshop

The panel has high confidence that the coming cycle should break the trend of weakening solar activity seen over the past four cycles.

“We expect Solar Cycle 25 will be very similar to Cycle 24: another fairly weak cycle, preceded by a long, deep minimum,” said panel co-chair Lisa Upton, Ph.D., solar physicist with Space Systems Research Corp. “The expectation that Cycle 25 will be comparable in size to Cycle 24   means that the steady decline in solar cycle amplitude, seen from cycles 21-24, has come to an end and that there is no indication that we are currently approaching a Maunder-type minimum in solar activity.”

The solar cycle prediction gives a rough idea of the frequency of space weather storms of all types, from radio blackouts to geomagnetic storms and solar radiation storms. It is used by many industries to gauge the potential impact of space weather in the coming years. Space weather can affect power grids, critical military, airline, and shipping communications, satellites and Global Positioning System (GPS) signals, and can even threaten astronauts by exposure to harmful radiation doses.

Solar Cycle 24 reached its maximum – the period when the Sun is most active – in April 2014 with a peak average of 82 sunspots. The Sun’s Northern Hemisphere led the sunspot cycle, peaking over two years ahead of the Southern Hemisphere sunspot peak.

Solar cycle forecasting is a new science

While daily weather forecasts are the most widely used type of scientific information in the U.S., solar forecasting is relatively new. Given that the Sun takes 11 years to complete one solar cycle, this is only the fourth time a solar cycle prediction has been issued by U.S. scientists. The first panel convened in 1989 for Cycle 22.

For Solar Cycle 25, the panel hopes for the first time to predict the presence, amplitude, and timing of any differences between the northern and southern hemispheres on the Sun, known as Hemispheric Asymmetry. Later this year, the Panel will release an official Sunspot Number curve which shows the predicted number of sunspots during any given year and any expected asymmetry. The panel will also look into the possibility of providing a Solar Flare Probability Forecast.

“While we are not predicting a particularly active Solar Cycle 25, violent eruptions from the sun can occur at any time,” said Doug Biesecker, Ph.D., panel co-chair and a solar physicist at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

An example of this occurred on July 23, 2012 when a powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) eruption missed the Earth but enveloped NASA’s STEREO-A satellite.

Powerful eruption from the surface of the sun captured on May 1, 2013. NASA

A 2013 study estimated that the U.S. would have suffered between $600 billion and $2.6 trillion in damages, particularly to electrical infrastructure, such as power grid, if this CME had been directed toward Earth. The strength of the 2012 eruption was comparable to the famous 1859 Carrington event that caused widespread damage to telegraph stations around the world and produced aurora displays as far south as the Caribbean.

The Solar Cycle Prediction Panel forecasts the number of sunspots expected for solar maximum, along with the timing of the peak and minimum solar activity levels for the cycle. It is comprised of scientists representing NOAA, NASA, the International Space Environment Services, and other U.S. and international scientists. The outlook was presented on April 5 at the 2019 NOAA Space Weather Workshop in Boulder, Colo.

For the latest space weather forecast, visit https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

The Little Ice Age (LIA) was most likely the coldest period of the Holocene Epoch

This is a comment by David Middleton from Jim Steele’s post on Watts Up With That:

David Middleton

April 4, 2019 at 5:38 am

The Little Ice Age (LIA) was most likely the coldest period of the Holocene Epoch. In Central Greenland it was roughly the same temperature as it was during the Bølling-Allerød glacial interstadial.

The modern rise in atmospheric CO₂ lagged behind the warm up from the LIA.

The LIA clearly appears to be related to a roughly 1,000-yr quasi-periodic fluctuation.

The 1,000-yr quasi-periodic fluctuation appears to be the dominant climate signal of the Holocene.

And the modern warming is statistically indistinguishable from the Medieval Warm Period.

Yet we’re supposed to destroy our economy and become good little Marxists because Hockey Stick-head is a fracking moron.

Why climate predictions are so difficult

“The difficulties [in climate modeling Bjorn Stevens of the Hamburg Max Planck Institute for Meteorology] and his fellow researchers face can be summed up in one word: clouds. The mountains of water vapor slowly moving across the sky are the bane of all climate researchers.”

Climate Etc.

by Judith Curry

An insightful interview with Bjorn Stevens.

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Satellite Evidence Affirms Solar Activity Drove ‘A Significant Percentage’ Of Recent Warming

Reblogged from the NoTricksZone:

By Kenneth Richard on 25. March 2019

In a new paper, two astrophysicists shred the IPCC-preferred and model-based PMOD solar data set and affirm the ACRIM, which is rooted in observation and shows an increase in total solar irradiance (TSI) during the 1980-2000 period. They suggest a “significant percentage” of recent climate change has been solar-driven.

Scafetta and Willson, 2019

I. The PMOD is based on proxy modeled predictions, “questionable” modifications, and degraded, “misinterpreted” and “erroneously corrected” results 

• “The PMOD rationale for using models to alter the Nimbus7/ERB data was to compensate for the sparsity of the ERBS/ERBE data and conform their gap results more closely to the proxy predictions of solar emission line models of TSI behavior.”

• “PMOD’s modifications of the published ACRIM and ERB TSI records are questionable because they are based on conforming satellite observational data to proxy model predictions.”

• “The PMOD trend during 1986 to 1996 is biased downward by scaling ERB results to the rapidly degrading ERBE results during the ACRIM-Gap using the questionable justification of agreement with some TSI proxy predictions first proposed by Lee III et al.(1995).”

• “PMOD misinterpreted and erroneously corrected ERB results for an instrument power down event.”

• “PMOD used overlapping comparisons of ACRIM1 and ACRIM2 with ERBE observations and proxy models to construct their first composite. Other PMOD composites [17, 18] used different models of the ERBE-ACRIM-Gap degradation. The result of these various modifications during the ACRIM-Gap was that PMOD introduced a downward trend in the Nimbus7/ERB TSI data that decreased results by 0.8 to 0.9 W/m² (cf. [18, 20]).”

II. The PMOD TSI composite “flawed” results were an “unwarranted manipulation” of data intended to support AGW, but are  “contraindicated”

• “The dangers of utilizing ex-post-facto corrections by those who did not participate in the original science teams of satellite experiments are that erroneous interpretations of the data can occur because of a lack of detailed knowledge of the experiment and unwarranted manipulation of the data can be made based on a desire to support a particular solar model or some other nonempirical bias. We contend that the PMOD TSI composite construction is compromised in both these ways.”

• “[O]ur scientific knowledge could be improved by excluding the more flawed record from the composite. This was the logic applied by the ACRIM team. In point of fact PMOD failed to do this, instead selecting the ERBE results that were known to be degraded and sparse, because that made the solar cycle 21–22 trend agrees with TSI proxy models and the CAGW explanation of CO₂ as the driver of the global warming trend of the late 20th century.”

• “The use of unverified modified data has fundamentally flawed the PMOD TSI satellite composite construction.”

• “The consistent downward trending of the PMOD TSI composite is negatively correlated with the global mean temperature anomaly during 1980–2000. This has been viewed with favor by those supporting the CO₂ anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) hypothesis since it would minimize TSI variation as a competitive climate change driver to CO₂, the featured driver of the hypothesis during the period (cf.: [IPCC, 2013, Lockwood and Fröhlich, 2008]).”

• “Our summary conclusion is that the objective evidence produced by all of the independent TSI composites [3,5, 6, 9] agrees better with the cycle-by-cycle trending of the original ACRIM science team’s composite TSI that shows an increasing trend from 1980 to 2000 and a decreasing trend thereafter. The continuously downward trending of the PMOD composite and TSI proxy models is contraindicated.”

III. The ACRIM TSI supports the conclusion that “a significant percentage” of climate change in recent decades was driven by TSI variation

Graph Source: Soon et al., 2015

• “ACRIM shows a 0.46 W/m² increase between 1986 and 1996 followed by a decrease of 0.30 W/m² between 1996 and 2009. PMOD shows a continuous, increasing downward trend with a 1986 to 1996 decrease of 0.05 W/m² followed by a decrease of 0.14 W/m² between 1996 and 2009. The RMIB composite agrees qualitatively with the ACRIM trend by increasing between the 1986 and 1996 minima and decreasing slightly between 1996 and 2009.”

• “ACRIM composite trending is well correlated with the record of global mean temperature anomaly over the entire range of satellite observations (1980–2018) [Scafetta. 2009]. The climate warming hiatus observed since 2000 is inconsistent with CO₂ anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) climate models [Scafetta, 2013, Scafetta, 2017]. This points to a significant percentage of the observed 1980–2000 warming being driven by TSI variation [Scafetta, 2009, Willson, 2014, Scafetta. 2009]. A number of other studies have pointed out that climate change and TSI variability are strongly correlated throughout the Holocene including the recent decades (e.g., Scafetta, 2009,  Scafetta and Willson, 2014, Scafetta, 2013, Kerr, 2001, Bond et al., 2001, Kirkby, 2007, Shaviv, 2008, Shapiro et al., 2011, Soon and Legates, 2013, Steinhilber et al., 2012, Soon et al., 2014).”

• “The global surface temperature of the Earth increased from 1970 to 2000 and remained nearly stable from 2000 and 2018. This pattern is not reproduced by CO₂ AGW climate models but correlates with a TSI evolution with the trending characteristics of the ACRIM TSI composite as explained in Scafetta [6,12, 27] and Willson [7].”

IV. The Correlation:

Graph Source: Soon et al., 2015

Image Source: Smith, 2017

V. The Mechanism: Higher solar activity on decadal-scales limits the seeding of clouds, which means more solar radiation is absorbed by the surface, warming the Earth 

Image Source: Fleming, 2018

Image Source: Sciencedaily.com

VI. The radiative forcing from the increase in surface solar radiation: +4.25 Wm-2/decade between 1984-2000

Image Source: Goode and Palle, 2007

Image Source(s): Hofer et al., 2017 and Kay et al., 2008

Experts reveal that clouds have moderated warming triggered by climate change

Reblogged from Watts Up With That:

charles the moderator / March 26, 2019

A new study has revealed how clouds are modifying the warming created by human-caused climate change in some parts of the world

Swansea University

Trees are removed from cold lake beds in Scandinavia. Credit: Professor Mary Gagen, Swansea University

A new study has revealed how clouds are modifying the warming created by human-caused climate change in some parts of the world.

Led by Swansea University’s Tree Ring Research Group, researchers from Sweden, Finland and Norway analysed information contained in the rings of ancient pine trees from northern Scandinavia to reveal how clouds have reduced the impact of natural phases of warmth in the past and are doing so again now to moderate the warming caused by anthropogenic climate change.

Even though northern Scandinavia should be strongly affected by global warming, the area has experienced little summer warming over recent decades – in stark contrast to the hemispheric trend of warming temperatures, which is strongly linked to rising greenhouse gas emissions. According to the study, temperature changes have been accompanied by an increase in cloudiness over northern Scandinavia, which in turn has reduced the impact of warming.

Mary Gagen, Professor of Geography at Swansea University, said: “The surface warming caused by rising greenhouse gases is modified by many complicated feedbacks – one thing changing in response to another – meaning that there are large geographical variations in the temperature of a particular place at a particular time, as the global average temperature rises. One of the most important, and most poorly understood, climate feedbacks is the relationship between temperature and clouds. We might think that, simply, when it is cool it is cloudy, and when it is warm it is sunny, but that is not always the case.”

The research team analysed tree ring records to find out what summer temperatures were like in the past, and how cloudy it was. Using their collected data, the team produced a new reconstruction of summer cloud cover for northern Scandinavia and compared it to existing temperature reconstructions to establish the relationship between temperature and cloud cover.

Professor Mary Gagen said: “Most people know that the width of a tree ring can tell us what the temperature was like in the summer that ring grew, but we can also measure other things in tree rings such as the isotopes of carbon and water that the wood is made from. Isotopes are just different types of an element, the amount of the different isotopes of carbon in the wood tells us how cloudy it was in the summer the tree ring grew. By combining the tree ring width and tree ring carbon measurements we built a record of both past summer temperatures and past summer cloud cover. Summer temperatures in Scandinavia have increased by less than the global average in recent decades because it also got cloudier at the same time, and that modified and reduced the warming. That turns out to also be the case back through time.”

Author Professor Danny McCarroll explained: “We found that over short timescales, increased cloud cover lead to cooler temperatures and vice versa in the past. However, over longer timescales -decades to centuries-we found that in warmer times, such as the medieval, there was increased cloud cover in this part of the world, which reduced local temperatures. The opposite being true in cool periods, such as the Little Ice Age.

“These finding are important as they help to explain the feedback relationship between cloud cover and temperature, which is one of the major uncertainties in modelling future climate. Understanding the past relationship between temperature and cloud cover in this part of the world means we can now predict that, as the global temperature continues to rise, that warming will be moderated in northern Scandinavia by increasing cloud cover. The next step is to find out whether the same is true for other parts of the world.”

Professor Mary Gagen added: “One of the main sources of uncertainty about future climate change is the way that clouds are going to respond to warming, cloud cover has a really big influence on temperature at the surface of the Earth.

“Clouds are going to be critical in modify warming of the climate. In some places, like Scandinavia, it turns out that the summer climate gets cloudier as the planet warms, in other places though it is likely that warming will be enhanced by a reduction in cloudiness which will make the surface of the Earth even warmer. What is really worrying is that climate models have shown that, if greenhouse gas emissions are allowed to continue until there is double or even triple the pre industrial amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, then some of the most important clouds for cooling our planet, the big banks of oceanic clouds that reflect a lot of sunlight back to space, could stop forming altogether and this would really accelerate warming.”

###

The study, Cloud Cover Feedback Moderates Fennoscandian Summer Temperature Changes Over the Past 1,000 Years, is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

From EurekAlert!

Public Release: 25-Mar-2019

Straight Talk on CO2

Science Matters

The video above gives you in 20 minutes the viewpoint of William Happer, a key scientific advisor to the Trump Administration.  H/T Elephant’s Child and Tallbloke.

LEARNING A BIT ABOUT CO² AND MASS HYSTERIA by The Elephant’s Child March 25, 2019,

William Happer is one of our most renowned and esteemed physicists, a professor emeritus from Princeton University. He decidedly does not agree with the current panic about the horrors of “climate change.”He says, and explains why CO², carbon dioxide, doesn’t have much of anything to do with warming, and we really need more of it — not less. CO² is food for plants. The slight increase we have had is greening the earth. You can see it from space.

This conversation with Dr. Happer is completely fascinating and worth your time. Share it with your kids and friends and family.

You have surely heard the current crop of Democrat…

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The Greenhouse Effect Refresher

Sierra Foothill Commentary

Atmospheric Gases: When discussing atmospheric gases, it is useful to refresh one’s memory of the relative concentrations of various gases. To be more useful these will be put in the same units, that is ppmv: parts per million by volume. In the idealized dry atmosphere:

Nitrogen is about 78% of the atmosphere or 780,840 ppmv;

Oxygen is 20.9% or 209,460 ppmv;

Argon is 0.93% of the atmosphere or 9,340 ppmv;

Carbon dioxide is about 0.04% of the atmosphere or 400 ppmv [carbon dioxide varies seasonally and is increasing]. The next greenhouse gas, significantly lower, is

Methane, with about 0.00018% of the atmosphere or 1.79 ppmv;

Nitrous oxide is about 0.0000325% or 0.325 ppmv; and

Ozone is about 0 to 0.000007% or 0 to 0.07 ppmv.

The greenhouse influence of ozone is predominantly in the upper the atmosphere, the stratosphere, where it is created naturally by chemical reactions involving solar ultraviolet…

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A new book with unexpected good news about polar bears

From FabiusMaximus:

Larry Kummer, Editor Book, Film, & TV Reviews, Science & Nature 21 March 2019

Summary: This is a fascinating book about science, about the making of public policy, about climate change, and above all – about nature. They all intersect in the debate about the future of polar bears.

Available at Amazon.

 

Review of a fact-rich, logical, and dispassionate book that upsets a key climate change narrative …

The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened.

By Susan Crockford (2019).

 

Zoologist Crockford crisply tells the history of the rise and fall of polar bears as climate change icons. It is an engrossing story of a small niche group of dedicated biologists, the apex predator of the polar regions, and the American public.

“Researchers have learned a lot over the last two decades about bears’ ability to thrive in the Arctic and to take dramatic changes in that hostile environment in their stride – in particular changes in sea ice levels. Unfortunately, that understanding came too late to prevent the polar bear becoming listed as a species threatened with extinction because of future climate changes. …

“Stirling’s paper therefore came at just the right time. Apparently showing a link between manmade global warming and harm to a charismatic beast like the polar bear, it became the basis of a frenzy of global warming agitation. Soon the polar bear had been hoisted to the top of the climate change flagpole, making it the most easily-recognizable symbol of all that mankind was doing wrong in the world. …

“It is a story of scientific hubris and of scientific failure, of researchers staking their careers on untested computer simulations and the attempts to obfuscate inconvenient facts. Polar bear scientists were responsible for elevating the polar bear to climate  change icon status in the first place, actively promoting the idea of a catastrophic future due to man-made global warming. The failure of their predictions has resulted in a loss of public trust that they entirely deserve.”

ID 1296017 © Stephen Coburn | Dreamstime.

Crockford documents in this tiny scientific community the same behaviors that have become common in climate science, and helped catapult it to fame – and prominence in global public policy debates. Perhaps these dynamics form a contagion that is spreading through the sciences?

• Natural and non-climate anthropogenic factors are downplayed or outright ignored. For example, polar bear papers ignore the slaughter of polar bears by whalers and other hunters in the 19th and early 20th century (much like Jared Diamond’s theory of eco-cide on Easter Island ignored disease and predication by slavers).
• Effects are attributed to anthropogenic factors before natural variation is explained.
• Key aspects of the new paradigm are often based on the expert judgement of activist scientists, but its results are presented to the public as equivalent to Newton’s Law of Gravity.
• Bold confident predictions are presented as a basis for public policy action before their underlying models are validated.
• Worst of all, the new paradigm is defended by unprofessional methods against new data and insights (e.g., see the largely bogus attack on her and her work in Harvey et al. (Bioscience, 2017).

Crockford tells a story of science’s weakness and strength. The weakness comes when a small community of scientists adopts a paradigm that boosts their careers. Replication and peer-review might not work well under these conditions. Especially when powerful political interests support the paradigm for their own gain. Under these conditions the paradigm can be defended despite large body of contrary evidence. This is example of the replication crisis gripping so many areas of science.

But the inherent strength of the scientific method wins eventually. Karl Popper said that science begins with clear and testable predictions, such as that made in 2005 by scientists of the Polar Bear Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission (IUCN = International Union for Conservation of Nature). The Arctic Ocean was warming, and the disappearance of sea ice would destroy the bears.

“The PBSG recommended that the IUCN Red List committee accept their collective opinion that the polar bear be listed as ‘Vulnerable’; and they told the IUCN that the global population was likely to decline by ‘more than 30% within the next 35 – 50 years’. The following year, the IUCN added polar bears to its Red List, categorising them as being of ‘Threatened’ status …. And this is how the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) became the first species ever to be classified as threatened with extinction based on predictions of future climate change rather than current population status.”

There were other predictions of collapses in bear populations of up to 67%. But Nature did not make us wait so long for the results.

“In summary, despite the fact that sea ice coverage since 2007 has repeatedly reached levels not predicted until 2050 or later, not only has the estimated global population size of polar bears not declined by 67% (i.e. to 8100) – or even just over 30% – it has increased by approximately 20% above the estimate used by the USGS analysts who made the predictions. Such ‘a modest upward trend’ was predicted by critics of the USGS forecasts, based on upward trends in previous decades due to hunting restrictions that are still in place.”

The bears were more adaptable than expected. The birds and seals (bear’s fav foods) loved the climate change, and multiplied. Good news for everybody, except the locals who have to once again cope with thriving polar bear populations.

Tasty! Life is good.

ID 823042 © Digitalphotonut | Dreamstime.

This is a wonderful story, and she tells it well in the first third of the book. Powerful personalities are vividly described, science and politics are clearly explained. The graphics are excellent. She does an equally good job with the rest of the book, which describes scientists’ reaction to the good news about bears. Too much is at stake in the climate wars – both careers and politics – to let data determine the winner. It is an equally gripping story, but in a different way. For example, see her account of how Mitchell Taylor was “booted out” of the PBSG for questioning the paradigm (details here).

To see how the public is told about the unexpected prosperity of polar bears, read “The polar bears are fine” by Tristin Hopper in the National Post, March 2017.

“‘There’s no doubt about what’s happening to Arctic sea ice …but their populations aren’t declining as was once expected,’ said Douglas Clark, a University of Saskatchewan researcher …To be sure, polar bear biologists remain convinced that the forecast for the world’s polar bears remains grim. …What scientists can be sure of is that the Arctic is going to keep melting. And whichever way they plot it for ice-dependent polar bears, the result is an Arctic littered with bear bones. …Warming is not universal, and is having a unique effect on every region and every polar bear population. But, says Stirling, ‘warming will eventually reach them all unless we are able to slow or stop it in time.’”

A more pointed observation, graphic but accurately capturing the games being played with science.

“Other areas of science are taking on board the Replication Crisis and trying to do something about it. Contrast this with Harvey et al. {their rebuttal to Crockford} who do not accept any of their work is wrong and leave a horse’s head in Susan Crockford’s bed.
— Australian physicist Peter Ridd, quoted in chapter 7.

Crockford concludes with some speculative and, if correct, awesome news: polar bear populations are expensive to measure (and so poorly measured), but might be far larger than the consensus believes.

This is a book about good news. Science works, in its usual slow sloppy way. The recovery of polar bear populations is a major public policy success, showing that our political machinery can still work. Last, and most important, nature is more resilient than doomsters believe. I found it well worth reading.

About the author

Susan Crockford is a zoologist with more than 35 years experience, including published work on the Holocene history of Arctic animals. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, British Columbia (a “non-remunerated professional zooarcheologist associate”) and co-owner of a private consulting company, Pacific Identifications Inc.

See her publications and her website Polar Bear Science. See her first book about polar bears: Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change. See my review of it.

She has also written a novel, Eaten – a polar bear attack thriller.

For More Information

An example of fear-mongering about polar bears: Mother Jones sounds the alarm about global warming! This time about the north pole. Exploiting the polar bear story for political gain!

To understand better how science works, see Thomas Kuhn tells us what we need to know about climate science.

Please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information see The keys to understanding climate change and my posts about climate change. Also see all posts about polar bears, the arctic area, and polar sea ice, and especially these with good news about the climate…

1. More good news about climate change from the IPCC: no sign yet of the methane apocalypse.
2. Prof Botkin gives us good news about our changing climate.
3. More good news about the climate, giving us a priceless gift.
4. Twenty stories of good news about polar bears!
5. Are 30 thousand species going extinct every year?
6. Good news about polar bears, thriving as the arctic warms!
7. The IPCC gives us good news about climate change, but we don’t listen.
8. Good news about CO2 emissions. Progress to a better world.
9. Good news about polar bears, exemplars of climate change.

Carbon Dioxide–The bringer of life

Comment from Watts Up With That:

Ken Irwin

March 17, 2019 at 4:55 am

The early Earth’s atmosphere contained no free Oxygen and 10000ppm+ CO2 and the Earth did not become like Venus even when all the carbon was to be found in the atmosphere.
Early life on Earth was blue green algae which thrived in this CO2 rich atmosphere – liberating vast quantities of Oxygen.

Note: Free Oxygen does not exist on planets as it is highly reactive and forms metal oxides which sequestrate it into solid carbonates and oxides – so much so that cosmologists searching for exoplanets [planets outside of our solar system] look specifically for the tell-tale spectrographic signature of Oxygen as an indication of life existing on those planets – thus far nothing has shown up.

This oxygen made the air toxic to the algae – remnants of such species can be found in the class of “anerobic” organisms.

New species evolved to use the oxygen which also allowed more energy intensive biology – eventually leading us to where we are today.

So the first successful species were the megaflora – so successful they “polluted” their atmosphere with Oxygen and were extinguished at the end of the Carboniferous period – which laid down the Carbon that is the basis of all today’s fossil fuels.

The Oxygen rich (±30%) atmosphere gave rise to the mega fauna – Dinosaurs and such – have you ever noticed that dinosaurs have relatively small chests ? If we brought a T-Rex into being (A’La Jurassic Park) it would stand there wheezing – gasping for breath in our Oxygen depleted atmosphere.

You should also note there is a symbiotic relationship between volcanic action and the Earth’s carbon based life forms (that’s you, me and most every living thing). Without volcanic CO2, all the Carbon would eventually become sequestered into limestone and life as we know it would slowly come to an end. Life on Earth requires volcanic and tectonic action to “reprocess” the sequestered CO2 In the rocks and release it back into the atmosphere.

CO2 is essential to life on our planet – it does not “control” the climate in any significant way.

Prior to the industrial revolution, CO2 was spiralling dangerously downwards. Our production of CO2 is saving the planet not destroying it !

Man is responsible for all manner of hideous crimes against the environment – CO2 just simply isn’t one of them.

The unscientific distraction of the Global Warming / CO2 phantasm is diverting attention, funds, resources and scientific examination of these very real problems. This willful neglect will be viewed by future generations as one of the most damaging of acts or omissions ever inflicted by humankind on the environment.