One image showing why short time periods give rotten conclusions on climate

The above image, copystolen from WoodforTrees.org, shows why the denialist technique of cherry-picking short time periods to find a cooling trend is so screwed up. The red line connects measurements by satellite, adjusted by the UAH, for the lower troposphere. The blue line uses that data to construct a trend line from 2001 to 2009, and voila, gives us a downward, cooling trend that skeptics latch onto. Same data except adding a single year, so it's from 2000 to 2009, gives the warming-trending green line.

Too short a timeline give noisy results. Too long a timeline, say from 55 million years ago to today will show a cooling trend, but miss the fact what's happening in the last century. Finding something at a realistic time frame is what counts, and cherry picking short timelines whose results change in a single year isn't a realistic frame.

UPDATE: Tamino provides a sophisticated version of the same argument here.



Bonus blogging: This statement, "“tundra as we imagine it today will largely be gone throughout the Arctic. It may take longer than 50 or even 100 years, but the inevitable direction is toward boreal forest or something like it,” strikes me as unlikely (I was proud of myself for recognizing the picture of tundra in the middle of the post is from Denali Park, though). Much of the tundra is many hundreds of miles north of boreal forest, or up at elevation, or both. It's not going away.

Swapping ANWR for climate change legislation

Kevin Drum has the good idea of giving up a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling in return for Republican support for real climate change legislation.

I've indicated my partial heresy over ANWR in the past - a friend of mine and occasional commenter here has worked the Alaskan North Slope for years and hasn't seen much environmental damage, and ANWR could be even better protected. Granted, the North Slope isn't a major caribou calving ground like ANWR is, and various measures have been used to underestimate the environmental impact from drilling. Still the likelihood of substantial damage from drilling is small, while the benefit to the Arctic and ANWR from action on climate change is huge.

So would the Republicans bite? Three would, at least - two Alaskan senators and one Alaskan representative. I don't know if any others would, but even two senators is a great catch given the need to get a 60-vote supermajority against the inevitable filibuster. Or if we already have 60 votes, the legislation could be made stronger over the objections of two Democratic senators who would otherwise be indispensable.

A final note regarding climate legislation - here's Ron Brownstein looking very pessimistically at the recently failed legislation, contrary to my Pollyannish view. Ten of the 54 Senate "supporters" wanted major changes that would weaken the bill that was already too weak. We'll need a real political earthquake to change things around.

Alaska legislature funding of climate skeptics only is a potential First Amendment violation

Jeff in Alaska alerted me to this article in the Anchorage Daily News, with a great lede:

The state Legislature is looking to hire a few good polar bear scientists. The conclusions have already been agreed upon -- researchers just have to fill in the science part.

A $2 million program funded with little debate by the Legislature last month calls for using state money to fund an "academic based" conference that highlights contrarian scientific research on global warming. Legislators hope to undermine the public perception of a widespread consensus among polar bear researchers that warming global temperatures and melting Arctic ice threaten the polar bears' survival.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects scientific expression as well as political expression. One of the fundamental rules of free expression is that the government cannot discriminate based on viewpoint. It can't say that science grants are only available to scientists registered as Republicans, for example.

Similarly, for the Alaskan government to offer funding only to those who disagree with the scientific viewpoint that human-caused warming is real, seems to be a straightforward viewpoint discrimination case, one made even worse by the political implications of climate science. If the funding goes through (unclear whether the governor will strike it) and a pro-consensus scientist denied a share of it, that person would have a great case, I think.

I can think of an unusual legal defense strategy though. It's perfectly legal to discriminate against crackpot theories, like the idea that evolution isn't real or that people aren't causing warming, because those theories lack scientific validity and the discrimination doesn't pick one scientific view over another. Alaska could make the converse argument - it isn't discriminating against some scientific viewpoints about climate but all scientific viewpoints, and a "nonsense only" funding screen is acceptable. The state might hesitate to make this argument, though.

I plan to send this post along to climate law and First Amendment bloggers to see what they think.

Being Caribou, and a personal note

Just watched the documentary, Being Caribou, about a Canadian couple's five-month, 1500 km hike from Canada to Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to follow migrating caribou. Their aim besides just going on the trip was to highlight the danger of oil field development in ANWR.

I highly recommend the documentary, it was a fascinating trip, and they had some great footage of wildlife and scenery (they saw wolverines, which I never saw in six summers in Alaska). While the couple had a slight New Age-y feel to their discussion about the caribou, it wasn't enough to get annoying, and they're very likeable. Their third partner on the trip was a plastic figurine of George Bush, who provided some comic relief.

One of my political heresies, though, is I'm not convinced that the caribou will be harmed by ANWR drilling. There's no evidence of harm in Prudhoe Bay, which has far more development than ANWR would. Nothing in the film changed my mind, although in their defense, it was an experiential film, not a science documentary. And while my best guess is drilling in ANWR would not be much of an environmental problem, I see no reason to rush in and disturb this pristine area - the oil's not going anywhere, so if we really need it, we can get it later.

The personal note - while this isn't a "personal life" blog, I just thought I'd mention that my girlfriend and I got engaged over the weekend, while snow-camping in the Sierras near Lake Tahoe. Karen's a very good sport and enjoyed our 8-day backpacking trip in Alaska last summer, but she informed me that for our honeymoon, we're not doing a 5-month backpacking trip like these people did. Oh well, maybe we can do a four-month trip.