Zhuang and colleagues, in GRL, publish a new analysis of high-latitude carbon source/sink behavior. Their conclusion, considering among other issues CO2 fertilization and the contribution of fire to the system (see here for a discussion of the fire CO2 source/sink issue) that the region’s CO2 contributions will go up as things warm over the century, but that “these emissions will exert relatively small radiative forcing on global climate system compared to large amounts of anthropogenic emissions.”
even a blind pig…
My source for real estate skepticism, Aaron, has an update:
[T]he number of places in my neighborhood for sale keeps piling up– $500k condos, $900k single-families, that kind of thing. So thought I’d look around to see if there’s any news about that impending real-estate disaster I keep thinking is just around the corner. Remember, I’ve been thinking it’ll happen any day now for at least three years. As my 7th grade history teacher used to say, even a blind pig finds an acorn once in awhile.
Lane
If you look at the National Hurricane Center’s latest track for Lane, it looks like the moisture is headed our way here in New Mexico by some time next week. So far, though, the forecasters at the local National Weather Service office don’t think it’ll get here:
CONDITIONS WILL REMAIN DRY UNDER A RIDGE OF HIGH PRESSURE LIMITING
PRECIP CHANCES THRU MID WEEK. MOST OF THE MOISTURE FROM LANE WILL
BE SHUNTED TO THE SOUTH AND EAST
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere
On the grim science of counting Darfur’s dead.
Peiser Again
In the comments here a while back, Benny Peiser, publisher of the invaluable CCNet electronic newsletter, said this:
John
As you know, CCNet publishes *both* sides in the numerous climate change debates.
It was with that in mind that I read Benny’s latest CCNet missive: “MORE TROUBLE FOR IPCC AS SCIENTISTS PREDICT SOLAR DOWNTURN & GLOBAL COOLING”. As usual, Benny’s got a bunch of interesting stuff, especially a New Scientist piece on researchers looking at the solar-climate connection. But in his attempt to be thorough and share “*both* sides in the numerous climate change debates,” Benny apparently missed one of the papers that came out this week:
Overall, we can find no evidence for solar luminosity variations of sufficient amplitude to drive significant climate variations on centennial, millennial and even million-year timescales.
Note to Benny: Check out Foukal et al., Variations in solar luminosity and their effect on the Earth’s climate. It’s on the cover of this week’s Nature.
The Practical Effect of Cycling’s Doping Scandals
One of my favorite bike racers, Alexandre Vinokourov, is winning the Vuelta. Vinokourov is a great joy to watch – an unpredictable, attacking racer with a flair for the dramatic.
I had no idea he was winning. It’s not that I intentionally boycotted the Vuelta. I just got out of the daily habit of checking Velonews.
Drought Benefits
There’s been an interesting discussion in the drought community about the use of the weekly drought monitor for making determinations about who’s entitled to drought benefits. The problem is that the monitor’s maps are a subject blend of the best judgment of a community of people about drought conditions, intended as an informational tool. When you start making money decisions based on where the line on the map falls, you end up with a weird set of pressures on the system.
But that’s exactly what’s happening, as the IRS implements a tax break for ranchers affected by drought:
Using data from a map produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center, the IRS will publish a list of eligible counties for the extension sometime this month.
I am El Niño!
And thus it begins:
I am El Niño! All other tropical storms must bow before El Niño! Yo soy El Niño! For those of you who don’t “habla Español”, El Niño is Spanish for.. The Niño! To any of you hurricanes who are listening, step on up! Because nobody can take El Niño! I challenge any of you punk-ass tropical storms to a no-holds barred cage match! Any time! Any coast! I swear to God all Mighty it is time to pay the piper, ’cause El Niño’s coming for ya! And it ain’t gonna be pretty!
Cherrypicking
As soon as you cherrypick to support your side of the argument, you lose any moral authority to accuse the other guys of impropriety when they do it. See Roger Pielke Jr.’s post today:
Such tactics have been criticized as cherrypicking and misrepresentation by critics of the use of science by those on the political right, and appropriately so. It seems to me that cherrypicking and misrepresentation is improper no matter who is doing it. Advocacy groups and politicians will always make the best case they can for their agenda, at the known risk of being called out by the other side.
So What Should We Do?
In the climate change debate, both sides have an incentive to scientize – to argue about the science rather than the resulting value/political/policy propositions.
Those who advocate greenhouse gas reductions believe that the science is clear and compels a particular policy response. Those who oppose greenhouse gas reductions have found great success by arguing over the uncertainty of the science. In the resulting gridlock, we never really get to the political/policy debate, happily ensconced instead in the furious minutiae of hockey sticks and the role of the sun.
Donald Boudreaux sidesteps that tangle and tackled the issue head-on in a piece last week on Reason that says, in essence, OK, I accept the science, now let’s talk about the economic realities of the proposed policy responses.
Being neither an atmospheric scientist nor a former U.S. vice-president, I haven’t the expertise to judge whether or not global warming is a reality or the extent to which humans cause it. Experts who I trust, however, persuade me that science does indeed show that global temperatures are rising and that industrial activity is at least part of the reason. I’m prepared to believe even the possibility that global warming will eventually kill millions of people.
But I nevertheless insist that science does not unambiguously endorse action against global warming. Put differently – and contrary to today’s elite opinion – ignoring global warming is not necessarily a sign of scientific illiteracy or of ideologically induced stupidity.
You don’t need to agree with the guy to applaud him for getting on with the part of the actual debate that matters. (Hat tip Benny Peiser.)