gregladen | December 28, 2015I had considered writing an accounting of all the outlandish weather events of 2015, but that project quickly became a tl:dr list of untoward happenings which is both alarming and a bit boring, since it is so long. So, I decided to generate something less comprehensive, focusing more on the context and meaning of the diverse and impressive set of outcomes of anthropogenic global warming, an historically strong El Niño, and, well, weather which is already a pretty whacky thing.
See: Highlights of Climate Change Research in 2015
It should be noted right away that 2015 is the last year in which…
gregladen | December 23, 2015
Homo naledi and the Chamber of Secrets ~ Psychology's Inner Demons ~ Chilesaurus: The One That Went Vegan ~ Neurons Alter DNA All Day, Every Day
Popular science fans may recognize some of these colorful titles from the most recent publication of Discover Magazine's 100 Top Stories of 2015. We at Atheists Talk enjoy a good science-ing now and then, and this Sunday we're going to talk about some of the stories shared by Discover. It's going to be a science smorgasboard extravaganza! Join Brianne Bilyeu, August Berkshire and Maddy Love as they nerd out about the science of 2015.
Listen to the…
gregladen | December 19, 2015August Berkshire of Minnesota Atheists has organized an Atheist Talk radio show for tomorrow, Sunday Morning, in which various people will discuss many of the top science stories of 2015.
The idea is for each guest to take the Discover Magazine's top 100 stories of 2015, pick a subset of ten, and have at them. Some subset of Brianne Bilyeu, August Berkshire, Maddy Love, and me will be on the show, but I think there may have been a cancellation, not sure who, other than that it wasn't me who will not be there. Anyway, it will be an interesting show ... what are the top stories, and why pick…
gregladen | December 15, 2015In November, I wrote a post describing research on Antarctic glacial melting by Catherine Ritz, Tamsin Edwards, Gaël Durand, Antony Payne, Vincent Peyaud, and Richard Hindmarsh (“Potential sea-level rise from Antarctic ice-sheet instability constrained by observations”). I had asked one of the authors, Tamsin Edwards, to address a few questions about the study. I also asked glacier expert Richard Alley a few questions. Alley got back to me right away, but Edwards was unable to do so, so I wrote up Alley’s commentary here, with the intention of covering Edwards’ response at a later time. Over…
gregladen | December 15, 2015With the imminent release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, you might want to refresh your memory by watching the earlier Star Wars films, or even the films and other related productions.
There are two or three philosophies on this. The most obvious is to watch the films in chronological order, or story order, so you are seeing the historical development of the things that happened. This is simple. Watch Episode I first, and work your way in order through Episode VI.
There are objections to this method, however, because the way the story was told, out of historical sequence, involves…
gregladen | December 15, 2015The NASA GISS global temperature anomaly for November has been published.
October's value was originally reported as 104, but has been corrected (it is normal to have small corrections on an ongoing basis) to 106. November's value, just out, is 105.
This is hundreds of a degree C anomaly, the standard number used to report, off of a baseline. The baseline in the case of NASA GISS is 1951-1980, which does not represent pre-industrial levels.
The huge uptick we saw during the last part of the current year is the result of global warming, which has been pushing temperatures up, and the…
gregladen | December 15, 2015To paraphrase Walter Brooke playing Mr. McGuire, in his conversation with Dustin Hoffman's character Ben in The Graduate, "Just one word ... are you listening? ... Plasticity. Its a great future. Enough said."
Read about this interesting new research in my latest post at 10,000 Birds blog!
gregladen | December 14, 2015As you may know, Mike Haubrich and I have been planning to develop a podcast. Well, we did it, and you can visit the first episode here.
In this episode, Mike and I discuss some of the reasons behind why we created Ikonokast, and interview writer and science policy expert Shawn Otto. We touch on the recent Paris climate conference, Ted Cruz as the freshest face of absurd over the time science denialism, Shawn's new novel, his forthcoming book on science policy, and the ScienceDebate.com project.
Ikonokast has a web site, and each podcast will be shown presented in a blog post, at least for…
gregladen | December 10, 2015You are a scientists and you are doing two things.
First, you have finished a preliminary study and submitted a grant proposal based on your evolving idea about something, and you have just submitted a related paper to a peer reviewed journal. Well, OK, that's a bunch of things, but they are all related to the temporal stream of the research you are expected to do as a member of the academic community.
Second, you are having conversations with your mentor, your colleagues, others, about this research in which you are traveling up and down various alleyways searching for answers to…
gregladen | December 10, 2015I watched most of yesterday's Senate hearings live (ironically titled Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate over the Magnitude of Human Impact on Earth’s Climate), and what I missed, I sampled via the magic of recorded video. I considered fisking the hearings, in particular, the closing statement by Senator Ted Cruz (and his next-day interview on NPR). But I was distracted by work on Ikonokast, a new podcast Mike Haubrich and I are starting up (our first guest, taped yesterday, is Shawn Otto). And, many others had responses out on the internet quickly enough that my…
gregladen | December 8, 2015This afternoon in Washington DC, Texas Republican Ted Cruz, who does not believe in global warming yet is chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, will convene a hearing called “Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate over the Magnitude of Human Impact on Earth’s Climate.” The purpose of the hearing appears to be to reify the false debate of the reality and importance of anthropogenic global warming, and is yet another step in the current McCarthyesque attack on legitimate climate scientists and their research.
This is an important moment in…
gregladen | December 4, 2015The big complaint people have about renewable energy, or at least, the big complaint that has some merit, is that renewables, such as wind and solar, are intermittent and to varying degrees, unpredictably intermittent. This makes it hard to match demand for electricity to supply. Some aspects of this argument are overstated. For example, a steady supply (the same potential power all the time, every minute of the day) can be a bug as well as a feature. If every electron of electricity we used came from nuclear power plants, there would be a problem because our demand fluctuates and you can't…
gregladen | December 3, 2015UPDATE! This post was written months ago when, yet again, the Senate tried to do something about guns. You are probably looking for information on the more recent chance for the Senate to show that the are not up to the task of protecting American Citizens. For information on who voted for what in this round, CLICK HERE.
We've had a spate of spree killings lately, most recently and famously the killing of 14 people in San Bernardino by two people who should not have owned firearms but were apparently able to legally purchase assault rifles, pistols, and thousands of rounds of ammo.
So,…
gregladen | December 3, 2015No. Lights of the christmas tree interfering with The Force, not likely.
Well, OK, if all the people in the united states gathered into one state, the gravitational effects of all those bodies in one place would be detectable by the ultra sensitive GRACE satellite system. And, any electronic device that is running, including light bulbs or just wires carrying alternating current, put EMF out into the air, and potentially, this energy could interfere with other EMF energy such as what your wifi uses.
Overall if your house is full of electronic devices that are running, including multiple…
gregladen | December 2, 2015This is a review of The Story of Life in 25 Fossils: Tales of Intrepid Fossil Hunters and the Wonders of Evolution.
Don Prothero
Fossils are cool. Why? Two very big and complex reasons. First, fossils allow us to reconstruct species that don’t exist any more. This is usually done by studying species that do exist, and using the information we glean from living things to interpret the details of the fossil species, giving it life. Second, fossils tell us about evolutionary change, both by showing us what evolutionary events happened that we would not be able to see in living species, and…
gregladen | December 2, 2015A new study, “An unexpected role for mixotrophs in the response of peatland carbon cycling to climate warming” by Vincent Jassey and others, just came out in Scientific Reports. The study is fairly preliminary, but fascinating, and unfortunately may signal that yet another effect of global warming that would result in more global warming.
What makes this study interesting is that it examines the detailed ecological relationships between several different kinds of organisms in both field and lab settings, in order to get a handle on what they do when conditions warm. Mixotrophs are organisms…
gregladen | November 30, 2015I thought I'd share this update from the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.
We have much to be grateful for at CSLDF – this year, we became an independent 501(c)(3) organization, provided legal services to 30+ researchers, and took on some of the worst groups attacking climate scientists. Thank you for your support! We truly couldn’t have done it without you.
Unfortunately, assaults on climate scientists continue. Most notably, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has launched an investigation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), claiming that NOAA “alters data to get the…
gregladen | November 30, 2015A new paper out in the journal Judgement and Decision Making by Gordon Pennycook, James Cheyne, Nathaniel Barr, Derek Koehler, and Jonathan Fugelsang. The abstract:
Although bullshit is common in everyday life and has attracted attention from philosophers, its reception (critical or ingenuous) has not, to our knowledge, been subject to empirical investigation. Here we focus on pseudo-profound bullshit, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous. We presented participants with bullshit statements consisting of buzzwords…
gregladen | November 30, 2015This post was written by Peter Sinclair and Greg Laden in response to a recent Wall Street Journal Op Ed piece by Matt Ridley and Benny Peiser.
In a recent Wall Street Journal commentary, “Your Complete Guide to the Climate Debate,”
Matt Ridley and Benny Peiser ask what might make world leaders concerned about the security impacts of climate change. One answer might be the US Department of Defense.
In its 2010 Quadrennial Defense review, Pentagon experts wrote:
“…climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation,…
gregladen | November 26, 2015You've heard much about the so-called "pause" or "hiatus" in global warming.
One of the implications of a multi-year "pause" in global warming is that the science of global warming must be somehow wrong, because with CO2 rising in atmosphere, due to human activity, how can the surface not warm? However, surface temperatures have been rising, but at a somewhat slower rate than at some other times.
The truth is that there is a lot of variation in that upward trending surface temperature value, measured as an anomaly above expected temperatures. Sometimes the variation pushes the rate of…