Climate and Weather
gregladen | February 20, 2013You hear, again again, that climate and weather are not the same thing. This has led to assertions such as "you can't attribute a single weather event to climate change." But climate and weather are not distinctly different. Climatologists and meteorologists have made statements like this because people do confuse and conflate current conditions and weather forecasts on one hand with climate systems and climate change observations and modeling on the other. Saying "climate and weather are not the same thing" is a convenient segue into a discussion of how certain conclusions may be invalid…
gregladen | February 10, 2013Climate experts have pointed out that Nemo, the very bad nor’easter that just hit the Northeastern US and Maritimes, is partly an effect of global warming. Some meteorologists have responded with an incorrect response, a recitation of a now tired and useless mumbling retort that I’m afraid may even have it origin among scientists who should know better, and at the very least was kept alive by them for far too long: “Well, you can’t really attribute any given weather event to climate change.” Some regular people who are not climate scientists have repeated that faleshood as well. Then there…
gregladen | February 6, 2013Here are two graphs that show the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, mainly as CO2 and mainly form the burning of fossil fuels, per year, from various sources for a long span of time. Both graphs are based on the same data set. the first graph was created by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center and shows the breakdown between different sources of carbon. The second graph, which I made, simply shows the total, and over a shorter time span to make it easier to use for other purposes.
gregladen | January 15, 2013I was a graduate student in Harvard’s Anthropology Department, which meant I had no funding. I was in the final writing stage of my thesis, and the problem I had was that teaching interesting biological anthropology (which I could do full time if I wanted) was too distracting from the mundane yet mentally challenging task of writing a PhD thesis. So, I got a job as a secretary at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Since I was able to follow instructions and was also not intimidated by Big Scary Professors as most temps were, I quickly rose through the ranks and became Richard…
gregladen | December 16, 2012On June 6th, 1944, some 160,000 soldiers aboard about 5,000 boats of diverse design crossed the English Channel and carried out the Invasion of Normandy, one of the more important events in recent history. Many of the soldiers were so sick from choppy seas that leaving the boats and walking or running into German gunfire seemed like a good idea. The invasion was originally planned for the 45h of June, but a very precise weather forecast told the Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower, to wait until the next day. The forecast for the 6th of June, integrated with the logistical features of the…
gregladen | November 5, 2012This is an interview at Atheists Talk (TV), an update on the war on science, and a rare opportunity to see me wearing a suit.
The first few seconds are sound free; do not adjust your television set.
I mentioned the NCSE, here's their web site.
Here's a couple of books related to the topic:
Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future by Chris Mooney and Sheril
Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America by Shawn Otto
Something on crying babies and vaccination is here, and something on milk allergy is here.
Minnesota Atheists YouTube channel is here…
gregladen | November 1, 2012Rising Sea Levels: An Introduction to Cause and Impact is a new book by Hunt Janin and Scott Mandia. Janin is a writer of non fiction and scholarly books, and Mandia is a professor of physics and a science communicator who specializes in climate-related issues.
To me, sea level is one of the most interesting and important of climate related issues. Interesting because I've done archaeology at the edge of the sea, sometimes beneath it, sometimes racing ahead of it, and often, looking at changes in human settlement caused by its rise since the Last Glacial Maximum. Important because one of…
gregladen | March 23, 2012Potholer54 has written a letter to Monkton that you will want to read, and he's also made a video that you will want to see. First the letter (from here):
Open letter to Christopher Monckton - please return to the debate
Dear Mr. Monckton,
A couple of months ago you entered into a debate with me on wattsupwiththat.com (See "Update on the Monckton-Hadfield debate" - http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/07/update-on-the-monckton-hadfield-d…) about alleged errors in your public lectures - allegations that I made in a series of videos on my YouTube channel "Potholer54". But as soon as I presented…
gregladen | January 29, 2012Since the Daily Mail is a British thing and the latest form of entertainment in Britain is Libel Tourism, I won't say to you that the Daily Mail is a rag full of lies and deceit. Instead, I'll let you be the judge.
These studies:
Decline in solar output unlikely to offset global warming
23 January 2012 - New research has found that solar output is likely to reduce over the next 90 years but that will not substantially delay expected increases in global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases.
Carried out by the Met Office and the University of Reading, the study establishes the most likely…
gregladen | December 7, 2011I'm enjoying James Lawrence Powell's book "The Inquisition of Climate Science" Powell's book specifically addresses the clilmate change denialist movement and the global warming deniers themselves, and does so severely. He documents and discusses who is paying for climate change denialism documents the lack of scientific credenntials of the denialists, and outlines and describes in detail events such as "climate gate."
The book is exceptionally well documented and could actually be used as a supplementary text in a class on science policy or science and society.
Author's bio from the…
gregladen | November 29, 2011Bret Stephens does not mind looking like an idiot. Today, he published a column in the Wall Street Journal that is full of snark and devoid of thought, ill considered, misleading, moronic and in the end, embarrassing. It is a classic case of irresponsible journalism. Someone sent me the link and I swear, I checked twice while reading the piece to see if I had landing on TheOnion.com. I can't believe the Wall Street Journal published this.
I think it would have been impossible for a paper like the WSJ to publish a piece like this had main stream media not gotten rid of most of their science…
gregladen | November 22, 2011For now, a press release. More later:
WASHINGTON (Nov. 22, 2011)--In an apparent effort to discredit climate science, hackers again posted stolen emails from leading climate scientists online today, just days ahead of a United Nations climate meeting. According to the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, the emails released today are part of the same batch that was stolen from the university years ago. Only some of those emails were released in November 2009. Since then, multiple investigations exonerated scientists who had their emails stolen of misconduct.
"These leftover…
gregladen | November 19, 2011This is a bit long but you will benefit from watching all of it. It gets extra hot at 31:30.
I love the look on that woman's face at 31:38 and again at 31:47. LOL.
This particular member of congress, Don Young from Alaska, needs to get unelected. Frank J. Vondersaar seems to be the guy running against him, and this seems to be his web site. You can donate money to help Frank's campaign here.
I was originally made aware of this testimony from a blog post at Get Energy Smart blog, HERE. Please go check that out.
gregladen | November 14, 2011Hot off the presses (stolen summarily from Here). This land temperature anomoly video showing both the growth of the global dataset and global warming was shown by the BEST group to Congress just a few moments ago.
gregladen | November 11, 2011Here's the talk:
And here's the web site.
Eventually, there will probably be a book.
gregladen | November 2, 2011You've heard about "ClimateGate." ClimateGate was a very successful but illegal campaign by anti-science to discredit climate science and climate scientists. Rest assured, the climate science is fine and the climate scientists are just trying to do their jobs, and doing quite well at that. Nonetheless, a combination of inaccurate representation of the contents of various emails written between climate scientists and what amounts to unethical treatment of climate science by the press resulted in a shift among the general populous in the US from about half of the people thinking that Global…
gregladen | October 27, 2011This is the biggest thing since Justin Beiber's haircut! Video below the fold.
The Daily Show with Jon StewartGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook
gregladen | October 26, 2011You'll remember that I recently wrote up Shawn Otto's talk at The Loft. The talk was filmed and is now a major motion picture!
Now that you've seen the talk, here's your list of things to do:
Buy the book here.
Sign on to Science Debate.org here
Sign the American Science Pledge here
Join the Republican Party. Oh, and the NRA too!