Five Reasons Fox News Climate Article is Wrong

I can't speak to the true frequency, but it doesn't seem like it is that often that almost everything in a news article is wrong. But FoxNews.com's article, Five Reasons the Planet May Not Be Its Hottest Ever is one of them. It's almost as if it was written on what, as children, we used to call "opposite day." If you are willing to dig behind it a little, the article is almost educational--in a backwards kind of way. Media Matters has a pretty thorough takedown (Fox Tries To Debunk Global Warming, Fails Miserably), which is how I found out about the article in the first place, but I thought I would chime in.

Things get off to a bad start with the headline because it suggests that scientists believe that the planet is the hottest it has ever been in its whole history. Nobody is making that claim--only that it is the hottest on record (and likely for last two thousand years). But bad headlines are a dime a dozen, so let's move on.

The article sets up the World Meteorological Organization's recent announcement that 2010 ties 2005 and 1998 for the warmest (globally speaking) years on record as the backdrop. This is true--the WMO did make that announcement. The article then turns to absurdities with this transition:

But how reliable is the data? Here are five good reasons some scientists are skeptical of these claims.

(Attention editor: "data" is a plural word.)

Reason #1: First the article impugns the instrumental temperature record by suggesting (via Anthony Watts) that the warming is an artifact of sensor placement, and second, by claiming that satellite measurements are better and more pure. Let's break this down for a moment.

A. Anthony Watts is one of the better known climate skeptics. He has organized an effort to photograph and catalog the nation's temperature sensors. His shtick is to show photos of sensors near asphalt, air conditioners, BBQ grills, or whatever and suggest that the instrumental warming is simply a reflection of these conditions. He has yet to provide any kind of systematic analysis. However, since he made the information public, scientists at NOAA did an analysis and found that there was almost no difference between suspicious sensors and unobjectionable ones. In fact, the purportedly artificially warmed sensors actually showed a cool bias. Of course Watts does not accept this outcome, but so far it is the only non-anecdotal analysis done.

B. Roy Spencer is an actual climatologist and is a favorite of climate skeptics because he thinks the warming is mostly natural, not caused by CO2 emissions. But note that he does accept that the planet is warming. In fact, here is a direct quote from his blog:

WHO WINS THE RACE FOR WARMEST YEAR?
As far as the race for warmest year goes, 1998 (+0.424 deg. C) barely edged out 2010 (+0.411 deg. C), but the difference (0.01 deg. C) is nowhere near statistically significant. So feel free to use or misuse those statistics to your heart’s content.

Gee, isn't that kind of like what the WMO said?

Media Matters notes that the the satellite data are also adjusted and processed, and they quote Spencer saying Fox News goofed on this one. A little history makes this claim even more rich and ironic. In the late 1990s the UAH satellite data showed no warming even though the ground-based instruments did show warming. It's because the satellites were more accurate, right? Wrong. It turned out that an adjustment for orbital decay was not being made, and when the adjustment was implemented--surprise!--the two data sets fit together a lot better. In fact, if we compare some of the surface instruments with satellites, we get the following picture (from Skeptical Science):

(A quick and dirty guide: GISS = NASA, RSS and UAH = satellites; HADCRUT = British.)

So let's just pause and take stock for a moment. The surface instruments are unreliable because they are next to BBQ grills and whatnot and the data are manipulated, so satellites are better. But satellites show the same trend as surface instruments--and, in fact, a previous disagreement between the two led to the discovery that a needed adjustment for satellites was not being done. Meanwhile, one of the quoted "skeptics" basically endorsed the WMO statement at the top. Need we go on? Yes, but very quickly.

Reason #2: Lord Monckton says global sea ice is not declining. My rule of thumb: Don't believe anything Monckton says.

Reason #3: Japan agrees that the warming is all due to El Niño...and CO2. (doh!)

Reason #4: Britain had the coldest December on record. But the cited temperature record is limited to the interior of Britain. The ways of Britain are no longer the ways of the world.

Reason #5: Failed predictions. Climate is not the same as weather. And the quote about snow being rare is goofy, but ultimately taken out of context.

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John Walton Ancient Cosmology Lecture

Earlier this month I reviewed John Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One. Today I happened to come across an hour-long lecture by Walton that lays out his major arguments. It's audio only, but all six parts are embedded below. So if you don't want to get the book, you can get a good sense of it by spending an hour listening to him.

On a side note, both in the book and lecture, Walton said that a Hebrew word translated as "mind" is actually a reference to entrails or intestines. Anybody know what the Hebrew word is (preferably with an example from the Old Testament)?

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Senator Hatch Responds to Bickmore

Two months ago, BYU geologist Barry Bickmore publically criticized Senator Orrin Hatch's views on climate change. Senator Hatch responded to Bickmore, which is now posted on Bickmore's blog (see also his counter-response). I thought the overall tone and message of the senator's response was cordial and honest, if still somewhat wrongheaded (in my opinion). However, one statement stood out to me that I think is worth discussing here.

In his response, Senator Hatch wrote:

There does appear to be general agreement that the earth is in an overall warming phase as it recovers from the Holocene and Little Ice Ages.

This is loaded wording, as I'll explain in a moment, but what is he talking about?

We are currently in an interglacial period of relative warmth that began around 12,000 years ago. Another way to put it is that the last ice age (as popularly understood--we are technically still in an ice age) ended about 12,000 years ago. In geological reckoning, this period of time is known as the Holocene. Switching timescales, there was a period of relative cooling from the 16th to 19th centuries that is called the Little Ice Age. The name is somewhat of a misnomer in part because it doesn't appear to have been a global synchronous event. The following image gives some rough perspective of Holocene temperatures:



Senator Hatch appears to be saying that the last 50 years of warming (which is the period of warming attributed to human CO2 emissions) is just bounce-back from the Little Ice Age, or more generally, just part of the Holocene interglacial warming. But here is why Senator Hatch's statement is loaded. It's a subtle point, but to say that the climate is "recovering" from an ice age implies that there is some temperature that the globe should be at.

It's a very natural way of speaking for us, and we see examples all around us. Our bodies regulate their internal temperature to stay around 37°C (98.6°F). Water stays level unless perturbed. The seasons give us cycles of warmth and cold. Newton's laws of motion even seem wrong because our daily experience is that objects in motion tend to come to a rest.

However, when you get down to the root of it, the global temperature is governed by the amount of heat that comes in and the amount that goes out. Alterations in those two parameters push the temperature one way or the other. Some of those alterations are cyclical or uncommon, and in that context it may make sense to speak of recovery. But to say that the current warming is a recovery from the Little Ice Age implies either (i) magical thinking, or (ii) scientific knowledge of where the trajectory of the temperature would be if it weren't for other complicating factors that resulted in the Little Ice Age.

Speaking of recovery, if we look at the last 50 years we see that the solar output (i.e. amount of heat coming in) has been pretty steady or even slightly declining. Meanwhile the global temperature has been going up. This implies that the amount of heat going out must also be declining.


So if we're going to talk about recovery, we should talk about why the temperature is not recovering from the mid-twentieth century peak in solar radiation.


Note: Click on images for sources.

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If I Had a Side Blog

Odds and ends that may be of interest:

1. There's a new blog dedicated to the Word of Wisdom - Word of Wisdom Living. I'm not sure what to think of it yet, but check it out. It probably can't make you less healthy.

2. You don't have to be a liberal democrat to recognize climate change as an important issue. Examples here and here.

3. Salon.com: "We've removed an explosive 2005 report by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about autism and vaccines. Here's why."

4. Steve Peck ate puffer fish and luckily lived to tell the tale.

5. ESP makes it into a respected psychology journal. Controversy ensues.

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The Lost World of Genesis One

Christmas brought me a few books that should serve as blogging material. First up is The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton, a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. Walton argues that if Genesis 1 is read carefully with the ancient Near East context in mind, it becomes clear that the creation story is a functional account (how things work together in an ordered system) rather than a material account (the physical origin). He then argues that scientific accounts of physical origins do not conflict with the Bible because the Bible has nothing to say on the matter.

A couple of things shake out of his analysis that should be of particular interest to an LDS audience. First, is Walton's conclusion that the Hebrew word translated as "create" (bara) does not refer to creation ex nihilo. Although he still believes that ultimately God did create everything out of nothing, Walton argues that the text itself does not teach or imply such a thing. He lays out the reasoning of the ex nihilo interpretation as follows: Materials for creation are never mentioned in association with the word (bara), therefore they must have been created out of nothing. Walton argues that this line of reasoning depends on the assumption that material creation, rather than functional creation, is what is described.

[Genesis 1] does involve creative activities, but all in relation to the way that the ancient world thought about creation and existence: by naming, separating and assigning functions and roles in an ordered system. [p. 46]

This is within striking distance of Joseph Smith's interpretation. Although his reasoning took a somewhat different path, Joseph also rejected creation ex nihilo based (at least partly) on his analysis of the same Hebrew word, as recorded in the famous King Follett discourse:

Now, the word create came from the word baurau which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence, we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos—chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory.

Second, Walton argues that the creation of the cosmos should be understood as God creating a temple. (I hardly need to mention the role of the creation in LDS temple worship.) Interestingly, he says that when the text says that God "rested" on the seventh day, this is actually a reference to God taking up his place within his temple, and would have been recognized as such by ancient Israelites because in ancient Near Eastern culture, God(s) rest in, and only in, a temple. He then goes on to write things that will look familiar to anyone who as done any reading of what LDS scholars have written about ancient temples (eg. Hugh Nibley's Temple and Cosmos) [1] . For example,

This close connection between cosmic origins and temple building reinforces the idea across the ancient Near East that the temples were considered primordial and that cosmic origins at times were defined in terms of a temple element....

We can draw the connection between temple and cosmos more tightly when we observe that temples in the ancient world were considered symbols of the cosmos. [p. 79]

According to Walton, in effect, God finished setting up the functions of his temple and then settled in to get down to business. This leads Walton to propose that Genesis 1 is essentially a seven-day inauguration ceremony of God's temple (the cosmos), which he has set up around the needs of humans, and in which he dwells and conducts his business.

Given the relationship of the temple and the cosmos, the creation of one is also the creation of the other. The temple is made functional in the inauguration ceremonies, and therefore the temple is created in the inauguration ceremony. So also the cosmic temple would be made functional (created) in an inauguration ceremony. [p. 88]

Walton insists that he is not offering an alternative to a literal reading of Genesis 1. Rather, he says that this is a literal reading; it is how the ancient Israelites would have understood it. Making the switch from material to functional thinking is difficult, which Walton would probably say is a testament to the power our cultural environment has in shaping our thinking. Although he offers several analogies, I think of it like this: Imagine a baby blessing where the father, rather than making a general statement about the health and growth of the child, proceeds to name each major organ system and describe the function of each. Nobody would mistake this for the actual physical creation of the organ systems. (It occurs to me that we need not look outside of the temple for an example of functional language (eg. initiatory ordinances).)

Nevertheless, it is hard to read the creation account in the Book of Abraham, or consider the creation account in the endowment, without getting the sense that God (or his representatives) is depicted actually doing something. Yet even here Walton may have a partial solution. Early in the book he says that the ancients did not distinguish between 'natural' and 'supernatural' causes. There were no 'natural laws' which caused things to run on their own, with God stepping in from time to time. Rather, the ancients attributed everything to God. Whereas we might say that God used an earthquake caused by a shift in tectonic plates, or (to use scriptural history) that he used the empires of Assyria and Babylonia to accomplish his purposes, the ancients would simply say that God did it. So it shouldn't be surprising that a text written for another culture shows no concern for a distinction important to ours. On the other hand, we are not totally divorced from the ancient mindset. It is not uncommon for people to express a sense of providence in what seem like ordinary natural events.

There are additional nuggets of insight to be mined from the book, but I'll leave it at that for now. At under 200 pages, the book is an easy and quick read. It is also organized well; each chapter title encapsulates the main point of the chapter and there is a nice summary at the end, as well as answers to FAQs. The last couple of chapters wander a little off-topic by getting into how science is taught in public schools. I pretty much agree with his position, which is to leave discussion of purpose (or lack thereof) out of science classrooms, but it seemed a little out of place in this book.

I'll close with a quote from the introduction.

The Old Testament does communicate to us and it was written for us, and for all humankind. But it was not written to us. It was written to Israel. It is God's revelation of himself to Israel and secondarily through Israel to everyone else. As obvious as this is, we must be aware of the implications of that simple statement.

Notes:

1. I don't mean to imply that all of these similar insights originated with LDS scholars.

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Vaccine-Autism Link Fraudulent from Beginning

The vaccine-autism controversy began with a 1998 paper in the Lancet, by British doctor Andrew Wakefield, that suggested an association between MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine and autism in 12 children. Although the alleged vaccine component responsible, in the minds of anti-vaccine advocates, has shifted over time (eg. thimerosal, which has since been removed from childhood vaccines), it was Wakefield and MMR that started the ball rolling. The paper was finally retracted by Lancet last year and Wakefield lost his medical license over ethical problems with the study.

Now the BMJ (British Medical Journal) is publishing the results of journalist Brian Deer's investigation into the paper. The BMJ's judgment is unflinching: fraud.

Below I reproduce their summary for part 1 and provide relevant links.

How the link was fixed

The Lancet paper was a case series of 12 child patients; it reported a proposed “new syndrome” of enterocolitis and regressive autism and associated this with MMR as an “apparent precipitating event.” But in fact:

*Three of nine children reported with regressive autism did not have autism diagnosed at all. Only one child clearly had regressive autism

*Despite the paper claiming that all 12 children were “previously normal,” five had documented pre-existing developmental concerns

*Some children were reported to have experienced first behavioural symptoms within days of MMR, but the records documented these as starting some months after vaccination

*In nine cases, unremarkable colonic histopathology results—noting no or minimal fluctuations in inflammatory cell populations—were changed after a medical school “research review” to “non-specific colitis”

*The parents of eight children were reported as blaming MMR, but 11 families made this allegation at the hospital. The exclusion of three allegations—all giving times to onset of problems in months—helped to create the appearance of a 14 day temporal link

*Patients were recruited through anti-MMR campaigners, and the study was commissioned and funded for planned litigation

For more details:

BMJ news summary

Secrets of the MMR scare: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

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