Ask Dr. Bryan Killett About Climate Change and GRACE 122
Bryan Killett is a physicist working on the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. GRACE is a joint mission of NASA and the German Aerospace Center which collects satellite data to learn about Earth's changing gravity field, specifically the high frequency changes associated with ocean tides. As the high tide comes in, more water is present, so gravity in that location is temporarily strengthened. These changes are detected with GRACE and used to improve ocean tide models. Dr. Killett provides the open source (GPLv3) code used to process GRACE data on his home page. Bryan has agreed to take a break from measuring gravity fields and answer your questions about GRACE and the climate changes it has revealed. Feel free to ask as many as you like but please confine your questions to one per post.
Re:plantsneedco2.org? (Score:4, Insightful)
" And "skeptic" theories tend to hit in the 30-50ish% range, depending on the extent to which they allege conspiracy."
Alleging conspiracy is not a valid measure of pseudoscience. While it is true that popular culture derides those who they perceive to be "conspiracy theorists", alleging conspiracy has absolutely nothing to do with the underlying science. Nor, for that matter, is a bald allegation any evidence either for or against any actual conspiracy.
While it is fun to laugh at such theories, it is important to remember that the actual historical record contains a huge number of documented and proven conspiracies, many small, but also many great.
Re:Climate Change (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh gee, another moron with an 8th grade misunderstanding of what science is. "No repeatable experiment"? By that criterion, astronomy, geology, etc. aren't science. "No testable hypothesis?" First, climate change isn't one single phenomenon with one single test. It's a series of interrelated phenomena, each of which are individually testable, starting from the infrared absorption properties of the CO2 molecule all the way up to stratospheric cooling, ocean warming, etc. "No science"? Doesn't even deserve a response.
Re:plantsneedco2.org? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's true that sometimes conspiracies actually exist. However claims that mainstream science is engaged in a conspiracy to suppress some bit of research makes it more likely to be pseudo-science, because (far) more often than not the claims are false. It's not a guarantee that it's pseudo-science but it is a red flag that indicates further examination may be required.
Re:plantsneedco2.org? (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't even click the link. Didn't present your own findings. Trolling concluded.
To respond to your request:
Pseudoscience displays an indifference to facts:
DOES NOT APPLY climate change, as data driven observation is at the core of the argument. New facts brought up by critics are addressed with data.
MAY APPLY TO "skeptics", depending on exactly what they are skeptical of. It is an undeniable fact that, for example, temperature measurements are going up quite rapidly year-to-year.
Pseudoscience "research" is invariably sloppy
Given the criteria listed in the linked article: DOES NOT APPLY to climate change. An opinionated counter-argument could be given, if one were unwilling to examine the definition listed with any seriousness. Global examination of carbon/temperature data with a wide variety of tools, cross-indexed with each other, tabulated, peer reviewed, and published in complete detail does not qualify as sloppy. Sorry.
ALSO DOES NOT APPLY to "skepticism" in any meaningful way.
Pseudoscience begins with a hypothesis—usually one which is appealing emotionally, and spectacularly implausible—and then looks only for items which appear to support it.
COULD BE CONSTRUED TO APPLY to climate change: I think we can agree "we're all going to burn due to our negligence" is an emotionally appealing hypothesis. I don't really think the hypothesis came before the climatological observation, looking at the early papers in google scholar, though. Lower temperature years are included in every single report on global warming, in spite of the fact that, at face value, that would appear to a layman to undermine the hypothesis.
COULD BE CONSTRUED TO APPLY to "skeptics": I think we can also agree "we don't have to change anything because we're not doing anything wrong" is also emotionally appealing. Being that this is the null hypothesis position, it's fair to say that the "hypothesis first" doesn't really apply. However, selective examination of data IS an extraordinarily common argument from this camp, and to treat it as a non-component would be disingenuous. (i.e. "it was cold in winter")
Pseudoscience is indifferent to criteria of valid evidence.
DOES NOT APPLY to climate change. Not in the slightest. "stories" do not make up the basis of support for the theory, known thermodynamic effects, and temperature trends do.
MAY APPLY to some forms of "skepticism". As per above "winter is cold" type arguments, are strictly anecdotal, and do not actually examine the temperatures in winters globally compared to previous years.
Pseudoscience relies heavily on subjective validation.
DOES NOT APPLY to climate change. The verification comes entirely in the form of statistical analysis of temperatures versus previous predictions. Relatively accurate, but requiring improvements in predictive techniques.
DOES NOT APPLY to "skepticism" BUT IN A VERY BAD WAY because no counter claims or predictions to test. The null hypothesis of "no change" is clearly invalidated, but no valid alternate predictions are given instead. This is a serious sign of pseudoscience.
Pseudoscience depends on arbitrary conventions of human culture, rather than on unchanging regularities of nature.
DOES NOT APPLY TO EITHER, if you examine the listed definition in my link, this is about data being purely subjective and prone to multiple understandings depending on cultural factors like language.
Pseudoscience always achieves a reduction to absurdity if pursued far enough.
DOES NOT APPLY TO EITHER. Feel free to contest this if you want.
Pseudoscience always avoids putting its claims to a meaningful test.
DOES NOT APPLY to climate change, predictions from 10,20, and 30 years ago are all being tested and examined today.
APPLIES TO "skepticism". "Skeptics" tend to hide behind vague claims such as "it's a natural cycle" without providing assertions about what that means in terms of cl
Re:plantsneedco2.org? (Score:5, Insightful)
consensus
This talking point has always bothered me, if consensus is not part of science then why do scientists place so much importance on peer-review? Consensus is not a dirty word in science, it's the modern term for what Karl Popper called "the republic of science", it is a measure of agreement amoungst the experts in a particular field as documented in Journals and text books. It is the difference in confidence between the phrases "A scientists says" and "Scientists says".
[predictions] don't really show a compelling amount of accuracy
The one's I've seen from Hansen (1980's) and those from IPCC (early 90's) are all well within the error bars given with the predictions. Therefore they are accurate to within the stated margin of error which is all you ever get from a scientific prediction. Note that such predictions usually come in sets with different emmission senarios and it's common for intellectually dishonest people to ignore this and present a "worst case senario" prediction as a "most likely senario" prediction in an attempt to ether, discredit the work for political reasons, or try to scare people for political reasons, (depending on wich side of the politics they take)
Um, if you listen to the latest news reports, they have a lot of self-proclaimed scientists claiming today that the heat waves and droughts the US is experiencing right now are clear evidence of climate change.
There are psudeo-scientists on both sides of the political divide on this issue. I have followed the issue with interest since 1981, I don't recommend "news reports" as a reliable source of information about climate science (particularly in the US), and if you are a geek "El Reg" is also a noteable bottomless pit of misinformnation on the issue. I will however say that many reputable climate scientists have been predicting for at least the last decade that the US grain belt is in danger of sever droughts from AGW. The basic physics says the sub-tropical desert zone will dry out more and expand, while at the same time monsoons will become wetter. Both are an expected consequences of increased convection in the equitorial "Hadley Cells". This is complicated by the jet stream in the N. Hemisphere which can cause the western half of the US to be in drought while the other is flooded. Having said that, what is undisputable is that long term climate predictions are much more accurate on a global scale (global temp, humidity, etc) than regional predictions, regional predictions will always be more difficult and less precise.
Re:What does this have to do with Climate Change? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody's doubled down on AGW. As the MASSIVE body of evidence removes doubt (except for those who would have their world view threaten by said evidence), its the responsibility of NASA to utilize space based resources to predict, measure, understand and if at all possible mitigate the impacts of AGW. Just as it is the National Forestry's job to plan for fighting and prevent the already growing impact of AGW on large and destructive fires in the Western U.S. There are now places whose fire seasons now run all year. Every agency, that is responsible to serve the public, and for whom there is a measurable impact from AGW is honor bound to do what it can to protect services and prevent loss of life and property. How is any of this inappropriate or antithetical to the proper management of resources?