Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal

There are some fabulously well written blogs and excellent science sites online. I have never done a post of the best that I have come across before, until now!

So below is a sampling of sound science writing that got my attention this week.

Jim Robbins at Yale Environment 360 has an in depth piece on the great die off out west. Perhaps enough evidence to indict climate change for causing it, but not enough for a conviction as of yet.

I love astronomical time lapses and Amanda Bauer in the UK has a great one.

Astropixie has a beautiful time lapse from Mauna Kea. Great blog!

Tavie Greiner and Rob Keown have a post on International Sidewalk Astronomy Night.

March 20th is the equinox (No, eggs will not stand up any better than any other day) and it's also ISAN. Oh, and guess what it's free!

Nasa’s Earth Observatory site always has something I like and the rapid urbanization of Dubai is vividly shown by NASA’s Terra satellite.

All that oil makes them a lot of money doesn't it...

Dr. Erik Klemetti has a great profile of the active volcano Erta Ale on his blog ERUPTIONS

Got Magma???

Last but not least is Peter Sinclair’s Climate Denial Crock of the Week. Peter is superbly good at taking the spin out of inaccurate science reporting. This week he talks about where to get your science from, and where NOT to get it. Peter is the secret hero of a lot of scientists I think.

Two very notable publications in the clmate science world as we head into the first weekend of meteorological spring here in the Northern Hemisphere. One is a surprise to just about every climate researcher and not in a good way. The other may surprise some in the public but is not at all surprising to those who follow the real science closely.

The big surprise first.

Methane is being released in huge quantities from the rapidly warming Arctic Ocean off of Siberia. Click image to read the NSF press release.

A major finding is being announced in Science regarding methane and permafrost. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that has more than doubled since pre-industrial times. It is approximately 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Researchers have long worried that as the Earth heats up, permafrost holding methane will melt and methane will be released in great quantities. Until now, the main source of worry was wetlands in the High Arctic. Some recent research has even indicated that the possibilities of deep ocean “methane hydrates” becoming a major source of sudden methane were not that likely.

Unfortunately the real world has a different surprise. A University of Alaska research team has found that the methane beneath the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is being released in huge quantities. Indications are that the amount of methane being released is comparable to what is being released over the entire rest of the World’s oceans.

The second publication confirms something that I have mentioned several times over the past year or so here. Which is simply this: The real science published in peer reviewed journals continues to indicate that the change in Earth’s climate system is worse than the IPCC report of 2007.

In almost every area, the changes are happening faster than predicted. From sea level rise to greenhouse gas levels to the melting of arctic sea ice. A few years ago there was still questions about how Antarctica was reacting compared to the rest of the planet.

No more. The melt is on.

Dr. Peter Stott and colleagues at the UK Met. office have published a review of 110 papers in research journals published since the last IPCC report.

The evidence that humans are affecting earth’s climate is no longer unequivocal. It is OVERWHELMING.

The BBC has a good summary with more info. Click the image to read it.

Some real science from the National Academies. Click to read it. It is a very good summary of what is currently known about climate change.

Compare this with the ridiculous claims of fraud by extremist political blogs. The main claim being over a mistake in the non peer reviewed part of the IPCC report that anyone who knew much about climate science thought was a typo! I can’t write a blog post here without typos let alone 3,000 pages.

It is very telling that the two blogs feeding most of the skeptics are written by people who have NO background in science. One is a political spinner for Senator Laughing Stock (who wants to arrest Dr. Michael Mann). The other is TV weatherman who never bothered to study atmospheric physics.

As the title of this post says: Scientific facts live independent of public opinion. I’m a firm believer that the truth wins out in the end.

It always has.

Almost EVERY email I get from those who think climate change is a hoax or a conspiracy to take their gun has a mention of Al Gore in the first paragraph. Usually in the first sentence! It’s actually helpful. Nothing I say or write will make any difference, so I can use my time to better purposes.

Click image to read the NYT Op ed. by vice President Al Gore.

Has Al Gore helped or hurt getting the message out?

Without doubt he has helped. His movie an Inconvenient Truth is very accurate and powerful. The hatred he engenders is proof positive of that. It is one of the two most powerful images of climate change.

I am lucky to have met Al Gore in the White House when he was Vice President. I was invited along with other TV mets. to a weekend seminar on climate change. I told my wife afterwards that I thought he had missed his calling. He loves science far more than politics. I could tell and I still think so.

Mr. Gore (Vice President Gore I should say) has written a very good piece today in the Sunday New York Times. It is well worth a read. He has citations with it.

The other most powerful image of climate change is also just as hated and for the same reason. Here it is below.

Micheal Mann et. al Reconstruction of global temps over the past 1000 years. Click image to read the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

A quick search on the web will find hundreds of web sites calling it fraudulent and bogus. So much so that congress ask that the mot prestigious science body in America to investigate and issue a report.

They did.

In short: Good Science.

It is probably the most investigated scientific conclusion in the past 50 years. Every time it passes with flying colors.

It is a vivid picture of the dramatic warming of the last century. It also dispels in once glance the so called medieval warm period that some people have tried to use to claim the warming is natural. (It would not matter at all if there was one or not, but the warming was likely localised to the Northern Hemisphere.)

A picture is worth a thousand words and that is why it is such a hated piece of good science. So much so that Senator Laughing Stock is wanting to put Dr. Mann in jail.

What strange times we live in. Galileo would understand it well I think. Recant Mr. Mann and they will just sentence you to house arrest for the rest of your life!

It’s a bargain too good to pass up!

Chaz Firestone accompanied Ann Posegate, and I to Antarctica and his report on the Ice core project underway is in NATURE NEWS this week.

Chaz Firestone accompanied Ann Posegate and I to Antarctica.  He is a native of Toronto, and was part of our group the NSF took to Antarctica.

Weather prevented Ann and I from getting to the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet drill site named WAIS Divide. Chaz and Lee Hotz from our group did make it. They were caught there by weather too.

Chaz is former editor of the Brown University newspaper. His first hand account of the ice cores being drilled at WAIS is in NATURE NEWS this week.

These cores are vital to our understanding of climate change. They will give us a detailed account of the past climate, with accuracy never before seen. It may very well be among the most important research projects on Earth.

Indeed, it could answer the question of just how long we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, it may also tell us we are already too late to avoid a significant change to Earth’s climate.

Click the Image below to read Chaz’s Article.

click image to read the Nature News Article.

Last decade compared to 1950-1980 average From NASA GISS

It comes as no surprise to those who follow climate science but NASA announces this week that the first decade of the new millennium was the warmest on the instrumental record.

Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS is one of the worlds top climate experts. He has the answers to some common questions about the temperature record here.

NASA says 2009 was the warmest year on record in the Southern Hemisphere. Sea ice in Antarctica- Dan's picture

The National Climate Data Center in Ashville, NC and the Hadley Centre in the UK also keep track of world temperatures. All three do it slightly differently but in general have come up with the same conclusions. We are living in the warmest period in the last 150 years.

Using proxy data from things like tree rings and bore holes and several other methods, you come up with something even more dramatic. We are probably living in the warmest period in several thousand years.

NASA also says that 2009 was the second warmest year on the instrument record while in the southern hemisphere it was the warmest.

This also comes as a paper goes to press in Geophysical Research Atmospheres (AGU Journal) that puts an end once and for all to the foolishness put out last summer by a skeptic blogger claiming that the temperature record is untrustworthy. The claim was that poor siting of thermometers was causing the record to show warming that wasn’t there.

Matthew J. Menne and others at the National Climate Data Center (NOAA) have found that there is indeed a slight bias but it was already accounted for. Oh, and they also found that the bias was in the OPPOSITE direction. It was causing temps. to be reported slightly cooler than they really were!!

It’s amazing what you find out when you do real science and publish in peer reviewed journals instead of making silly claims. What is sad is the scientific illiteracy is so bad in the USA that millions of people believed the original claims hook line and sinker. I get email comments almost daily about it.

The NCDC paper is HERE.

Later,

Dan