More heat means more water vapor which means more extreme weather

by DVIDSHUB

New York Times front-page story: In Weather Chaos, a Case for Global Warming! – Trenberth: “It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability. Nowadays, there’s always an element of both.”
[Via Climate Progress]

The floods battered New England, then Nashville, then Arkansas, then Oklahoma — and were followed by a deluge in Pakistan that has upended the lives of 20 million people.

The summer’s heat waves baked the eastern United States, parts of Africa and eastern Asia, and above all Russia, which lost millions of acres of wheat and thousands of lives in a drought worse than any other in the historical record.

Seemingly disconnected, these far-flung disasters are reviving the question of whether global warming is causing more weather extremes.

The collective answer of the scientific community can be boiled down to a single word: probably.

That’s the opening of “In Weather Chaos, a Case for Global Warming!“ It is one of the better recent major media articles on global warming and extreme weather — and the best front page New York Times climate article in years.

The NYT is clearly making a major statement since not only is this “above the fold,” but it takes up most of the front page with large photos of what’s happening in Pakistan and Russia and the U.S. (see Russian Meteorological Center: “There was nothing similar to this on the territory of Russia during the last one thousand years in regard to the heat.” and Hottest* July in RSS satellite record, record floods swamp Pakistan, U.S. set 1480 temperature records in past two months, and 2010 breaks 2007 record for most nations setting all-time temperature records):

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The water cycle will be accelerated due to a warmer climate, putting more water in the air because the higher temperatures allow more water to be carried. Of course, water vapor is an even greater greenhouse gas that CO2 but, unlike CO2, it precepitates out as rain and snow.

So, what this means is that more water carried in the atmosphere will be dropped as rain or snow on the landscapes. One of the expected signs of climate change would be more extreme precipitation events. We saw record snows in the US this winter and noe amazing rains in Pakistan this summer.

We can not prove today that these events are due to climate change but they are the sorts of events we would expect to see. And we will expect to see more of them in the future.

Once in a century event may happen much more often.

And the thing to remember is that scientists are, as a group, very conservative about what they state, If they get it wrong, that could be the end of their career. As the blog post states, when commenting on why scientists often require more proof than people:

That is a distinction always worth remembering. The scientific literature is primarily filled with that which can be proven — and most climate scientists are unwilling to make public statements that go beyond what can be proven. That is a key reason so much of the scientific literature is conservative or understates what is likely to come on our current path of unrestricted emissions. And that goes double for reviews of the scientific literature that must be signed off on word for word by major governments, like the IPCC.

The tough thing is that these changes can happen pretty fast and they will probably not return to normal, even if we magically reduced the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere back to pre-industrial age levels. There is already so much CO2 and excess heat in the system that it could take hundreds of years to shed it.

The areas of the world that will most likely have to deal with these extremes are also some of the most politically unstable so things will not be easy.

I believe that we can solve almost anything if we actually work together and decide to. Perhaps now, more people will be willing to help instead of hinder.

[Listening to: Knowledge from the album "1,039 / Smoothed Out Slappy Hours (Deluxe Version)" by Green Day]

Very warm today

Heat Warning
[Via Cliff Mass Weather Blog]

It is going to be very hot today…in fact, several degrees warmer than some of the forecasts. Many locations in western Washington will get into the mid-90s.
A number of stations…such as Sea Tac…are running ten degrees above yesterday (Sea Tac got to 86 yesterday). The profiler at San Point (Seattle) shows easterly flow aloft and temperatures of roughly 6 C (11F) warmer than yesterday (see plot)

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That was yesterday, where the high at SeaTac got to 95°F (beat the record by 5 degrees set in 2006). It is not 2 PM yet and SeaTac is already at 95°F so I expect today may be worse. It will still be another high record.

By Wednesday we should be 20 ° cooler.

Video of Gulf of Mexico rigs

from The Swordpress

While working on my latest Message to my Mother, I ran across this website which had done some wonderful graphic analysis of the number of oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Using data from the government, he put together a video looking that the location, depth and time for currently active rigs in the Gulf. That is , rigs that are currently installed and have not been removed or abandoned.

And these are only the ones in American waters.

He was able to do this using publicly available data. A nice example of how an ‘amateur’ can create something of real beauty and usefulness. Open access to data makes this possible.

Human interactions with data produces information, whose transformation creates knowledge which permits an action to be taken.

Message to my Mom III

My mother sent me a link to an article in the Chronicle entitles Shallow water, deep anxiety . It discussed the de facto moratorium on new drilling in the Gulf even by shallow platforms, Lots of new paperwork was preventing rig operators from starting new wells in the Gulf. Lots of ‘this government delay is costing me money” sorts of quotes. It was written to really support the idea that the government is purposefully preventing any new oil rigs from being built, presumably for some nefarious reason.

I did a little checking and believe I have an explanation that is not nearly as nefarious and one which the actual data, rather than anecdotes, seems to support. Here is my reply to my mother, with some editing to make it a little more coherent.

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Well, I call confirmation bias ;-) The article appears to presents facts in a misleading way to keep angry those that already are. Here is an alternative view that I got from reading his article and doing a little research.

The article buries the lede in a big way – the new regulations apply to ALL rigs, new and existing. [That is how I read the new rules. Existing wells have to supply an Application for Permit to Modify (APM). Maybe someone who is a real expert can help me. The fact remains that a lot of APMs have to be dealt with. RBG]

“Officials with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management say they have issued many permits for work on existing shallow-water wells since April. They deny any effort to stall the approval of permits for new wells under drilling rules, called notices to lessees, issued in June.”

Catch that – existing wells.

The agency – BOEMRE, a brand new one by the way as the MMS is no longer – has to approve all of them. There are 45 new ones, from the article and almost 4000 active ones, which many if not all have to send in new forms (mostly one called NTL-05 which certifies the blowout preventer or NTL-06, which deals with blowout scenarios):

from NOAA

So, a new agency, whose rules did not even exist until the middle of June, has to deal with the approval of thousands of new forms. If there are 4000 existing wells and 45 new ones then one out a hundred of those forms will be for new wells. 99 out of a hundred will be for existing wells. And the author spends his time on the 1, not the 99.

Finally according to the agency’s website, – which is updated every business day – only 4 new shallow well requests have been pending since June 8 and one has been approved. So where are the other 40? The agency has approved 68 modified permits in shallow water since June 8 with only 3 pending.

The narrative of the article feels a little biased to me. I see no evidence of stalling or slowing down the approval process to prevent new wells.

I would call this another misleading MSM article. It presents information in a misleading way to keep people angry who already are angry, not to inform them.

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I am not 100% sure just how many wells have to get new permits but it seems to me that the number is substantially greater than the number of new rigs. It makes sense that the agency is swamped with a lot of new permits that have to be examined. But there does not seem to be a huge number pending permits for shallow wells backed up in the system.
That is the real question I have. Why have so few new well permits even been submitted? The agency’s data does not show a backlog of submitted forms. The article implies it is the agency that is slowing stuff down but how can the agency approve permits that have not even been submitted?
I understand how government bureaucracy can slow stuff down. But in this case there was a horrible accident that killed 11 people, injured 17 and spilled a huge amount of oil into the Gulf doing billions in damage. A little bit of caution should be called for. Asking news wells to get the BOP certified and to provide a realistic scenario of how they would deal with a catastrophic failure seems like a reasonable thing to ask.

More openness would be nice

 by Ivan Mlinaric

Hauser inquiry: privacy v reliable evidence:
[Via Butterflies and Wheels]

Harvard is keeping its findings secret, which leaves other researchers unsure which of Hauser’s experiments can be relied on.

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While I mentioned this as an example of how science should work, it is also an example of how it does actually work, sometimes not for the best.

For some reason, Harvard is not really releasing the full results. So one paper has been retracted but it is still unclear if any others will be. That is the problem with these sorts of events, especilly ones caused by confirmation bias.

The entire body of work is now put into question. Even though he may be right on many things, without the supporting evidence – and strong evidence at that – even his good work may be down the tubes.

But we do not know for sure. This uncertainty is not really helpful, although I expect it will dissipate as time goes on. Either Harvard will release everything or people will repeat the work.

This is why it is so important for researchers to avoid confirmation bias, to really work hard at making sure the evidence really does strongly support the hypothesis you say it does. Because once you have a reputation for shoddy work like this, then everything you may ever have done comes under scrutiny.

When a scientist creates a Cargo Cult World – in this case one in which lower primates have similar cognitive skills as humans – it can often be a career ending event. If one is lucky, a rapid mea culpa and a lot of hard work may restore some respect.  That is why we work so hard trying to keep confirmation bias and other logical fallacies at bay.

As I found out at CalTech, the difference between a Nobel Prize and fraud can sometimes be very small, especially when working at the bleeding edge of science. But the Nobel Prize goes to those who were right. So you had better do everything you can to be correct.

And that includes having the data for others to examine. Otherwise all there will be is a Cargo Cult World with a single inhabitant.

 

Getting rid of traffic lights makes for safer intersections

Top-down-anything does not work (videos):

Part 1: Roads unfit for people:

 

Part 2: Roads FiT for People:

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When the power goes out and traffic lights no longer work, there are fewer backed up cars at intersections around where I live. It also seems like people are more likely to let someone in from an uncontrolled side street rather then cut them off.

People are generally more courteous and careful when they worry about the loss of the red light. But I have to think it works best at a 2 way intersection. A T intersection might not be as well managed.

However, all of my intuitive feelings about this really went out the window when I saw how people dealt with a quite complex intersection of 5 streets and no light. It was not terminal gridlock or almost wrecks in the middle. It was almost like a ballet.

Now the main drag down our city center often gets completely backed up the whole length. The city even built north and south bypasses to relieve some of the stress. I wonder if simply removing all the traffic signals would be helpful?

Individual approaches achieved an emergent sense of safety. And the woman who initially thought it would be a terrible solution gleefully changed her mind when what was normally a 20 minute trip home became 5 minutes.

Traffic lights are one of those things we just know are required for safe driving. – that without them there would be chaos. But, at least in certain areas, they may actually reduce traffic and road rage.

Being able to accept this counter-intuitive idea requires quite a large shift in perspective, a lot of courage and a real willingness to believe that the ‘common sense’ view could be wrong.

I would not have thought this would work but the success seen in the British city and the obvious enthusiasm of the residents is pretty amazing. And people were making  eye contact and waving to each other – showing real courtesy.

The stats show that before the light shut-off, 1700 cars went through the main intersection every hour with tremendous delays. Now, over 2000 cars go through an hour with no traffic lights. In 8 months, only 2 fender-benders and no injuries or pedestrian accidents.

Many people would not be willing to accept the bursting of this particular Cargo Cult World but these films have convinced me that it might be worth a shot in some areas.