A Science-Organized Community: Organizing U.S. Climate Modeling (3)
A Science-Organized Community: Organizing U.S. Climate Modeling (3)
In the previous entry I set out the need of a scientific organization; that is, an organization that is designed and run to honor the tenets of the scientific method. This stands in contrast to, say, a laboratory or a center that is populated by scientists carrying out a multitude of projects, each following the scientific method. One motivation for the scientific organization is the steady stream of reports from the past two decades calling for better integration of U.S. climate activities to provide predictions to meet societal needs. At the foundation of my argument is that the way we teach, fund and reward scientific investigation has been, traditionally, fragmenting. Without addressing this underlying fragmentation, there are high barriers to achieving the needed integration. (see, Something New in the Past Decade?, The Scientific Organization, High-end Climate Science).
What does it take for an organization to adhere to the scientific method? Ultimately, I will arrive at the conclusion that it takes a diligence of management and governance, but for this entry I will continue to focus on the elements of the scientific method, and specifically the development of strategies to evaluate and validate collected, rather than individual, results.
In May I attended a seminar by David Stainforth. Stainforth is one of the principles in the community project climateprediction.net. From their website, “Climateprediction.net is a distributed computing project to produce predictions of the Earth's climate up to 2100 and to test the accuracy of climate models.” In this project people download a climate model and run the model on their personal computers, then the results are communicated back to data center where they are analyzed in concert with results from many other people.
This is one example of community science or citizen science. Other citizen science programs are Project Budburst and the Globe Program. There are a number of reasons for projects like this. One of the reasons is to extend the reach of observations. In Project Budburst people across the U.S. observe the onset of spring as indicated by different plants – when do leaves and blossoms emerge? A scientific motivation for doing this is to increase the number observations to try to assure that the Earth's variability is adequately observed – to develop statistical significance. In these citizen science programs people are taught how to observe - a protocol is developed.
Education – that is another goal of these citizen science activities, education about the scientific method. In order to follow the scientific process, we need to know the characteristics of the observations. If, as in Project Budburst, we are looking for the onset of leafing, then we need to make sure that the tree is not sitting next to a warm building or in the building’s atrium. Perhaps, there is a requirement of a measurement, for example, that the buds on a particular type of tree have expanded to a certain size or burst in some discernible way. Quantitative measurement and adherence of practices of measurement are at the foundation of developing a controlled experiment. A controlled experiment is one where we try to investigate only one thing at a time; this is a difficult task in climate science. If we are not careful about our observations and the design of our experiments, then it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to evaluate our hypotheses and arrive at conclusions. And the ability to test hypotheses is fundamental to the scientific method. Design, observations, hypothesis, evaluation, validation – in a scientific organization these things need to be done by the organization, not each individual.
Let’s return to climateprediction.net. A major goal is to obtain a lot of simulations from climate models to examine the range of variability that we might expect in 2100. The strategy is to place relatively simple models in the hands of a whole lot of people. With this strategy it is possible to do many more experiments than say one scientist or even a small team of scientists can do. Many 100,000s of simulations have been completed.
One of the many challenges faced in the model-based experiments is how to manage the model simulations to provide controlled experiments. If you think about a climate model as a whole, then there are a number of things that can be changed. We can change something “inside” of the model, for example, we can change how rough we estimate the Earth’s surface to be – maybe grassland versus forest. We can change something “outside” of the model - the energy balance, perhaps, some estimate of how the Sun varies or how carbon dioxide will change. And, still “outside” the model, we can change the details of what the climate looks like when the model simulation is started – do we start it with January 2003 data or July 2007? When you download a model from climateprediction.net, it has a unique set of these parameters. If you do a second experiment, this will also have a unique set of parameters. Managing these model configurations and documenting this information allows, well, 100000s of simulations to be run, with a systematic exploration of model variability. Experiment strategy is explained here.
What impressed me about climateprediction.net is the ability to design and execute a volunteer organization that allows rigorous investigation with of a group of thousands of people on thousands of different computers distributed all over the globe. Protocols have been set up to verify that the results are what they should be; there is confidence in the accuracy of the information collected. Here is an example where scientists are able to define an organization where the scientific method permeates the organization. Is this proof that a formalized scientific organization is possible? What are the attributes that contribute to the success of a project like climateprediction.net? Are they relevant to a U.S. climate laboratory?
Bringing this back to the scale of U.S. climate activities – in 2008 there was a Policy Forum in Science Magazine by Mark Schaefer, Jim Baker and a distinguished number of co-authors. All of these co-authors had worked at high levels in the government, and they all struggled with the desire and need to integrate U.S. climate activities. Based on their experience they posed an Earth System Science Agency made from a combined USGS and NOAA. In their article they pointed out: “The synergies among our research and monitoring programs, both space- and ground-based, are not being exploited effectively because they are not planned and implemented in an integrated fashion. Our problems include inadequate organizational structure, ineffective interagency collaboration, declines in funding, and blurred authority for program planning and implementation.” Planning and implementation in an integrated fashion, I will add – consistent with the scientific method – that is what is needed for a successful scientific investigation by an individual; it is needed to make climateprediction.net substantive; it is needed for any climate organization that is expected, as a whole, to provide integrated climate information.
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Figure 1: Location of participants in climateprediction.net. From the BBC, a sponsor of the experiment.
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ScienceDaily (Jan. 21, 2011) — New research shows that 2010 set new records for the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, expected to be a major contributor to projected sea level rises in coming decades."This past melt season was exceptional, with melting in some areas stretching up to 50 days longer than average," said Dr. Marco Tedesco, director of the Cryospheric Processes Laboratory at The City College of New York (CCNY -- CUNY), who is leading a project studying variables that affect ice sheet melting.
"Melting in 2010 started exceptionally early at the end of April and ended quite late in mid- September."
The study, with different aspects sponsored by World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the National Science Foundation and NASA, examined surface temperature anomalies over the Greenland ice sheet surface, as well as estimates of surface melting from satellite data, ground observations and models.
In an article published in Environmental Research Letters, Professor Tedesco and co-authors note that in 2010, summer temperatures up to 3C above the average were combined with reduced snowfall.
The capital of Greenland, Nuuk, had the warmest spring and summer since records began in 1873.
Bare ice was exposed earlier than the average and longer than previous years, contributing to the extreme record.
"Bare ice is much darker than snow and absorbs more solar radiation," said Professor Tedesco. "Other ice melting feedback loops that we are examining include the impact of lakes on the glacial surface, of dust and soot deposited over the ice sheet and how surface meltwater affects the flow of the ice toward the ocean."
WWF climate specialist Dr. Martin Sommerkorn said "Sea level rise is expected to top 1 metre by 2100, largely due to melting from ice sheets. And it will not stop there -- the longer we take to limit greenhouse gas production, the more melting and water level rise will continue."
Dr. Tedesco's continuing research on ice sheets can be followed on www.cryocity.org.
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So, no answer?
Again?
Okay. I will waste no more of my time attempting to debate someone who isn't at all interested in debating, but rather hoping to impress others in his camp by continually shouting the same tired, worn-out denialist fantasies and tropes that have been debunked time and again by real science. Enjoy your small but enthusiastic fan club, Rusty. ;-)
"given that greenhouse gases are well known to hold energy close to the Earth, those who deny an anthropogenic impact on weather, need to pose a viable mechanism of how the Earth can hold in more energy and the weather not be changed."
Possible answer:
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A February 2010 report (“Is There a Missing Low Cloud Feedback in Current Climate Models?”, Graeme Stehens, Atmospheric Sciences, CSU [http://www.gewex.org/images/feb2010.pdf]) states: “Radiative feedbacks involving low level clouds are a primary cause of uncertainty in global climate model projections. The feedback in models is not only uncertain in magnitude, but even its sign varies across climate models. … This reflected sunlight bias has significant implications for the cloud-climate feedback problem. The consequence is that this bias artificially suppresses the low cloud optical depth feedback in models by almost a factor of four and thus its potential role as a negative feedback.”
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Richard Lindzen (MIT Atmospheric Science Professor) states: “there is a much more fundamental and unambiguous check of the role of feedbacks in enhancing greenhouse warming that also shows that all models are greatly exaggerating climate sensitivity. Here, it must be noted that the greenhouse effect operates by inhibiting the cooling of the climate by reducing net outgoing radiation. However, the contribution of increasing CO2 alone does not, in fact, lead to much warming (approximately 1 deg. C for each doubling of CO2). The larger predictions from climate models are due to the fact that, within these models, the more important greenhouse substances, water vapor and clouds, act to greatly amplify whatever CO2 does. This is referred to as a positive feedback. It means that increases in surface temperature are accompanied by reductions in the net outgoing radiation – thus enhancing the greenhouse warming. ... Satellite observations of the earth’s radiation budget allow us to determine whether such a reduction does, in fact, accompany increases in surface temperature in nature. As it turns out, the satellite data from the ERBE instrument (Barkstrom, 1984, Wong et al, 2006) shows that the feedback in nature is strongly negative -- strongly reducing the direct effect of CO2 (Lindzen and Choi, 2009) in profound contrast to the model behavior.” [http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/20 09/07/resisting-climate-hysteria]
Warming advocates state that 1 + 1 = 2
Skeptics are saying that the scenario may actually be.
-1 + 1
That would explain why Models are not producing accurate predictions.
Incomplete info in...
Incorrect info out.
Just a thought.
I am not a Scientist.
Nor do I play one on TV.
Happy 4th to you and jamiekins!
:)
Happy 4TH to you as well.
Remember
Feed the body.
Starve the fat :O)
Although personally I think you are trying to get rid of something that does not exist in your case.
You look Marvelous!
How interesting that the above statement also ties into Global Warming.
No, actually its just a little unwanted carbon sequestering.
Snicker :O)
ScienceDaily (July 1, 2011) — Tiny marine organisms called zooplankton can use specialized adaptations that allow them to hide from predators in areas of the ocean where oxygen levels are so low that almost nothing can survive, but they may run into trouble as these areas expand due to climate change."Oxygen minimum zones are very difficult places to survive," said University of Rhode Island doctoral student Leanne Elder. "But we have discovered that these tiny animals have adapted in two specialized ways. First, they suppress their metabolism, which is very much like hibernation in other animals. Second, while converting food into energy normally requires large amounts of oxygen, these zooplankton use a different process -- anaerobic glycolysis -- which allows them to use only small amounts."
The tiny animals use the oxygen minimum zones as refuges from predators, migrating vertically down into the zone during the day and returning at night to feed in the oxygen- and food-rich areas closer to the surface.
However, oxygen minimum zones are predicted to expand into shallower waters as global warming continues, which will force the zooplankton into a narrow band of water during the night and making them susceptible to their main predators -- fish. If this causes a population crash in these animals, it will have impacts all the way up the food chain.
A resident of Cranston, R.I., Elder presented the results of her research July 1 at the annual conference of the Society for Experimental Biology in Glasgow, Scotland.
Although the oxygen minimum zone provides a refuge for zooplankton, spending time there does have a cost to the animals: anaerobic glycolysis results in a build up of acid that they can only dispose of when they return to surface waters. Elder said that future research needs to be done on how the reduction in oxygen- rich habitat will affect these animals and hence the whole ocean ecosystem.
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That didn't answer the question at all. Dr. Rood asks contrarians to explain just how the Earth can possibly hold in more energy and yet the weather remain unchanged, but the link you provided only talks about how climate models may be underestimating the cooling effects of clouds. In fact, not only does it not answer Dr. Rood's question, it says that the planet shouldn't be as warm as it is.
In the deep vertical column that most of the hiding and surfacing occurs,I highly doubt there is a lack of Oxygen at the surface.
In the more shallow areas that the higher temps would occur, the percentage of such hiding and surfacing would seem to be relatively nil to begin with,(as a whole of the population)
It does give a possible answer.
And please (with context) point out where the link states the Planet shouldnt be as warm.
I may have overlooked something and would like to reread the part you are ref.
Not to mention the fact that the Zooplankton have evolved the ability to do such because of seasonal changes in water temps.
Thus when the water seasonally changes back to cooler temps the Zooplankton enters its seasonal reproductive prime.
That study sounds like studying; if you drop something,(will it fall?)
My tax $ wasted again.(I assume the study was not privately funded)
they have evolved big time...
Plankton is always trying to cause problems for SpongeBob and Patrick....but to date, his plans to steal the secret ingredients to the Krabby Patty have been foiled.....
-1 + 1= NORMAL
Yes and no Aamy.
Science keeps finding out that the balances in nature seem to counteract the seemingly bad results of any change.
I am going to try and find a story about an invasion of a foreign life form in the Potomac River actually saved the river.
A case of not understanding all we dont know.
Science keeps finding out that the balances in nature seem to counteract the seemingly bad results of any change.
I am going to try and find a story about an invasion of a foreign life form in the Potomac River actually saved the river.
A case of not understanding all we dont know.
thanks for the answer, spathy!
:)
So...you're saying Rusty is avoiding my question because he doesn't have an adequate or reasonable response? Okay, I'll buy that. Thanks for the clarification.
Ummm...I don't recall FLWaterfront. Eagle101 was a hard-right conservative. Nothing wrong with that, but he seemed to allow his ideology to blind him to the truth about science. Calusakat? Is that an earlier incarnation of you? (And, for that matter, was SeaStep?) All I know is that the name means he/she likely lives in SWFL, so we have that much in common, if nothing else.
Do you mind clarifying that? Or at least providing another hint? Or two? Or three? My "past few days here" have been spent doing what I've spent the past 20 months here: interacting with others about climate and weather using the same one and only handle I've ever used here.
But the opposite happened. Swans, ducks and geese began coming back to the area.
Rybicki said the change was first brought to her attention by the late Jackson Abbott, a noted birder and wildlife artist, who lived in the area and walked along the Potomac nearly every day, recording his observations.
"When the hydrilla came, it was a humongous change for his waterfowl counts," Rybicki said. "He called me, and said this is phenomenal. From that day forward, he got me interested in the waterfowl aspect."
In the study, published last year in the journal Limnology and Oceanography, Rybicki and fellow USGS scientist Jurate Landwehr analyzed underwater grass and waterfowl data for the tidal freshwater portion of the Potomac river from 1959-2001.
Using techniques to quantify diversity and the amount of underwater grass species within various grass beds in the river, they found that hydrilla did not eliminate native species as originally feared.
Their research showed that as hydrilla expanded, the overall diversity of the grass beds increased. While exotics, particularly hydrilla, still dominate the beds, the study found that the proportion of area covered by exotic plants has gradually decreased over time.
The researchers also compared the grass bed results to the number of waterfowl observed along the river during the Audubon Society's annual Christmas Bird Count.
Of the 35 species of waterfowl observed, 30 showed increased counts from 1982 to 2001. Of those, counts for 29 species more than doubled, and 17 increased by more than tenfold.
Some waterfowl eat the grasses, while others eat clams and other animals found in association with the beds.
The Potomac findings could be good news for other parts of the Bay region. Much of the return of underwater grasses around the Bay since the early 1980s, when grass coverage hit its low point, has consisted of nonnative species.
"The exotics are here, and I think they are here to stay," Rybicki said. "But they still provide habitat, it appears, from our analysis of the long-term Christmas Bird Count observations."
While exotic species of aquatic grasses may provide habitat, stabilize shorelines and clarify water, Rybicki cautioned that they still can compete with native species and grow to densities that impede navigation. "Because of the complexity of ecosystems, we must be cautious in generalizing about exotic and native species and be careful about extrapolating these results from the Potomac River to other systems where these findings have not been tested," she said.
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Now remember.
These good results are mostly rare.
But just a reminder that one thing bad here doesnt mean its bad there.
But that was over 20 years ago and I cant seem to find any results on those efforts.
Good post Aamy.
I must admit I have tried to be more kind in my posts.
I unfortunately have a problem with consistency.
But I have at least tried.
Edit: Disagree w/ McB
Judge rules polar bears still 'threatened'
A U.S. District Court on Thursday upheld a Bush-era decision that polar bears are a threatened species, despite challenges by the state of Alaska and others seeking to strip the bear of its protection.
Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to protect the bear because of the melting of the Arctic sea ice was well supported and that opponents failed to demonstrate that the listing was irrational.
“Plaintiffs’ challenges amount to nothing more than competing views about policy and science,” Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote.
The polar bear was the first species added to the Endangered Species List solely because of the threat from global warming.
The status of polar bears became an issue in 2005 after the Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace filed a petition arguing that shrinking ice impaired the bears' ability to catch prey and could lead to their extinction. In December 2006, then-Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne declared the bears "threatened," rather than endangered and in imminent danger of extinction. Endangered and threatened species receive the same protections, such as protection of critical habitats, population recovery assistance and prohibition of harm to the species or its habitat. For threatened species, however, the government can reduce protections or allow exemptions.
If the bears were listed as endangered, new power plants could be blocked, as well as other sources of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming. It also could make petroleum exploration more difficult.
As a result, Kempthorne created a "special rule" stating that the Act would not be used to set climate policy or limit greenhouse gas emissions, pesticides, mercury and other pollutants outside of the Arctic that harm the bear. The Obama administration upheld this policy.
The state of Alaska and hunting groups argued that the listing was unnecessary because the bear is protected by other laws.
“With the population of the species in decline, the needless hunting of them for sport must not be an option,” said Jeffrey Flocken, D.C. Office Director, International Fund for Animal Welfare. “As pro-trophy hunting organizations continue the fight to skirt existing laws and import polar bear trophies, today’s decision serves to reinforce the fact that the species is in jeopardy. The short-term special interests of hunting groups must never take precedence over long-term conservation efforts for the protection of polar bears.”
Currently, conservation groups are challenging Kempthorne's special rule in court.
“This decision is an important affirmation that the science demonstrating that global warming is pushing the polar bear toward extinction simply cannot be denied,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “While we are disappointed that the polar bear will not receive the more protective endangered status it deserves, maintaining Endangered Species Act listing for the polar bear is a critical part of giving this species back its future.”
Studies show that rising temperatures are quickly melting the Arctic sea ice, forcing polar bears inland. In September 2007, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey released a comprehensive nine-volume analysis of the science and reached a dire forecast: Two-thirds of the bear's habitat would disappear by 2050.
Polar bears are experts at hunting ringed seals and other prey on sea ice. But they are so unsuccessful on land that they spend their summers fasting, losing more than 2 pounds a day. Overall, scientists believe the global population of 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears remains robust. But virtually all polar bear experts predict rapid population declines in the Arctic, which is warming faster than anyplace else in the world, changing too rapidly for the bears to adapt and find another source of food.
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586. PurpleDrank 9:33 PM GMT on July 01, 2011
how many people have you ignored Neaop? just curious
(AFP) – 3 days ago
WASHINGTON — Greenland's ice sheet melted the most it has in over a half century last year, US government scientists said Tuesday in one of a series of "unmistakable" signs of climate change.
"The world continues to warm," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a briefing paper for reporters.
"Multiple indicators, same bottom-line conclusion: consistent and unmistakable signal from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the oceans."
An annual climate survey, which includes work by scientists from 45 countries, said that ice sheet in Greenland melted at its highest rate since at least 1958, when similar data first became available.
Arctic sea ice shrank to its third smallest area on record, while the world's alpine glaciers shrank for the 20th straight year, the study said.
In line with previous studies, the survey said that 2010 was also one of the hottest years on record.
Last year was either tied for the hottest or the second hottest on record, depending on methodology. But all methodologies used showed the temperature to be at least 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5 Celsius) above the average recorded in the three decades through 1990.
The survey noted that 2010 was exceptional for its extreme events, including a deadly heat wave in Russia, floods in Pakistan that displaced more than 20 million people and record snowfall in several US cities.
A series of studies have voiced alarm at the rapid pace of melting in the Arctic Ocean, which could lead to a rise in sea levels that threatens low-lying coastal areas and islands.
The Oslo-based Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program said in May that warming in the Arctic was on track to lift sea levels by up to 5.3 feet (1.6 meters) by 2100, a far steeper jump than predicted a few years ago.
Many environmentalists have been disappointed at the pace of diplomacy to fight climate change, with few expecting a major agreement at the next major UN-led talks opening in South Africa in late November.
Former US vice president Al Gore recently accused President Barack Obama of failing to show leadership on climate change, saying that poor coverage of the media had given credibility to skeptics of global warming.
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