Month: November 2015

Commencement speech from 1998.  Cut to 3:08 for jaw dropping cray.

GOP front runner Ben Carson ever-so-sensibly discards the “pyramids built by aliens” theory. Ok, so far so good.
But wait. He has his own theory, no evidence required.
Hammers “so called scientists”.

Talking Points Memo:

Dr. Ben Carson on Wednesday night confirmed his belief that the pyramids in Egypt were built for grain storage by Joseph, the Biblical figure who helped the Egyptians survive famine, even though archaeologists have concluded that the pyramids were built as tombs for the pharaohs.

“My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain,” Carson said in a 1998 speech surfaced by Buzzfeed News on Wednesday. “Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain.”

In his 1998 speech, Carson also dismissed the theory that aliens helped construct the pyramids because “it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you.”

When asked if he stands by his 1998 comments by CBS News on Wednesday night, Carson said, “It’s still my belief, yes.”

Phil Klotzbach is a Research Scientist in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University.

UPDATE: The Washington Post has covered this story – beginning as follows:

The 2015 Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone (TC) in 2015 stands as the most active season for intense tropical cyclones on record, by a large margin.

The extraordinarily busy year is most directly linked to the strong El Niño event in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which has infused unusually warm water in many parts of that basin, fueling intense storm after intense storm.

A senior oceanographer tells me:
“..attributing the record number of strong storms to el nino is bit like talking about a record-shattering heat wave and saying it is most directly linked to summer.
ENSO is a repetitive cycle, though not as regular as the seasons, and as such cannot explain why something is record-shattering.
Just as summer is obviously directly linked to the fact that it is hot, but can’t explain why it is record-shattering hot.”

It’s not just Miami. Pictures here from recent high tide in Boston.

Wall Street Journal assures us that none of this is happening, its all about fudging the data. Nothing to see here, move along.

Northendwaterfront.com:

Boston’s waterfront saw its highest tide of the year last week, known as “King Tide.” The relative position of the sun and moon created a tide nearly 2 1/2 feet higher than average. Using estimates of recent climate change research, it also showed how the cityscape will look as the average Boston Harbor height around mid-century.

The Union of Concerned Scientists wrote a post with more information about this week’s tidal flooding. It emphasizes that king tides are becoming higher, lasting longer and coming inland.

The Boston Harbor Association shared the following photos around the area. More of them can be found on Facebook.

Holman Jenkins in the Wall Street Journal:

With their latest subpoena to the Obama administration, House Republicans risk descending into a rabbit hole, albeit a useful one.

Lamar Smith, the Texas GOPer who runs the House science and technology committee, has been seeking, voluntarily and then not so voluntarily, emails and other internal communications related to a study released earlier this year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The study, by adjusting upward temperature readings from certain ocean buoys to match shipboard measurements, eliminated the “pause” in global warming seen in most temperature studies over the past 15 years. Continue reading ““This is Not Happening”. Wall Street Journal Super Sure that Evil Scientists are Fudging Data”

Daily Kos:

After heavy rains in March and August, the Atacama Desert in Chile is now swimming under a sea of unprecedented pink floral beauty. The breathtaking land that usually stays parched by a scorching sun is considered one of the driest deserts on earth. Arica, Chile, in the northern Atacama, holds the record for the world’s longest dry spell. Not a droplet of rain fell upon this South American desert for over 14 years.

The malva (or mallow) flowers on the floor of the Atacama desert bloom every five to seven years, usually coinciding with El Nino. But they have been taking advantage of this year’s particularly rainy conditions, leading to the “most spectacular blossoming of the past 18 years.”

Weather Channel:

A record 22 hurricanes or typhoons have reached Category 4 or 5 strength in the Northern Hemisphere this year.

The record was broken on Oct. 17 when Koppu became the nineteenth storm to reach this intensity prior to slamming into the Philippines as a super typhoon. Since then, Super Typhoon Champi, Hurricane Olaf and Hurricane Patricia added to the total.

The old record for the Northern Hemisphere was 18 set in 2004, according to Dr. Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University and blogger for wunderground.com. For perspective, an average of 12.5 Category 4 or 5 storms have been recorded during the 1990-2014 period, Klotzbach added.

Category 4 and 5 hurricanes or equivalent typhoons are the two most extreme classifications on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

Most of the typhoons or hurricanes in 2015 that have maxed out at Category 4 or 5 strength have been in the western, central or eastern Pacific basins. Hurricane Joaquin is the only Atlantic hurricane to reach Category 4 intensity this season.

This is different than 2004, which had four hurricanes (Charley, Frances, Ivan and Karl) contribute to the aforementioned Northern Hemisphere record of 18 Category 4 or 5 storms in a calendar year.

El Niño is likely playing a role in the very active Pacific that we’ve seen this year, partially by reducing the amount of wind shear in the central and eastern Pacific. The Pacific tropical activity can also be attributed to the impressively warm ocean water that we’ve seen.

Yale Project on Climate Change Communication:

On October 23rd, President Obama’s signature climate change program The Clean Power Plan was entered into the Federal Register. Almost immediately, 26 US states sued to stop the policy, which sets strict limits on coal-fired power plants. However, according to our model of state-level public opinion (Yale Climate Opinion Maps, 2014), a majority of the public in 23 out of the 26 states filing suits actually support setting strict limits on coal-fired power plants. Across all 26 suing states, 61% of the public supports the policy, ranging from 73% public support in New Jersey to 43% in Wyoming and West Virginia. Across all 26 suing states, only 38% of the public on average opposes the policy.

America’s history of controversy over climate change and the legal and political challenges to the Clean Power Plan might suggest that the nation is divided over regulating carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants. Our research finds the opposite: a large majority of Americans overall support the approach. Our models find that a majority of Americans in almost every state support setting strict emission limits on coal-fired power plants.

GOP candidates, and advocates, who are uncomfortable in the anti-science ghetto, have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

D. R. Tucker in Washington Monthly:

Usually, one has a better chance of being struck by lighting than hearing a Senate Republican praise one of President Obama’s policy initiatives. That’s why Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s (R-NH) recent thumbs-up to Obama’s Clean Power Plan to combat carbon pollution sent a few shockwaves through the Beltway:

New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte is at odds with GOP leadership and the vast majority of her Republican colleagues over climate-change policy heading into the 2016 elections.

Ayotte, who is girding for a difficult reelection fight, on Sunday became the first GOP senator to support President Obama’s sweeping regulation that mandates carbon-emissions cuts from the nation’s power plants.

Her announcement arrives as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and many other Republicans are ramping up their legislative and messaging battle against the EPA rules, which seek to cut nationwide pollution from power plants by 32 percent, relative to 2005 levels, by 2030.

One reason for Ayotte’s position: beer brewing. Ayotte cited the support of New Hampshire businesses for the plan, including Smuttynose Brewing Company, but also the apparel company Timberland, and Worthen Industries, which supplies adhesives and coatings to a various industries.

“It’s so important that we protect New Hampshire’s beautiful environment for our economy and for our future. After carefully reviewing this plan and talking with members of our business community, environmental groups, and other stakeholders, I have decided to support the Clean Power Plan to address climate change through clean-energy solutions that will protect our environment,” she said.

For those in the US who have been frustrated and horrified by the emergence of the far right as a force in congress, and for those outside the country that are baffled as to how certifiable loons have been able to become so powerful – this may be a ray of hope.

The problem has been that Republican majorities in state legislatures, many elected in the frenzied Tea Party election of 2010, drew legislative district boundaries guaranteed to promote the most radically right-wing elements of the Republican party. This has lead to the current paralysis that we see in the US House in particular.

Ohio, a key state, has taken a step toward changing the way redistricting is done, putting it in the hands of a bipartisan panel, rather than a partisan legislature. This is intended both for state level and national level candidates.
There are similar initiatives in the works in several other states – which will be boosted by this overwhelming result.

Columbus Dispatch:

Voters overwhelmingly backed a plan to reform Ohio’s hyper-partisan process for drawing legislative districts, and supporters are already looking ahead to passing the same reforms for congressional districts next year.

“Today’s win was an important first step, but it only got us halfway there,” said Carrie Davis, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. “We need to take these new anti-gerrymandering rules that Issue 1 applied to the General Assembly and extend them to congressional districts, which are even more gerrymandered.”

With 54 percent of precincts reporting, Issue 1, which will change the legislative redistricting process starting in 2021, when the lines are scheduled to be drawn again, was winning with 71 percent of the vote.

“Ohio voters can do amazing things when they work together. Let’s work together to reform the congressional map,” said Sandy Theis, executive director of ProgressOhio.

The vulnerability of the West Antarctic ice sheet has been known since the 1970s, at least.  Newest research only confirms that.

Carbon Brief:

If the collapse of several major glaciers on West Antarctica has started – as research suggests – the whole western side of the ice sheet could follow, a new study finds. This would add more than three metres to global sea levels over the “coming centuries to millennia”, the paper says.

The animation above shows the speed of ice loss in the study’s model simulation.

Collapse of the WAIS in response to 60 years of warming in the Amundsen Sea (shown by the dark red rectangle that appears briefly on the left-hand side at the beginning). The yellow and orange shading indicates the flow of ice towards the ocean – at hundreds, and even thousands, of metres per year. The graph below the map charts the contribution to sea level rise, which increases rapidly after around 2,000 years and then plateaus after 10,000 years. Credit: Feldmann & Levermann (2015)

Scientists have long thought the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is a particularly vulnerable part of Antarctica because it’s a marine-based ice sheet, which means a lot of what lies on land is below sea level.

Where glaciers of the WAIS meet the ocean, warm water melts them from underneath, gradually undercutting where the ice sheet sits on the land – known as the “grounding line”. The grounding line is forced back as more and more of the thinning ice sheet lifts off the land and instead floats on the ocean, where it adds to global sea levels.

Last year, two research articles caused a flurry of media reaction by suggesting that the long-term collapse of the WAIS had already begun. The studies found that melting of the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers, which drain into the Amundsen Sea, indicate they have “passed the point of no return”.

Prof Ian Joughin, lead author of one of these studies, says the new research supports his findings. He tells Carbon Brief:

This paper does confirm what we hypothesised, which was that knocking out Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers takes down the rest of WAIS.

But he thinks the changes could happen more quickly than the new study suggests:

However, I think the time scale over which this collapse will occur is too long – it’s more likely measured in centuries rather than millennia.

Why do climate deniers hate sex?

Bloomberg:

Climate change has been blamed for many things over the years. Never, until now, has anyone thought it was possible to see it as a kind of contraceptive.

Hot weather leads to diminished “coital frequency,” according to a new working paper put out by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Three economists studied 80 years of U.S. fertility and temperature data and found that when it’s hotter than 80 degrees F, a large decline in births follows within 10 months. Would-be parents tend not to make up for lost time in subsequent, cooler months.

An extra “hot day” (the economists use quotation marks with the phrase) leads to a 0.4 percent drop in birth rates nine months later, or  1,165 fewer deliveries across the U.S. A rebound in subsequent months makes up just 32 percent of the gap.

The researchers, who hail from Tulane University, the University of California-Santa Barbara, and the University of Central Florida, believe that their findings give policymakers three major things to think about.

1. Birth rates do not bounce back completely after heat waves.

That’s a problem. As summers heat up, developed countries may see already low birth rates sink even lower. Plunging birth rates can play havoc with an economy. China’s leaders recently acknowledged this by ditching the longtime one-child policy and doubling the number of children couples are allowed to have. A sub-replacement U.S. birthrate means fewer workers to pay Social Security benefits for retirees, among other consequences.

Continue reading “Climate Change the Ultimate Mood Killer: Less Sex in a Warmer World”