Ace o’Science
Watching some of the high-traffic wingnuts “do” science is a guilty pleasure, particularly when “done” by folks like Ace o’Play-doh and Don Bob Surber, both of whose scientific backgrounds appear to have been mostly garnered from careful study of NCIS reruns. Usually, their pseudo-scientific expertise on climate change is applied to a news report that it snowed in Las Vegas, or a rare southern sighting of the abominable snowman in a shopping mall in Mobile, or melting polar icecaps on Mars where there are no SUVs. (“Explain that, libs!”)
The latest bauble to catch the eye of Ace and Don Bob has the tantalizing title “Global Warming: Scientists’ Best Predictions May Be Wrong.” With undisguised glee, Ace quotes the opening paragraph of the Science Daily article he links:
No one knows exactly how much Earth’s climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study suggests scientists’ best predictions about global warming might be incorrect.
This is, of course, an occassion for Ye Olde Ace to stop playing World of Warcraft long enough to watusi around his garden-level efficiency and decide to order in a Papa John’s “The Meats” Pie for a celebratory mid-day snack. Hell, this would be reason for Ace o’Play-Doh to go buy a big honking H3 and live in it with the engine running 24/7, right?
Sadly, no!™
Here’s an abstract of the study in question, and it pretty much confirms what the Science Daily article and this article said it said. The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum was a period around 55 million years ago when global temperatures increased 5–9 °C within a few thousand years. What the scientists did was study sediment cores in seabeds around the world to estimate the amount of carbon released prior to the PETM, and they found that carbon dioxide levels increased 70% prior to the PETM.
Now, here’s the money quote from the abstract:
At accepted values for the climate sensitivity to a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration, this rise in CO2 can explain only between 1 and 3.5 °C of the warming inferred from proxy records. We conclude that in addition to direct CO2 forcing, other processes and/or feedbacks that are hitherto unknown must have caused a substantial portion of the warming during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum.
Translated into simple English (in the event that Ace or Don Bob Surber are moving their lips and scratching their foreheads while reading this post), the study doesn’t say that carbon dioxide doesn’t cause global warming. In fact, the study relied on “accepted” values for the correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and global warming. The entire point of the study was that smaller increases might result in more global warming than predicted, particularly if there is a “feedback” process involved. In other words, it’s not a question of whether the planet is fucked, it’s a question of whether it may be fucked worse than we thought.
It’s almost as if the editors of Science Daily had thrown down a banana peel in front of Ace and Don Bob and were hiding behind an office plant waiting for those two stooges, and an army of other wingnut bloggers, to slip and fall on it. I can almost hear the editors saying “Ya think if we ran a report that Elvis didn’t die from barbiturates, these numbskulls would run around waving that report about as proof that Elvis is still alive?”
Fisrt!? (sorry).
So, if someone were to post a correction on ol’ Ace’s blog how long before it was deleted???
55 million years ago, huh?
You mean as the world was recovering from the K-T event, when the entire ecosystem was thrown off kilter and nature probably had to restore life quickly to the entire planet? When the carbon sequestered at the bottom og the ocean might be thrown violently back into the atmos- and biospheres, where they were consumed by what meager living creatures there were? Which might, you know, create a massive carbon bloom as things died off, were absorbed by other creatures and created a population boom?
melting polar icecaps on Mars where there are no SUVs.
Sez who? Them Barsoomians need to get around somehow and let’s see you fit four arms and two swords in some little rice-burning wimpmobile.
LOL! Wingnuts one emotional mess after another.
What gets me is Ace seems to think that “best predictions” somehow means the scientists are hoping for more global warming. Idiot.
Sez who? Them Barsoomians need to get around somehow and let’s see you fit four arms and two swords in some little rice-burning wimpmobile.
That John Carter Ford dealership is doing quite well, and not by selling the Focus.
Ace has done this before. It goes down like this:
1) Complimicated sciency story published, has words in it that say “global” and “warming” and “dispute.”
2) Ace links to story, saying that global warming is in dispute, and thus isn’t real.
3) Ace gets Hehindeed!ed by Ye Olde Perfessor, Surber, Malkin, and the rest of the Krazy Krew.
4) Librul bloggers point out to Ace that his reading of the article was, in fact, the complete opposite of being correct.
5) Ace responds to his critics by noting that the fact that he read the article wrong means the scientific community has egg on their faces because they aren’t super sure enough about global warming to make the point clear to Ace.
6) Ace gets Hehindeed!ed by Ye Olde Perfessor, Surber, Malkin, and the rest of the Krazy Krew.
7) Victory declared.
8) Profit! (from all the yahoos who click on each and every link, thus creating the single biggest Ponzi scheme since Bernie Madoff, creating nothing and yet somehow earning someone a buck)
That John Carter Ford dealership
I distinctly remember presidents Carter and Ford, but I must have slept through the John administration.
What’s also funny about all this is that, politically, the wingers are pushing a thesis that’s way past its due date. Pretty much nobody that matters is anti-environment anymore, in words if not in deeds. Business, from the biggest corps down to the SMBs, are on board with the green wave. Sometimes from a PR perspective, but also because energy costs money and saving it is good for business. The culture has actually changed considerably on this subject.
So it begs the question, who do Ace and Don Bob think they’re speaking for, except themselves and a dwindling pack of rage boys who still thrill at the idea of ripping through fossil fuels as a fuck-you to the 60s or something? Being an environmental Luddite certainly won’t get you laid these days, not that these guys had a shot anyway.
So it begs the question, who do Ace and Don Bob think they’re speaking for[?]
People who think that a good ol’ boy has common sense worth more than them fancy scientists with their degrees and their training and their actual work.
Ammunition for the next time you hear a wingnut drag out the “But back in the Seventies the scientists all thought the planet was cooling hurr hurr” routine.
Short answer: No, they didn’t.
Yeah … you know, I see that Malkin, who is both smarter and meaner than these clowns, is jumping onto the Goldman-bashing bandwagon .. which is a much better tack for the right to take politically than manning the barricades against scientific consensus.
Them Barsoomians need to get around somehow and let’s see you fit four arms and two swords in some little rice-burning wimpmobile.
Huh! Four arms, you say?
How much do you think they’d work for? Less than the Vietnamese, maybe? We’re running out of places to outsource to.
Wait, so is the Palaeocene now supposed to have been less than six thousand years ago?
Or are the wingnuts actually accepting this “55 million years ago” stuff now?
Well, it’s a start I guess.
I think I mixed at least eight metaphors and used a dozen cliches in that last comment … need coffee.
But the earth is only 6000 years old! Surely God can just wave his magic wand and make bad heat wave go away! If God didn’t want us to drive Hummers, he wouldn’t have put that Hummertree in the Garden!
I think I mixed at least eight metaphors and used a dozen cliches in that last comment … need coffee.
That’s okay, I actually enjoyed the imagery it painted in my head, it was sort of like Barnum and Bailey meets the French Revolution, on sailboats.
The “begs the question” abuse though set off my whoooop whooop alarms big time however:
http://begthequestion.info/
Surely God can just wave his magic wand and make bad heat wave go away!
I’m surprised the religious reich hasn’t gone there in real life.
Or maybe they have and I’m blissfully unaware of the fact.
ooops.
Doughy would never eat a planet with that many vegetables on it.
Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden … in style.
Don Surber, Dorklord of Mars?
Piss Off Libs(TM) was supposed to be a self-sustaining political movement. Just as long as they were winning elections. Whoops on that.
BTW, the same thing applies to stimulus spending. Businesses (particularly construction, of course) are big on getting stimulus funds because, um, duh. Meanwhile, these Mensas prance around like getting oodles of dollars for government projects will sink businesses, because shut up that’s why.
DN – yeah the stimulus thing is hilarious. But these guys are buffoons – it was the GOP governors who made a big show of turning down the money that was really something to see … like, did they think that would go over well with any of their constituents?
D. Aristophanes–Actually you could pretend the “bandwagon” and the “barricade” are both part of the same metaphor, from some metaphoric setting in which members of a cadre must select between riding on the bandwagon in the big parade or manning the barricades against attacks. You feel they’re better off on the wagon than at the barricades, which is probably true.
I must have slept through the John administration.
Clinton, if you believe the right wing.
If my summer-term freshman comp class is any indication, they and their ilk have a rapt audience in bimbettes looking for a hot controversy to write a very, very bad essay about.
Yeah, I said “ilk” and I stand by it.
If my summer-term freshman comp class is any indication, they and their ilk have a rapt audience in bimbettes looking for a hot controversy to write a very, very bad essay about.
Yeah, I said “ilk” and I stand by it.
You have bimbettes in your class who are looking for a hot controversy, and you’re standing by an ilk? Yeesh.
Actually, that could be fairly controversial.
Or maybe they have and I’m blissfully unaware of the fact.
They have, and quite frequently. It usually centers around the idea that events of TEH END OF TEH WORLD are to be found in the Book of Revelations and will happen on god’s timeline, thankyouverymuch.
‘Barricade’ would be a good word for a succession of mobile pubs.
You have bimbettes in your class who are looking for a hot controversy, and you’re standing by an ilk?
Must be gay.
As you know, ecce homo, ergo ilk.
“Scientists’ best predictions might be wrong” has to be the most uninformative statement ever. I mean, that’s what science (and prediction) is all about. You make your predictions and you test them. If they’re wrong, you adjust your theory to take into account the new evidence and make new predictions, which are also likely to be wrong.
As you know, ecce homo, ergo ilk.
“Behold” indeed. I always thought that’s what went on at Elk’s clubs.
I remember for the last 15 years at least asking people with a very pained expression on my face how they could justify the statement that making our energy supply more efficient and cost-effective could be harmful to business.
It seems from my memory that none of those people could actually be bothered to stick around to answer that question. It’s funny now that reality has made asses out of them.
Beholding them homos at the Elk club, fershure!
I remember for the last 15 years at least asking people with a very pained expression on my face how they could justify the statement that making our energy supply more efficient and cost-effective could be harmful to business.
What’s also funny is how little connection to the real business Pantload et al seem to have: it’s hard to find a CEO who isn’t interested in driving waste and inefficiencies out of their operating model.
Or getting stimulus dollars for projects in the middle of a recession.
Well everyone knows getting money for projects when you’re in the middle of a recession never results in new jobs–only defense contractors can create jobs with government money!
it was sort of like Barnum and Bailey meets the French Revolution, on sailboats. IN SPACE!
fixed
I must have slept through the John administration.
Clinton, if you believe the right wing.
AKA the “johnson” administration.
I’d even stretch the Elvis-conspiracy metaphor a bit further.
“Ya think if we ran a report that Elvis didn’t die *only* from barbiturates *but also from being fat and depressed*, these numbskulls would run around waving that report about as proof that Elvis is still alive *because of peanut butter and shooting at televisions*?”
It’s only fair that Goopers practice epic buggery on science – in a recent survey, a whopping six percent of scientists identified themselves as Republicans, so it’s not like they’re not returning the favor.
Climate-science has had its worst-case scenarios exceeded for years now, so eventually there ought to be an Apocolypse-Event-Horizon where they finally overshoot the mark … at least I sure the fuck HOPE so.
It’s come close to 90° F. in Alaska repeatedly in July so far, & the forest-fires are plentiful … it may be cool down here but Way Up North? Yeah, not so’s you’d notice.
D_N @ 16:09:
8. Profit!
Oh, & speaking of Alaska … something black & gooey is drifting around up there & nobody knows what the hell it is.
Fun Ahoy!
something black & gooey is drifting around up there & nobody knows what the hell it is.
I hope they sent some samples to Miskatonic U.
As you know, ecce homo, ergo ilk.
Non-ergodic elk.
I remember for the last 15 years at least asking people with a very pained expression on my face how they could justify the statement that making our energy supply more efficient and cost-effective could be harmful to business.
You haven’t noticed the right wing’s flight from the pro-corporate, greed-is-good, my-CEO-right-or-wrong mentality to their new stance as sticking up for the little guy against the combined evil forces of rapacious capitalism and insidious socialism? They don’t care about business any more, and now that all those leftist ideas are actually kind of good for business, why then, business must be as evil as the lefties who are helping it.
Oh, & speaking of Alaska … something black & gooey is drifting around up there & nobody knows what the hell it is.
Those are Sarah Palin’s tears.
Non-ergodic elk
But look at how many homos those horns could help!
melting polar icecaps on Mars where there are no SUVs.
I heard that thoat crap was the real problem.
So much win in this thread!
Ace o’Play-doh
Heh… looks like something designed by Giger… That’s why I call it a facehugger.
The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum was a period around 55 million years ago when global temperatures increased 5–9 °C within a few thousand years.
In Eocene times, in present day Greenland, fossils of deciduous trees with leaves the size of dinner plants were found- the plants had to take advantage of the “midnight sun”, then thrive through six months of winter. This guy would be able to speak about it at some length, even though I can’t be arsed finding a linky.
Oh, & speaking of Alaska … something black & gooey is drifting around up there & nobody knows what the hell it is.
I hope they sent some samples to Miskatonic U
I, for one, welcome our new shoggoth overlords.
Doughy would never eat a planet with that many vegetables on it.
Brings to mind a Doughy Galactus.
” I am working on eating a new planet, but the Simpsons are on. If there are any readers out there that can deliver a planet to me…”
I distinctly remember presidents Carter and Ford, but I must have slept through the John administration.
Didn’t miss much, four years down the, er, “tubes”.
I hope they sent some samples to Miskatonic U.
Actually, soon-to-be-ex-Governor-but-a-shoo-in-for-Preznit-in-2012 Sarah Palin asked for them to be sent to Wassamatta U. She has a soft spot in her head – uh, heart – for Wassamatta because of their leading edge research into an Anti-Anti-Missile-Missile-Missile, which she will use to protect Alaska from Putin’s head looking over the horizon at them.
jim said,
July 16, 2009 at 20:43
Oh, & speaking of Alaska … something black & gooey is drifting around up there & nobody knows what the hell it is.
Fun Ahoy!
“The Raft” scared hell outta me…who knew King was prescient?
I worked on JAG, and was around for the first two seasons of its spinoff, NCIS.
We always worked very hard to see that what we showed on screen was in accord with the facts.
We are professionals, and I very much resent the notion that we would descend to the slipshod mental level of a Jonah Goldberg.
After all, even working in TV, we still have some shred of self respect.
“Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden … in style.”
Actually, they were driven in a Plymouth — “And God, in his Fury, drove them from the garden.”
Ed
re: black arctic goo
hmm. an organism that thrives in warmer arctic waters. Lowering the albedo of the Arctic to lower than than of even seawater, which is already very absorbent. It covers the ice, absorbing sunlight and hastening melting. This might be one of those unforeseen factors that models can’t anticipate.
Every time the climate scientists have been wrong, it’s always been on the side of less change.
I’ve never heard of a study coming out saying “scientists say global warming happening slower than predicted.”
it’s not a question of whether the planet is fucked, it’s a question of whether it may be fucked worse than we thought.
Worse than you thought.
I’ve known we’re fucked for 20 years.
At this point it’s about destroying THE bomb, so life “after us” has a fair shot.
Ed,
+1 internet. That was great.
I worked on JAG, and was around for the first two seasons of its spinoff, NCIS.
Love your work, Green Eagle. (Seriously.)
Surber’s piece is a remarkable. He quotes from a Reuters story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSSP116150
“We now believe that the CO2 did not cause all the warming, that there were additional factors,” said Richard Zeebe, an oceanographer with the University of Hawaii at Manoa.”
So Surber goes into a AGW is the suxxor rant.
But fails to include the next few paragraphs:
“There may have been an initial trigger,” he told Reuters on Wednesday from Hawaii. This could be a deep ocean warming that caused a catastrophic release of methane from hydrate deposits under the seabed.”
“They estimated about 3 trillion tonnes of carbon (11 trillion tonnes of CO2) was released over several thousand years from the methane deposits, leading to a 70 percent rise in atmospheric CO2 levels from pre-event levels.
But Zeebe said this could only explain a 1 to 3.5 degree Celsius rise in temperatures, adding that a commonly accepted scientific range for a doubling of CO2 is between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees Celsius.
This meant other factors must have been at work to drive up temperatures between 5 and 9 degrees Celsius.
“If this additional warming which we do not really understand, was caused as a response to the CO2 warming, then there is a chance that also a future warming could be more intense than people anticipate right now,” Zeebe said.’
Y’think the wingnuts understand that the deep ocean hasn’t warmed yet because of thermal inertia?
I’d love to see how they deal with health advice:
Doctor 1: If you continue smoking, you’ll die of cancer within a decade.
Doctor 2: With respect to my colleague, I think if you continue smoking a heart attack will get you before the cancer. Maybe 3 years tops.
Surber: Doctors can’t agree what’s going to take me out, so smoking must be fine. I should up my habit to 3 packs a day.
Of course, when I posted a comment pointing out that this was bad, not good news, for AGW skeptics, my comment got deleted. Wingnuts love to open debate, you see.
What we really need is an animated Putin head popping up over various Alaskan landmarks saying in a deep voice “Saaaraaah”.