Missing news: Problems with climate models

Roger Pielke Snr has an interesting post that will no doubt never be covered by the ABC's Science unit. It's on continuing problems with the skill of climate models, and based on a discussion of the work of Demetris Koutoyiannis.

From Koutsoyiannis et al 2011

“….we tested whether the model outputs are consistent with reality (which reflects the entire variability, due to combined natural and anthropogenic effects). Our results extend Huard’s statements further. Specifically, we show that, climate models are not only unable to predict the variability of climate, but they are also unable to reproduce even the means of temperature and rainfall in the past. For example, as we stated in our paper, “In some [models], the annual mean temperature of the USA is overestimated by about 4–5◦C and the annual precipitation by about 300–400 mm”.

Roger comments:
This Comment/Reply illustrates, in my view, the continued pressure on Editors not to publish papers that conflict with the IPCC perspective of the climate system and the ability of global climate models to provide skillful predictions decades into the future. Instead of showing in a quantifiable manner any flaws in the work by Demetris Koutsoyiannis and colleages, Huard 2011 resorts to semantics and criticisms of the review process. Whenever authors resort to such arguments, it illustrates that they cannot refute the substance of the research study.

See the whole post HERE.

Who's Ho?

Credit Ho New (Reuters) 

Screen shot of the offending item taken from ABC Environment's Site 25/10/2011

We have had some fun with ABC environment's woeful attempt to automatically link news headlines to stock images (see this effort for instance), however this time the incompetence relates to attribution of a photo in an opinion piece on its website (shown above).

The correct attribution is shown below in an article from MSNBC. As to who "Ho New" is, we asked Reuters and they indicated the Ho refers to "Handout".

Attribution of MSNBC article reads "Dennis Sarrazin  /  ArcticNet/Centre d'Etudes Nordiques"

You can see more amazing photos by Dennis Sarrazin at his page at the Centre d'Etudes Nordiques. The photo ABC incorrectly credited to a "Handout" from Reuters was taken in on the 20/08/2008 and shows Disraeli fjord, Ellesmere Island, Northern Canada. In Dennis Sarrazin's slideshow it's about the 20th photo in.

In regard to the content of the op ed piece, if you look up "Alarmist" in the dictionary it now simply shows a Lissajous curve. In regard to its author, based on a recent critique by Roger Pielke Jnr, I believe the label "cherry picker" is appropriate.

Update from Reuters received 29/10/2011:
Thanks for the note, and sorry for the delay. The HO is actually an internal code which is added to a picture when its put into our archive. It most likely was a technical glitch.


No, just ABC incompetence.

Missing News: New book exposes UN climate Panel

Donna Laframboise is the author of a new book that lifts the veil from the IPCC. Donna was interviewed on SunTV, we wonder when she will appear on our ABC, perhaps on Lateline, The Science Show or Q and A.

The book, The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert, an IPCC Exposé, is available from $5 via Amazon.

This review from the Tucson Citizen.
In this book, Canadian journalist Donna LaFramboise exposes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a fraud. LaFramboise (see author profile here) spent two years investigating the IPCC. She says it acts like a spoiled teenager, hence the title of the book.

The IPCC has long been touted as the preeminent authority on climate science. But LaFramboise shows that the participants were picked by governments, not for their scientific expertise, but for their political connections and for “diversity.” Many of the scientists are in fact, very young graduate students. Many of the bureaucrats in the IPCC are from radical environmental groups. Real experts are often ignored. She says the IPCC is a purely political organization, not a scientific one, and she backs up her charges with copious references.

Read the rest via the link above.

Missing News: No increase in US flooding

Roger Pielke Jnr reports Are US Floods Increasing? The Answer is Still No.
A new paper out today in the Hydrological Sciences Journal shows that flooding has not increased in the United States over records of 85 to 127 years.  This adds to a pile of research that shows similar results around the world.  This result is of course consistent with our work that shows that increasing damage related to weather extremes can be entirely explained by societal changes, such as more property in harm's way.  In fact, in the US flood damage has decreased dramatically as a fraction of GDP, which is exactly whet you get if GDP goes up and flooding does not.
I do not expect research to change anyone's views on the topic or alter the debate over climate change and extreme events.  The debate has moved well beyond that which can be resolved empirically.


From the abstract

Has the magnitude of floods across the USA changed with global CO2levels?
R. M. Hirsch & K. R. Ryberg

Hydrological Sciences Journal

DOI: 10.1080/02626667.2011.621895

In none of the four regions defined in this study is there strong statistical evidence for flood magnitudes increasing with increasing GMCO2. One region, the southwest, showed a statistically significant negative relationship between GMCO2 and flood magnitudes.

ABC's coverage has generally taken a different view on weather related disasters and climate change:
Australia's future forecast: hot, dry and more floods May 1, 2001

Climate change boosting flood and drought: experts March 3, 2003
Study links extreme weather to climate change February 17, 2011
Cyclones, floods to get worse as warming increases: Garnaut February 4, 2011

Related missing items:
Missing News: Flood damage muted
Missing news: Link between Vic Bushfires and dangerous anthropogenic global warming busted

Missing News: No increase in hurricane frequency
Missing News: Hurricane activity all time low
Missing News - Bushfire Slap Down
Missing News: Russian heatwave due to natural factors

Some links

Links below to some recent articles discussing ABC's climate coverage:

Jo Nova: There is no saving the ABC — We want 60% of our billion back
"We want evidence, reason, and well informed opinions from all sides on important topics. Instead we’re coerced into paying for propaganda, character assassination, and the personal views of journalists."

Bob Fernley-Jones: Remember the infamous Bob Ward interview, from a year ago?

"So, has the ABC attitude towards CAGW scepticism changed over the past year?"

ABC shrinks quality of science reporting

mini ABC

In a story headlined "Climate change downsizing fauna, flora" ABC Science reported on the results of a new study published in Nature Climate Change (Shrinking body size as an ecological response to climate change)
that suggested (according to the ABC) that "Climate change is reducing the size of many animal and plant species". The remainder of the story reads like a press release, with no critical input from ABC's groupthinkers.


The Australian covered the same story with a report from AP under the headline "Warming blamed for shrinking animals" that included this helpful caveat missing from ABC's typically one sided report:
But Yoram Yom-Tov, a zoologist at Tel Aviv University whose studies Dr Sheridan used in her research, said many species were shrinking, and global warming was not the sole reason.
"Changes in body size are a normal phenomenon," he said.
"Besides, most species will adapt to climate change."

The Sydney Morning Herald reported a day earlier with "Global warming blamed for shrinking species" by Seth Borenstein included a similar cautionary statement:

But Yoram Yom-Tov, a zoologist at Tel Aviv University whose studies Sheridan used in her research, said many species are shrinking, and you can't blame global warming exclusively.
"Changes in body size are a normal phenomenon," Yom-Tov wrote in an email. "When conditions are favourable, they increase in size or reproduce at higher rates, and when conditions are deteriorating, they do the opposite. I think that most species will adapt to climate change and survive. No need for alarm."

And Stanford biologist Terry Root, an expert in climate change, said the study's conclusions "seem kind of far-fetched".

ABC's uncritical report states "Fossil records, they found, were unambiguous: past periods of rising temperatures had led both marine and land organisms to become progressively smaller." (ed I guess that would account for the size of the Dinosaurs). 

Oddly just last week ABC were suggesting that cooling, not warming was responsible for shrinking things: from "Climate change 'shrank people and economy'"
"The Little Ice Age shrank people and the economy, leading to a general crisis in the 17th Century, say researchers."

ABC News: shrinking the quality of science reporting (at least they're consistent!).

ABC Environment mutilate wallabies