environment and ecology – Page 169

Fools gold: cranks can’t count

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. 14 months on from the start of the Treadgold/Climate “Science” Coalition/ACT campaign to cast doubt on the long term New Zealand temperature record, after parliamentary questions, much mud slinging at Jim Salinger and NIWA, legal action, and the expensive and time-wasting reconstruction of a temperature series that’s pretty much identical to the original, diligent digging by Open Parachute/Sciblogs blogger Ken Perrott has revealed a stunning level of statistical incompetence in the “paper” that started it all. Written and published by Richard Treadgold of the Climate Conversation Group, that “paper” contained a graph purporting to show a long term NZ temperature series constructed without adjustments for station moves.

A day or two ago, Treadgold posted a link to the underlying data at his blog, and Perrott — who has been requesting this information for most of the last year — was quick to download it and take a peek “under the hood” of Treadgold’s graph. And what he found was truly remarkable. Treadgold makes no allowances for missing data, makes no attempt to create a valid composite series, simply averages the numbers and plots them on a graph. There are a lot of gaps in the data — especially in the early years — so the “NZ” temperature is in some years just Dunedin, or Dunedin plus Wellington, or Wellington plus Auckland, and so on. Treadgold’s incredible statistical naivete allows him to not just compare apples to oranges, but to feijoas and konini berries as well. The result, of course, is a dog’s breakfast. To make matters worse, he then computed a trend on the data, and announced:

Straight away you can see there’s no slope—either up or down. The temperatures are remarkably constant way back to the 1850s. Of course, the temperature still varies from year to year, but the trend stays level—statistically insignificant at 0.06°C per century since 1850.

A whole political campaign has been constructed on the back of this statistical idiocy. Variations of Treadgold’s claim have been used in questions in Parliament. Valuable scientists’ time and tax payer money has been wasted pursuing his folly. The Climate “Science” Coalition are still desperately trying to keep the issue alive, hoping that if they can create enough smoke everyone will assume there’s a fire somewhere. Unfortunately for Barry Brill and his colleagues, Treadgold’s statistical incompetence undercuts their whole campaign. Do they really think the NZ public and politicians will take the word of a bunch that sling mud and smear scientists, when they are incapable of doing their own simple sums?

Congratulations to Ken for unmasking this fraud. I eagerly await the fulsome apology Treadgold owes to Jim Salinger, NIWA and the public of New Zealand. Perhaps the NZ C”S”C might offer to repay some of the tax payer funds wasted on this affair. But I won’t be holding my breath…

Meanwhile, I think it’s worth repeating the conclusion to my first post on this affair:

None of these cranks should be accorded any respect in future. By their words shall we know them, and their words show them to be ignorant, bullying fools. De Freitas [science advisor to the CSC] should withdraw and apologise, or resign from his post at Auckland University, and if Treadgold, Dunleavy, McShane, Leyland,or any other member of the NZ CSC want to partake in public debate on the subject of climate science, they should expect derision to be heaped on them and their views.

[Update 10/2: Prompted by Manfred’s comment below, I checked back over the original 7SS data and Treadgold’s spreadsheet — as well as with one or two people who might be expected to know ;-) — and it appears that taking a simple average of the annual anomalies in years where some stations reported no data was NIWA’s practise for the original 7 station series. It’s not ideal, particularly in the very early years when there are large gaps in the data, but it’s how it was done. Treadgold was therefore following established practise, in that one respect. I therefore apologise to Richard for echoing that specific allegation without first checking the data. However, this does not get him off the hook for the rest of his “analysis”, nor prompt me to change my overall conclusions. I accused him of “statistical idiocy” and that charge stands — not least because he derives his anomalies by taking unadjusted or raw station data and relating it to a 1971-2000 baseline derived from different stations at different locations using different measurement equipment, and then pretends that he’s made the warming disappear. Tell that to the glaciers…]

[Stone Roses]

Just as the tide was flowing

Two disparate news items in New Zealand newspapers highlight some of the problems facing any switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. The first is the Environment Court’s welcome approval of Crest Energy’s application to sink 200 turbines to the sea bed of the Kaipara Harbour where the strong tidal flow will be used to generate electricity. The decision follows a 2008 appeal to the Court by Crest Energy against the Northland Regional Council’s decision to allow only 100 turbines. Environmental objection centred around the possible effect on the west coast snapper stocks and possible threats to the survival of the rare Maui’s dolphin. I wrote about the project and other NZ wave and tidal energy projects in a Hot Topic post a year or so ago.

The Environment Court approval is hedged with conditions. Crest can sink three turbines initially. If results with three turbines satisfy the Northland Regional Council, the company can add up to 17 more turbines, provided operation of the 20 turbines is monitored for a year to give sufficient information on the impact on fisheries. From there, the council will decide whether to allow turbines to be built up in further stages from 20 to 40, then 80 and then to a maximum of 200.

The director-general of conservation wanted the monitoring of the 20 turbines to last three years, not one. Another iwi-based objector wanted at least three years of monitoring after each stage. The environment court’s decision followed a year of mediation among four objectors.

It’s not my purpose to criticise the objections or the conditions imposed by the Court. Renewable energy development has environmental effects which must be taken into account and judgments made, and I’m certainly in no position to weigh the factors in specific cases. But one hopes that climate change carries very considerable weight in the process. I notice the judge is quoted as saying the proposal is very significant in terms of its contribution to power generation and the national economic interest. Maybe he also said something about the importance of renewable energy in combating climate change and it wasn’t reported. Maybe he linked the national economic interest to clean power and emissions reduction. But maybe that’s outside the Court’s scope.

Which brings me to the second news item where the Grey District mayor pleads for the Pike River mine to be turned into an opencast operation. There’s billions of dollars’ worth of coal there and the mayor even goes so far as to say that the deceased miners would want to see mining continue. One has to sympathise with the anxieties of West Coast communities whose livelihoods are to a considerable extent bound up with mining. The mayor was explicit that the financial benefits of opencast mining outweigh environmental concerns. Unfortunately he’s wrong if environmental concerns include global warming. There are plenty of environmental concerns around opencast mining of any kind, but when the object is coal those concerns are far greater than the localised disruption and pollution caused by the mining. Climate change concerns overshadow all kinds of coal mining for that matter.

This is tricky territory. West Coast coal is generally of a quality which makes it suitable for steel making and as such is a valuable export product. The coal industry in New Zealand has been invigorated in recent years. Obviously for the time being steel-making is going to need coking coal. Why should New Zealand not benefit financially from supplying that need?

It’s a fair question. However it’s not apparent that anyone involved in the coal industry or in government for that matter thinks in terms of supplying an interim need while the world organises itself to live without coal. That’s not the impetus driving our coal industry. That doesn’t explain Solid Energy’s plans to exploit Southland lignite. The thinking behind the expansion of coal mining and exporting is that there is a lot of money to be made from exploiting our coal resources to their fullest extent. Any cautionary sentiments seem to be along the lines of making sure we don’t move too slowly and miss out on the bonanza.

What unites these two seemingly unrelated pieces of news? The need to give full weight to the enormous threat of climate change. In the one case it lends strong support to a new venture. In the other it warns that the days of coal mining must be considered near an end. At least that’s the logic of the situation we’re in. But apart from the Greens there’s hardly a politician in the country who seems willing to say just that. They seem to be overcome with a collective embarrassment at the thought of expressing deep concern at the prospect of climate change, let alone applying that concern to the coal industry. The embarrassment that appears to inhibit them is dwarfed by the embarrassment of watching them virtually ignore a matter of such consequence for the human future.

[Eliza Carthy]

An immediate halt to CO2 emissions is an absolute necessity…

[vimeo]18924324[/vimeo]

…if we are to maintain the health of ocean ecosystems, says Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in this video presentation, given to a symposium at the recent Our Changing Oceans conference in Washington DC. It’s sobering viewing. Here are the primary messages from the symposium:

There is a large body of empirical evidence indicating that anthropogenic climate change is substantially impacting ocean ecosystems. The evidence comes from many taxa, locations and habitats.

Changes in biological function in the ocean caused by anthropogenic climate change go far beyond death, extinctions and habitat loss: fundamental processes are being altered, community assemblages are being reorganized and ecological surprises are likely.

These changes will have significant consequences for people.

Perhaps even more importantly, Ove suggests that 450 ppm atmospheric CO₂ is not a comfortable target. Hat tip to Ove’s co-author John Bruno for posting this at Skeptical Science earlier today. See also Ove’s excellent climateshifts.org blog.

Here comes the sun: 100% renewables by 2050

Is a fully sustainable global energy system possible by 2050? It’s hard to imagine a more important question if we entertain hopes of avoiding the worst effects of climate change. It is the question addressed by a new and substantial report from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the sustainable energy research and consultancy company Ecofys.

The answer to the question is a careful yes, with a caveat. The Ecofys team writes:

Continue reading “Here comes the sun: 100% renewables by 2050”

The Renewable Revolution

The recommendations of Bill McKibben and Ross Gelbspan, among others, attracted me to Sajed Kamal’s book The Renewable Revolution, and its subtitle was an additional enticement: How we can Fight Climate Change, Prevent Energy Wars, Revitalise the Economy and Transition to a Sustainable Future. The book is on a smaller scale than its subtitle might suggest. Kamal has long been involved in sustainable development and renewable energy as a teacher, project consultant and speaker. He is eloquent on the Sun as the energy source that connects all life, and it is solar energy that he sees as able to meet all humanity’s energy needs many times over, directly through light and heat and indirectly through wind, water movement and photosynthesis.

Continue reading “The Renewable Revolution”