Science Feeds

Posted on: January 11, 2011 12:00 PM, by ERV:Before were allowed to do ANYTHING on Antarctica, we had a lecture on what we could and could not do while we were visiting. Even though everyone was ecologically conscientious, there were tons of things we had to do that none of us would have thought of on our own. We had to vacuum our jackets/pants/hats/bags/etc, so we wouldnt accidentally introduce an invasive plant or other organism. We had to decon our boots before and after every outing, so we wouldnt contaminate an island then spread that contamination everywhere.Either everyone is not that careful, or our efforts are not good enough, because...
Continent-wide risk assessment for the establishment of nonindigenous species in AntarcticaOne of the very, very odd things about visiting Antarctica is that there were no terrestrial plants. There was nothing green. No grass, no plants, no trees. So, seeds from a plant from a cold climate, combined with global warming induced milder temperatures in Antarctica, combined with *zero* competition from local flora (cause their aint any), is a recipe for an invasive species disaster.

So this group of folks wanted to get a feel of how close we are to setting this powder keg off. From 2007 to 2008, scientists sampled the gear of everyone traveling to Antarctica for seeds/spores/etc. I think what they found is scientific support for the idea of people getting lazy when they do the same procedures over and over, because the tourists (who in my experience had traveled ALL OVER THE PLACE before making it to Antarctica) were at ~20% 'seed positive', with ~5 seeds per seed carrier.

The scientists, on the other hand, were a mess. ~50% of field scientists and ~40% of station scientists were 'seed positive', with 10-20 (but up to ~50!) seeds per carrier. And the tour operators are not much better, with ~50% 'seed positive' but only ~5 seeds per carrier.

The tourists are super neurotic about cleaning their gear, whereas the scientists and tour operators are like 'Meh, good enough'... when it is not.

Furthermore while a dropped acorn might have little chance of gaining a foothold in Antarctica, this group of scientists categorized seeds by their theoretical ability to thrive-- Seeds from plants in the Arctic or sub-Antarctic might have a shot in hell. Of the seeds they found, there were over three dozen different species from 'cold' climates. Cold in Antarctica? Who cares, its cold in the Arctic too-- those plants wont care.

The lesson is, everyone has to be constantly vigilant-- Antarctica, like the rest of the planet, is getting warmer. And, tourist spots and science stations are mostly in the milder regions of Antarctica, like the Antarctic Peninsula (where I visited). The scientists on this paper calculated the risk of an invasive species taking hold in various regions of Antarctica, and the Peninsula is one big red block of DANGER.

Scientists and visitors to the DANGER regions need to be beyond neurotic about avoiding contamination, and even being neurotic is super easy-- Most of the seeds were found in backpacks and shoes. Dont take a bag on-land (I never did) if you are a tourist, and wash/vacuum the hell out of every corner of your bag if you are a scientist that needs it. Use the ship provided shoes and properly decon them before/after every land trip if you are a tourist, and again, be super careful vacuuming and deconing your own shoes if you are a visiting/station scientist.

Its not that we cant go to Antarctica anymore without risking ruining it-- we just need to be even more careful.

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Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup

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This undersea video looks like science fiction showing an icy finger of death killing everything in its path, but is a stunning portrayal of freezing point depression - with narrative by the inimitable Alec Baldwin of "30 Rock" fame on NBC.

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So, it turns out that Heartland was behind the Heartland leak after all.

The evidence seems to suggest that Heartland's Joe Bast wrote a memo, then he and/or Heartland-symp blogger Steven Mosher sent it secretly to Peter Gleick. Peter Gleick then obtained additional material from Heartland, which came to him at his request but all to easily to be explained as a mere oversight on the part of some administrative or secretarial staff. The only thing missing here is evidence that Bast or Mosher or someone suggested to Peter that he verify the memo by asking for related documents from Heartland. But that would be too easy.

Anyway, it now seems clear that the document, the allegedly faked internal strategy memo with the most damning text in it (but nothing really different from what is shown in other verified Heartland documents) was fed to Gleick, presumably in an effort to engineer his downfall as an incipient board member of the National Center for Science Education.

Brilliant. Heartland: 1 ... NCSE: 0

The evidence for this is the analysis just published by Shawn Otto. Shawn does not go quite as far as I do in suggesting the details of this conspiracy, but maybe he's just a nicer guy than I am. Shawn notes that Heartland did not expect the tables to be turned on them. I'm thinking they did, and that the outcome that occurred ... setting the NCSE back in their efforts to address climate science denialism ... is what they were looking for, and what they managed to engineer. Shawn Otto's analysis is here.

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A report detailing an audit of a course called "Climate Change: An Earth Sciences Perspective" (ERTH 2402), taught at Carleton University, has been compiled by a team of concerned individuals and was released a few minutes ago. From the report:

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The EPA made what is called an "endangerment finding" a while back which asserts that it is appropriate to regulate the release of greenhouse gasses. This was challenged in court by science deinialists and energy interests via "the state of Virginia, the industry front-group Coalition for Responsible Regulation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Tea Party-industry front Southeastern Legal Foundation."

Brad Johnson has a post outlining the situation here.

The endangerment finding is based on a large and internally consist ant corpus of scientific findings. The argument against the finding is in conflict with what we know from a scientific perspective, and is rather self serving for the interests involved.

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The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund continues to receive donations and offers of help from various stakeholders. We are actively working with several organizations in order to make CSLDF a one-stop resource for scientists looking for legal resources and we are currently pursuing several educational and legal initiatives which will be made public in the future.

In the short-term, CSLDF would greatly appreciate your financial support to help Dr. Michael Mann. Funds are needed to:

1. Fend-off ATI's demand to take Dr. Mann's deposition, which is a blatant attempt to harass and intimidate him for exercising his constitutional rights by petitioning to intervene in the case.

2. Defeat ATI's attempt to obtain Dr. Mann's email correspondence through the civil discovery process, which essentially is an "end-run" around the scholarly research exemption under the Virginia FOIA law.

3. Prepare for summary judgment on the issue of the exempt status of his email correspondence under the Virginia FOIA law.

Donations can be sent to CSLDF online or by sending a check made out to PEER, with Climate Science LDF on the memo line to:

Climate Science Legal Defense Fund
c/o PEER
2000 P Street, NW #240
Washington, D.C. 20036

Through PEER, a private non-profit organization organized under Section 501 (c) 3 of the Internal Revenue code, your contribution will be tax deductible.

Sincerely,

Climate Science Legal Defense Fund

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Watch the whole thing:

Brilliant. Click here for the background on this nice video.

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Can global warming (weirding) lead to smaller mammals?

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As you know, there is much discussion about whether or not a "strategy memo" leaked from the Heartland Institute is a fake. We are told by a trustworthy source that this policy memo was leaked to him, and that he then tricked the Heartland Institute to supply him with additional documents, which he then used to verify the "strategy memo" based on cross reference of factual information. Only after the apparent veracity of the memo was determined did that individual, Peter Gleick, release all of the documents to the public.

Subsequently, a number of untrustworthy sources, such as Heartland related people and the usual gaggle of Science Haters, have insisted that the original strategy memo is a fake. One set of evidence used to suggest this is that the memo was different from the other documents in several ways: It was a photocopy or a fax with different formatting, etc. This of course is evidence of nothing. There is nothing that requires that all of the documents associated with a particular institution, or even a particular event such as a board meeting at an institution, be created, formatted, and distributed with the same look, feel, and technology. It it obvious to me that if this is the case of Heartland getting caught red handed, they might then be grasping at straws.

However, we can use science to address this question further, and this is exactly what Shawn Otto has done. In a piece posted moments ago (here and soon to be at Huffington Post) Shawn carries out an analysis using a standard and widely respected software system to compare a sample of Gleick's writing, some samples from Heartland, and the "strategy memo." In this analysis, the memo is entered as an unknown, and the software shows the difference between that unknown document and the known document. Read Shawn's analysis to see the details; the conclusion is that the strategy memo was more likely written in house at Heartland than by Peter Gleick.

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You know about the Heartland Strategy memo. It is one of several documents produced and used internally by the Heartland Institute, a minor Libertarian "Think" Tank, demonstrating some rather unsavory activities, which are now under preliminary investigation by the US Congress. The memo contains little that is not found in other documents already admitted by Heartland to be genuine but there are a few details added and a much finer point is put on such nefarious programs as intruding into the public school system to trick teachers into "not teaching science" in science classes.

This memo is so embarrassing that Heartland has been insisting that it is fake, but a new evaluation of the document demonstrates that it is not.

Brendan DeMille and Richard Littlemore report a line by line study of the document. It is rather long and involved and is reported in its entirety here. They conclude that the "analysis demonstrates that the Climate Strategy Memo is an accurate executive summary of the information contained in budget and fundraising documents ..." and they see ".... no basis whatsoever for Heartland's assertion that the Climate Strategy memo is a 'fake" which contains "obvious and gross misstatements of fact.""

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The Heartland Institute, a smallish Libertarian "Think" Tank recently made famous by the leak of a rather embarrassing set of incriminating documents, is now slated for investigation by the Congress of the United States.

The chair and ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, Raul Grijavla, has initiated an investigation of Indur Goklany, an administrator at the Science and Technology Policy of the US Department of the Interior. It appears that Goklany was being paid by Heartland which raises a significant potential for conflict of interest.

The story broke at Think Progress.

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A bill in Oklahoma that would, if enacted, encourage teachers to present the "scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses" of "controversial" topics such as "biological evolution" and "global warming" is back from the dead. Entitled the "Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act," House Bill 1551 was introduced in the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 2011 by Sally Kern (R-District 84), a persistent sponsor of antievolution legislation in the Sooner State, and referred to the House Common Education Committee. It was rejected there on February 22, 2011, on a 7-9 vote. But, as The Oklahoman (February 23, 2011) reported, the vote was not final, since a sponsor "could ask the committee to bring it up again this session or next year." And indeed, on February 20, 2012, Gus Blackwell (R-District 61) resurrected the bill in the House Common Education Committee.

Here is the bill

Here is the whole write-up from the NCSE.

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I don't get it. First there was Climategate, in which hackers illegally broke into a server at the University of East Anglia and stole a pile of emails from climate researchers. The denialists seemed to be fine with that, and quote-mined the heck out of the documents to find damning statements, lying and claiming that they showed that the scientists faked their data (they did no such thing, of course). All the sturm and drang at that time was over the contents of the emails, not the illegal method of their acquisition.

Now the shoe is on the other foot. The Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank with an agenda of willful dishonesty, leaked, and leaked hard. Someone mailed a collection of internal documents to Peter Gleick, and Gleick responded by sending a request to Heartland under a fake name, and got additional copies that confirmed the accuracy of the documents. Was this wrong? It doesn't seem to be illegal, and I think it's an open question whether it was unethical — it would be unethical if Gleick lied and misrepresented the contents of those documents, as the denialists did with the East Anglia emails, as the Heartland Institute did with those emails.

And there's Peter Gleick beating himself up for exposing the Heartland Institute's mendacity. I really don't get that. He's a scientist. Scientists gather data to make informed decisions. Gleick got the data the Heartland Institute tried to hide. You can't on one hand condemn Gleick for asking for the information and getting it handed to him, while praising hackers for breaking into a server and illegally taking data.

And then Mann, Trenberth, Bradley, Overpeck, Santer, Schmidt, and Karoly write the most naïve letter ever, pointing out the hypocrisy of the denialists while deploring the acquisition of the documents, and saying this:

We hope the Heartland Institute will heed its own advice to "think about what has happened" and recognize how its attacks on science and scientists have helped poison the debate over climate change policy. The Heartland Institute has chosen to undermine public understanding of basic scientific facts and personally attack climate researchers rather than engage in a civil debate about climate change policy options.

Really, people? Seriously? This is what the Heartland Institute wants, the poisoning of the debate and the undermining of public understanding. They probably read that letter and said, "Yay! It's working!"

How about if we focus on the content of the leaked documents instead? They do reveal a deep truth: that the Heartland Institute is a propaganda organization with great support from right-wing political organizations and individuals, and that their mission is to parcel out money to disinformation agents like Anthony Watts and Fred Singer, who sow unfounded doubt and confusion about real science. And they plan to poison American education.

Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective. To counter this we are considering launching an effort to develop alternative materials for K-12 classrooms. We are pursuing a proposal from Dr. David Wojick to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools. Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science. His effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain- two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science. We tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $100,000 for 20 modules in 2012, with funding pledged by the Anonymous Donor.

No matter how it was obtained, the Heartland Institute has confirmed that it stupidly mailed out internal documents. The denialists are trying desperately to claim that one of the documents is fake, which just affirms that all the others are accurate.

That ought to be the central story here.

(via Greg Laden)

(Also on FtB)

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Another day, another distraction from the real issue at hand. Yes, a hitherto respectable member of the climate science community, MacArthur fellow, and all-round good guy has admitted appropriating someone's identity to obtain private records of a climate-denial think tank. Was this wrong? Yes, although no more so than was the ostensible betrayal of trust on the part of a long list of whistleblowers. Daniel Ellsberg comes to mind. And he is now remembered as "an icon of truth-telling."

As much as I hate to admit it, the most cogent commentary on the matter so far arrived in the form of a tweet, from Naomi Klein:

And what about the fact the Heartland Institute impersonates a scientific organization every day?

Does this matter have anything at all to do with the science of our changing climate? No. And I can't think of any else of use I can contribute to the discussion. Plenty of others have more thoughtful things to say. Greg Laden is a good place to start.

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The best available evidence now suggests that the most damning of the "Heartland Documents" -- the strategy memo which explicitly states that Heartland's strategy is to interfere with good science education in order to advance their political agenda -- is legitimate. The legitimacy of the document was being questioned because it was physically and stylistically different from the other documents with which it was released. We now know that the strategy memo was sent to climate scientist Peter Gleick and that Peter then took steps to acquire corraborating documents from Heartland (see "The Origin of the Heartland Documents.") The "one of these things is not like the others" defense is now obviated.

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Because the situation is alarming.

There is still a great deal of uncertainty about where the melted-down fuel at Fukushima I's reactors is resting. TEPCO and various NPA's have insisted all along that they know where it is, and everything is under control. The most recent information from TEPCO is that the fuel is contained in the containment vessel, but they won't be able to confirm that for ten years when it cools down enough to go have a look. Recent efforts to peek inside the rubble have been hampered. One attempt resulted in very blurry photographs ... apparently the high levels of radiation mess up the camera. An interesting development is afoot: Scientists at Nagoya have a muon camera! Muons are part of the background radiation stuff that is wafting through us and all our matter at a low level all the time. Even though muons can pass through most matter without even noticing it, the densest of matter does absorb some of them. The Nagoya scientist have been using a "muon camera" to photograph the insides of volcanoes. You set up the film, filter out other background radiation, and wait a very long time (weeks, months, etc.) and the muons eventually leave an image. This could be used to detect the very dense nuclear fuel at Fukushima. It may not work because of the high levels of radiation at the crippled plant, but it is probably worth a try. TEPCO so far seems to be ignoring the offer. We have come to the point where we can assume that if a method of analysis could show that things are worse off than TEPCO's rose-colored-glasses version that they will resist using that method, so don't expect the muon camera to be installed any time soon, or ever. Unless, of course, some outside agency simply comes in and takes over.

Speaking of lies and deceit, we also learned of a worst-case scenario report produced after the meltdown that indicated the distinct possibility of large amounts of radiation being spewed over a large area that would have actually required a voluntary evacuation of ... wait for it .... Tokyo. This was a worst-case scenario, and that did not happen, but it was considered plausible. The disturbing part of this is that a small number of officials got hold of it and decided it was too scary to tell anyone about, so it was suppressed. Just like in all those overdone highly implausible science fiction movies.

Water and temperature levels at Fukushima I are still varying in ways that are not understood and that should cause concern.

Thousands of tons of crushed stone was mined from near the Fukushima plant after the meltdowns but before anyone thought to restrict the use of radioactive rock from the area, and has been used to build about 60 homes; another several dozen homes are about to be built with the same stone. Also, radioactive gravel has been used to build walls at an Elementary school and in roads and pathways.

In Nihonmatsu, children wearing dosimeters were found to have been exposed to alarmingly high levels of radiation. When the source of this radiation was discovered, it turned out to be from concrete made with this radioactive gravel. The levels of radiation inside the homes made from this concrete was higher than the radiation levels outside the home. Of the families that had moved into the apartments, many had moved from the Fukushima evacuation zone.

The party line of NPA's regarding Chernobyl is that nothing really bad happened there despite rumors to the contrary. Now we hare hearing that noting really bad happened at Fukushima, but the comparison is being made to Chernobyl ... Everything is fine at Fukushima because unlike Chernobyl, where "...people were dying from huge, high exposures, some of the workers were dying very soon..." nothing like that is happening in Japan. This would be funny if it wasn't so demented.

Meanwhile, at Fukushima, where nothing has gone wrong and everything is fine, researchers have found that bird populations are dwindling as a result of radioactive fallout.

In the first major study of the impact of the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years, the researchers, from Japan, the US and Denmark, said their analysis of 14 species of bird common to Fukushima and Chernobyl, the Ukrainian city which suffered a similar nuclear meltdown, showed the effect on abundance is worse in the Japanese disaster zone.

One of the effects of increased ambient radiation is reduction in brain size in birds, and it can be safely guessed that this may happen in humans as well. More information about this is here.

A study of mother's milk at Fukushima is starting, and there is now concern over locust consumption ... the edible insects may be sufficiently radioactive that they should be avoided, which is a bummer, because they are rather tasty.

The Japanese have developed a way to plow their fields so that the surface radiation readings are reduced. The radioactive stuff is plowed deeper where it will not be read by surface sensors. We assume plants will still be able to absorb the radioactive elements via their roots. A recent study documented high levels of radiation in earthworm castings in the Fukushima area. We wonder if it is easier to catch radioactive fish with radioactive worms? One study has also shown that the fact that a large percentage of the radioactive fallout from Fukushima fell into the sea, things are better than they otherwise might be. On land. Of course, a month after the multiple meltdown, it is now known that discharge at the plant (into the ocean) had 45,000,000 times the amount of radioactive Cesium-137 than it did before the multiple meltdown. This is not of great immediate concern because the ocean is big and the amount of radiation is small enough to be quickly dispersed, but there is concern that over subsequent months and years persistent radioactive material will be concentrated in fish.

Here's a very very interesting piece by Fairewinds' Arnie Gundersen about Reactor 1. We'll call this the Brunswick Effect:

The significance of this is that a post-Fukushima "fix" on this design of reactor will not be effective. The nuclear power industry appears to be about to blow it. Again. Literally.

Speaking of which, we note that one important source of power at Fukushima, that might have allowed continued collection of data during the crisis, had been turned off and left off months before the earthquake, by mistake. The reason that this is important is because it is a just discovered, uncontrolled goof with consequences (GWC) that is undoubtedly NOT being incorporated into the much touted "post-Fukushima" considerations in new plant design and operation procedure. The nuclear power industry assures us that they've learned everything they can from Fukushima and has incorporated all the appropriate changes in future new construction, design, ongoing procedure and licensing. But they have not considered Arnie's elastic bolts or random GWS's such as this one.

Also from Fairwinds, something on BEIR and health risks to children.

Cancer Risk To Young Children Near Fukushima Daiichi Underestimated from Fairewinds Energy Education on Vimeo.

Oh, and remember "Fukushima II" (the other Fukushima plant)? "One Japanese expert, Hiromitsu Ino, said a Containment Vessel at Fukushima II (Daini) is broken, and they are trying to repair it. It was probably caused by the earthquake, not tsunami."

Ooops

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I just got this email. I have no way of telling if it is authentic:

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A new study supports the hypothesis that noises from maritime traffic actually do induce stress in whales. For a time after the attack of the Twin Towers in New York City, fewer ships traveled in the area and researchers noticed that the stress levels of whales dropped dramatically. In an article from Discovery News, it was noted that some of the ocean vessels emit the same low-frequency wavelengths as those used by baleen whales to communicate. To adapt, some animals have changed the frequency or volume of their songs.

You might be wondering how in the world they measured stress in whales? They did it by training dogs to sniff out whale feces, which floats. After collecting the feces, researchers measured the levels of a stress hormone called glucocorticoid. They found that levels of this hormone were low following the attacks in New York and that levels began to increase as maritime traffic gradually returned.

In my search for what other things can be found in whale poop, I came across some interesting items. It is an important source of nitrogen and, as such, helps phytoplankton grow therefore benefiting the whole food chain. It also apparently helps to remove carbon from the environment thereby helping to reduce greenhouse gases. Who knew whale poo could be so beneficial? What I found even more surprising though, was that there is a market for whale poop. People will actually search beaches for traces of ambergris (photo below), which is a component of sperm whale poop that has been used to make expensive perfumes and even a mince pie. Ew.

Image source:Ambergris.co.nz

Source:
Discovery News

Ambergis: Huffington Post

Phytoplankton: PLoS One

Greenhouse gases: Discovery News

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Everyone is writing about desmogblog's leak of internal documents from the Heartland Institute. But to me I think leaked documents are nothing compared to their fully public, out-in-the-open history of being openly contemptuous of science, funding cranks with advanced degrees (though not in climate) to disparage the field, and their hosting of denialpalooza.

James rightly points out that much hay is being made of a single sentence that, could "easily be the result of sloppy editing, or at perhaps a Freudian slip." This is of course is a sentence describing a curriculum developed by the HI that "shows the topic of climate chance is controversial and uncertain - two key points that are effective in dissuading teachers from teaching science."

But other aspects of the document instead suggest to me that these people are true believers. Even in context this quote sounds horrible, but I don't think it reflects a conscious desire to deceive. After all, they think their beliefs are true. They are so blinded by ideology they are literally incapable of acknowledging facts that run counter to these core beliefs. I think, if anything, this sentence is interesting because it shows that they are picking up tactics from previous denialist campaigns by those that were intentionally deceptive, such as the DI anti-evolution campaign and tobacco company denial of health effects of smokng. They are not interested in actual science but rather are interested in methods of sowing doubt. Similar to the cigarette company strategy of denying the harm of tobacco smoke, "doubt is their product". We already knew these guys were merchants of doubt, some of them are the very same people that deny tobacco smoke is harmful.

I don't think these documents are going to be a game changer. They've largely told us what we already know. HI is funded by oil interests. They pay cranks with degrees good money (11k a month to Idso - sweet!) to lend legitimacy to denialist pseudoscience. Their overriding goal is to undermine any science that conflicts with free market fundamentalism. They are trying to undermine climate science through sowing doubt and confusion in the public rather than pursuing actual scientific inquiry. To those that think HI is great, they think methods like this are just fine. To those of us who have seen how denialists operate, from the tobacco companies to the Discovery Institute, this is just another confirmation of their overarching strategy - to create doubt where there should be none.

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