Critique of Junk Science on Climate Change

An acquaintance cited this as a critique of climate science that debunks the “myth” of anthropogenic contributions to climate change:
http://junksciencearchive...reenhouse/What_Watt.html.  My response follows. 

From the beginning of this article, she is minimizing the significance of the role of CO₂ in the value of the mean global temperature.  She is also claiming that mean global temperature is not a significant number.  She writes, “… many excellent researchers who have pointed out that the concept of a globally averaged forcing constant is flawed and they are right. Sensitivity absolutely depends on where the forcing is applied and when. Unfortunately a globally averaged forcing value is applied via climate models and cited in IPCC documents and we are thus stuck with addressing an invalid value in common use.”  However, she doesn’t name these excellent researchers, nor does she explain why globally averaging the value is invalid.  When she states that the sensitivity depends on where and when, she is correct as for local effects.  But because of the convective action of the atmosphere and ocean, these local effects are naturally averaged out over the globe.  If one thinks about heating one’s house in winter, one could just as easily say that since the air coming from the vents when the furnace is running causes convection to occur near the vents and not so much away from the vents, trying to calculate the mean temperature rise in your house based on the total amount of heat coming from the furnace minus the heat that is being lost through the walls and ceiling is invalid.  Her reasoning, at least as stated, is incorrect. 
She next states, “climate models make much of water vapor "feedbacks" -- a multiplier effect due to a small warming from carbon dioxide increasing evaporation and thus adding to the major greenhouse gas, water vapor -- this in turn is supposed to increase the greenhouse effect, leading to more evaporation and yet more warming and so on. The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is not a simple function of evaporation, however. All of the water vapor that is being continuously evaporated from the Earth's surface must eventually return to the surface as precipitation. The climate system strikes a balance, allowing only so much water vapor to accumulate before it is depleted by either rain or snow."

A fact that she is overlooking is that the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is dependent on the temperature of the air.  The warmer the air, the more water vapor it can contain and on average will contain.  This is why we talk about relative humidity instead of absolute humidity.  Relative humidity is the amount of water vapor present compared to the amount it can hold.  The dew point is the temperature at which relative humidity equals 100%.  This temperature varies with the amount of water vapor actually present.  As an illustrative example without doing real calculations, if the RH is 70% at 50 F, then the dew point might be 40 F while if the RH is 70% at 70 F, the DP might be 45 F.  One can see this if one has noticed that, in general, dew won’t be present in winter, on those days when temperatures have remained above freezing, until a lower temperature than in summer.  The atmosphere will approach a dynamic equilibrium of the amount of water vapor present based on the global mean temperature.  It will vary from place to place and with the time of day, always changing everywhere, but on average, the vapor content will rise as the temperature rises.  There will be both more precipitation and more evaporation, but the balance will increase with increasing temperature.  See: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/lacis_01/ for a discussion based on recent satellite measurements.
She states, “climate models use λ values of 0.75 ± 0.25 °C per Wm^-2, 5-10 times greater than empirical measures support.”  This is false.  She has chosen the lowest empirical value available.  A value of ~0.7 k/Wm^-2 is empirically derived as shown in this article from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity.  This article includes citations giving a range of values for the climate sensitivity parameter. The rest of her article is similarly skewed.  She consistently cherry picks the data and research to support her point of view.  Consider her referenced to an article by Lyman et al.  It initially claimed that there had been a cooling of the ocean surface temperature in the early 2000s, but they later published a correction that stated that there had been no cooling, but the temperature had been stable during the three year time period of their study.  She includes this information, which is good, but then does not correct her conclusions to account for this.

In her discussion of cloud cover effects, she emphasizes only the negative feedback.  This is unwarranted.  Based on recent studies, it appears that thick clouds have a negative feedback effect (net cooling effect), but thin cloud cover like from cirrus clouds or contrails have a net positive feedback effect (net warming).  The balance between these two is unclear, but it seems to be that there is a net positive feedback based on the most recent satellite measurements.  See: http://sciencetrends.blogspot.com/2011/04/positive-and-negative-feedback-in.html for more detail.
Based on my analysis of her article, she is strongly biased against anthropogenic global warming.  She does not consider all the data that contradicts her position.  If this article is an example of how he analyzes scientific results, “Junk Science” applies more to what she has written than the science that she is trying to debunk.  The good climate scientists, as illustrated in the quoted Wikipedia article, cite a range of results, trying to make it as representative as possible.  There is much uncertainty in the climate models and in some of the data as well as a glaring lack of data in some areas.  However, on balance, the available data do support the contention that the global climate is warming and that it is warming at a rate higher than can be accounted for without considering the effect of anthropogenic CO₂.
Similarly, Bryson, http://drywind.net/blog/science/climatologist-who-discovered-jet-stream-debunks-human-caused-global-warming/75/, has discounted recent data and seems to dismiss climate model projections because he doesn't think they are good enough.  He may be right, but the fact is that the mean value of the results of the computer models twenty years ago underestimated the temperature rise and sea level rise.  Current models are improved because of more accurate and finer grained data.  The results published in the latest IPCC report,  a not perfect summary of the status of climate science, tend toward the conservative end of the projections.  If one actually considers all the data and not just the data that fits one's preconception or bias, the rising temperature trend is clear and the fact that human activity is contributing is clear.  It is not clear exactly how much of the warming is due to human activity, but it appears to be at least 30% of it.
It has also been suggested that higher CO2 content was actually beneficial because some plants were growing faster.  It is true that some plants are growing faster but that is only one effect (and does anyone in Georgia really want kudzu to grow any faster than it already does?).  The resulting warming from the increasing CO2 level also is eliminating the habitats of several species and possibly contributing to the decline of amphibians by enhancing the ability of certain fungal diseases to spread.  The warming is causing the Greenland ice cap and many continental glaciers to melt at an increasing rate, raising the sea level and threatening low-lying coastal areas and islands.  Parts of the Antarctic ice cap are increasing while other parts are decreasing, but overall there is a net decrease in the ice contained there that is also contributing to the sea level rise.  Rising temperatures also are improving the agricultural potential of northern areas such as Greenland and Iceland.  What have historically been considered tropical diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever, are now spreading to mid latitudes.  The ocean is acidifying, threatening the health of the plankton that form the base of the global food chain.  So obviously the effects are varied and complex.  The net effect, though, is deleterious to many species of land animals, including humans.  If the acidification continues, it will negatively impact nearly every species except bacteria.

Fossil Mammal Found with Transitional Middle Ear

The discovery of a complete fossil Liaoconodon hui with the three ossicles of the mammalian ear attached to the lower jaw by cartilage near the groove in the lower jaw that had long been something of a puzzle, represents a clear intermediary form between early and modern mammals.  This find in Mesozoic rock in China was predicted by evolutionary theory.  It helps to demonstrate a more gradual transition from reptilian jaw to mammalian middle ear.
  
Liaoconodon lived about 125 Mya and would have been about 14" (36 cm) long. The ossicles were only used for hearing.  They were still closer to the lower mandible than are the bones of the middle ear in modern mammals.


An early mammal, Morganucodon, that lived 200 million years ago (Mya) had bones that were more reptilian. Morganucodon was a small shrew-like animal, only about four inches long. The bones that became the ossicles in later mammals were smaller in Morganucodon than in reptiles. They still functioned as part of the jaw even though they also were used for hearing.

Positive and Negative Feedback in Global Warming Models

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According to an article in Scientific American, "Climate Change: Larch in the Lurch," Another potential positive feedback event is occurring in Siberia. As temperatures increase, larch, deciduous needled trees, retreat north and are replaced by evergreens such as spruce or fir.   When larch lose their needles in winter, it exposes more snow on the ground to sunlight than the evergreens do.  This means that less light is reflected back into space as the larch are replaced by fir and spruce.   The light coming from the sun is the energy that the Earth receives that keeps the planet warm enough for life to exist.  But there is a somewhat delicate balance. The amount of heat that is retained is determined by how much of the light is absorbed and reflected.  As the amount of light that is absorbed increases, the Earth tends to get warmer.  The more light that is reflected, the cooler the Earth will tend to be.  The overall reflectivity of the Earth is known as the albedo.   Larch trees allowing more snow to be exposed during the winter increases the albedo.  Fir and Spruce trees covering up the snow reduces the albedo.  Warming temperatures tend to reduce the area covered by larch trees and increase the area covered by fir and spruce.  Fewer larch and more evergreens mean a lower albedo, more light is absorbed which leads to more warming. This is what is known as a positive feedback loop.   An initial warming leads to more warming. It tends to accelerate the rate of temperature increase of the Earth.  It makes global warming happen faster.   There are negative feedback loops as well. These tend to decrease the rate of warming as temperatures rise.   Clouds have both positive and negative feedback effects. Sunlight is reflected from the tops of clouds, as everyone knows.  As temperatures rise, more water evaporates and creates more clouds.  More clouds mean more light is reflected, i.e., the Earth's albedo increases, tending to slow the warming.   However, clouds also trap more of the light energy that is transmitted through the clouds which increases the warming effect of the sunlight.   For very thick clouds, the amount of light that is reflected exceeds the amount of light that is trapped, so overall, thick clouds had a cooling effect. With very thin clouds, such as high cirrus clouds or contrails, the effect is not as clear.   Measurements seem to indicate that the overall effect is a positive feedback.   It thus is important to know the proportion of thick and thin clouds to determine whether the overall effect of increasing cloud cover due to warming is positive or negative. This remains an area of active research. 

Aerosols also affect whether clouds have a net positive or negative feedback effect.   Aerosols consist of tiny particulates, one to ten microns (micrometers - millionths of a meter), that are emitted into the atmosphere.  The first effect of aerosols is to provide "seeds" for condensation of water droplets (technically, these are called nucleation sites).  The more particulates there are, the number of droplets in the clouds increase and the size of the droplets decrease; both of these effects increase the reflectivity (albedo) of the clouds and cause a net cooling effect.  However, particulates also absorb sunlight, warming the air, raising the dew point and causing the clouds to dissipate and a net warming effect.  Modeling based on measurements made over the Amazon have shown that neither effect always predominates.  Instead, there is an ebb and flow of which effect predominates at any time.   At lower levels of aerosols, the first effect, increased reflection and cooling, tends to predominate while at higher aerosol concentrations, the evaporation of clouds and warming is predominant.   However, this is just one study and more work still needs to be done.   This study does lend a cautionary note to those who wish to engage in geoengineering and inject aerosols, usually sulfur compounds are recommended.  Without further study and a better understanding of the interplay of the many factors influencing the atmosphere, the risk of unintended consequences remains uncomfortable high.
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Response to "All Those Darwinian Doubts" by David Berlinski

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The main text in black is the complete text of Berlinski's article as published on his site at the Discovery Institute. My comments are enclosed in square brackets and [colored blue].

ALL THOSE DARWINIAN DOUBTS (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&printerFriendly=true&id=2450)
By: David Berlinski
Wichita Eagle
March 9, 2005

Original Article
NOTE: The article below is the full version by Dr. Berlinski. The Wichita Eagle opted to shorten the piece to only 400 words.

The defense of Darwin's theory of evolution has now fallen into the hands of biologists who believe in suppressing criticism when possible and ignoring it when not. It is not a strategy calculated in induce confidence in the scientific method. A paper published recently in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington concluded that the events taking place during the Cambrian era could best be understood in terms of an intelligent design—hardly a position unknown in the history of western science. The paper was, of course, peer-reviewed by three prominent evolutionary biologists. Wise men attend to the publication of every one of the Proceeding's papers, but in the case of Steven Meyer's "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories," the Board of Editors was at once given to understand that they had done a bad thing. Their indecent capitulation followed at once. [Detailed coverage of the incident can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sternberg_peer_review_controversy] 

Publication of the paper, they confessed, was a mistake. It would never happen again. It had barely happened at all. And peer review?

The hell with it.

"If scientists do not oppose antievolutionism," Eugenie Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, remarked, "it will reach more people with the mistaken idea that evolution is scientifically weak." Scott's understanding of "opposition" had nothing to do with reasoned discussion. It had nothing to do with reason at all. Discussing the issue was out of the question. Her advice to her colleagues was considerably more to the point: "Avoid debates."

Everyone else had better shut up.

In this country, at least, no one is ever going to shut up, the more so since the case against Darwin's theory retains an almost lunatic vitality.

Look — The suggestion that Darwin's theory of evolution is like theories in the serious sciences — quantum electrodynamics, say — is grotesque. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen unyielding decimal places. Darwin's theory makes no tight quantitative predictions at all. [Evolution is an historical science, http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html, the discovery of tiktaalik is one recent and well publicized example of a prediction made on the basis of evolution. The entire field of genetics is support for the fact that all current species descended from earlier ones, going back to a common ancestor.]

Look — Field studies attempting to measure natural selection inevitably report weak to non-existent selection effects. [This is blatantly false. 1. Lenski's experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment; 2. Observations of Darwin's finches on the Galapagos islands by Peter and Rosemary Grant: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091116/full/news.2009.1089.html.  One counter example is sufficient to disprove his statement.  I have provided two and there are many more.]

Look — Darwin's theory is open at one end since there are no plausible account for the origins of life. [The theory of evolution makes no statement about the origin of life, http://www.darwiniana.org/abiogenesis.htm.   It concerns the origin of extant species.]

Look — The astonishing and irreducible complexity of various cellular structures has not yet successfully been described, let alone explained. [False. This was debunked at the Kitzmiller vs. the Dover Board of Education trial, http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf. Behe introduced the flagellum as an example of irreduccible complexity. It was shown to have evolved from a previous structure similar to a hypodermic needle. http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html]

Look — A great many species enter the fossil record trailing no obvious ancestors and depart for Valhalla leaving no obvious descendents. [The fossil record is incomplete, as is well known.   The theory of symbiogenesis may account for sudden speciation events.   Acquiring Genomes, A Theory of the Origins of Species, by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan; "Introduction to Symbiogenesis" by D. Kiehl, http://sciencetrends.blogspot.com/2011/04/introduction-to-symbiogenesis.html]

Look — Where attempts to replicate Darwinian evolution on the computer have been successful, they have not used classical Darwinian principles, and where they have used such principles, they have not been successful. [Origin of the Species is not treated by scientists as if it is as unassailable as the Bible by Christians.   It is a scientific work subject to investigation, critique, and correction.  Darwin's theory of natural selection as a mechanism of evolution and speciation has been borne out over 150 years of observation and experimentation. But it is not the only mechanism at work.   Genetic mutation is a source of random variation that had not been discovered by Darwin's time, but it provides one source of the variation he observed that natural selection works upon.  Polyploidy and symbiosis are two other sources of variation that had either not been discovered or were not well understood when Darwin published his seminal work on evolution. Expecting that only using the principles presented in Darwin's work should be used is absurd and Berlinski should know that.]

Look — Tens of thousands of fruit flies have come and gone in laboratory experiments, and every last one of them has remained a fruit fly to the end, all efforts to see the miracle of speciation unavailing. [False. He should have done a literature search before making such a claim: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html]

Look — The remarkable similarity in the genome of a great many organisms suggests that there is at bottom only one living system; but how then to account for the astonishing differences between human beings and their near relatives — differences that remain obvious to anyone who has visited a zoo? [The 2% or so genetic difference is sufficient to produce the observed differences between species.  How is this statement even considered a criticism of evolutionary theory?]

But look again — If the differences between organisms are scientifically more interesting than their genomic similarities, of what use is Darwin's theory since its otherwise mysterious operations take place by genetic variations? [What does this even mean?  What mysterious operations?  This is guilt by suspicion. He has stated no facts that counter the current Theory of Evolution.   Some of his criticisms are valid concerning Darwin's work, Origin of Species, but have no relevance based on what is now known.]

These are hardly trivial questions. Each suggests a dozen others. These are hardly circumstances that do much to support the view that there are "no valid criticisms of Darwin's theory," as so many recent editorials have suggested. [There are valid criticisms of the Theory of Evolution and there are many raging controversies concerning some issues of how evolution works.   Belinski just hasn't mentioned any.  His "criticisms" that are listed above are standard Discovery Institute pap, unworthy of someone with his credentials.]

Serious biologists quite understand all this. They rather regard Darwin's theory as an elderly uncle invited to a family dinner. The old boy has no hair, he has no teeth, he is hard of hearing, and he often drools. Addressing even senior members at table as Sonny, he is inordinately eager to tell the same story over and over again.

But he's family. What can you do?

David Berlinski holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He is the author of On Systems Analysis, A Tour of the Calculus, The Advent of the Algorithm, Newton's Gift, The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky, and, most recently, Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics. He is a senior fellow with Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.

Berlinski's criticisms are all directed at Darwin's theory as presented in Origin of Species as if nothing has been learned since.  That is kind of like criticizing Newton's theory of gravitation by pointing out its failure to account properly for observed bending of light by massive objects.   Newton's theory accounted for all the known data at the time. As new data was discovered, Einstein's theory was necessary to account for it. Likewise, the entire field of genetics has developed and expanded our understanding of how evolution works.  The fossil record does, in fact, support the theory of evolution.  It does not necessarily support Darwin's theory of gradualism. It does support punctuated equilibrium and symbiogenesis. 

Introduction to Symbiogenesis

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Symbiogenesis is the theory that describes speciation that arises by symbiosis. Symbiosis is the beneficial association of two or more different species of organisms. For convenience, this discussion will just consider the cases of the symbiosis of two species with the understanding that situations exist in nature that involve more than two species. This association differs in intimacy from simply living in close proximity where each species derives some benefit from the other to becoming so closely intertwined that neither species can survive for long without the other except through artificial means. A cleaner shrimp that pick tiny food scraps from the mouth of a moray eel is one example of a very loose symbiotic relationship. The shrimp gains a safe an easy source of food and the eel gains good oral hygiene. Some species of lichen are the archetypal representatives of a very intimate association between an alga (or cyanobacterium) and fungus where if the two are separated they would only survive for a short time in the wild.

This theory originated in tsarist Russia in the latter half of the 19^th century and early part of the 20^th century. Andrey Famintsyn did much of the seminal research and was one of the first to enunciate the theory. Konstantin Merezhkovsky first publish the theory in 1905 in his paper, "The Nature and Origins of Chromatophores in the Plant Kingdom." Famintsyn published his version two years later also on the topic of chromatophores. Although the two men communicated frequently prior to the publication of either paper and Merezhkovsky referred to experimental work done by Famintsyn, the two men appear to have arrived independently at the conclusion that chromatophores in plants were the result of symbiotic incorporation of bacteria into another species.

Russia's plentiful and varied lichen biota provided a natural laboratory for the investigation of symbiogenesis. Gelatinous lichens in particular were found to range from loose associations to symbiosis so intimate that it was difficult to separate the alga and fungus as separate organisms. In the process of cataloging and studying the rich variety of lichens, scientists were able to see the progression from two species into a new third species. In addition Famintsyn's and Merezhkovsky's studies of plastids, such as chloroplasts, in plant cells when compared to certain very simple species of cyanobacteria provided direct evidence that these plastids had once lived as separate species and had been symbiotically incorporated into another species to give rise to a third species. Russian botanists in particular continued to investigate and refine this theory into the 1960s and 1970s. However, their papers were only published in Russian and so this theory was unknown in Western Europe and the USA.

Lynn Margulis rediscovered this important mechanisms of how evolution can proceed. It augments but does not replace the accumulation of mutations as a mechanism of speciation. Margulis is a microbiologist and developed her own hypothesis of symbiogenesis - speciation through symbiosis - based on her research into the structure of protists and protoctists where she was able to establish that chloroplasts, mitochondria, flagella, and other cell organelles had once been independently living organisms that had been incorporated by another to produce new species. Her work in many ways paralleled the work of the two Russians, Famintsyn and Merezhkovsky. It was only after she had published her work that she became aware of the earlier work in Russia.

In the case of simple organisms, protoctists in particular, symbiogenesis is well established as a scientific fact. The chlorophyllic plastids in alga, for example, were once independent cyanobacteria. The nuclei of eukaryotes have been demonstrated to have arisen from flagellant bacteria as have cilia (see Acquiring Genomes, A Theory of the Origins of Species by Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan for more information). This mechanism of speciation is in addition to the gradual accumulation of mutations that is one of the first proposed mechanisms. Natural selection works on both of these sources of variation, symbiosis and mutation, to favor the individuals and populations that adapt best to the environment in which they live.

The fossil record actually supports this and similar phenomena as important mechanisms of evolution. The punctuated equilibrium theory developed by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge is more consistent with symbiogenesis than phyletic gradualism, in my opinion. This theory describes long periods of stasis (little change in the biota as evidenced by fossils) interrupted by periods of relatively rapid speciation (think of the demise of nonavian dinosaurs and the adaptive radiation of mammals in the few million years around the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary demarcated by the iridium-rich layer signifying the asteroid impact at about 65 mya (million years ago).

In addition to the research concerning microbes, there are well documented cases of underwater slugs (Elysia viridis, for example). The ancestors of this newly evolved slug are gray animals that eat algae. In some of them, instead of being digested, the alga became part of the animal - a plant animal hybrid in fact. Elysia viridis are always green and they do not eat as adults. They derive all their nourishment from the symbiotic algae and so spend their time sunbathing instead of grazing on algae like their gray ancestors. Based on studies of the genomes of the green and gray slugs, it is clear that the green slugs evolved from the gray slugs by symbiotically incorporating the same algae that serve as the fodder of the gray slugs. This is a very clear case of evolution by symbiogenesis.

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