Duds: a skeptic bombshell that never went off

Climate skeptics are having a field day with a new study on the earth's natural ability to absorb excess carbon dioxide (Knorr, W. (2009), Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions increasing?). Influential skeptic and TV weatherman Anthony Watts calls it a "bombshell" (for more info on Watts, see "You're not a scientist, but you play one in real life"). Essentially the skeptic claim is this: “natural carbon sinks are soaking up human CO2 emissions at a faster rate than previously thought, which suggests that global warming will occur slower than models suggest. The science is not settled!” But is this an accurate interpretation of the study?

Here’s the story in a nutshell. Humans emit a lot of CO2, but only about 40% of that remains in the atmosphere (the airborne fraction, or AF). The other 60% is absorbed by natural carbon sinks, such as oceans, soil, and plants. As CO2 concentrations have increased, the AF has remained constant, meaning that carbon sinks’ ability to absorb CO2 is increasing in line with emissions. However, basic physics predict that eventually carbon sinks will begin to “fill up” with CO2, losing their ability to absorb more. When this happens, the AF will begin to increase exponentially, as carbon sinks absorb less and less CO2—a positive carbon cycle feedback.

The AF has remained constant for decades, but a few studies—Canadell et al (2007), Le Quere et al. (2007), and Schuster and Watson (2007)—have found signs that this carbon cycle feedback was starting to get underway. Canadell, for example, had found that the AF had increased from 40% in 1960 to 45% in 2007, which would signal that less carbon was being absorbed by the biosphere. The climate science website RealClimate notes:

There are uncertainties and caveats associated with each study, but taken as a whole, they provide convincing evidence that the hypothesized carbon cycle positive feedback has begun…

But then came the “bombshell” from Knorr (2009), who found that the AF has not, in fact, increased. The full study is behind a paywall, but you can read the abstract here. If Knorr is correct, it could mean that the studies from 2007 were premature in concluding that carbon cycle feedbacks have begun. The real question is, does this matter? If Knorr is right, does this cast doubt on the consensus view that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels are causing global warming?

The short answer is no. I don’t have the scientific training to figure out which study is correct, but I do understand logic, and here’s what you need to know about carbon cycles.

First, the study's conclusion makes no claims about FUTURE carbon cycle feedbacks—it simply finds that carbon sinks' ability to absorb CO2 has not declined in the PRESENT. Claiming that Knorr casts doubt on models predicting accelerating future growth in CO2 concentrations makes the logical fallacy of extrapolating future trends from current results—the same error that led financial firms to conclude that housing prices would always increase.

Second, keep in mind that the current climate consensus is summarized within the 2007 IPCC report. On the other hand, the studies that Knorr critiques were published AFTER the IPCC report came out; therefore, if Knorr is correct in proving these studies wrong, his findings cannot logically have any bearing on the accuracy of the IPCC’s conclusions. At worst, Knorr simply returns us to the state of science when the IPCC report was written. In other words, skeptics are attacking a straw man.

Let me elaborate. For the Knorr study to make a dent in the armor of global warming theory, the findings it attacks would have to be included in, and critical to, the most widely accepted climate models. This is not the case. Studies like Canandell cannot have been included in the models on which the consensus is based, since they were published AFTER those models were created.

Moreover, while these studies gave us reason to believe global warming could occur faster, no one claimed they were certain, so it is inaccurate to claim that Knorr is throwing a bomb at the consensus. RealClimate, for one, emphasizes the difficulties with modeling carbon cycle feedbacks, because there are multiple physical processes that work in opposite directions. For example, as CO2 concentrations increase, the ocean’s ability to absorb CO2 also increases. At the same time, rising temperatures decrease the ocean’s ability to absorb CO2 (think of a warm soda can losing its carbonation). So the trick is to figure out when one process begins to dominate the other, and that’s hard to do:

We have to keep in mind that it is a tricky business to invert the atmospheric CO₂ concentration to get sources and sinks. The history of this type of study tells us to wait for independent replication before taking this result to the bank… I guess it’s fair to say that models are not decisive in their assessment about which of these two factors should be dominating at present.

In other words, none of these findings had been independently verified, and certainly not risen to the level of consensus. In fact, before Canandell, most models apparently predicted a declining airborne fraction, meaning that Knorr’s study is actually in line with IPCC models:

Carbon cycle models (13 of them, from the SRES A2 scenario) also predict that the atmospheric fraction should increase, but not yet. For the time period from 1960 to 2000, the models predict that we would find the opposite of what is observed: a slight decrease in the atmospheric fraction, driven by increasing carbon uptake into the natural world. Positive feedbacks in the real-world carbon cycle seem to be kicking in faster than anticipated, Canadell et al conclude.

In any case, according to Jones et al (2007), it is incorrect to conclude that a constant AF disproves carbon cycle feedbacks (don’t ask me why—I’m just copying and pasting to prove that the consensus supposedly being attacked by Knorr is a straw man):

It is commonly assumed that no change in airborne fraction implies no change in the carbon cycle. This is not true. It is also commonly assumed that if AF is rising, this implies we’ve detected a climate feedback on the carbon cycle. This is also not true. In reality, the AF depends not only on this years emissions and natural fluxes, but the time history of the carbon cycle, which in itself depends on the time history of the emissions. A different rate of emissions will imply different response of AF. This is true regardless of any feedbacks from climate.

The bottom line is that while Knorr (2009) may cast doubt on the conclusion that carbon cycle feedbacks have already begun, that conclusion is hardly pertinent to the consensus on global warming. The most far-reaching conclusion a skeptic could logically draw is that global warming is as bad as we thought (and not worse than we thought).

In other words, Anthony Watts isn’t a scientist, but he plays one in real life.

NOTE: Obviously I am not a scientist, and have probably gotten some points wrong (and probably left some out as well). If you ARE a scientist with expertise in the area, please leave a comment, and I can send you a link to a Google Document that you can edit.

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Climate change basics: If humans only contribute 2% of natural CO2, how do we contribute 100% of the increase?

All the time, I see confusion over the size the human contribution to CO2. Man emits a lot of CO2 each year, but it's still only about 2-3% the amount that Nature emits. Many people don't understand how Man can be responsible for the observed increase in CO2 when our emissions constitute 2-3% of natural emissions. This results from a misunderstanding of a basic concept called "stocks and flows." If you're one of the confused, don't worry - a study by Sterman (2002) found that even most MIT grad students have trouble grasping this concept intuitively. Here's the analogy:

Imagine a bathtub in which the faucet is turned on and the drain is open, and water is entering the tub from the faucet at the same rate it is leaving the tub through the drain. The tub is in equilibrium: the "flow" of water is entering and exiting the tub at the same rate, so the overall level of water in the tub (the "stock") does not change. This is like the natural carbon cycle: in equilibrium, CO2 enters and exits the biosphere at the same rate, so the overall level in the atmosphere doesn't change.

But back to the tub. Now imagine that you add a second faucet pouring water into the tub, but only 2% as much as the original faucet. Still, because there is now slightly more water entering the tub as draining out of it, the water level slowly increases. This is like the manmade contribution to CO2 emissions: even though ours are only 2-3% of the total, that 2-3% throws the system out of balance. We've disrupted the equilibrium, causing CO2 to accumulate in the atmosphere faster than natural processes can remove it, causing the total level of CO2 to rise.

So even though we are responsible for only a small fraction of the TOTAL CO2 that enters the atmosphere each year, we are responsible for 100% of what STAYS there.

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"You're not a scientist, but you play one in real life." What do holistic healers and Anthony Watts have in common?

It always amazes me to see the scorn for the good folks at RealClimate left by commenters in climate denial blogs. It's bad enough that laypeople have the audacity to think they understand climate science better than the scientists who study it, but when their preferred sources are... a TV weatherman and a former fossil fuel executive?

This got me wondering, if global warming skeptics don't trust the experts on climate science, where do they go for medical advice? Trusting a TV weatherman on climate science is like trusting a holistic healer on... well, you'll get the picture (the first 13 seconds of the video are messed up):

So THOSE are Steve McIntyre's research methods for "disproving" the hockey stick. Tor the holistic healer even makes the same argument deniers make about the establishment experts' "business" motives:

Kramer tells me that you are interested in an alternative to climate science. I think we can help you. See, unfortunately the climate science establishment is a business just like any other. And business needs research grants, and they want to sell you their most expensive item, which is unnecessary alarmism. You know, I am not a businessman - I am a blog scientist.

Alternative medicine, meet alternative science:

Depending on where people get their advice on climate science from, we may end up in a worse situation than screaming "I'm an eggplant!" in the back of an ambulance.

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Calvin & Hobbes take on Superfreaks, part 2

Calvin & Hobbes just have so much to say about the world. In a past post (What do Calvin & Hobbes and SuperFreaks have in common?), I'd pointed out how trusting the authors of Superfreakonomics on a geoengineering solution to global warming would be like trusting a 6-year-old to fix your plumbing. If Levitt and Dubner think technological control over Nature can solve our problems, I think Nature will have some surprises in store for them:

Assuming that we can engineer Nature to fit our lifestyles doesn't make Levitt and Dubner courageous geniuses. Although Bill Waterson certainly is one.

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Never bet against Barry Obama: how we’ve gotten to where we are on health care reform

Everyone knows that pitchers purposely throw balls to set up “out” pitches later in the count. But do hitters ever purposely swing and miss at hittable pitches? If anyone does it, you know it’s gotta be Manny Ramirez. It’s rumored that Manny purposely misses easy pitches in April to throw off scouting reports—so pitchers won’t be afraid to throw the same, crushable pitch in September and October when it really matters. Baseball guru Bill James swears that Manny purposely gets into full counts with a runner on first, so the runner can take off with the pitch and score on a well-hit ball. Manny’s so good, he can purposely dig himself into a hole just so his opponents are more surprised when he blasts out of it. No matter how bad it looks, you never bet against Manny.

And you never bet against Barry—Barry Obama, that is. Despite a summer of cynicism, replete with media obituaries of his administration not ten months into its first term, health care reform passed the House Saturday night.

To be sure, there’s still a long way to go in the Senate, but I’m going to go ahead and predict exactly that: the Senate will pass health care reform and the President will sign it into law. (True, Joe Lieberman’s filibuster threat would seem to pose an insurmountable obstacle, but I’m gonna call his bluff—this seems like a childish ploy for attention, not a serious threat.)

Why am I so confident in my prediction? It’s not based on media reports, although the Economist does report:

Harry Reid, the majority leader of the Senate, said that he may have the 60 votes necessary to pass a version of the health-reform bill that includes some form of public plan. A public plan may, therefore, now be politically viable again.

It’s not based on insider knowledge, although sources do tell me:

Senator Reid’s decision to include a public option in the Senate bill will likely give him enough support within the Democratic Conference to bring a bill to the floor. He then will determine which public option compromise (trigger or state opt-in) can get the 60 votes required to end a filibuster… While the next few weeks will be difficult once the bills reach the floor, it will be hard for Republicans to stop the President’s top domestic priority and the top domestic goal of the Democratic party for six decades. [Notice that it’s not “whether” a public option can get 60 votes, but “which” version of the public option will be included.]

It has nothing to do with electoral math, Nate Silver-esque modeling, or statements from Senators—although Sen. Baucus does state there’s a “sense of inevitability.”

The reason I’m predicting passage of health care reform is simple: I’ve learned never to bet against Obama, because he wins. Some people just have an innate ability to come through in the clutch, to not lose no matter what. Michael Jordan had it. LeBron has it (and it’s gonna take him to a title in the next couple seasons). And Barack Obama has it. All through the election, whenever the media counted him out (down 30 points in the polls to Hillary, “Bittergate,” Jeremiah Wright, Sarah Palin’s Convention speech), he stuck to his plan and pulled out the W. Now that it’s actually time to get things done, I feel the same mojo about him. He’s like the Mike Jordan of reforming, the Papi of the Potomac (2004-07 version), the Tiger Woods of Washington. Like Tom Brady (pre-David Tyree), you know that no matter what’s happened for the first 58 minutes, he’s coming through in the last two.

Obama: coming through in the clutch

Think about where we were just weeks ago. For months, the President endured a cacophonous chorus of conservative contempt, clamoring breathlessly over death panels and socialism. Meanwhile, pessimistic progressives pleaded for the President to abandon bipartisanship and rely on the Democrats’ 60-vote majority to ram reform through the Senate. They criticized his arms-length strategy of outlining broad principles and leaving the details to Congress, and couldn’t understand why, with 60 Democratic Senators, he was pursuing bipartisanship with an opposition whose guiding principle was “Whatever it is, I’m against it.” The media all too happily promoted the negativity, pronouncing health care reform dead on arrival—and the Obama administration with it.

But, recognizing the pessimism as the product of a 24-hour news cycle obsessed with short-term events, the President pressed on. A month ago, progressives fretted and conservatives thought they smelled blood in the water—and yet here we are, closer to health care reform than at any point since Teddy Roosevelt came up with the idea 97 years ago. Even before passage by the House, last Monday’s New York Times reported:

President Obama’s arms-length strategy on health care appears to be paying dividends… Democratic leaders and senior White House officials are sounding increasingly confident that Mr. Obama will sign legislation overhauling the nation’s health care system — a goal that has eluded American presidents for decades.

So how did we get here, and how did the pessimists get it so wrong? Pretty easily: the President played them all like Manny Ramirez—putting himself in a bad position early on, only to lull his opponents into making a mistake when it counted. Like in baseball, it’s fall, not summer, that counts.

Obama’s strategy seems to have been to give in to Republican demands until, tempted into overconfidence by the concessions they’d already won, they rejected one compromise too many, exposing the true nature of their obstructionism. That moment seems to have been in August when Sen. Chuck Grassley, a “moderate” seen then as the best hope for compromise, endorsed Sarah Palin’s death panel myth, and subsequently sent out a fundraising letter detailing his opposition to “Obamacare.” From that point on, Obama could credibly point out, “look, we’ve given in to everything the Republicans have demanded, and they still say no.”

In other words, knowing full well from the beginning that the GOP would never give in to ANY concession, Obama was able to offer extremely generous concessions that he never intended to implement, anticipating that when the GOP rejected even those, he could move on unilaterally while credibly claiming to have pursued bipartisanship.

In short, if you’re a progressive who’s nervous that Obama is swinging and missing at a fat pitch over the plate, don’t be—he’s been just what he was on the campaign trail: calm, determined, and relentless. I’m not sure who said it, Jay-Z or Nas, but I do know this about Barack Obama: he… will… not… lose. Just look at this face:

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Don't believe global warming scientists? Ask an economist

On the heels of my post yesterday which looked at what the Market believes about global warming (verdict: it's true and it's terrible), there's a new poll out today confirming that it's not just scientists who nearly unanimously buy the climate consensus: 84% of economists also agree that global warming poses significant risks to the economy. In the New York Times:

A New York University School of Law survey found near unanimity among 144 top economists that global warming threatens the United States economy and that a cap-and-trade system of carbon regulation will spur energy efficiency and innovation.

“Outside academia the level of consensus among economists is unfortunately not common knowledge,” Richard Revesz, dean of the law school, said during a press conference Wednesday. “The results are conclusive – there is broad agreement that reducing emissions is likely to have significant economic benefits.”

The law school’s Institute for Policy Integrity sent surveys to 289 economists who had published at least one article on climate change in a top-rated economics journal in the past 15 years. Half of those economists responded anonymously to a dozen questions that solicited their opinions on a range of issues, from the impact of climate change on particular industries to how the benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions should be calculated.

The survey found that 84 percent of the economists agreed that climate change “presents a clear danger” to the United States and global economies – hitting agriculture the hardest – even though the severity of global warming remains unknown.

Only 5.6 percent disagreed with that statement while 7.6 percent were neutral and 2.8 percent had no opinion.

Interesting point #1: Agriculture will be the industry hurt most by global warming. To scientists, this isn't news. Anyone who follows climate science already knows that global warming will turn the Midwest into a permanent dust bowl of drought and decay. But it should be a wakeup call to agricultural interests and Midwestern Senators currently opposed to climate and clean energy legislation. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, for example, fears that cap-and-trade will hurt Kansas farmers by raising energy prices. Memo to Sen. Brownback: cheap energy doesn't help crops grow when there's no rain.


Interesting point #2: Uncertainty increases, not decreases, the case for action NOW. Again, this is not news to anyone who follows climate science and economics. But the Superfreaknonomics authors, or the hack Jim Manzi over at nationalreview.com, should take note of this:

Seventy-three percent of the respondents agreed that the uncertainty surrounding the severity of climate change raises the economic value of implementing measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The reason is simple: the costs of climate change range from large to civilization-destroying, while the worst-case costs of implementing cap-and trade look something like this. The economic crisis has taught us not to discount "long-tail" probabilities which, though unlikely to occur, would be almost too terrible to imagine if they did.

Interesting point #3: 98% of economists agree cap-and-trade will boost innovation and efficiency in the economy. This is a truly critical finding. Economics 101 teaches that economies grow not by keeping the price of goods cheap, but by inventing more products and producing them using fewer unit inputs. Unsurpisingly then, placing a price or cap on carbon would force companies to find ways of producing their goods using less energy, spurring a tidal wave of innovation and economic growth. And 92% of economists agree that market-based mechanisms like cap-and-trade are the best way to accomplish this goal. In fact, according to the poll, "most economists would support the cap‐and‐trade structure proposed by the main legislative options now pending before Congress."


So to the skeptic who thinks scientists are making up global warming: now you have two free market sources whose word you can take. Ask reinsurance company Munich Re, who believes climate change will be so destructive to property that they're pushing a $400 billion project to combat CO2. Or you can ask free market economists, 84% of whom believe global warming will damage the economy, and 98% of whom believe cap-and-trade will spur innovation and efficiency.

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Skeptics of climate science believe first and foremost in the primacy of free markets over all other reason. Their fervency is so absolute that free market platitudes supersede any evidence, no matter how objective, to the effect that markets aren’t perfect. Thus, if there’s a problem that may need a government solution, skeptics are willing to disbelieve any evidence of that problem’s existence, latching on instead to any half-baked talking points that suggest things are fine. Convince yourself that all science is political, and it’s easy to dismiss out of hand all evidence contrary to your beliefs, shielding dogma from science.

So to convince skeptics, we'll have to try a different tactic. If we can’t ask a scientist, we’ll need to go straight to the source skeptics trust most: the Market (capital M). If the Market always has the answer, It (capital I) should be able to tell us whether global warming is real. And the best way to find out what the Market says about global warming is to ask the company that has the most to lose from it.

Munich Re is the largest reinsurance company in the world, with 2008 revenues of $46 billion. As a reinsurance company, Munich Re is in the business of insuring insurance companies. Yes, insurance companies buy insurance too: to protect themselves against the risk of a major disaster. It's simple: when a single house burns down here and there, it doesn’t threaten an insurance company’s solvency. But when a major catastrophe such as a hurricane strikes, that's a different story—with thousands of customers wiped out all at once, the company may not be able to handle the barrage of claims. Hence the need for reinsurance, and Munich Re sells more policies than anyone in the world.

So if looming environmental change were threatening to increase the incidence of such profit-destroying disasters, you’d think the company which stands to foot the bill would want to know something about it. And with an army of actuaries to assess those risks, you’d think it would be pretty well positioned to figure out those risks and do something about it.

And Munich Re is doing something, spearheading a massive $400 billion initiative to transform the Sahara desert into a solar power plant for Europe. Funded by a consortium of companies, it’s called the Desertec initiative, and it aims to scatter dozens of concentrated solar power plants throughout the desert, transporting the power across the Mediterranean to Europe via high-capacity cables. Munich Re is hoping this technological marvel will help to avert climate catastrophe and rescue its profits:

[Peter Höppe, Munich Re's head of climate change] said Munich Re had been concerned about the potential impact of climate change on the insurance business since the early 1970s. Extreme weather events related to climate change are already a reality and have the potential to be uninsurable against within a few decades, pointing to a possible crisis for the industry, he said.

"To keep our business model alive in 30 or 40 years we have to ensure things are still insurable," he said.

Munich Re also plans to invest in the new initiative and Höppe said banks were confident that they could raise sufficient funding to make the project work.

Concerned about climate change since the early 1970s? That wasn’t Al Gore or a university research scientist speaking—that was an executive at one of the largest risk management companies in the world. And it’s not just PR greenwashing—Munich Re is investing its own capital in a project, outside of its core business, of almost unimaginable scale. This isn’t even like certain American utilities supporting cap-and-trade in order to put less efficient rivals at a disadvantage. Rather, it’s a company whose business it is to predict natural disasters doing what it takes to prevent more of them from happening.

Put another way, this is not a case of a company trying to convince the public to buy its climate-friendly products (e.g. solar panels, wind turbines, etc.) - it's a company aiming to stop climate change and its damaging effects. A solar panel maker can create a market for its products by hyping global warming; at the end of the day, what matters is not global warming's reality, but customers' belief in that reality. Munich Re, on the other hand, couldn't care less what anyone believes - all it cares about is what nature will do to the properties insured by its clients. If global warming turns out to be false, spending time and capital abating it through Desertec would be a waste. In other words, Munich Re has a vested interest in climate change science being wrong, but it has nonetheless concluded that the science is right, and that spending billions of dollars abating global warming is a wise investment. This is about an unbiased assessment as it gets.

So when the world’s largest reinsurance company, the firm with the most money riding on its ability to predict disasters, acknowledges the reality and seriousness of global warming, it puts the skeptic in quite a pickle. If markets are always right, then shouldn’t we trust Munich Re about global warming? Because teabaggers have a certain word for people who don’t trust free market firms to make the right decisions. And it starts with S.

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