Another Emeritus wants to make a name for himself

Howard Hayden, emertius professor of physics at UConn has written an letter to the EPA describing climate change science as a fraud. So sad.

Howard C. Hayden
785 S. McCoy Drive
Pueblo West, CO 81007

October 27, 2009

The Honorable Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator
Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20460

Dear Administrator Jackson:

I write in regard to the Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, Proposed Rule, 74 Fed. Reg. 18,886 (Apr. 24, 2009), the so-called "Endangerment Finding."

It has been often said that the "science is settled" on the issue of CO2 and climate. Let me put this claim to rest with a simple one-letter proof that it is false.

The letter is s, the one that changes model into models. If the science were settled, there would be precisely one model, and it would be in agreement with measurements.

So there should be one model: just like there is one type of car, one brand of margarine?

Alternatively, one may ask which one of the twenty-some models settled the science so that all the rest could be discarded along with the research funds that have kept those models alive.

We can take this further. Not a single climate model predicted the current cooling phase. If the science were settled, the model (singular) would have predicted it.

Just look at the graph. How can 2009 credibly be described as in a cooling phase? Since the IPCC models were not initialised with observational data, then cannot predict short term pertubation in the climate. But they do predict the type of variablility shown over the last few years.

Let me next address the horror story that we are approaching (or have passed) a "tipping point." Anybody who has worked with amplifiers knows about tipping points. The output "goes to the rail." Not only that, but it stays there. That's the official worry coming from the likes of James Hansen (of NASA­GISS) and Al Gore.

But therein lies the proof that we are nowhere near a tipping point. The earth, it seems, has seen times when the CO2 concentration was up to 8,000 ppm, and that did not lead to a tipping point. If it did, we would not be here talking about it. In fact, seen on the long scale, the CO2 concentration in the present cycle of glacials (ca. 200 ppm) and interglacials (ca. 300-400 ppm) is lower than it has been for the last 300 million years.

Eocene temperatures were, for example, much warmer than at present. Warm enough to for forests to grow near the North Pole. Over the next century we could get a long way towards recreating this climate. How did the climate become cooler? Slowly, probably with processes that are not relavant to human timescales.
The relevance of Quaternary CO2 concentrations relative to the last 300 million years is far from clear.

Global-warming alarmists tell us that the rising CO2 concentration is (A) anthropogenic and (B) leading to global warming.

(A) CO2 concentration has risen and fallen in the past with no help from mankind. The present rise began in the 1700s, long before humans could have made a meaningful contribution. Alarmists have failed to ask, let alone answer, what the CO2 level would be today if we had never burned any fuels. They simply assume that it would be the "pre-industrial" value.

Land use change? Start of the industrial revolution? No possible way for human to make a meaningful contribution in the 1700s then. From the ice core CO2 record, we have a good idea what type of variability in CO2 can be expected. Nothing in the last 800000 years comes close to matching the speed or magnitude of the current increase.

• The solubility of CO2 in water decreases as water warms, and increases as water cools. The warming of the earth since the Little Ice Age has thus caused the oceans to emit CO2 into the atmosphere.

Some small portion of the total. Isotopic evidence indicates that a far far larger portion comes from buring fossil fuels.

(B) The first principle of causality is that the cause has to come before the effect. The historical record shows that climate changes precede CO2 changes. How, then, can one conclude that CO2 is responsible for the current warming?

This is hardly original. It has been answered a thousand times before. During transitions from glacials to interglacials, CO2 concentration increases lagged temperature changes (but perhaps not by that much - there is uncertainly in the gas-ice correlation in Antarctica, and recent analysis suggests that the lag may be smaller than the 800 years often quoted).

Nobody doubts that CO2 has some greenhouse effect, and nobody doubts that CO2 concentration is increasing. But what would we have to fear if CO2 and temperature actually increased?

• A warmer world is a better world. Look at weather-related death rates in winter and in summer, and the case is overwhelming that warmer is better.

Sea level rise? Spread of disease vectors? Ecological turmoil? Crop failures? I'm overwhelmed.

• The higher the CO2 levels, the more vibrant is the biosphere, as numerous experiments in greenhouses have shown. But a quick trip to the museum can make that case in spades. Those huge dinosaurs could not exist anywhere on the earth today because the land is not productive enough. CO2 is plant food, pure and simple.

So Hayden has never heard of ocean acidicifation then?

• CO2 is not pollution by any reasonable definition.

Ditto.

• A warmer world begets more precipitation.

On average perhaps. But Sahelian pastorlists won't care much that their drought is more than offset by floods elsewhere. Patterns of precipitation change are less certain in the GCM, but the general pattern is that wet areas will recieve more pecipitation, and dry areas less. And warmer temperatures will increase evaporation.


• All computer models predict a smaller temperature gradient between the poles and the equator. Necessarily, this would mean fewer and less violent storms.

It might just be a little bit more complicated that that.

• The melting point of ice is 0 ºC in Antarctica, just as it is everywhere else. The highest recorded temperature at the South Pole is -14 ºC, and the lowest is -117 ºC. How, pray, will a putative few degrees of warming melt all the ice and inundate Florida, as is claimed by the warming alarmists?

How many misconceptions can be put into one short paragraph?. Ice sheets don't melt from the top, but from the edges, which are much lower and warmer, and would be dramatically affected by a "few degrees of warming". The South Pole is in East Antarctica. Nobody is expecting East Antarctica to melt substantially in the short term. West Antarctica and Greenland are much more at risk, and indeed are already experiencing increases in melt rate. If East Antarctica did melt, the resulting 60m sea level rise would flood a great deal more than Florida.

Consider the change in vocabulary that has occurred. The term global warming has given way to the term climate change, because the former is not supported by the data. The latter term, climate change, admits of all kinds of illogical attributions. If it warms up, that's climate change. If it cools down, ditto. Any change whatsoever can be said by alarmists to be proof of climate change.

The term "Global warming" poorly describes the range of changes expected in the climate system, of which increasing temperature is just one, abet the one with the highest degree of certainly. "Climate change" better portrays the multifaceted change expected to temperature and precipitation patterns, tropical storm frequency and intensity.

In a way, we have been here before. Lord Kelvin "proved" that the earth could not possibly be as old as the geologists said. He "proved" it using the conservation of energy. What he didn't know was that nuclear energy, not gravitation, provides the internal heat of the sun and the earth.

Similarly, the global-warming alarmists have "proved" that CO2 causes global warming.

Not proved, but we have a lot of strong evidence that supports this hypothesis. Given the potential costs of inaction, perhaps a little consideration of the alternative is due?

Except when it doesn't.

To put it fairly but bluntly, the global-warming alarmists have relied on a pathetic version of science in which computer models take precedence over data, and numerical averages of computer outputs are believed to be able to predict the future climate. It would be a travesty if the EPA were to countenance such nonsense.

Computer models are far from the only line of evidence about climate change. But there is a dearth of data on future climates, and climate models help fill that gap.

Best Regards,

Howard C. Hayden
Professor Emeritus of Physics, UConn

Chiropractic safety - not far, far worse than we thought

The BCA's plethora of evidence contains two papers addressing the risks associated with chiropractic treatment:

12. Thiel et al. (2007) Safety of chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine: a prospective national survey. Spine 2007 Oct; 32(21): 2375-8

13. Cassidy et al. (2008) Risk of vertebro-basilar stroke and chiropractic care: results of a population based case control and case crossover study. Spine 2008 Feb 15; 33 (4 suppl): S176-83

Both papers were also cited by Richard Brown (vice-president of the BCA) in his piece in the New Scientist. 

Not wanting to pay to read the full articles, I only have access to the abstracts.

Theil et al. (2007) motivate their study by noting that the risk of a serious adverse event following chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine is largely unknown, with estimates between 1 in 200,000 and 1 in several million cervical spine manipulations. They looked at the outcome of ~60,000 cervical spine manipulation on ~20,000 patients. No serious adverse events were reported, meaning that at worst, the risk is ~6 per 100,000 manipulation. None of the previous studies had sugested a risk anywhere near this high. This study does not assure us that chiropractic treatment is safe, merely that the risk of a serious adverse event is not much worse than we though. The risk of minor adverse events is rather high.

Cassidy et al. (2008) examine the risk of a rare type of stroke - a vertebrobasilar artery (VBA) stroke - associated with chiropractic visits and primary care physician visits. They paper finds an enhanced risk of a VBA stroke after a vist to either type of practitioner, and attribute this to patients suffering from neck pains or head aches, both known precursors of a VBA stroke, visiting the practitioner. Its not clear from the abstract if this can fully account for the enhanced risk of both types of practitioner. While this study does not demonstrate a greatly enhanced risk from chiropractic treatment, it does so only with regard to one particular adverse event.

A plethora vanishes

BCA have finally done a decent thing and released their plethora of evidence. As predicted, Olafsdottir et al. (2001) is omitted from the list of 27 (now 29) papers. This is by far the best quality trial of the effectiveness of chiropractic treatment of colic available. So why was it omitted? Was it:

1. The BCA are so incompetent that they were unaware of it?
2. The BCA are fully aware of it, but have intentionally ignored it?

While incompetence can not easily be discounted, if they are intentionally ignoring it, that must come close to fulfilling even Judge Eady's surreal definition of "bogus". 

It would also apparently fall foul of the GCC code of conduct's definition of evidence based care, which, as quoted in the BCA's plethora, is "clinical practice that incorporates the best

available evidence from research". Giving chiropractic treatment for colic would thus appear to to breach rule A2.3. 

A secret list of 27 publically available papers

In their extraordinary press release, the litigious British Chiropractic Association claim to have a plethora of evidence that chiropractors can treat various childhood ailments. They asked Simon Singh if he had read 27 papers that, apparently, are so persuasive that "If Dr. Singh had read the research he could not have held the view he expressed in the Guardian unless he simply chose to ignore the facts."

So what are these papers? Obviously the papers are going to be reporting high quality placebo controlled trials with appropriate blinding and randomisation: nothing less is likely to persuade Singh. Chiropractors are real medics (Proof? - they have statutory regulation), so there won't be any customer satisfaction surveys masquerading as evidence. That's the sort of low trick that evidence-deficient homeopaths pull. But as to the identity of the 27, the BCA are rather coy. 

So I, polite as ever, write a short email to the BCA, asking for the list of 27, and promptly receive the reply 

As this case is still sub-judice, I am unable to accede to your request at this time.

So they are hiding behind their lawyers' wigs. Any respectable organisation would have proclaimed their scientific evidence before they launched legal action. 

A quick dredge through ISI web of knowledge revealed that Olafsdottir et al. (2001) is a prime candidate for being accidentally omitted from the list of 27. Her conclusion that "Chiropractic spinal manipulation is no more effective than placebo in the treatment of infantile colic." is not the most convincing evidence in favour of bone crunching.

Solid Evidence?

The ever wonderful homeopathyworkedforme has reached a new low

H:MC21 wishes to express its opposition to the idea that ‘science writers’ have the right to publish articles which attack the livelihood and reputation of medical practitioners without providing solid evidence. 

Naturally, they have no qualms about "medical practitioners" trying to treat either dangerous diseases, or using risky treatments without solid evidence. 

CPRW's windy logic

And now its Janet Dubé's turn to rail against wind farms in the Guardian is an assertion laden opinion piece with a fact deficit. She writes,

They [wind turbines] appear to have been successfully deployed in Denmark and in Germany - both countries where the electricity grid operates differently from our own.

but does not deign to tell us what these difference might be. It would be remarkable if the operations of power grids in different countries were identical, but we want to know if these differences are significant. Without details, this is empty rhetoric. She continues

The technology needed to capture wind energy is neither renewable nor sustainable.

This is to redefine both "renewable" and "sustainable". A veritable Humpty Dumpty argument. 

The promotion of such a system may even be dangerous, because we need to conserve energy and promote serious alternatives to the "energy-greedy" systems we've become dependent on.

No one promoting wind turbine doubts the need for energy efficiency. This is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for a substainable future. But dangerous? Only to Don Quixote disciples.

Are these arguments really the best CPRW can come up with? Why don't they just confess to being reactionary nimbys?