Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Controlling The Narrative: Climate Change
It’s always interesting to watch how the media tailor news to support their favored agenda, and The Washington Post provided an excellent example just last week. Written by Chris Mooney, “Alaska’s scorched summer” carried the subtitle “A state already affected by climate change has seen 5 million acres – an area larger than Connecticut – burned by wildfires.” The article continued on to the last page of the front section, where it took up the entire page.
Mooney is an environment and energy reporter for the Post. He is also author of the best-selling The Republican War on Science, writes frequently on the importance of the proper framing for narratives in support of his views on environmental issues, and is a prime example of what Instapundit refers to as “Democratic operatives with bylines.” He is a man with a mission to convince you to take action.
My views on politics and environmental issues have been shaped by my experience in the field since the mid-1970s. It’s pretty simple actually: no one has a monopoly on “the war on science” and partisans across the political spectrum mold their approach to specific scientific issues to fit their political starting points (and don’t get me started on the difference between regulatory science and actual science).
I’ve followed Alaska temperature trends over the years, so I read Mooney’s article to see how he would fit the story of large-scale fires in Alaska into his larger narrative that human actions are leading to catastrophic climate change; that is, how he would transform a story about weather into one about climate. I didn’t have to look far:
Alaska has already warmed by more than three degrees in the past half-century, much more than the continental United States.
Throughout the story, Mooney provides statements and quotes that link the fires to climate change, but his thesis hinges on the claims in that sentence. It’s both accurate and — at the same time — misleading. Let’s look at two charts from the Alaska Climate Research Center (ACRC), which is a part of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
This chart shows temperatures from 1949 through 2014 and — if one takes a look at 1965 (a half-century ago) — average temperatures across the state have clearly increased by at least 3° F as Mooney asserts. However, if you look more closely, you’ll notice that the entire gain is attributable to changes between 1976 and 1978. The ACRC explains what happened at that time:
The stepwise shift appearing in the temperature data in 1976 corresponds to a phase shift of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from a negative phase to a positive phase. Synoptic conditions with the positive phase tend to consist of increased southerly flow and warm air advection into Alaska during the winter, resulting in positive temperature anomalies.
This second chart shows what’s happened in Alaska in the 37 years since the phase shift of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation: annual temperatures have decreased by 0.1° F. There is a slight summer temperature increase of 0.4°, but that is largely attributable to summer and fall increases at Point Barrow which is above the Arctic Circle, well north of the fires.
As we can see, Mooney’s statement might pass a fact-checker but is completely misleading in context. His entire article is cleverly structured so that the individual facts are correct but are used collectively to serve a narrative that is not actually supported by those facts.
Mooney might respond that the ACRC itself states that 2014 was an unusually warm year with the average temperature 3° F above the post-1976 baseline, but the ACRC also points out that 2012 was 2.9° below that same baseline. Mooney’s problem is that he can’t argue that the warming in Alaska is indicative of “climate” unless he wants to allow that unusually snowy and cold winters in New England are harbingers of global cooling: either they’re both climate or they’re both weather. If the Alaska trend were to continue for several more years, it might support the thesis of longer-term climatic changes, but it’s premature to conclude that right now.
Indeed, Mooney misleads his readers regarding this distinction between weather and climate, implying that the most recent fires are part of a long-term trend:
Three of Alaska’s top-five wildfire seasons have occurred since the year 2004, with 16 million acres burned between them (2004, 2005, and 2015).
But if you look at the first chart I provided, you’ll see that while temperatures increased in 2004 and 2005 they had been on a decreasing trend between 2006 and 2013. Once again, Mooney’s individual facts are correct but assembled in such a way as to give a misleading picture.
I have one observation of my own regarding the ACRC data. On the second chart, notice that Barrow — which lies on the Arctic Ocean, much further north than the other Alaska weather stations — has noticeably warmed since 1976 in contrast to the rest of the state. Carbon dioxide greenhouse gas warming theory predicts that the greatest temperature increases will initially be seen in the Arctic and Antarctic, so the Barrow data is intriguing. I’m not familiar with temperature trends in other areas of the Arctic, so can’t tell you whether this change is due to a local anomaly or is part of a broader trend. However, in the Antarctic there is no warming trend, with the exception of the Antarctic peninsula which extends farther north than the rest of the continent. It’s something I’d like to know more about but won’t trust anything Mooney might write about it.
Published in Science & Technology
What is the period of this Pacific Decadal Oscillation? Shouldn’t it reverse sometime soon?
Very well thought out post. Thank you.
Is the phase shift of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation at all attributable to AGW?
Also, in the past I’ve been taken to task by other members for drawing a distinction between weather and climate. Indeed, it was asserted that such a distinction was a “warmist” calling card. Could you please clarify how you are using those terms?
Well done. It will be a full time job to correct inaccurate news reports on the climate. You seem pretty knowledgable for this fight, but here is some more ammo just in case you are not aware: http://climateconferences.heartland.org/iccc10/
I don’t know. My recollection is that the last time I was looking at this was 25-30 years which would mean its overdue for a shift but I may be misremembering.
The PDO is not attributable to AGW. For my purposes I’m using the distinction between “weather” and “climate” to address the way AGW proponents use the term. Weather is what happens all around us everyday and I’m using climate as a longer term. For instance, the climate in the Holocene was warmer than today.
Superb. Thank you.
Thank you for your thoughtful and informative post. Fighting intellectual dishonesty is a tiring and thankless task. Much easier to go with the flow and bask in the glow of pseudo-intellectualism than fight ignorance and dishonesty.
OMG, bigger than an entire state?! That’s so much… wait, you say that Alaska is the size of how many Connecticuts? 120?? With only 1/5th the population? What else? You mean these aren’t even the worst fires in Alaskan history? Over 5 million acres burned in 1956 too?? And 6 million in 2004? Wow. Funny how that never gets mentioned.
-E
Excellent post, thank you.
I’m interested in your views on “the difference between regulatory science and actual science”.
Will you write a letter to the newspaper with your observations?
We conservatives tend to want everyone to be left alone. We hated Al Gore’s hypocrisy but his video ended up on my sons’ school curriculum. (Canada).
The Conservatives do need to get back up front by developing environmental science of our own with journalists to support the story.
It needs to be corporations forming their own science group to show how much they are doing to leave a healthy place for humans and animals. They have to get ahead of the narrative.
A conservative who can talk about changing climate and how we can all leave a cleaner place is going to catch middle of the road voters.
As a conservative, I do care about caring.
Mark,
Let me sum up. A close reading of the data shows without question that the temperature change could not be related to Man Made Global Warming. That this SOB has a front page spread above the fold of the Washington Post is criminal. This kind of screaming fire in a crowded theater destroys trillions in GNP and wrecks billions of lives.
I hate this guy.
Regards,
Jim
And people say the liberal upper middle class is not religious. . .
Thank you for a great analysis. If AGW or even GW was actually happening to a significant extent it would be obvious in a way that would not require the dishonest advocacy presented by Chris Mooney in the Washington Post. I find the name of his book intriguing and I think you demonstrate who is really at war with science.
It should be noted based on his Wikipedia profile that Chris Mooney has a Bachelors in English and no scientific, journalistic, or sociological training beyond high school. What apparently qualifies him to draw his conclusions is an Uncle who was a biologists and a couple of appearances on fake news shows (the usual suspects).
Is the PDO a phenomenon climate models can accurately predict based on first principles, or is it an input (“forcing function”) because they don’t know what causes it?
Speaking of controlling the narrative, why do we even have to go along with their change of phrase from “global warming” to the slippery and malleable “climate change”? Why can’t we just keep using “global warming” everywhere we write about this topic?
Don’t have much expertise on the PDO. But since I once stayed at a Holiday Inn I did some googling and found this interesting description. If you hit the PDO Monthly Values link at the top left it looks to me if I’m reading it right that the PDO is very strong in 2014-5 which would be consistent with higher temperatures across Alaska.
Based mostly on my experience with EPA rulemaking, regulatory science involves making layers of simplified assumptions about scientific data, covering it with a thin veneer of actual science and adding some language to scare the public in order to justify regulations. The agency often operates with an assumption that the data says x it classifies as y and then adds protective assumptions leading to very strict regulation but when you go back and carefully look at x their analysis of the basic science is often incorrect.
Regulation of “suspect carcinogens” is a case in point where if you work back from EPA’s assessment of the potency of the carcinogen you find that the occurrence of cancer in communities with exposures should be significantly higher than it actually is. In my experience EPA’s estimates are always wrong and always on the high side.
The problem isn’t just overreaction. Prop 65 in California is a great example. Though it was passed by referendum, the classification of substances was left to a state regulatory agency. The result is warning labels are on everything and no one pays any attention to any of them. There are things that can be hazards and deserve warnings but when everything’s a hazard nothing is.
That was one of the first things I noticed when I moved to California. These little signs that say:
This label appears not only on the entrances to industrial facilities, but also swimming pools, shopping malls, grocery stores, and restaurants. Basically any building that has a janitorial closet. It’s worse than useless.
Re #17 and 18 – I bought a mug at the San Diego Zoo a couple of months ago that had that sticker on it. I raised an eyebrow at the sales clerk and pointed out that I would be using the mug to, you know, consume things. He said words to the effect of, “Oh, it’s just to comply with the law. You’ll be fine.”
LOL!
Regarding the Barrow temperatures, I wonder how much that might be related to the sea ice extent? There was a peak in the 70s and then a long decline until the late 2010s, then a resurgence. It seems to me sea ice would dramatically affect the temperature, especially when it’s at its smallest extent in the fall after the long summer melt. The measurement of increasing fall temperatures could simply be related to the relative timing of the local sea ice melt and the beginning of “fall” for the purposes of record keeping.
In times like these, I wish Ricochet had a print button.