Science not politics

Continuing with Dave's comments about climate science:

Secondly you have a topic that's polarized many different groups, and many an individual will merely argue a point because a group they might relate to is arguing the same point.

Many people have vested interests relating to climate change and thoughts about what, if anything, to do about it. That does produce politics, in that groups of people with interests act politically.

But the science is the science, and respects no party, no nation, no religion, etc.

This does make for the problem that groups with interests other than explaining and discussing the best science also establish web sites, write editorials, produce shows, etc. to propagandize their views, distorting and lying about the science along the way. So if you're interested in the science, you have to work harder to find it than in something which doesn't scare people. You also have to work harder to disentangle the parts of an article that are science from those which are opinion, wishful thinking, and such.

One thing which I think is helpful in deciding about sources is to, first, hold your nose about their political viewpoints. This can be hard when the politics are greatly different from yours, but bear with it. As you read through, look for scientific claims, or claims which the author thinks are scientific. As you find them, go hit the literature on the topic and see if the author has represented the point correctly. It may sound like a lot of work, but in practice, most web sites which are more concerned about their politics than the science display this fairly quickly by lies and distortions, and some are at an extremely basic level. Basic enough that you can check the truth of it by looking at a textbook from 30 years ago (before the topic was getting nearly as much press, but well after the scientific basics were understood). If not an outright lie, very often what you'll see is a quote selected from a scientific article and removed from its context. Once you find the context, you see that the original author's intent was quite different than the bit quoted.

As you proceed with this, you'll find some sites are very prone to distortion or lying, and some are, if not doing it, then at least only doing it on such a subtle level that you can't detect it. Eliminating the most egregious (and those who quote the same lines -- there's very little originality, so learning a few facts suffices to eliminate a lot of the bad sites) narrows the field greatly, and productively. The difficult part is where you have to eliminate sites whose politics you generally like. On the other hand, if you want your car fixed, you go to your mechanic, not to your representative (aside from the times they're the same person :-). Scientists working in the area are better sources than political groups anyhow.

After you start to understand the science, you have separate questions. (for all 'you', including me). I don't think the responses are dictated by the science. Once you understand the science and the probable outcomes, now you have to ask the questions of what is morally appropriate, what is politically appropriate, what is economically appropriate, and so on, by way of responses (including 'do nothing'). Different people, even if agreed on the science, will (and should) disagree here. But, if the discussion were to be based on our best understanding of the science, I think we'd be far better off.

Happy 4th of July!

4th of July now, I'm back from my travels, and celebrating the date. One thing I do on the 4th is to re-read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Actually, not so much the declaration as the Constitution. While the Declaration did prompt the following events, it is the Constitution which really defined who we were or at least wanted to be. Much of the better part our history is a matter of applying the ideals of the Constitution to a greater fraction of the people.

I've also started fooling with genealogy in the past year, most of which I won't inflict on you as it's really only of interest to me (and perhaps some of my relatives). (But the story of my ancestor at the bombing of Fort McHenry ... surely that's of interest to all? ... well, maybe not.) One thing I've taken as given is that, ultimately, I'm related to everybody, and have ancestors from everywhere. One thing that means is that in every war, I figure I have relatives on both sides. For our revolution, this turns out to be true within a single family. My great-to-the-something ancestor Zeboath Brittain and the other two older brothers fought for the revolution, while the three younger brothers fought for the Empire. After the Empire lost, they moved to Nova Scotia. Dad, William, was also an empire loyalist, outspokenly so and jailed for it a time or two during the war. But he stayed (along with his wife, who was apparently equally vocal in favor of the revolution) after the war settled down.

It's a reminder, though, that the decision to revolt was not very clear-cut at the time. Rather few participated on either side, and among those families that did, it doesn't seem very one-sided as to which side they'd go for. This is part of the answer, I guess, as to why Canada neither joined in the rebellion, nor conducted their own later (by the way, happy Canada day 3 days late). A different genealogical perspective is that post-revolution, the life expectancy of USAns plummeted. Or maybe that's just my ancestors (though I doubt it).

Since we're in July, also a happy Bastille day (early, July 14th) to my French friends. (My known French ancestors were out of the country before the revolution; but 60+% of my ancestors are still unknown, so I'll assume some were still there.) During my recent vacation/working trip, I was in France (Paris and Perros-Guirec Brittany) for a week. Walked down from the Arc de Triumphe to the Place de la Concorde, among other things. No visit to the Bastille, but my wife and I did visit Versailles, which had its own drama in the Revolution. It's more than a little odd to think about how the support of France (Louis XVI, draining coffers and raising taxes) for our revolution helped bring about its revolution. Worked out better for us than France, or at least Louis.

Anyhow, whether it's "Libertie, Egalitie, Fraternitie", "We hold these truths to be self-evident ...", "We the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union, ...", this is a good time to think about what our ideals are, the best possible arrangements for our societies is, and how to move from where we are currently to where that better situation is.

Cheers!

Climate is a messy business

I'll be making a number of posts prompted by a note from Dave in a different area. It'll be a number of posts because I'd like to take some care on each of the points.

Let's start with:
This topic of global warming has alot of problems... First of all you have a complicated science. It's not likely alot of people will truly understand the science well enough to be able to argue the points.

Climate certainly is a messy business. One of the things that makes it interesting to those of us who work on it is precisely that. Wherever you look, you find something that affects climate, regardless of whether you look at permafrost, sea ice, forests, farms, rivers, factories, sunspots, volcanoes, dust, glaciers, ...

So certainly we have a complicated science and certainly few people are going to understand enough of it to argue the finer points. This is true within the science as well, as few who study volcanoes and their climate effects are going to be able to argue the finer points about the role of sea ice in climate, or vice versa.

What does an honest and interested person do then? Two things as I see it. First, not all the science involved is difficult. For those parts of the science, learn the science. Anybody who can get through normal life, cook a recipe, balance a checkbook, etc., can understand the basics. One source is Jan Schloerer's summary at http://www.radix.net/~bobg/faqs/scq.basics.html Jan was not a climate scientist, but, as I said, you don't need to be one to understand the basics. One thing he did do (see his acknowledgements, for instance) is check with people who were to ensure that he'd gotten the science right (or at least correct given the limits of writing a general audience description). I'll come back to basics in a minute.

Second, for things that aren't elementary, start looking to expert opinion. No different than if your car is acting up and you can't figure out why, or you've got something like a cold but it isn't going away like one should. You go find an auto mechanic or doctor and use their expertise. If your concern is, instead, about climate, then find some climate scientists. While there aren't that many (even counting worldwide) they do exist. And it's not that hard to find their professional understanding. You'll see it more directly in journals like Science and Nature than Scientific American or Discover. But both can be gotten fairly easily, and both include summaries of the science which are written for laymen.

You can also look to the IPCC reports, the fourth having been issued recently. The first was the best, I think, in terms of explaining the science to non-professionals. As the basics haven't changed since then, you might want to look for the first edition. The summary for policymakers, in each edition, is the most readable and aimed for non-professionals. The drawback is that it necessarily includes fewer details about the science. Nevertheless, it (the IPCC report) does represent as good a summary of the state of the science as you'll find.

A busy June and back in July with climate

I'll be off-net in June. Not that I couldn't connect if I decided to, but I'll be travelling and I believe in enjoying the places I go to. Blogging, I can do anywhere. Walking up Notre Dame and the Great Wall of China, on the other hand, are special and deserve attention. So I'm back in July, perhaps with pictures on the blog.

When I do get back, I'll be putting up several notes in response to Dave's thoughtful questions (comment on my ocean introduction note) regarding climate. Several, because he has several different questions, and I think they warrant individual consideration and discussion from ... well, at least him and me. If we can get additional considered views, or questions from folks who'd like to know more, that'll be good. If you already have contributions to make, go ahead; I'll see them when I get back. Just be prepared that it'll be a month before they show up.

Happy trails!

Introduction to the Oceans

Just a quick look at who they are and what they're made of. The fact that I do polar work leads to me taking a somewhat different accounting of the 'who' side than low and mid-latitude oceanographers tend to. So, for me, the oceans are: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, Arctic. The Southern and Arctic oceans are not infrequently neglected. The Arctic can reasonably be called a sea rather than an ocean; that is, it is a body of water that has limited inflow and outflow (the Bering Strait on the Pacific side and Fram Strait on the Atlantic side).

The Southern ocean truly is oceanic rather than sea-like. We polar types consider it separate from the other oceans because of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. South of this, the Southern Ocean waters are mixed pretty well with each other and are not much like the waters to the north. North of there, the other oceans have greatly limited transport with the Southern Ocean. Currents tend to flow from one of the other three to another of the others, rather than in to the Southern Ocean. Since the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, like all currents, is a dynamic feature, it moves. This means that the boundary location and size of the Southern Ocean (and, conversely, the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian) fluctuates somewhat in time.

The elements in the ocean, as for most geophysical systems, are mostly a fairly select subset of the periodic table. Although there are over 110 elements known now, only 8 account for most of the ocean. If we take a kilogram of sea water (1000 grams, remember), then there are about:
858 grams Oxygen (O)
107 grams Hydrogen (H)
10.3 g Sodium (Na)
19.5 g Chlorine (Cl)
1.3 g Magnesium (Mg)
0.9 g Sulphur (S)
0.4 g Potassium (K)
0.4 g Calcium (Ca)

Aside: Sodium and Potassium's chemical symbol comes from their Latin names 'Natrium', and 'Kalium', respectively. Their symbols do make sense, at least if you know the right second language.

So, 8 elements, 8 symbols to remember out of the 110+, and you've got well over 99% of the ocean's content. Even better is that the composition of the ocean varies by very little throughout, at least for the major elements. Very scarce elements, like Iron (Fe -- Ferrum) do vary substantially, but they're so rare this doesn't affect the ocean's dynamics.

If we think instead of molecules, the main components are water (H2O), table salt (NaCl), additional salts (KCl, CaCl), and Magnesium Sulphate (MgSO4, epsom salts). Of these, water is the overwhelming majority. Table salt is most of the rest. Viewed in terms of its bulk composition, the ocean is fairly simple. But if we think about living things in the sea, it gets complicated very quickly. Living things depend on elements and chemicals which are very scarce.

The oceans, all together (and however we name them), occupy about 70% of the surface of the earth. This is one reason oceanographers take an interest -- it is most of the surface of our planet. (Calling it 'Earth' is poor naming, we feel. It should be 'Water', or 'Oceania' or something like that.) The average depth of the ocean is about 3730 meters (about 12,200 feet), farther below sea level than almost all land areas are above sea level (land averages about 800 meters, 2600 feet, above sea level; by the time you get to 12,000 feet above sea level, you're on the side of a good mountain).

Later, we'll get more detailed about the ocean. But here's a start on names.