Christopher Pearson, climate change, and warning, ducks on the pond ...

(Above: speaking of distractions, the mechanical duck illustration at the wiki on Reductionism will lead you on to the wonderful world of Jacques de Vaucanson and his automatons, now sadly lost. More on the duck here and here. Well we wouldn't want to spend too long on climate change science).

It wouldn't be a Saturday without noting the scribbles of Christopher Pearson in the Murdoch tabloid The Australian, the desolate heart of the nation, as he deploys his scientific expertise in Climate circus: MPs expected to make a leap of faith.

As befits an expert scientist, Pearson takes his science from the Cut & Paste section of The Australian:

On Wednesday, in Cut & Paste, The Australian published a sliver of peer-reviewed climate science. In a single paragraph, it put all of this weekend's carbon tax vaudeville into proper perspective.

Sheesh, and I used to think that the science teacher was always rabbiting on about experiments and confirmations, and writing it all down at great length, with an aim, and a methodology, and observations and a conclusion, and instead it turns can all be summarised in a single paragraph -a humble sliver, a mere slice of devon - in a rag which has earned its stripes as the worst tabloid in terms of reporting climate science in the western media.

According to Pearson:

In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, four earnest adherents of man-made global warming conceded that not only was there an absence of warming in recent years but evidence of cooling. Robert K. Kaufmann, Heikki Kauppi, Michael L. Mann and James H. Stock put it this way: "Given the widely noted increase in the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations, it has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008. Data for global surface temperature indicate little warming between 1998 and 2008.

Yet if you actually head off to the PNAS, here's what you get in the abstract (no, I'm not forking over precious pond bucks for the paper, but if you happen to share the ethical standards of amateur enthusiasts in relation to intellectual property rights, you can find the full deal here under the header Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998-2008 in pdf form. Happily the pond is at one with "piracy"). Aside aside, the abstract says:

... we find that recent global temperature records are consistent with the existing understanding of the relationship among global surface temperature, internal variability, and radiative forcing, which includes anthropogenic factors with well known warming and cooling effects. (there's also article highlights here).

Foolish scientists. As usual, in the usual way of truth seekers, they've provided delights for the cherry pickers. Pick away Pearson:

"Furthermore, global surface temperature declined 0.2C between 2005 and 2008. This seeming disconnect may be one reason why the public is increasingly sceptical about anthropogenic climate change."

Now for the coup de grace as Pearson takes more impeccable research from that impeccable organ The Australian, recycling a no doubt peer-reviewed AAP piece:

On Thursday, The Australian carried a piece from AAP in which Kaufmann attempted to explain away that niggling disconnect. He said his recent research had been motivated by a sceptic confronting him with the fact temperatures hadn't risen for a decade.

Indeed, but if we resort to our own peer-reviewed newspaper's interpretation of the data, we get this:

The plateau in temperature growth disappeared in 2009 and 2010, when temperatures lurched upward.

Indeed, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have listed 2010 as tied for the warmest year on record, while the Hadley Center of the British Meteorological Office lists it as second warmest, after 1998. (Global warming pause linked to sulfur in China)

Yes, there's nothing like cherry picking, and an exchange of views based on peer-reviewed newspapers, all so Pearson can blather on about making a leap of faith, when after all, he regularly makes leaps of faith into the bizarre world of conservative Pellist Catholicism.

But that's all you need, a shard, a sliver of light in Cut & Paste, to embark on a scientific cut and paste of uncertainty and doubt:

It sounds like a lot of work, a lot of modelling but not a lot of certainty. If you had a political career, you wouldn't want to stake it on Kaufmann's conjectures or Trenberth's either.

Yep, that'd be right, the whole debate revolves around one paper and a couple of scientists, and Pearson's cherry picking of same.

Come to think of it, if you had a political career and you happened to be Tony Abbott, you wouldn't want to stake it on Cardinal Pell's conjectures, or Pearson's either.

Oh the joys of reductionism.

However, that's the leap of faith members of Julia Gillard's increasingly restive back bench are expected to make this weekend.

Actually it seems like a lot of faith-based speculation on Pearson's part, involving a speculative paper, which, per Pearson's own reference, ends up at Climate Etc. being judged thusly by Judith Curry:

I suspect that this paper will be criticized from both sides of the AGW debate.

Never mind. That's how you build a column on climate change in The Australian.

Completely ignore the actual paper in question, its substance and shortcomings, take a few snippets from a few short-hand newspaper stories, use them to buttress and reinforce your own prejudices, vaguely wave your hands in the air, and murmur about leaps of faith and increasingly restive back benchers, and ignore any substantial or substantive consideration of the issues.

Fittingly Pearson spends the rest of his column on an in memoriam to another Catholic conservative.

Wouldn't want to spend too long on scientific matters when a Cut & Paste para can cover the substantive issues ...

Thank the absent lord for the intertubes - roll on the unfiltered NBN, or its private enterprise equivalent outside my door within the next year or so - because there's bugger all sense in The Australian, but a lot to explore outside the confines of the conservative Catholic Pellist mind set.

(Below: and now because after reading Pearson, we can't get enough of ducks. Below a modern imitation of Vaucanson's duck, and here's a link to a flash version showing how the duck was designed to work. Warning: this image may offend sensitive souls with a fear of duck doo. More background here).