Category: Unsettled Science

Y2Kyoto: I’ll Miss The Polar Ice Caps

Climate Cult Science Unsettled Science Y2Kyoto 4 Comments

Via The Register;

“Our surveys indicate that the floes are much thicker and more deformed than reported by most drilling and ship-based measurements of Antarctic sea ice,” the team reported in the journal Nature Geoscience on Monday.
“Mean drafts range from 1.4 to 5.5 metres, with maxima up to 16 metres.
“We suggest that thick ice in the near-coastal and interior pack may be under-represented in existing in situ assessments of Antarctic sea ice and hence, on average, Antarctic sea ice may be thicker than previously thought.”
The survey was carried out by an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), dubbed SeaBED, which has spent the past four years surveying 500,000 square metres of ice thicknesses in the Weddell, Bellingshausen and Wilkes Land sections of Antarctica for British, US and Australian scientists.

What Would We Do Without Peer Review?

Science Unsettled Science 5 Comments

The always entertaining Retraction Watch;

Yesterday, we reported on the discovery by BioMed Central that there were about 50 papers in their editorial system whose authors had recommended fake peer reviewers. Those “reviewers” had submitted reviews of a number of manuscripts, and five of the papers had been published. (BMC posted a blog examining the case this morning.)
For some Retraction Watch readers, the elements of the story may have seemed familiar. Fake reviews — often involving self-peer review — have been the basis for a growing number of retractions.

Y2Kyoto: Planetary Fever Update

Climate Cult Science Unsettled Science Y2Kyoto 7 Comments

MLive.com;

According to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, on November 20, 2014, three of Michigan’s Great Lakes had ice starting to form. Lake Superior and Lake Michigan were one-half percent ice covered, while Lake Huron had one percent ice. Lake Erie was not reporting any ice as of Nov. 20, 2014.
Decent early season ice coverage records date back to 1973. Last Friday was the earliest date that all three Great Lakes already had ice since the better reporting of early season ice began.
Lake Superior actually had ice forming on November 15th of this year. That is the earliest ice on Lake Superior in the good data set.

h/t Jim

The Sound Of Settled Science

Genetics Science Unsettled Science 19 Comments

The most recent mtDNA study we stumbled across, is from our perspective the final nail in the coffin of the Out-of-Africa theory. Once, twice and a third time over, separate genetic studies of Homo sapien sapiens, dingoes and now song birds, stand united in ascribing the same place of origin: Australia.
The genetic facts in these equations are incontestable, the distinctive and unique nature of the mitochondrial DNA of both the dingo and Mungo Man (WLH 3) cannot be matched to any like species on this planet.
[…]
The insurmountable problem these genetic studies creates is obvious, if both Australian dingo and human are unique, the question that demands to be answered relates to how can it be that there is common belief that Original Australians came from Africa and the ancestor of the dingo lived in Southern India? What is puzzling is that despite the imposing evidence to the contrary, every text, university and lecturer will earnestly claim that the Out-of-Africa theory is an unquestionable fact. Equally, from the same department their books assure us that all dogs, canines and wolves share the same ancestry, but that is not true in the dingoes’ case. All of this smells like bad science and lazy thinking, but it gets worse, there are birds in the air to reconsider and reposition.

An interesting read.

The Sound Of Settled Science

Unsettled Science 15 Comments

A changing view on SFAs and dairy:

Almost all national dietary guidelines recommend a reduction in [saturated fats] as a key intervention to reduce incidence and mortality of cardiovascular disease (CVD). This has been translated into advice to reduce the intake of the major sources of SFAs, that is, dairy produce, meat products, and eggs. However, recent meta-analyses of both observational studies and randomized controlled trials not only have raised doubts about the scientific substantiation for this advice but have actually undermined it. It has become clear that there is a need for a completely different approach, with advice that is based on foods rather than on nutrients.

Via

The Sound Of Settled Screening

Genetics Science Unsettled Science 3 Comments

Genetic Literacy Project;

But screening for cancers themselves don’t seem to be helping patients make smart decisions, according to Melissa Beck at the Wall Street Journal. Expanding screenings seems to be picking up on more and more tiny, slow growing cancers rather than aggressive ones. As in the colon cancer screenings studies, the most virulent cancers still escape the expanded screening profiles. “We’re not finding enough of the really lethal cancers, and we’re finding too many of the slow-moving ones that probably don’t need to be found,” says Laura Esserman, a breast-cancer surgeon at the University of California, San Francisco.

The Sound Of Settled Science

Climate Cult Unsettled Science 13 Comments

Judith Curry;

Nicholas Lewis and I have just published a study in Climate Dynamics that shows the best estimate for transient climate response is 1.33 degrees Celsius with a likely range of 1.05-1.80 degrees Celsius. Using an observation-based energy-balance approach, our calculations used the same data for the effects on the Earth’s energy balance of changes in greenhouse gases, aerosols and other drivers of climate change given by the IPCC’s latest report.
We also estimated what the long-term warming from a doubling of carbon-dioxide concentrations would be, once the deep ocean had warmed up. Our estimates of sensitivity, both over a 70-year time-frame and long term, are far lower than the average values of sensitivity determined from global climate models that are used for warming projections. Also our ranges are narrower, with far lower upper limits than reported by the IPCC’s latest report. Even our upper limits lie below the average values of climate models.
Our paper is not an outlier.

“The reality is that honeybee populations are not declining. “

Unsettled Science 31 Comments

WSJ;

Why the fuss over bees? Is the U.S. in the midst of a bee-pocalypse? The science says no. Bee populations in the U.S. and Europe remain at healthy levels for reproduction and the critical pollination of food crops and trees. But during much of the past decade we have seen higher-than-average overwinter bee-colony losses in the Northern Hemisphere, as well as cases of bees abruptly abandoning their hives, a phenomenon known as “colony collapse disorder.”
Citing this disorder, antipesticide activists and some voluble beekeepers want to ban the most widely used pesticides in modern agriculture–neonicotinoids (“neonics” for short)–that account for 20% of pesticide sales world-wide. This would have disastrous effects on modern farming and food prices.

h/t Kevin B

The Sound Of Settled Science

Unsettled Science 6 Comments

LA Times… really?

Naturally occurring changes in winds, not human-caused climate change, are responsible for most of the warming on land and in the sea along the West Coast of North America over the last century, a study has found.
The analysis challenges assumptions that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been a significant driver of the increase in temperatures observed over many decades in the ocean and along the coastline from Alaska to California.

And still they managed to run to Trenberth for a comment.

The Sound Of Settled Science

Climate Cult Unsettled Science 21 Comments

Judith Curry;

So how did we end up mistaking a wicked mess for a tame problem? The main problem has been putting the policy cart in front of the scientific horse. The 1992 UNFCCC treaty was signed before the balance of evidence suggested even a discernible human influence on global climate, which was assessed by the IPCC Second Assessment Report in 1995. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was implemented before we had any confidence that most of the warming was caused by humans.

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