… He then instructed them to fill the pipes with explosives, a process that will take about 20 hours.
Yep. Explosives! Cairo! Believe it or not, this is an Illinois/Missouri/Kentucky weather/politics issues.
It’s been raining. A lot. I think Andrew_KY (who lives in Ohio) has complained about it. The Ohio and Mississippi rivers have been rising and flood waters threaten to wipe the town of Cairo, Illinois off the map. If flood waters rise a tiny bit further, the Army Corp of Engineers are going to blow up a downstream levee, which will permit flood waters to spill over farmland in Missouri. The location of the levee is marked with an “A” below, Cairo is just upstream:
View Larger Map
Needless to say, the decision blow up one levee to safeguard the ones upstream is controversial. In particular, farmers in Missouri don’t like it. Lawsuits were filed: The SCOTUS ruling is that the Army Corp of engineers may blow up the Birds Point Levee if they judge this necessary. (My understanding is that blowing it up follows a plan established in the late 1920s. It’s been blown once before.)
While looking for videos that might show people the level of flood waters, the condition of nearby cities etc. I found this. It starts out somewhat neutral, but the point of view of the person making the video becomes very evident about 1/2 through. If you enjoy anti-Obama rants, scroll to the middle. Heck, if you don’t like them, you should scroll..
Yep: Weather. Not climate. The New York Times story is a more neutral and does not intimate anything about conspiracy theories, the end of the world and does not involve discussions of masonic symbols.
PS. I hope Roy Spencer in tornado stricken Alabama is ok and gets the UAH anomaly out soon. Then I’ll get back on my regular temperature anomaly discussions.
Update 10:06pm: I saw a tweet that said the first blast went off.
The Wall Street Journal also had an article on the Mississippi flooding. There were lots of pictures of the 1927 flood which led to the improvement of the levee system and the construction of flood ways. Use of a flood way does involve blowing a hole in a levee at the head of the flood way. The plans for this are on file, and not in some filing cabinet on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system (HHG2G reference). If it isn’t blown, the land would probably flood anyway along with a lot of other land. The flood plain of the Mississippi is ~100 miles wide and the river is fully capable of filling the whole thing. It did in 1927.
DeWitt–
The plans are on file. Also, my understanding is the owners of the farmland have been receiving annual payments in return for agreeing to act as a floodway during floods. But I haven’t confirmed this. But clearly, if they were receiving annual payments, they knew this was the plan.
I have no dog in this hunt. Cairo is in Illinois, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I side with them. But if farmers were getting paid to off-set the duel use as a floodway, I’d have a heck of a lot more sympathy with people in Cairo. The choice is pretty much which area gets massively flooded. There doesn’t seem to be any other choice.
I’m trying to find out whether the owners of the farmland were accepting payment in exchange for the risk of permitting the Army Corp to blow the levee.
Lucia,
Whether the farmers received payments or not, the price of the farm land should (I hope) reflect the chance of flooding if the river gets too high. If you choose to live (or farm) in a flood plane, it’s a risk that you have to accept.
.
The Army Corps will always take whatever action they feel minimizes the total risk of damage/loss of life. The Army Corps regularly discharges nutrient rich fresh water from Lake Okeechobee in central Florida into coastal salt water estuaries (causing terrible ecological damage) in order to protect the levees around the lake; levees which protect people and farms near the lake. No lawsuit aiming to protect the estuaries (and there have been dozens!) has ever stopped the Corps from discharging as much water as they think is needed. Triage.
I heartily recommend the book Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. It’s an incredibly good read and puts a lot of the issues we’re facing today into historical perspective.
SteveF–
Agreed. The risk of flooding should be considered by anyone buying land.
I did find Judge Limbaugh’s ruling in Birds Point breach case. Facts that seemed to influence the judge’s ruling:
1) The Feds do have easements. Farmers knew this.
2) The Army Corp judges this important to maintain navigation (as opposed to saving Cairo vs. Farmers.) This exempts the Army Corp action from the Clean Water act (I think.)
3) Court precedent gives the Army Corp discretion to crevasse the upper and lower fuseplugs of these levees without the courts reviewing the substance of their procedures. (It happens that the court also thinks the Corp seems to be acting responsibly, but evidently, precedent dictates they don’t get ot interfere with decisions on blowing the fuse plubs couldn’t even if the Corps were being jerks.)
I assume this is the first ruling which was appealed. There’s lots of stuff here: http://www.semissourian.com/flood2011
Here’s an outline of the floodway:
This youtube video is form the point of view of a guy in flooded Olive Branch. On April 28, their farms were flooded and they were struggling to save homes. His views is houses count more than farms:
How does that work? Does the Corps of Engineers have to give an express amount of advance warning? I imagine that mobilizing an evacuation of the initial direct impact areas would be a major undertaking.
George– I don’t know what the Army Corp has to do. But they did give express warming. Also, it takes them a while to load the explosives.
According to the judge’s ruling, a very specific plan has been in place since 1986. I can’t seem to to cut and paste from the document, but the plan calls for the Army corp to mix blasting agent and pump it into pipes when the river level reaches 60ft in Cairo. They blast if the river reaches 61 ft. On the morning of the first hearing, the river was at 58.67ft.
People from MO filed the suite, so, presumably, people in the area became aware of the plan somehow. Either the Corp reminded people, or some locals actually bother to remember the plan or something. But there doesn’t seem to be anything secret about the plan.
At this point, everyone has been told to evacuate both Cairo and the MO floodway.
I found this:http://www.lakecountybanner.com/news.php?viewStory=2613
IT’s 10:17 am. Needless to say, anyone who has not gotten off the floodway already is pretty foolish. I wouldn’t want to risk a flat tire myself.
There is a new breach in the levee just south of Thebes. They just issued a flash flood warning for areas of Olive Branch, Horseshoe Lake area, and Tamms. Losing Cairo may be a foregone conclusion but remains to be seen.
Andrew_KY (who lives in Ohio)
Hey, I play lotsa golf in KY (when it’s not raining).
That’s livin’ baby. 😉
Andrew
I came through Cairo on my way back from Chicago last week. Water was nearly up to the surface of the interstate. If the interstate closes, you’d have to factor in the economic damage associated with that too (which would be complicated to do correctly).
Farmers who choose to put their fields in harms way seem to me to be fairly low on the list of priorities.
Andrew_KY,
I am shocked (shocked!) that you do not live in KY. Why on earth not Andrew_OH?
Golf in KY? Don’t know. Nor OH.
Carrick (#75353),
I can’t blame the locals for tryin’ to avoid the consequent damage to their fields, but really, (start, heartless bastard mode) they were aware of the risks, and should not bellyache too much.(end, heartless bastard mode)
SteveF–
You’ve expressed my point of view. I can’t blame the farmers in MO for wanting to protect their fields. But the fact is: They are farming in a designated floodway. It’s been a designated floodway since the late 20s. Also, even though Cairo is the town mentioned, it’s not the only levee being overtopped and/or in danger of breeching. There are problems up and downstream the Mississippi and upstream on the Ohio. The rule for deciding when to intentionally breach the levy and open the floodway is based on a measurement at the confluence– Cairo. That’s now a fairly small town, but I suspect the army corp would measure there even if no one lived in Cairo.
“Why on earth not Andrew_OH?”
SteveF,
This is a very good question. And the answer is the reason I started to use KY is because Lucia suggested it when there was an overabundance of Andrews commenting, to more easily tell us apart (where’s my esteemed contemporary Andrew_FL anyway?). And I love KY and live quite close to it, as it happens, so it worked and continues to work for me. I like it. A change to it now would only be confusing to my fans. lol
Andrew
Wow, the crazy is strong in that video.
Lucia (#75356),
And you, most of the time, express mine, on a wide range of subjects. It might be more efficient, time-wise, for me to leave most commenting to you.
But less fun. 😉
Zeke–
One thing that struck me is the video starts out sounding fairly rational. Then around the middle the narration transitions to one involving invocation of “Lucifer” and various conspiracy theories that seem to link the decision to blast the levee to the Masons, Obama, 9/11, the Oklahoma city bombings etc. I wish I had a transcript so we could do some sort of analysis of crazy based on word counts.
Andrew_KY,
“where’s my esteemed contemporary Andrew_FL anyway?”
His normal nom de plume is ‘curious’. Not sure about the multiple identities.
On a related note, I’m having a bit of a laugh at some of the commenters over at WUWT accusing Obama of faking Osama’s death to distract from his fake birth certificate. Cognitive dissonance much?
(Its worth pointing out that the opinions of crazy commenters in no way reflect the opinions of blog proprietors, especially on unmoderated blogs).
SteveF – not sure if the single quotes need clarifying but, just in case, I’ve no relation to Andrew_FL.
“SteveF – not sure if the single quotes need clarifying but, just in case, I’ve no relation to Andrew_FL.”
Oooooh… this is gettin’ curiouser.
Andrew
Zeke,
With 54 brothers and sisters (OK, mostly half brothers and sisters), I expect solid DNA proof will be soon available. Crazies are crazies…. not much one can do about that.
Zeke
Wow! I did google this morning and saw a web site devoted to explaining how the long form is faked. Evidently, zooming in on the numbers shows pixelation. Did I not email you my even more complicated theory of forgery privately? (My forgery theories are so splendidly manaical I don’t want them to get out into the wild where someone might think they are serious.)
Lucia,
You might want to include the “crazy commenter” part in your in-line quote. I don’t want Anthony to think that I’m suggesting that he supports such things. 😛
But yeh, your list was pretty good. It might be fun to check each one off as it appears on Free Republic and similar places.
curious (Comment #75364),
Many apologies; it seems my understanding was wrong…. maybe there is more than one ‘curious’. Lucia (being all knowing about these things) could probably clarify.
Zeke–
Comment #comment-651876 at WUWT seems to have been moderated away.
“Oooooh… this is gettin’ curiouser.”
Slow down – could just be a punctuation thing rather than a long lost half brother type of thing… hopefully Andrew_FL will show up and confirm… 🙂
curious, Andrew_KY, and all,
The simple solution to all such confusion is to just use your real name…. Mine Is Steve Fitzpatrick, BTW.
SteveF–
Easy steps to clarify are no longer in my power. Back when I first warned Kim, it occurred to me that, given the pileup of spam plugins, the easiest way for me to modify should it be required would be to delete all her emails and then click “modify first comments”. But I was too hasty when running the mysql command and lost everyone’s emails. I have a fresh back that woudl let me restore them, but I thought: Why?
So, now checking all the emails would be a but of a PITA. Checking all the IPs– probably wouldn’t even work.
(This issue about the emails is why a few of you got moderated recently. I unchecked “moderate first email”, and the most frequently commenters all got in. But…. some less frequent commenters like Kendra got caught in the net when I re-checked it.)
Do the feds compensate the displaced land owners when the Corps lights the fuse on that baby?
I recall that when John Murtha (D-PA) was approaching the peak of his influence, it seemed like his chief mission was to get federal funding so his constituents in the Johnstown area could rebuild on the exact same flood plains in the most flood-prone place in the US. Dumb policy.
Seems like the better policy is to buy out as much of the area as possible rather than apply some half-a**ed federal insurance/compensation after the inevitable.
SteveF – no problem, I only use curious here, CA, Judith Curry and tAV. AFAIK there have only been a couple of times others have used it on those blogs and they’ve been ok about me keeping it. Not sure elsewhere – for example I did see it a while back at RC and a couple of others giving views and opinions I don’t share but seeing as I don’t post there I’m not too bothered. One of the hazards of anonymous posting.
lucia (Comment #75373),
So (unless you restore emails) you are actually less all-knowing than I imagined… That’s OK.
“The simple solution to all such confusion is to just use your real name…. ”
SteveF,
Andrew is my real name! 😉
Andrew
SteveF – I’ve got reasons for posting anonymously. Willis covered some of the issues recently at WUWT. I figured you were likely the same SteveFitzpatrick that posts at tAV – are you going to do more on your aerosols post? I think you had some follow up in the works. FWIW I appreciate posts from you, Carrick, DeWitt and the other guys who do leg work and know and discuss their stuff.
curious,
The last I knew, Andrew_FL was attending college some miles down the road form me here in Florida. Maybe he graduated and has more pressing things to worry about (like a job) than climate blogs.
“Andrew is my real name!”
hmmm…. got a birth certificate to back that up?… 🙂
Andrew_KY (Comment #75377) ,
“Andrew is my real name!”
Then OH is your last?
curious,
“are you going to do more on your aerosols post? I think you had some follow up in the works.”
I got the second aerosol post about half done and then Jeff pulled the plug on tAV… which seems now plugged back in. I should be ashamed for not finishing the post and giving it to Jeff or to Lucia… lazy slug that I am.
Ok, thanks – I’ll keep an eye out for it, here or tAV!
George Tobin
I don’t know.
SteveF–
You can post it here. 🙂
Re: lucia (May 2 11:31), surely youve seen the videos that show the multiple photoshop layers in the birth certificate.
the ossama strike has been in the works for months and called off on previous occasions. Looks like obama got a 3 fer.. birthers, trump, and ossama.
But for Gitmo, and waterboarding, of course, Ossama would still be kicking since the big clue came from that.
History, of course, is a conspiracy. Nothing can happen by chance.
tongue n cheek of course, except perhaps the last sentence, or rather previous 2 sentences.
steven mosher (Comment #75385)
“Nothing can happen by chance.”
That’s why when nothing happens I blame chance 😉
steven mosher (Comment #75385),
I did note that the background “paper” had been photo-shopped onto the original image. My guess: there was another birth certificate on the same page of the book, and they could not show that. Still, it was kinda dumb to not just clip the original image and explain in a statement that the other material on the page belonged to someone else, and could not be disclosed. What were they thinkin’? Who knows, but for sure, whatever it was, it was not very smart.
SteveF,
To be fair, to the extent that it keeps the issue alive it serves to further marginalize the opposition in the eyes of the general public. That said, using the skeptical analogue of occum’s razor, the more innocent explanation is probably correct.
I suspect what they do is:
1) Open the book, scan the page, trimming if necessary.
2) Print a hard copy on paper– this is the true copy.
3) Someone in the office stamps, dates,signs and uses a little thingamagigie to give a raised sealed and that “the true copy.”
4) This is the “true copy” was given to Obama’s people.
5) To put this on the web someone then scanned the true copy.
Failing that (1-2) is done by putting the safety paper into a copy machine and then photocopying directly without ever creating a pdf of the record. But scanning gives more control over the centering.
So yes, what’s displayed in my post– and all over the internet– is a scan of a “true copy” which was created by scanning the original. The thing says it’s a “true copy”. Why would anyone have thought it was created any other way. Were they expecting someone to take a polaroid? A digital photograph? Did they expect someone would rip the page out of the book it’s in?
Ok… I’m violating my rule on rhetorical questions. But dang!
A young new employee in our office today literally asked me what republicans were going to do since all “we had was talking about Obama’s birth certificate”, and who would run now that “our favorite. Donald Trump” was not looking so good.
She was surprised when I pointed out that few if any republican activists were involved in wondering about Obama’s birth certificate, and that few Republicans ever thought Trump as a serious candidate.
I was surprised on multiple levels over her line of questioning, but mostly I would like to see a focus on, you know, issues that count and that sort of thing.
source: http://www.semissourian.com/photos/14/63/61/1463613-L.jpg http://www.semissourian.com/story/1723706.html
@Lucia
A false dichotomy.
I think that Mann puts it right. “climate change is present in every meteorological event†The higher temperatures and hence higher water content in the atmosphere will be a component of extreme events such as floods and high temperatures. Floods will be worse, extreme high temperatures will be higher, so that, for exampe, wild fires will be worse.
The extent is something to be determined, but it’s not an either or.
How did they find out about the Lucifarians? We managed to keep that out of Climategate.
Re: hunter (May 2 14:26),
Unfortunately, Trump is as serious as a train wreck. Romney is happy as a clam to see him in the race because he looks better by comparison.
Have you suggested to the new employee that a subscription to the Wall Street Journal with particular emphasis on the opinion pages might give her a more accurate impression of the current state of Republican party campaign issues? If she doesn’t want to spend that much money, a subscription to WSJ.com’s Political Diary would also be informative. It sounds right now that she’s getting all her news from MSNBC.com. Even South Park makes fun of them.
bugs (Comment #75394),
You and Mike Mann are both talkin’ nonsense. Sure, all of weather is related to climate… that does not mean that half a degree warming today is somehow responsible for the same kind of flooding as was seen 80 years ago in the Mississippi valley. What on earth makes you imagine that flooding 80 years ago was “natural” but the same kind of flooding today is caused by AGW? It is just your personal political belief (and Mike Mann’s) substituting for a rational argument about causation. Please, spare everyone wasting time on this kind of rubbish.
Bugs,
When the wind’s too strong,
and it rains too much,
or the air is still..
and not rained in a month.
When the snow is deep
or the ground is bare,
and weather is too much
different most everywhere.
Calm or storming,
freezing or warming…
one thing you can always say for sure:
it must be global warming.
SteveF (Comment #75397)
May 2nd, 2011 at 3:00 pm
“Half a degree of warming” is just a representation of the average temperature at the surface. What it is not telling you is the extremes. It is the extremes that make weather events worse. Wild fires are made worse, for example. More moisture is available for floods. I said the extent to which they are made worse is the question.
People are also misled that because we can say that no weather event can be directly attributed to climate change, they assume no weather event can be attributed to climate change.
The wild fires in Victoria, Australia, were extremely deadly and uncontrollable. They happened on a day of 47C, or about 117F. That extreme, record heat probably made the fires that much worse than they otherwise would have been.
hunter (Comment #75390)
May 2nd, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Not according to this poll, this is hardly ‘few if any’, it tells me that a significant minority are ‘birthers’, or are even prepared to acccept it is possibly true.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/04/cnn-poll-quarter-doubt-president-was-born-in-u-s/
“What it is not telling you is the extremes. It is the extremes that make weather events worse.”
Then why all these years of focus on the average, when it doesn’t tell us what makes weather events worse?
And by ‘extremes’, do you mean extreme cooling too? Like the opposite of warming?
Andrew
bugs–
I tend to think people will often give weird answers to polls. I think this because I often pick up the phone and answer polls. If it’s obviously political, I’m often less than frank. I give wrong demographic information, flip a coin to decide “lie or tell the truth” etc. This is because some of the political polls are so obviously skewed themselves.
My husband just won’t even answer pick up the telephone for a telephone poll. He even makes grumbling noises when I do.
Oddly, I give correct answers if someone is calling to ask about consumer issues like preferences in laundry detergent. I have respect for that activity. But political polls? None. The result is I take all results of political polls with a grain of salt.
So do I think quite a few republicans may have believed Obama was born outside Hawaii? Maybe. But maybe not.
Re: SteveF (May 2 15:00),
by relying on these weak arguments for AGW ( which are really not arguments)
they actually make their case worse not better. making up tenuous arguments to support a truth established on a firmer basis, doesnt build confidence it erodes its.
Its like a chris darden moment with the damn glove.
Re: SteveF (May 2 13:58),
No I’m talking about this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj8wNnB_gew
funny
Bugs..
“I think that Mann puts it right. “climate change is present in every meteorological eventâ€
how would you falsify such a statement?
climate change is a change in long term weather statistics. climate doesnt even exist.
“the long term changes in weather statistics is present in every meteorological event” its either non sense or true by definition, ie not a statement of science.
Mosher–
I hadn’t seen that. I also don’t have photoshop so I can’t audit Alex Jones. Do you have photoshop?
Steven mosher (Comment #75408),
Yikes! I had not seen that. Some reasonable explanation ought to exist; I sure hope someone comes up with one. Altered photocopy images? Mutiple separable layers? Added Numbers? Font changes? Yikes!
SteveF–
The reason I asked Mosher if he owns photoshop is that I can think of many reasonable explanations. First one needs to ask this: Where did Alex Jones get his .jpg or .png? I didn’t get the image I’m showing form the whitehouse. Did Obama distribute the image? Or what?
Within a few hours– certainly by the time I posted my blog post– someone with photoshop *could* create a faked birth certificate to match the real one! Bizarre, but a motivated person could do that and even get it picked up at a variety of sites. Analyses of these would then look like bad fakes.
This is not to say that this happened– but it could be done. Given how much politics is going on, maybe it was done. That means: We’ve got months before this stupid mess is over! Possibly it will never be over. Arghh!!!
Or scanning a document introduces small errors. Or typewriters back in the 60s have weird issues. Or it was a standard form where a few letters were manually typed in. This is quickly getting into angles on the head of pins territory 😛
No I dont own photoshop. but there are other guys who have verified it.
You can actually open the PDF with other files and see that it is composed of objects.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdKIhvFLAYQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-PduUKKeCI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up62cFOtvQ4&feature=related
The decision has been announced to blow the levee between 9pm and midnight tonight.
Lucia
Arghh indeed. What a nightmare.
Re: Zeke (May 2 16:45),
See the last video. one of the layers consists of white dots. you cant scan white dots.
truely weird. note. I have no problem with obama’s citizenship, so its a silly conversation, but the forensics questions are technically interesting.
The original link is here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf
I guess you are supposed to use adobe illustrator. I don’t trust “verifications” on this yet. I can already imagine possible ways for mischief (on either side btw.)
But clearly, this story ain’t gonna die anytime soon. Arghh!!!
Yes. But… almost unbelievably, this is going to come down to something I suggested to Zeke by private email!! Argh!!!
Mosher–
First video starts “downloaded off of Yahoo”. So, ignore the rest. The should download of the whitehouse and they should have done it quickly.
Lucia,
Of course it will never truly die away, but adherents to it should be marginalized enough that we can safely ignore them.
The Times had an interesting week in review piece about the enduring nature of conspiracy theories in the American psyche: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/weekinreview/01conspiracy.html
Mosh:
Here is a refutation of the layering critique by the NRO (hardly Obama fans): http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/265767/pdf-layers-obamas-birth-certificate-nathan-goulding
Lucia,
The document you linked to does indeed have the different layers.
It looks to me like someone just made an original scanned copy, manually fixed parts which were not legible, and printed on plain white paper. The registrar then certified the accuracy of the document, and someone then scanned the whole thing and pasted it on a safety paper background.
I note that the certification says it is certified as an accurate copy or abstract of the original document (not sure why the word ‘the’ in the certification was left with a typo of ‘txe’). If the local officials fixed up the document to make it more readable but certify the accuracy of its contents, then it is probably nothing more than just an awkwardly prepared document, not an inaccurate document. Still, it was not done in a way that seems very smart. Better to just scan the original and let everyone see that as well… no fix-ups or modifications.
SteveF–
I clicked the link Zeke did. Seems scanning in OCR creates layers etc. Someone at the National Review Online (hardly lefties) says they did it and suggest people try themselves.
I don’t have adobe illustrator so I can’t do the experiment, but some others could try.
Sat images of the area before and after
http://weatherpictureoftheday.com/2011/05/01/satellite-imagery-of-near-record-flooding-along-mississippi-and-ohio-rivers/
Anthony– Thanks. I want to see those tomorrow when the floodway fills.
bugs: People are also misled that because we can say that no weather event can be directly attributed to climate change, they assume no weather event can be attributed to climate change.
Rewrite.
Thank you for your comment! It has been added to the moderation queue and will be published here if approved by the webmaster.
?? Am I being considered a first or second time commenter, on the TCO list, or have I been away for too long? Just curious. Feel free to delete, I’m too lazy to e-mail 🙂
TerryMN–
You got caught in “first time commenters”. You’ll be fine until the next time I accidentally delete all email addresses in the database.
Floodways are amazingly big
http://quintascott.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/picture-14.png
Eli–
It’s enormous. Tweets are reporting the first blasts.
Re: lucia (May 2 16:55), yes, his birth in hawaii is real, the certificate is fake or a reconstruction.
Re: Zeke (May 2 17:04),
Cool zeke, my scanner doesnt have OCR, did they cover the white spots issue?
Zeke, I think it has been marginalized. The only way I found those videos is there are some wing nuts who email me all sorts of stuff.
When the floodwater hits the Gulf, it would be interesting to watch its effects on the plankton. Will levels of dissolved silica rise? Will the diatoms bloom at the expense of the calciferous phytos? And, if so, will there be any consequent changes in DMS production, reduced CO2 pulldown, etc etc.
Lucia, BTW, isn’t this the time that the nice chap goes off to the far north and sits by a lake? If so, give him a five ml bottle of fish oil and get him to repeat Franklin’s Clapham Common pond experiment and take some piccies. I reckon that 5ml should still two acres.
Experimental science related to climate change — whatever next?
JF
steven mosher (Comment #75407)
May 2nd, 2011 at 4:00 pm
You speak in riddles.
What ‘weak arugments’ have I relied on for AGW? I have not said that any extreme events can be attributed to AGW. The issue is confused.
There are two points to consider.
Can AGW create extreme weather events.
Can AGW make extreme weather events worse than they would otherwise have been.
These points are not evidence for AGW. There is already plenty of that.
In the case of this flood, did AGW add that bit extra to the flood to make the destruction of the levies necessary? I think it is an interesting question.
AGW is a ->Global<- phenomenon, that means the climate of the whole globe is being affected. That is a pretty large sample size.
I have to admit, I am pleasantly surprised to see this blog post. I hadn’t expected to see any blogs I read to cover the story.
I live about a hundred miles from Cairo, and the amount of rain this area has been getting for the last few weeks is incredible. There are a couple roads that have been flooded for weeks straight. It is starting to remind me of back when I was a kid in 1993.
Brandon– Well, it’s weather and involves Illinois. Plus, there was even some Supreme Court action. One of the justices (Alito ?) denied the MO request to prevent the Army Corp from blowing the levee.
Now that I’m up I need to see if there are any videos!
bugs,
Actually I think it is you who are confused, not the issue.
.
If one wishes to speculate (as you do): “I expect AGW to increase extreme weather events”, OK, but then say straight out that it is just speculation… in your case based on what people like Mike Mann tell you. For your speculation (or Mike Mann’s) to be anything more than speculation, you have, at a minimum, to show statistically meaningful positive trends in extreme events… and trends which can be meaningfully related to measured warming. NOBODY has done this. See for example, this record of violent tornados: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/tornado/tornadotrend.jpg and tell me where there is even an indication of an increasing frequency. Or look at this trend in global ACE and tell us where you see a statistically significant trend: http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/global_running_ace.jpg
.
As usual bugs, you substitute an appeal to authority (in this case Mike Mann) for a reasoned argument. Whether it originates with you or with Mike Mann, it is just pure speculation. What appalls so many is that you seem unable to appreciate that all such speculation is mainly politics; which is to say, in terms of science, it is just rubbish. Nobody cares about your political inclinations, nor those of Mike Mann.
bugs,
I speculate that AGW will reduce the future frequency of violent tornados.
.
See, everyone can do the same as you do. Who cares?
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/corps-breaks-levee-as-933091.html
Looks like this should affect Memphis too.
SteveF – re: bugs; it has occured to me that he somewhere has a horse in this race. I can’t see any other reason for his selective views and his rather boring mantra chanting.
Me too. The problem for us in Huntsville (I was there visiting last week: lucky!) was power outage from transmission towers out of Brown’s Ferry being flattened. Most of the really bad wind damage near there was to the north and west of town (closer to Madison if you are familiar with the area). Of course, the wider damage is all across the state; the death tolls in some of the sparsely populated rural counties are pretty high.
I was there too in the early part of last week. IIRC, the local paper was predicting that the river level would reach a height not seen since 1937 on or about 10 May.
Bugs
“These points are not evidence for AGW. There is already plenty of that.
In the case of this flood, did AGW add that bit extra to the flood to make the destruction of the levies necessary? I think it is an interesting question.
AGW is a ->Global<- phenomenon, that means the climate of the whole globe is being affected. That is a pretty large sample size."
When i talk about weak evidence for AGW I am talking about relative strength. All things considered the "evidence" provided by extreme events for SUPPORT of the AGW theory is tenuous and weak. its the last damn argument I would ever make, BECAUSE the attribution problem is so thorny ESPECIALLY with rare events and understanding causality in rare events.
every time people make shakey un quantifed predictions they hurt the credibility of the science.
I wonder what ever happened to Carrot Eater?
He was an Absolute Dyed-In-The-Wool Metaphysically Certain Warmer, too.
Andrew
Mosher: “every time people make shakey un quantifed predictions they hurt the credibility of the science.”
Wrong. The correctness of the position that motivated the allegedly mistaken attribution is what makes the science valid. It is wrong by definition not to agree with that which is put forth in service to the correct position especially if it purports to be related to the science.
And because by definition, no one can have standing to question much less disagree with any causal attribution motivated by the correct position, the mere fact of disagreement by a person with no standing serves to prove to the correctness of the statement. Therefore, a causal attribution that draws more fire from denialists is more, not less likely to be right. (See, e.g., in re Hockeystick)
You mistakenly assume credibility rather than correctness, matters. That is yet another reason why you are a dangerous heretic, Mr. Mosher. There would be a massive dossier on you but we haven’t figured out how to do that without killing tress and/or increasing our carbon footprint.
lucia, I tend to forget other people on the internet live in the same areas as I do. It’s easy for me to think of everyone as just living “out there” somewhere. I’m not sure I actually know where any posters live, save maybe the country of some.
As a side note, I really wish the talk didn’t all revolve around one town. I understand why it does, but it’s Cairo! Last time i passed through there, half the town was destroyed already. I’m only half-kidding when I say I’m not sure I’d be able to tell the difference if the place flooded.
Brandon–
Yes. It’s clear from the court case that the Army Corps decision isn’t “Cairo vs. Farms”. It’s the intergrity of navigation and a whole bunch of levees up and down the Miss, the Ohio, and evidently, lowering water at Cairo will help out Memphis flooding. It just so happens that Cairo is at the confluence of two big rivers both of which have been draining lots of rain water.
I spent a lot of last Wednesday night watching live weather coverage. Nothing much happened in my neighborhood, but there was considerable destruction down the road a piece. Not Tuscaloosa level, but there were fatalities in the region. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much lightning before. But then, I’m not in tornado alley where super cell storms are more common.
Lucia (regarding the birth certificate controversy): “Possibly it will never be over. Arghh!!!”
It will eventually become a moot point. Either in 2012 or 2016. I’m hoping for 2012.
Charlie
CharlieA–
It might then start all over if Bobby Jindal ever decides to run. I’m sure there are other examples, I just can’t think of them off hand.
wow george.
What I’m saying is very simple. Let’s take an example.
Frogs. As we all know a while back it was surmised that a drop in frog population was caused by global warming. That, unfortunately, gets turned around as proof of global warming. It’s not. The proof of global warming is in the temperature record and the science that explains that as a consequence of C02. That the best evidence: the physics and the observation. Then, of course, as people find other explanations for frog deaths
http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2011/apr/catastrophic-amphibian-declines-have-multiple-causes-no-simple-solution
, people take THAT as evidence AGAINST global warming. which its not. So a tenuous claim is made to bolster the science. that claim gets modified, and the mere fact of that gets used against the science. Bizarre but true.
Its’ like the OJ trial. You’ve got the best evidence which is the timeline, and the blood. But dardin thinks that this glove fitting is a great piece of evidence.. the cincher. Except he wasnt certain it would fit, but he believed it would. Mistake.
So, really all I’m suggesting is that the present circumstances almost force us to think differently about how we pile up evidence.
We think that multiple lines of reinforcing evidence work in our favor. Ordinarily, in normal science, they would. But in post normal science, ANY mistake a scientist makes takes on a meaning much larger than normal. IN normal science mistakes are made all the time. They get corrected and people move on. Today in post normal science, people dont allow for honest error. They cant admit an honest error ( either in their personal behavior or their science) errors or mistakes take on illogical proportion. Suddenly something hansen said in 1988 takes on huge meaning, when in fact its meaningless to talk about misatkes he may have made back then. disagreement ( say about hurricanes, or tornados or antarctic ice) which should be NORMAL at the edges of a new science suddenly become CENTRAL. And yes, the HS. It simply does not matter. It is scientifically UNINTERESTING (gavin schmidt) yet, it was turned into an Icon. My suggestion has been that people just plainly admit to the mistakes and limitations of the data, take their lumps, and stop trying to prove a proven case with shoddy evidence.
I’ll steal this from Mc. He likened the situation to the following.
You have a murder case. C02 is on trial. We have fingerprint evidence against C02 and gun residue on his hands. we have an eye witness and motive. But the prosecution is not happy, they throw in some hand writing analysis to seal the deal. But the hand writing expert is no expert at all. And when the defense serves discovery on the hand writing expert he refuses discovery. When he finally makes it to the stand his work is riddled with oddities.
The prosecution has taken a good case and ruined it. The jury doubts the witness, doubts the prosecution, and then begins to question the other evidence. false in one false in all.
It comes down to a practical question. Science finds itself in the unfair position of having to always be right. That’s not how normal science works. But we are in a post normal situation. That means people will judge science more harshly: uncertainty, values, motive all take on (regretably) a larger role.
There is no point in bemoaning that. There are two responses to the honest errors being made in climate science today.
1. question all the science and impugn all scientists. there is no honest error.
2. ignore errors, disappear them, deny them, and attack veryone who points them out. Even people who point out the error and say lets fix it.
I can illustrate this with examples. we could start with my favorite. The errors mann made in his precipitation proxy’s.
when we go through that you won’t be able to admit that it was an error. Or we could pick errors made by the inquiries. Same thing. you wont be able to admit the error, instead you will try one of the following:
A. say “even if it is an error it doesnt matter”
B. point out errors made by other people
C. Attack me
the list goes on and Ive heard them all.
Logical errors.
“And because by definition, no one can have standing to question much less disagree with any causal attribution motivated by the correct position, the mere fact of disagreement by a person with no standing serves to prove to the correctness of the statement.”
george. I hope you can see the silliness of this.
No one ( by definition.. which definition?) can have standing
( which jurisdiction) to disagree with ANY causal attribution
motivated ( you mean implied) by the correct position..
Well, I don’t know. At one point in time some climate scientists thought that AGW would cause a reduction of ice at the south pole while other thought differently.
What your position amounts to is the following: there can be no disagreement between two scientists who believe in AGW about casual attribution. So Judith Curry and others really didnt disagree about hurricanes and attribution..
George. Nothing in your argument has a logical ring to it. neither is it an empirical argument. You know the difference between a logical argument and an empirical argument?
But I am not doing that.
Re Steven Mosher:
With respect to George, based on his previous posts, I believe his latest comment was intended to have a massive /sarc or /parody tag included.
Water vapour, in the theory, is supposed to increase by 7.0% per 1.0C increase in temperatures. Precipitation is supposed to increase by 2% to 7% per 1.0C increase as well (and so is cloudiness). [It is possible that precipitation won’t increase as much as water vapour given water vapour will gradually increase over time in the atmosphere. Given the turnover of water vapour is 40 times per year, precipitation should probably be closer to the 7.0% per 1.0C but nonetheless the theory is not sure about this].
Not all places will see the same increase but given how fast the large weather systems move, it should not make much difference. Large locally isolated climate regions like the Saharra, Australia or Antarctica could have different trends but almost everywhere else should follow this most basic aspect of the theory (and the one that contributes nearly 2/3rds of the warming predicted). This is actually the most important aspect of global warming theory.
That means flooding will become more common as temperatures rise. Is this happening? Is water vapour increasing at 7.0% per 1.0C increase? If so, dikes need to go up 20.0% in the next 100 years.
Steve Mosher,
.
I think you are seeing more in this than is really there. The ‘unfair position’ of always having to be right is a consequence of climate scientists (especially well known, outspoken ones) of claiming a high level of certainty (when there is none), and NEVER admitting substantive error. These claims are so bizarre as to qualify alone as “post normal science”.
.
The problem is, IMO, an absurd mixture of science with politics.
.
Openly admitted substantial uncertainty, leavened a modest measure of humility, would go a very long way toward eliminating the expectation of perfection. Climate scientists who act as political advocates reap what they sew. I do not think this is in any way unfair or unreasonable. If they want to talk the talk, they have to walk the walk. They don’t walk the walk, only because they can’t.
bugs – …”These points are not evidence for AGW. There is already plenty of that.”…
mosher – …”every time people make shakey un quantifed predictions they hurt the credibility of the science.”…
bugs – ….”But I am not doing that.”…
bugs – ok, so staying away from predictions, please can you give us your top ten quantified pieces of evidence for AGW? btw – I understand AGW to stand for “Anthropogenic Global Warming”. If you have it as something else please correct me though your comments indicate you also have “G” as Global. Thanks.
Re: SteveF (May 3 18:47),
“I think you are seeing more in this than is really there. The ‘unfair position’ of always having to be right is a consequence of climate scientists (especially well known, outspoken ones) of claiming a high level of certainty (when there is none), and NEVER admitting substantive error. These claims are so bizarre as to qualify alone as “post normal scienceâ€.
I’m doing my best to avoid a “who started it” discussion. Rather just trying to diagnose the situation as it exists. For whatever reason, valid or not, there exists a tendency for some group of vocal scientists to refuse to admit error.
sometimes the reasoning APPEARS to go like this: “the skeptics will make hay with this one” And truth be told, skeptics do sometimes make overblown comments about errors in climate science. Like the whole thing about what hansen may have or havenot said in 1988. And they definitely over reacted to some of climategate.
I have this discussion with Ravetz (he’s working on an expanded paper for some conference) Basically it boils down to this. From the AGW side they think they are engaging in normal unreflective science. they dont see the political dimension. They dont see how reflecting on the consequences of their statements (skeptics will make hay) does not comport with the ideal of science ( we might call this a form of bad faith). On the other side skeptics call for a return to “normal science”, get the politics out of science. As if one can just innocently and apolitically return to an ideal that probably (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend) doesnt exist.
And I’ll note this as well. Yu know you are in a post normal situation when people spend huge amounts of time talking about the scientific method.
normal science vanishes philosophy. But in a post normal situation, it’s back.
Re: Troy_CA (May 3 18:29), i can live with that
Troy CA:
I tried to apply that /sarc /parody tag but I don’t think it’s supported in this format.
In any event, Mosher’s detailed refutation relied on an inference that (a) climate scientists could be wrong even when motivated by correct policy sentiments and (b) is is actually beneficial to science to point that out when it happens. Obviously, these additional express heresies will be added to the fictive dossier alluded to in my previously misinterpreted post.
George– I think you should be able to insert [/sarc]. But if you try to insert the mirror image of this > you need to use special codes because the normal one has special meaning in html. Your whole comment will get screwed up.
“From the AGW side they think they are engaging in normal unreflective science.”
I’m sorry, Mr. Mosher, this is difficult to believe.
Andrew
“From the AGW side they think …”
It might be what they say . So, unless you have ESP, Mr. Mosher, I doubt you can know what they really think.
But maybe you do and there’s more to this than the words express.
Thoughts and the words they beget don’t always align, BTW.
Andrew