Former NASA Scientists, Astronauts Criticize

[Doug1029]

What are the horrific downsides to global warming?

Worst case scenario: business-as-usual triggers a runaway greenhouse effect that raises the planet's mean temperature to near the boiling point. Fallout: extinction for most forms of life now on earth, including us.

There are a few problems with the research in this area, though. It depends on a new evaporation basin opening in a warm-water area. What, exactly, causes that is unknown. Five of the six past "Great Dyings" have come about through this mehcanism. The other was the dinosaur extinction.

Evaporation from the sea surface concentrates salt, making water heavier. When the heavier water sinks, it flows along the ocean bottom, imparting its temperature to methane hydrate deposits on the ocean floor. Currently, the world's major evaporation basin is in the North Atlantic, so sinking water is cold, only a few degrees above freezing. If a warm-water basin should develop, the warmer water will melt methane hydrate and cause the release of methane, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere where it will trap more solar radiation, warming the planet further, releasing more methane.

In the past, there hasn't been enough methane plus CO2 to prevent the planet's recovery after a hundred thousand years or so, but if we keep burning every bit of coal, oil, tar sand and shale oil we can find, there will be.

A few years ago we had a scare when we found that the Arctic Ocean was releasing large amounts of methane. Several years of monitoring showed no changes in release rates, so it appears that this is just normal procedure for the climate system. But there were a lot of people thinking we had passed the point of no return and were on the road to extinction. Next time, they might be right.

A recent project reported methane releases in Colorado 4% higher than previously thought AND we are releasing (or burning) waste gas from those new wells in North Dakota. My daughter said she could see eighteen flares from here well site (She's a geo-stearer - the person who tells the driller where to drill.).

Doug

[Doug1029]

Actually the science is deeply flawed ...

It's time to get specific. Exactly what flaws are you referring to and how should they be corrected?

Last week I started a climate study of the Ouachita National Forest using dendrochronology. I should be able to reach back about 300 years. I am just starting, so it will be several months before I have anything. I am using a non-parametric method called Regional Curve Standardization. The actual data will be smoothed using a Hugershoff model. Series without pith dates will be truncated after the inflection point and modeled using a negative logarthym. Models will be standardized to modern data, then used to project past temperatures, rainfall, drought, and both large and small ice storms. I will attempt to make this accurate to the year, but there are some problems with the weather models that may prevent that.

If you know of a flaw in this method, now is your chance to speak up. I hope to submit it for publication in six-to-eight months. You have a chance NOW to head off a mistake if you see one. You have one chance to make a contribution instead of just whining. Do you intend to take it?

Doug

P.S.: if you actually make a contribution that gets used, I am offering to include you as third author (There are already three.). Then you can be one of the people whose work is being criticized as "deeply flawed."

Doug

Edited April 13, 2012 by Doug1029

[Doc Socks Junior]

What six "Great Dyings" are you talking about? I'm assuming first that you're discussing extinction events. There are five major extinction events...and numerous smaller extinctions mixed in there.

A little sourcing as to what you're discussing would work well here.

[Simbi Laveau]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/13/nasa-climate-change-denier-stunts_n_1424492.html

In my inbox today.Fake expertise is what it's being called.

Aka,smoke and mirrors

[Heroic Bishop]

It's time to get specific. Exactly what flaws are you referring to and how should they be corrected?

Last week I started a climate study of the Ouachita National Forest using dendrochronology. I should be able to reach back about 300 years. I am just starting, so it will be several months before I have anything. I am using a non-parametric method called Regional Curve Standardization. The actual data will be smoothed using a Hugershoff model. Series without pith dates will be truncated after the inflection point and modeled using a negative logarthym. Models will be standardized to modern data, then used to project past temperatures, rainfall, drought, and both large and small ice storms. I will attempt to make this accurate to the year, but there are some problems with the weather models that may prevent that.

If you know of a flaw in this method, now is your chance to speak up. I hope to submit it for publication in six-to-eight months. You have a chance NOW to head off a mistake if you see one. You have one chance to make a contribution instead of just whining. Do you intend to take it?

Doug

P.S.: if you actually make a contribution that gets used, I am offering to include you as third author (There are already three.). Then you can be one of the people whose work is being criticized as "deeply flawed."

Doug

Well, firstly, thank you for proving my theory of religious feverish devotion, here I am voicing an opinion against your enviro-religion and you choose to 'stone me to death'. There are a plethora of people who claim to have irrefutable evidence that climate change exists, the climate does change and vary but not in the 'end of the world' manner that is peddled by scientists and pseudo scientists alike. And yes I have come across plenty of people who throw out lots of scientific terminology in an attempt to lend credence to their beliefs but it continually is disproved, whether the findings are acknowledged or not.

So in response to your sanctimonious attack....

Regional Curve Standardization in Dendroclimatology is in itself subject to a few problems, where I agree that individual tree indices are represented in low and mid frequencies, one flaw of this method is RCS detrending and its failure to incorporate the average slope which it omits from the individual tree measurement, the average slope being the data which is obtained from all trees. This results in a 'trend-in-signal' bias, as you will know this occurs when the underlying growth forcing signal has variances on timescales that approach or exceed the length of chronology. This will bias and affect the start and end of your RCS.

Then we move onto the problem of contemporaneously growing trees which might represent a modern sample as you mentioned. You get biasing of the RCS curve by the residual climate signal in age aligned samples and the undesirable subsequent removal of this signal variance when using an RCS application. Then there is the spurious trend over your modern chronology caused by differing contemporaneous growth rate.

So you instantly lose some data, therefore creating a flaw in your findings by having to use (respectively) signal free RCS in the first case then multiple sub RCS curves in the latter. This biasing therefore flaws your data.

Hugershoff Curve Fit in itself has start and end fitting problems, oh dear another flaw.

So before you come on here and start throwing around scientific terminology in an attempt to stun people with your brilliance, just remember...there is always someone out there a lot smarter than you, not me no, but plenty of others. So no I will not be putting my name to any paper, feel free to shoot yourself in the foot, i'm not helping you.

And pal, just because I don't come on here and ram terminology down peoples throats constantly doesn't mean i'm whining, i'm merely voicing an opinion, i'm confident enough with the REAL scientists out there who are proving that these environmental problems you waffle so well about are wrong or at the very least flawed without me needing to try and bend peoples brains in some minor forum. Perhaps you should be a little less smug in your scientific pursuits.

Best of luck with your publication my friend. I will continue to differ in my opinion.

And no I don't claim to be a scientist, I am just a humble medical professional, educated in my own field.

Edited April 14, 2012 by Vigilanis

[questionmark]

http://www.huffingto..._n_1424492.html

In my inbox today.Fake expertise is what it's being called.

Aka,smoke and mirrors

Yep, and most probably done by the same old recipe as the stunts before, some people will have some more money to declare on taxes...

[PeacefulAnarchy]

The biggest problem I can see is that all of this 'Environmental' vogue, has just become the latest religion to riddle the planet. And we are already arriving at the stage where, in the same vein as the world religions, you cannot question their validity without being branded a heretic and being viewed negatively by society.

I look around the English landscape which is now full of the growing malignant cancer that is the wind turbine, something that would probably have to work it's whole life just to offset the so called 'carbon footprint' of it's own construction and erection, and can't help looking at the hysteria this new religion is causing. Unlike the other religions though, I hope this one goes away.

I mean come on...Al Gore wins accolades for film making?..it just shows, anyone can jump on the band wagon and become a champion of the new faithful.

That's the problem, no true debate. Just accept it or else!

[Essan]

Well, firstly, thank you for proving my theory of religious feverish devotion, here I am voicing an opinion against your enviro-religion and you choose to 'stone me to death'.

And yet it appears to me that you are the one with all the stones in their hand

Edited April 14, 2012 by Essan

[Doug1029]

There are a plethora of people who claim to have irrefutable evidence that climate change exists, the climate does change and vary but not in the 'end of the world' manner that is peddled by scientists and pseudo scientists alike.

That climate varies naturally is no secret. What is meant by "global warming" is surface warming caused by human activities. There are several lists of global temperature anomalies, among them, Hansen's list which goes back to 1880 and shows a very definite warming trend since 1908, interupted briefly in the 50s and 60s. That's the one I use, but there are others, all of which show that same "Hockey Stick" shape. The antis offer no evidence to counter this. Do you have some?

Regional Curve Standardization in Dendroclimatology is in itself subject to a few problems, where I agree that individual tree indices are represented in low and mid frequencies, one flaw of this method is RCS detrending and its failure to incorporate the average slope which it omits from the individual tree measurement, the average slope being the data which is obtained from all trees. This results in a 'trend-in-signal' bias, as you will know this occurs when the underlying growth forcing signal has variances on timescales that approach or exceed the length of chronology. This will bias and affect the start and end of your RCS.

I think you're trying to sucker me into something here. You have exactly reversed the problems/advantages of RCS. RCS, in its pure form, does not use detrending; thus, it doesn't have the "stair-step" problem that results when detrended series are averaged. For that reason, it can be used for time intervals beyond the span of the component series.

ALL of the samples in my datasets come from living trees. There are several series that date to 1700. A single series that covers the entire time span in question does not have the problem of interpolation between series.

Then we move onto the problem of contemporaneously growing trees which might represent a modern sample as you mentioned. You get biasing of the RCS curve by the residual climate signal in age aligned samples and the undesirable subsequent removal of this signal variance when using an RCS application.

RCS does not use regression, except as a smoothing function for the finished chronology; the chronology does not have to be smoothed and smoothing can be accomplished using other methods. No regression, no residuals.

Then there is the spurious trend over your modern chronology caused by differing contemporaneous growth rate.

I am unsure which trend you are talking about here. The chronology does have more series from young trees than from old ones. And with few exceptions, they are contemporaneous. I am actually using 10 of my own chronologies from the Ouachita Chronology plus the Shortleaf Canyon, McCurtain County Wilderness, Lake Winona and Hot Springs chronologies. That's 722 series from 14 chronologies, so differential growth rates caused by endogenous disturbances should be more than averaged out. Growth rate differences caused by suppression and release are handled in the cross-dating process.

So you instantly lose some data,

The inflection point in the Hugershoff model for Ouachita Shortleaf pine, occurs in Year 4. Simply delete the oldest four years of the series and it can be fit with a negative logarythm. Of course, those are the very years you most want to know about, but you can't have everything.

therefore creating a flaw in your findings

If the lack of the oldest four years from two-thirds of your series is a flaw, then it is a flaw, but it does not distort the rest of the data. And I still have over 200 pith-dated cores that can fill in those years.

by having to use (respectively) signal free RCS in the first case

Again, making the dataset signal free is the whole idea behind RCS. "Signals" from regressions are artificially induced, so it is desireable to eliminate them if possible. RCS does this.

then multiple sub RCS curves in the latter. This biasing therefore flaws your data.

Again, RCS does not use detrending; therefore, no multiple curves to combine; thus, no biasing.

Hugershoff Curve Fit in itself has start and end fitting problems, oh dear another flaw.

In this case, the Hugershoff model is used only to smooth the RCS dataset. It could be smoothed as easily (in fact, more easily) with a running average. Fitting it with regression puts undue weight on the ends, but one can fit it with numerical methods, basically, trial-and-error (Number crunchers are good at that.). A partial solution to this problem is to cut off the chronology at some minimum number of series (I'm using eight, but might increase it.). That way, the end weighting problem gets cut at the same time.

So before you come on here and start throwing around scientific terminology in an attempt to stun people with your brilliance, just remember...there is always someone out there a lot smarter than you,

You might take your own advice. You are good at using big words, but you fail to understand the concepts behind them.

i'm confident enough with the REAL scientists out there who are proving that these environmental problems you waffle so well about are wrong

Name some. There are experts in other fields (like medicine) who don't seem to understand that a Ph.D. doesn't mean they know everything. What are CLIMATOLOGISTS saying? Name a few who disagree with global warming theory. What are ECOLOGISTS saying? Name a few who don't think that warming is the cause of a great many of those changes noted in ecological journals. And how about atmospheric chemists and physicists?

Yes. There are differences of opinion over minor issues. But the overall concepts are no longer being debated.

And no I don't claim to be a scientist, I am just a humble medical professional, educated in my own field.

You did a good job with RCS, even though your conclusions are based on a complete misunderstanding of the process. But you're right: you should stick to medicine.

Doug

[Doug1029]

What six "Great Dyings" are you talking about? I'm assuming first that you're discussing extinction events. There are five major extinction events...and numerous smaller extinctions mixed in there.

A little sourcing as to what you're discussing would work well here.

Oops. Can't count. Good memeory, but short.

Doug

[Heroic Bishop]

You did a good job with RCS, even though your conclusions are based on a complete misunderstanding of the process. But you're right: you should stick to medicine.

Doug

Well like I said I still personally feel that there are flaws with RCS and will continue that opinion, some of which is clearly illustrated but you feel I misunderstand the process, we could go around in circles with this but I think we have made our points. You sir are welcome to your research and I gracefully bow out of the thread and wish you well my friend.

I will look to your published findings with interest, at least in saying I disagree with what you are trying to prove, I am willing, and I would hope educated enough, to read the findings to the contrary and hear what you have to say, only then can someone genuinely say they disagree even though I have read many like it before.

Good luck Doug.

[Heroic Bishop]

And yet it appears to me that you are the one with all the stones in their hand

Any stones coming from my direction Essan, are the ones rebounding back off the shield I am holding up in an attempt to protect myself

[Doug1029]

Well like I said I still personally feel that there are flaws with RCS and will continue that opinion, some of which is clearly illustrated but you feel I misunderstand the process,

Sorry if I offended you. There are problems and strengths with practically any process that can be thought up. One must look over the available methods and decide which ones best fit his purpose. RCS' strength is that it does not detrend the data; thus, does not have the problem of fitting together varying series. If I use the negative logarythm, I will encounter some of those problems you mentioned. I'll have to solve them when I get there.

I will look to your published findings with interest, at least in saying I disagree with what you are trying to prove,

I am not trying to prove anything. Just building a climate/weather record for the past three centuries (Shortleaf pine can't go back much farther than that.). I would happily publish something that shows cooling. In fact, there's an instrumental record from nearby that shows cooling and two more that show warming. Nobody has tried to build climate records with these chronologies before.

Also, I will examine the instrumental record at the same time (By "historical" records, we mean instrumental records which locally go back to 1891, about one-third of the short-leaf pine record; tree-ring chronologies are "pre-historic" by definition.). With historical records, I know exactly what the local temps, drought, precip was. I cross-check my models against that before trying to extend them back.

I am willing, and I would hope educated enough, to read the findings to the contrary and hear what you have to say, only then can someone genuinely say they disagree even though I have read many like it before.

Good luck Doug.

You mention having read papers whose findings you did not agree with. Which papers were these? Who are the authors? Did you disagree with the methods, the analysis or the conclusions?

Doug

Edited April 14, 2012 by Doug1029

[Heroic Bishop]

You mention having read papers whose findings you did not agree with. Which papers were these? Who are the authors? Did you disagree with the methods, the analysis or the conclusions?

Doug

Generally speaking Doug, I have seen (forgive my limited vocabulary here but..) flaws in a few papers, Some using RCS data some not, but keeping in tune with the subject of RCS, I did read the Yamal Chronology by Briffa, and forgive me if my memory is vague here as it was a while ago, but I believe it was 2001 could have been 2000, and I read the improved RCS findings in the 2008? revision of the Yamal Chronology, as you will know the papers are based on Russian research, I briefly looked over the 2002 revision based on the different Corridor Standardization method, again forgive my memory (too much medical information has gone into my grey matter since),I know it was by two authors but can only recall one of them whom I believe was called Shiyatov?

My problems basically stemmed from the methods employed between the three, which on the surface appeared to all represent sound implementation of the RCS method. The conclusions are what I had the problem with. I am sure a man with the grasp you have over the RCS method will know these papers, and one my problems stemmed from the testing of these methods against each other when Steve McIntyre applied his own study, although I agree that his findings are refuted and I can see how it can be viewed as a biased chronology, it did however demonstrate flaws.

I do remember a Dendroclimatology paper on the Bavarian Forest in Germany from Edinburgh University, forgive me for not recalling the authors, but this quite eloquently demonstrated in the midst of trying to demonstrate the validity of the methods just what some of the primary problems were such as the complex relationship between tree ring data and climate data, the "Segment Length Curse" etc.

Generally speaking I did not have a problem with the authors, just the conclusions and therefore the methods. I personally just do not see the trend across the various studies. The pitfalls to me, in my humble uneducated opinion, is that they do not present a consistent method of analysis of the data in order to lend validity to the methods employed.

I agree that these are Dendroclimatology models, and not designed necessarily to demonstrate cataclysmic events ahead due to climate change, but so much has been written based on research such as this designed to demonstrate just that.

As I said, I look forward to your research and perhaps your work can banish my demons, but having researched so much to the contrary I am of the opposing opinion to yours Doug.

But as I said, good luck with it my friend!

As a quick edit to this, let me just clarify that the RCS method itself is not the primary problem, it is the way in which it is touted as cast iron evidence of climate change that forces one to look towards those very flaws and pitfalls and highlight them in that face of this. Just so we don't end up going in circles after all debating the issue lol.

Peace Doug

Edited April 14, 2012 by Vigilanis

[Doug1029]

Generally speaking Doug, I have seen (forgive my limited vocabulary here but..) flaws in a few papers, Some using RCS data some not, but keeping in tune with the subject of RCS, I did read the Yamal Chronology by Briffa, and forgive me if my memory is vague here as it was a while ago, but I believe it was 2001 could have been 2000, and I read the improved RCS findings in the 2008? revision of the Yamal Chronology, as you will know the papers are based on Russian research, I briefly looked over the 2002 revision based on the different Corridor Standardization method, again forgive my memory (too much medical information has gone into my grey matter since),I know it was by two authors but can only recall one of them whom I believe was called Shiyatov?

My problems basically stemmed from the methods employed between the three, which on the surface appeared to all represent sound implementation of the RCS method. The conclusions are what I had the problem with. I am sure a man with the grasp you have over the RCS method will know these papers, and one my problems stemmed from the testing of these methods against each other when Steve McIntyre applied his own study, although I agree that his findings are refuted and I can see how it can be viewed as a biased chronology, it did however demonstrate flaws.

I do remember a Dendroclimatology paper on the Bavarian Forest in Germany from Edinburgh University, forgive me for not recalling the authors, but this quite eloquently demonstrated in the midst of trying to demonstrate the validity of the methods just what some of the primary problems were such as the complex relationship between tree ring data and climate data, the "Segment Length Curse" etc.

Generally speaking I did not have a problem with the authors, just the conclusions and therefore the methods. I personally just do not see the trend across the various studies. The pitfalls to me, in my humble uneducated opinion, is that they do not present a consistent method of analysis of the data in order to lend validity to the methods employed.

I agree that these are Dendroclimatology models, and not designed necessarily to demonstrate cataclysmic events ahead due to climate change, but so much has been written based on research such as this designed to demonstrate just that.

As I said, I look forward to your research and perhaps your work can banish my demons, but having researched so much to the contrary I am of the opposing opinion to yours Doug.

But as I said, good luck with it my friend!

As a quick edit to this, let me just clarify that the RCS method itself is not the primary problem, it is the way in which it is touted as cast iron evidence of climate change that forces one to look towards those very flaws and pitfalls and highlight them in that face of this. Just so we don't end up going in circles after all debating the issue lol.

Peace Doug

It is hard to do any study that is absolutely error free. And methods employed by one researcher in one situation may not work in another, a detail that is often overlooked by those not thoroughly familiar witha field. I am familiar with the papers you mention, but like you, it has been some time since I read those. I'm in my "lab" in Ohio - actually, an old house - at the moment. When I get home I'll post the citation to Briffa's most-recent RCS paper - it's about the theory of RCS and how to apply it. I have critiqued McKitrick on UM before. The guy complained about Mann et al. not publishing all their data, then tried to pass off half of a COFECHA run as the whole thing. I run that program all the time, so the deletion was easy to spot, but somebody who didn't use it could be easily misled. Another of his complaints was "missing data." I actually found an empty field in the chronology he was talking about - the elevation was missing. Unless it is necessary to correct for lapse rate, dendrochronology doesn't use elevation, but if needed, it is easy to find on Google Earth. McKitrick and McIntire are engineers, so I wouldn't put much weight on their opinions regarding dendrochronology and climate change. I don't tell them how to build things (because I don't know anything about that); why they think they're climate experts is beyond me.

You seem better-educated on this than the average denier. That's unusual. What sets me off are the people who spend ten minutes reading a couple articles on a pseudo-science website and think they know more than people who've spent decades working in the field. That's why I ask what specifically is the problem they think they've found. I haven't had one yet who could name the problem, let alone explain what and why. You came pretty close, though.

One problem that may be bothering you is the very nature of scientific enquiry. Journals want readers and that means they want something new. By the time a method has been used two or three time, it's old and journals don't want to publish it. So a researcher has to come up with a new method. We're making great strides in developing methods, but the daily-grind type of thing needed to make a coherrent picture, especially worldwide, can't get funded.

The Ouachita Chronology was submitted for peer review on January 9th and I heard from the reviewer for the first time last week - he says he'll get it done in May. I submitted the ice storm paper two weeks ago - same reviewer. Lord knows when he'll get to that one. At any rate, it may be awhile before these get into print.

Doug

[Doc Socks Junior]

Oops. Can't count. Good memeory, but short.

Doug

Well it's not the counting that's the problem. It's more of the misunderstanding of extinction events mechanisms that's the problem.

[Doug1029]

Well it's not the counting that's the problem. It's more of the misunderstanding of extinction events mechanisms that's the problem.

Don't keep us in suspense. Lets hear your explanation.

Doug

[Doc Socks Junior]

Don't keep us in suspense. Lets hear your explanation.

Doug

Sigh. I can't do that until you actually specify which extinction events you're talking about. Of any of the major ones, your clathrate hypothesis is only posited to be a primary cause in one of them.

[Doug1029]

Sigh. I can't do that until you actually specify which extinction events you're talking about. Of any of the major ones, your clathrate hypothesis is only posited to be a primary cause in one of them.

I believe you are referring to the Permian-Triassic extinction and/or the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Methane release was involved in both; although, in the case of the Permian-Triassic, the eruption of the Siberian Traps, releasing massive amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere, and the disruption of highly anoxic deep water probably played a major part. Other extinctions, excluding the K-T, are blamed on volcansim in one form or another, but that has the effect of disrupting ocean currents, warming the seabed, etc., so methane gets into the picture, even if it wasn't a major player.

The PETM most-closely resembles our current situation and methane is blamed 100% for that.

And I just discovered a paper from several years ago that presents a good news - bad news interpretation of "the methane gun." First, it would probably take a thousand years or so for our current warming to penetrate most methane deposits and start a massive release - so we have some time. On the other hand, the amount of methane that could be released suddenly from the Arctic would raise methane concentrations about twelve times, having the same effect as instantly doubling CO2 levels - good for about 1.5 degrees of instant temperature rise. So, if we get shot by the methane gun, we get a smaller-scale disaster immediately, but the big problem gets put off for several hundred years.

Doug

Archer, D. 2007. Methane hydrate stability and anthrogenic climate change. Biogeosciences 4(4) 521-544.

Edited April 15, 2012 by Doug1029

[Doc Socks Junior]

Alrighty, glad we got that one narrowed down. Yep, those are the ones.

Eh, not 100 percent. I don't know how you're taking all geologic hypotheses as gospel...probably because you're not a geologist. It's called multiple working hypotheses for a reason.

On the plus side, your paper does note that a methane doomsday scenario is highly unlikely, which is a good thing.

[questionmark]

Alrighty, glad we got that one narrowed down. Yep, those are the ones.

Eh, not 100 percent. I don't know how you're taking all geologic hypotheses as gospel...probably because you're not a geologist. It's called multiple working hypotheses for a reason.

On the plus side, your paper does note that a methane doomsday scenario is highly unlikely, which is a good thing.

Does not have to be methane, enough carbon dioxide (where the Oxygen level falls under 15%) is also lethal.

[Doc Socks Junior]

I agree with that. That's been the cause of several extinctions, if I recall correctly. I don't know if they're predicting that for this warming, however.

[Von Bismarck]

Doug.

I have some questions regarding dendroclimatology.

1. Biological

Which type of analysis do you use when you want to singal out environmental signals in tree ring series which are in an unobersrved, uncontrolled and steadily changing enviroment?

2. Statistical

Would you agree the use of EPS, SSS and RBAR statistics in dendroclimatology tell us nothing about the TRUE strength of environmental signals?

3. Emergence

When it comes to the principles of emergence in biological systems, has any exquisite mathematical models been devolped? If not, wouldn't you say its a fundamental flaw in our biological theory?

[JayMark]

I agree with that. That's been the cause of several extinctions, if I recall correctly. I don't know if they're predicting that for this warming, however.

As far as I understand, they are more worried about methane hydrates that oxygen depletion. But I guess an intense warming and GHG release could also lower the oxygen concentration by also affecting oxygen sources.

I have seen a documentry from 1995 in which Russian scientists gave off a warning to the scientific community about it (clathrates). We are of course talking about Siberia.

Since Siberia is one of the most affected place in regards to warming, they are thinking it could eventually get bad. When looking at videos from Siberia in summer, you can see all those puddles of water bubbling quite intensely by places.

Seems like it is intensifiying as years go by.

There is an estimated amount of it (worldwide) that could easily add a couple °C to global temperature but we can't say exactly how it's going to evolve. The only sure thing is that it will only get worst over time.

Peace.

[Doug1029]

I have just returned from Ohio. It rained the last two days we planned to do field work, but on the morning we were supposed to come back, the sun came out and we had a beutiful day, so we decided to spend it doing field work and drive straight through that night. I have now been awake for 29 hours straight, so if my words don't make sense, you'll know why.

I promised to post some references to RCS:

Briffa, R. Keith and Thomas M. Melvin. 2008. A closer look at Regional Curve Standardization of tree-ring records: justification of the need, a warning of some pitfalls and suggested improvements in its application, In Hughes, M. K., H. F. Diaz and T. W. Swetnam, eds.: Dendroclimatology: progress and prospects. Springer Verlag.

Cook, Edward R.; Keith R. Briffa, David M. Meko, Donald A. Graybill and Gary Funkhouser. 1995. The 'segment-length curse' in long tree-ring chronology development for paleoclimatic studies. The Holocene 5,2(1995) pp. 229-237.

Generally speaking I did not have a problem with the authors, just the conclusions and therefore the methods. I personally just do not see the trend across the various studies.

Maybe it's just bad wording, but this makes it seem that you are choosing your desired outcome, then choosing the methods that produce that result. That, of course, is not a test of anything; it's pseudo-science.

As a quick edit to this, let me just clarify that the RCS method itself is not the primary problem, it is the way in which it is touted as cast iron evidence of climate change that forces one to look towards those very flaws and pitfalls and highlight them in that face of this. Just so we don't end up going in circles after all debating the issue lol.

I am not aware of anyone claiming that RCS is the end-all of climate research. It is merely another tool in the box. And the fact that there are known problems and that these are being published as a warning to other researchers, simply serves to make future studies better (and also allows corrections to past ones); problems do not invalidate a method, unless they are insoluble.

Doug