Friday
Aug272010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Nature notices Bolivia
Aug 27, 2010 Climate: WG2 Climate: other Nature magazine has finally noticed the ecological disaster in Bolivia - the deaths of millions of fish caused by biting cold weather in tropical areas of the country. The ecological disaster that readers of this humble blog read about on August 7.
According to Nature, the problem has been brought on by "climate change".
I kid you not.
Reader Comments (22)
Like a coke whore, climate science will do anything or anyone for a score. The media plays the pimp. And they wonder why people don’t err... swallow it.
Sorry about that comment but ever since ‘global weirding’ cropped up last winter I’ve begun to realise that even if we slip into a new ice age they’ll be blaming it on CO2. Even if we’re right we’ll be in the wrong. Arghhhhhh!
What it says is "with such extreme climatic events potentially becoming more common due to climate change". There's now absolutely no doubt that as the climate changes, extreme climatic events beome more commonn. But this climatic event was just weather, so every unusual weather event is due to the changing climate. So it doesn't matter whether the climate changes naturally in the direction of warming or cooling, or whatever the cause of the changing climate, we will get extreme weather events that we can ascribe to this changing climate. Have I got that right, or am I getting all confused due to being a grumpy old git? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/26/attention-codgers-get-with-the-program/#more-23949
The disturbing aspect of this report is that the fish receive top billing. Only one sentence mentions the fact that hundreds of people died. I attempted to find informative reports on the Internet about cold related deaths (of humans) during the big South American freeze, but it is almost like a blackout -- very little factual information, mostly gossip level. I suspect that the MSM purposely has overlooked human morbidity because people would understand that maybe the planet is not overheating.
In the 1970s, one of the scare themes about a new glaciation was a claim that records (temperature reconstructions) showed increased climate variability just before the onset of glaciation. So that allowed huge swings any which way. The current crop of alarmists seemed to have missed that trick, although perhaps entering warming periods was found to be less exciting (= 'grant-generating') in the 'record' and so they have had to resort to emotive language such as 'weirding', or of course to those trashy (= 'over-parameterised') computer models which have done such intellectual and moral damage to climate science.
It’s an out and out funding pitch:-
“scientists are hurrying to coordinate research into the impact, and how quickly the ecosystem is likely to recover.”
“But exactly how the cold temperatures caused such devastation remains a mystery. So far, there have been no rigorous surveys of the ecological damage, only anecdotal observations.”
“one expert who has visited the area and is keen for the phenomenon to receive proper study because such freak climatic events may become more common in the future.”
"We hope to secure financing for these studies to find out why the fish are dying," he says. With luck, and money, these will start in October. “
No research whatsover.
'Santa Cruz fell to 4 ˚C this July, a low beaten only by a record of 2.5 ˚C in 1955'.
But the culprit is 'identified' inevitably as climate change, and course 'such freak climatic events may become more common in the future'.
If, in the course of your discussions with true believers, you hear the term 'climate change' in place of global warming DO NOT let them get away with it!
If they're not talking about warming there's no further conversation about CO2 or it's implications; CO2 either produces global warming or it doesn't. If it produces something as ephemeral as 'climate change' they've just shot their whole movement in the foot.
Current mitigation strategies are to protect us from sea level rise and drought induced mass starvation, extinction and so forth resulting from INCREASED GLOBAL SURFACE TEMPERATURES. Not changing climate.
Climate changes. Climate has always changed. As far as we can tell climate will always change. That is about the only thing we can say with certainty about the climate on this planet. CO2 is claimed to have produced 'unprecedented warming' not 'unprecedented climate change'.
So if we're going to talk about anthropogenic global climate change, first we need to drop ALL discussion of CO2 mitigation, fire everybody at the IPCC and start over.
CO2 is alleged to cause warming, not climate change. Therefore, if we're not talking about warming then we have to start this whole line of thinking, reasoning and debate over. We also need to throw out whatever proposed solutions there were because they address the wrong problem. (i.e. if we're not fixing global warming due to increased CO2 then why are we trying to reduce CO2? If we're fixing climate change due to increase CO2 then they MUST start over trying to fix the models that have told them CO2 produces global warming before we need to discuss ways to reduce CO2.)
I have led this discussion and watched more than a few true believers sit in stunned silence as a result of it. I have witnessed them 'lose their religion' so to speak. They suddenly understand why their leaders have switched from 'global warming' to 'climate change' and suddenly start to question the logic. It's like watching a seventh grader finally pick up on factoring binomials. The lights come on and they reach understanding and a whole new world opens up for them. It's a lot of fun to watch in both cases.
Anyway, my two bits.
@Dr Crinium, who observes:
'The disturbing aspect of this report is that the fish receive top billing. Only one sentence mentions the fact that hundreds of people died. '
Nail on head.
Dominic
"unprecedented"... Except that it was colder in 1955
"a mystery" therefore climate change, as all misteries of course (some Vatican training I guess).
Nature used to be a respectable publication when I was a student, it must be affected by climate change aswell
Ther were several million fish dead in Lake Titicaca some years ago (bigger than this time) due to a parasite, cold can be a trigger in fish already infected. Pathetic the scientific objectivity level of nature in this case.
(I don't have the reference here just knowas I'm writing from the mobile, but google-schoolar Titicaca fish mortality to get it)
... Just reconsidering some reasons for the editorial policy...
Scientific publishing is a Big business (Elsevier makes billions). Given the exponential growth of climate-related papers in the age of climate hysteria, it would be enlightening to get some figures about the prportion of income from climate rwlated papers in key journals.
Bob Kutz
Damn good value for two bits!
Bob Cutz
I like your two bits
I'll third that about Bob Kutz' two bits
The amount of human waste pumped into this lake is enormous.
Titicaca's dire state was first detected in the 1980s, when its water began stinking and large
numbers of fish floated to the surface, belly-up.
A sure sign that water is contaminated is "the parasitic plant known as the lemna gibba or green water lentil" -- it's a kind of duckweed -- "which grows in aquatic environments into which urban runoff is continually discharged.
There is very little doubt that infection was the main cause of this disaster. Furthermore, it was predictable.
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../lake-titicaca-is-full-of_b_209803.html
The amount of human waste pumped into this lake is enormous.
Titicaca's dire state was first detected in the 1980s, when its water began stinking and large
numbers of fish floated to the surface, belly-up.
A sure sign that water is contaminated is "the parasitic plant known as the lemna gibba or green water lentil" -- it's a kind of duckweed -- "which grows in aquatic environments into which urban runoff is continually discharged.
There is very little doubt that infection was the main cause of this disaster. Furthermore, it was predictable.
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../lake-titicaca-is-full-of_b_209803.html
Another thumbs up to Bob Kutz.
...'like watching a seventh grader finally pick up on factoring binomials'...
Gavin and Tamino have conclusively refuted the existence of binomials. The more modern approach employs principle components and gives a myriad of solutions, from which the investigator can select the most aesthetically interesting or politically appealing.
Spot on Bob!
I'm happy to go along with three facts about CO2.
One, it has a "GHG" effect and alters the nett energy flux.
Two, Mankinds activities have increased CO2 output above non-anthropogenic levels.
Three, it's not as cold now as it was in the Little Ice Age.
I could even accept that CO2 is a major driver of Climate when the hypothesis is tailgated by the data.
It doesn't. Switching horses in mid-stream from GW to CC is entirely unimpressive and no amount of bluster that extreme cold events provide proof that CO2 turns up the burners cut no mustard!
Explain Argos. Talk about why the MWP vanished. Inform us non-climatologists why statistical studies by climate scientists created novel mathematical solutions that did not convince the mathematicians. Whisper in our ears why, when the Science is so settled and robust, do you only allow debate within sanctuaries, like RC and CP, that espouse censure, ridicule and self-massaging tribalism. Public debate, aka demolition, is bravely talked about, and rarely encountered.
Guys, you'll probably win the fight..
You are rich and we are poor.
You are many and we are few.
And another thumbs up to Bob Kutz. I have used the same argument a couple of times with warmers. The first time the warmer left the pub and the second time it actually seemed to realise something before it left the pub.
The wording is interesting and sneaky (it usually is). Nature says, "With such extreme climatic events potentially becoming more common due to climate change...". The phrase as a whole appears to be claiming that this particular event is related to climate change, but it's actually unclear whether "potentially becoming" refers to the present or the future. Furthermore, "such" appears to refer to cold weather. That seems obvious, but it could also be interpreted as addressing some other similarity between this and other events in the future (fish dying, for example).
It's technically very non-committal, and they can always say that it doesn't mean what it appears to mean.
See the article from newscientist where they want people to analyse each extreme weather event with the aim of linking these events to climate change ............ say no more!!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727754.200-time-to-blame-climate-change-for-extreme-weather.html