Attribution wars

We're going through another outbreak of the Attribution Wars, with a BBC report of a draft IPPC report that apparently seems to take a cautious approach to attribution of recent extreme weather to AGW.   The Guardian, on the other hand, looks at the glass half empty side of the report, for a completely different take.

As for new papers on the issue, James Hansen has a new "manuscript" out which deals with statistical increases in extreme heat.  John Neilson-Gammon thinks it does not always put things in the best way, and refers to his own analysis of the recent Texas heat wave and drought that (more or less) argued that climate change made a severe drought that would have come anyway extraordinarily severe.

But the Hansen paper contains a clear statement in support of a hunch I expressed quite a while ago - that the extreme weather attribution statements coming out of NOAA over the last year or two seemed to be leaping too quickly into a "no connection with AGW" conclusion.  As Hansen writes:

People who deny the global warming cause of these extreme events usually offer instead a meteorological "explanation". For example, it is said that the Moscow heat wave was caused by an atmospheric "blocking" situation, or the Texas heat wave was caused by La Nina ocean temperature patterns. Of course the locations of the extreme anomalies in any given season are determined by the specific weather patterns. However, blocking patterns and La Ninas have always been common, yet the large areas of extreme warming have come into existence only with large global warming. Today's extreme anomalies occur because of simultaneous contributions of specific weather patterns and global warming. For example, places experiencing an extended period of high atmospheric pressure will tend to develop drought conditions that are amplified by the ubiquitous warming effect of elevated greenhouse gas amounts

One other paper that I have not seen noted anywhere much on the internet or media.  A study noted at AGW Observer blog concludes this about the Australian recent drought:

In the context of the rainfall estimates introduced here, there is a 97.1% probability that the decadal rainfall anomaly recorded during the 1998–2008 ‘Big Dry’ is the worst experienced since the first European settlement of Australia.

That seems a pretty significant finding.

On the attribution issue generally, I still think that Michael Tobis' "black swan" argument is pretty convincing. 

Technology aiding stupidity (again)

'Pox Parties' in the Age of Facebook - NYTimes.com

So-called pox parties, where parents would arrange play dates with infected children, were practiced before the introduction of the varicella, or chickenpox, vaccine in 1995. Now some parents are turning to Facebook and other social media sites, using the Internet to facilitate the exposure of their children to chickenpox and other diseases like measles, mumps and rubella. The parents say they would rather their children acquire these diseases and develop natural immunity than run the risk of vaccine side effects.

On Facebook the groups go by names like “Chicken Pox Party Line” and “Find a Pox Party.” As one group notes on its Facebook page, “Consider this your ‘registry’ so that if any other members have an infected kid, you’ll be notified and have the option of setting up a pox playdate.”

Not only that, but licked lollipops have been offered for sale too:

The offer – for lollipops infected with chickenpox virus – appeared on Facebook last month and quickly circulated among parents who oppose vaccinating their children against diseases....

“I think it’s an incredibly bad idea, whether you’re getting it from a lollipop or somewhere else,” said Dr. Rafael Harpaz, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Chickenpox can cause severe disease and death. Before the vaccine was available, we were approaching 100 children who died every year in the United States. You’re basically playing a game of Russian roulette.”

This month, law enforcement officials began clamping down. Jerry E. Martin, the United States attorney in Nashville, where the tainted lollipops were advertised at $50 for overnight delivery, issued a warning last week that sending infected items “through the flow of commerce” was a federal crime, punishable by up to 20 years in jail.

Magnets and brains (again)

‘Magnets’ help stroke patients speak (Science Alert)

Research at the University of Queensland seems pretty advanced on the topic of magnetic brain stimulation:

Dr Caroline Barwood, who recently completed her PhD at UQ's School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, conducted the research and found significant improvement in the language skills of stroke patients after they underwent Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).

TMS is a non-invasive method that seeks to target brain activity, with the intention to facilitate the reorganisation of brain regions with the purpose to alter language behaviours.

The treatment involves placing a coil on the head of the participant which uses electromagnetic induction to induce weak electric currents through a changing magnetic field.

Twelve patients who experienced strokes between one and six years prior to the study were recruited for participation and treated at the UQ Centre for Neurogenic Communication Disorders Research.

“Eighty percent of patients who were treated with TMS showed improvements in language skills, most notably in expressive language, which includes naming, repetition, and discourse. No language improvements were seen for those patients treated with placebo TMS,” Dr Barwood said.

This sounds consistent with a story from Italy I posted about last year concerning similar research from Italy, but with Alzheimers patients.er

There was also a story I am sure I blogged about on some research about (what I think was) similar stimulation for general learning improvement, but I am having trouble tracking that one down. I'll look again later.

Start waving goodbye to Dennis Moore

With Herman Cain staggering towards the exit door for wannabe Presidents (honestly, it gives me pleasure to read each morning of the latest stumbles of a Tea Party favourite,) the only downside I see is that no one will get to call him "America's own Dennis Moore" due to his pretty spectacularly regressive tax plan.

So let me take the opportunity to do so by posting the entire Dennis Moore saga from Youtube.  It's been a long, long time since I have seen this, and I had forgotten how good it was.  (About the only thing I had remembered was the Cain appropriate line which occurs at the 8.15 mark.)

Some matters to be dealt with

Back soon.

Old LA

LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat

James Lileks has been in Los Angeles and has an interesting post full of photos of the impressive looking, but now unused, grand cinemas of the past in the old centre of town. It is still a seedy sort of area, apparently, but at least the ornate, if slowly decaying, architecture is of interest.

Probably just too many drugs

Philip K. Dick's Exegesis: An Excerpt on Losing Touch With Reality

I'm not the world's biggest Philip K Dick fan: I have enjoyed maybe 5 novels, but started one or two others and found them un-engaging. I don't think he was that great at the short story, either.

I did like the VALIS trilogy, though, with its teasing sense of something important about the universe that might be being revealed if only all these threads could be pulled together. (They never were, really, from what I recall.) I also had read before that Dick had keep lots of notes about his quasi mystical experience that inspired the novels, and called it his Exegesis.

It seems someone has collected all this stuff together and published it, and there is a short extract in the Slate article linked above.

While it would be nice to think that Dick did genuinely have a strange, mystical experience with an other worldly intelligence, and perhaps was getting messages from the dead bishop, the extract still indicates what I decided long ago: no, it's almost certainly just a case of too many drugs.

Dangerous librarianship

Marie Curie: Why her papers are still radioactive - CSMonitor.com

Many library collections use special equipment, such as special gloves and climate-controlled rooms, to protect the archival materials from the visitor. For the Pierre and Marie Curie collection at France's Bibliotheque National, it's the other way around.

That's because after more than 100 years, much of Marie Curie's stuff – her papers, her furniture, even her cookbooks – are still radioactive. Those who wish to open the lead-lined boxes containing her manuscripts must do so in protective clothing, and only after signing a waiver of liability.

Huh.

Good news re fuel efficiency

BBC News - Plane makers switch to cleaner engines

Airbus and Boeing are in a dogfight (ha ha) over whose new engines are more efficient.

Of course, I would like to see superconducting electric engines some day.

Taking on Curry

The Real Problem with the Global Warming “Debate” | Open Mind

Tamino is really annoyed with Judith Curry's inaccurate claims which she then refuses to retract or justify.

She is not to be trusted.

I also see that there is something fairly bizarre going on at Curry's blog at the moment.  She gave a "guest post" to the authors of a couple of skeptic papers that appear (if my quick scan is right) to argue all 20th century warming is really just a natural fluctuation.   Richard Tol has ripped into Curry, saying these are bad papers and she is spreading "disinformation".   Curry has a long post arguing about what is "disinformation" and "pseudo critical thinking" and then gives Tol a guest post in which he shows why the papers are bad.  She seems to be claiming that she just put the papers up for discussion, and people shouldn't assume that she thinks they are good papers.

Her credibility would take a hit over this, if it weren't for the fact that it's long only been the slightly less rabid escapees from Watts Up With That who think she makes sense in her rambling attempt to cast herself as some sort of "middle man" of reasonable skepticism. 

You say hello, and I say goodbye...

As few people seem to visit the sister site for advanced immaturity, I'll replicate it's visual commentary on Herman Cain:

Yes, how sad.  A man with no actual political experience who had a tax plan that benefited the rich at this time of increasing concern about wealth and income disparity in his country, made really ignorant sounding and simplistic statements about how to conduct foreign policy, was denying the significance of the biggest long term environmental issue ever, and made very ostentatious displays of the significance of his faith, has come to grief over women (and men) saying he has a history of conducting himself inappropriately around women. 

Yes, everyone knows Democrats have got away with much worse in their private lives, but everyone should also know that if you're going to run with being a really seriously religious guy, and sing Gospel spirituals at the drop of a hat, a pattern of sleazy conduct in the past is likely to bite you hard.   Unless, I guess, you're going to play the role of the repentant sinner; but Herman is not having any of that.

The fact that he thought these would not come back to hurt him just shows his poor judgement.  But as I say, it's not as if that wasn't already obvious from his actual policy positions.   That Tea Partiers were smitten with him just shows what a hopeless bunch they are.

Drying out

Food dehydrators for home kitchens. - Slate Magazine

Wow. Slate has a whole article about adventures you can have dehydrating food.

For some reason, having a food dehydrator has always appealed to me. But then, there was an episode of Friends in which a weird young man who was staying with one of the characters and had a food drying obsession.  Do Hollywood scriptwriters know that it is a sing of potential mental instability?  

More importantly, my wife cannot imagine why anyone would be interested in doing this.  (It could partly be from my reading a bit about survivalists in the 1980's and how making beef jerky is a good idea if you expect the world to end soon.  Which I don't, but if the government told us that an asteroid was only a week away from hitting, I might be happy to have a bag of beef jerky in the cupboard.)  Maybe I need a man shed in the backyard, where I can secretly spend my time processing food.   (shh)
 
Anyway, maybe it is how I will spend my retirement. 

A welcome return

Bryan Appleyard - Thought Experiments

I'm happy to note that Bryan Appleyard seems to have finished a new book and returned to blogging. Yay. Now stick around, Bryan. Don't go wandering off again.

The mess remains

Cleaning up Japan’s nuclear mess: The twilight zone | The Economist

The Economist publicises the dubious ways that TEPCO, the Japanese utility company, is going about cleaning up its Fukushima reactors.

It notes that 89,000 people have been displaced. I am not sure if some proportion of those are from towns that are capable of cleaning, or not.

Featuring hardly any swearing at all

Martin Scorsese’s Magical ‘Hugo’ - NYTimes.com

It's hard to imagine, but Scorsese has made a kid's 3D fantasy film.