Generic News Story at Work

September 16th, 2005

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

It is good to see my generic news story on global warming from May, 2004 being put to good use by the Washington Post in a story today on the new Webster et al. paper in Science. (For those wanting to see an excellent news story on Webster et al. see Richard Kerr in Science.)

Here is the generic news story in full from Prometheus in May, 2004:

Generic News Story on Climate Change

Instructions to editor: Please repeat the below every 3-4 weeks ad infinitum.

This week the journal [Science/Nature] published a study by a team of scientists led by a [university/government lab/international group] [challenging/confirming] that the earth is warming. The new study looks at [temperature/sea level/the arctic] and finds evidence of trends that [support/challenge] the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Scientist [A, B, C], a [participant in, reviewer of] the study observed that the study, ["should bring to a close debate over global warming," "provides irrefutable evidence that global warming is [real/overstated] today,” “demonstrates the value of climate science”]. Scientist [D, E, F], who has long been [critical/supportive] of the theory of global warming rebutted that the study, ["underscores that changes in [temperature/sea level/the arctic] will likely be [modest/significant],” “ignores considerable literature inconvenient to their central hypothesis,” “commits a basic mistake”]. Scientist [A, B, C or D, E, F] has been criticized by [advocacy groups, reporters, scientific colleagues] for receiving funding from [industry groups, conservative think tanks]. It is unclear what the study means for U.S. participation the Kyoto Protocol, which the Bush Administration has refused to participate in. All agreed that more research is necessary.


Here is a tightly edited version of the Washington Post story:

“A new study concludes that warming sea temperatures have been accompanied by a significant global increase in the most destructive hurricanes, adding fuel to an international debate over whether global warming contributed to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. The study, published today in the journal Science … Georgia Tech atmospheric scientist Judith A. Curry — co-author of the study with colleagues Peter J. Webster and Hai-Ru Chang, and NCAR’s Greg J. Holland — said … “There is increasing confidence, as the result of our study, that there’s some level of greenhouse warming in what we’re seeing,” … Florida State University meteorology and oceanography professor James O’Brien, who writes for the online free-market journal Tech Central Station, said his survey of government data on Atlantic storms between 1850 and 2005 shows that “there’s no indication of an increase in intensity.” … Katrina reanimated a transatlantic argument over global warming policy as critics of the Bush administration have seized on it to promote mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions… Arguing that the science of global warming remains uncertain, President Bush in 2001 disavowed the Kyoto treaty that sets mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and he has pursued policies calling for more research and voluntary efforts to limit emissions.”

10 Responses to “Generic News Story at Work”

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  1. Steve Bloom Says:

    Very amusing, although of course you’re just applying the standard news story template to the GW issue. Fortunately nor all reporters engage in this kind of thing; here’s a good counter-example: http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050916/NEWS0110/509160369/1260 .

    By the way, I haven’t seen anything from Bill Gray in any of the Webster coverage. Do you have any idea whether he considers it the the second-worst paper ever after Emanuel, or is it the new number one?

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  3. Steve Bloom Says:

    Speaking of news templates and the Webster paper, here’s the latest effort from Pat Michaels: http://www.techcentralstation.org/091605F.html .
    Pat has come to a sad pass when even an interested amateur like me can spot the obvious weaseling (apologies to wmc) in his reasoning (i.e., lack of comparability between satellite and pre-satellite records within a single basin).

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  5. Scott Says:

    Pat actually raises a very good and important issue. The main point of his article is that you can get different results based on different time periods. Not to suggest Webster et al. intentionally restricted their analysis to a time period that gave them a desired outcome, but this [easily] extended data record of number/percentage of hurricanes employed by Michaels nicely demonstrates that in a larger context, recent hurricane activity is not unusual. It also echoes what many others, including Bill Gray, have been saying–that there are cycles of natural variability in hurricanes and that they are likely unrelated to anthropogenic forcing. It does make you wonder why Webster et al. didn’t extend their record with this publicly available data source.

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  7. Steve Bloom Says:

    From the Webster paper:

    “We deliberately limited this study to the satellite era because of the known biases before this period, which means that a comprehensive analysis of longer-period oscillations and trends has not been attempted. There is evidence of a minimum of intense cyclones occurring in the 1970s, which could indicate that our observed trend toward more intense cyclones is a reflection of a long-period oscillation. However, the sustained increase over a period of 30 years in the proportion of category 4 and 5 hurricanes indicates that the related oscillation would have to be on a period substantially longer than that observed in previous studies.”

    Pat of course is familiar with the aforementioned biases (generally having to do with the fact that non-satellite observations, especially going back much before 1970, are necessarily incomplete), and chose not to mention them for obvious reasons. As well, neither Bill Gray nor anyone else has produced any evidence for a natural oscillation that would explain a 60-year plus cycle in category 4 and 5 cyclones. SSTs in particular are known to not behave in that way.

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  9. Scott Says:

    SSTs don’t have multidecadal cycles?

    Minobe, S., 1997: A 50-70 year climatic oscillation over the North Pacific and North America. Geophys. Res. Lett., 24, 683-686.

    Minobe, S., 1999: Resonance in bidecadal and pentadecadal climate oscillations over the North Pacific: Role in climatic regime shifts. Geophys. Res. Lett., 26, 855-858.

    Granted that’s the North Pacific, where there are no hurricanes. Nonetheless there is a close connection between the tropical and extratropical pacific via the atmospheric bridge, c.f.:

    Alexander, M. A., I. Bladé, M. Newman, J. R. Lanzante, N.-C. Lau, and J. D. Scott, 2002: The atmospheric bridge: The influence of ENSO teleconnections on air-sea interaction over the global oceans. J. Climate, 15, 2205-2231.

    In any case, this is getting way off base from Roger’s post. Sorry.

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  11. Scott Says:

    I’d just like to say one last thing and then I’ll shut up. Everybody is right here. Webster et al. are sharing what their data and analyses are showing, which is what Emanuel does, and Gray, but also Michaels. I went off tangent because I don’t think it’s fair that just because an analysis comes from Pat Michaels, it’s a “sad pass” and “obvious weasling.” Like in all the aforementioned instances, it’s what those particular data show.

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  13. Steve Bloom Says:

    I should have been more precise: A 60 year (or greater, I suppose) SST cycle in a location that produces cyclones. You refer to ENSO, but that’s nothing like 60 years. Do any of the studies you cite provide a basis for thinking such a cycle exists?

    My point about Michaels was that Webster carefully explained why the pre-satellite record couldn’t be reliably joined to the satellite record. Michaels proceeded to do this anyway in an effort to attack Webster’s conclusions. I have heard no hurricane specialist, not even Gray, criticize this choice on Webster’s part. What does Michaels know that they don’t? Have a look at Emanuel’s discussion of his work at http://wind.mit.edu/~emanuel/anthro2.htm , including 4, 5 and 6 in the FAQ and in particular 6 in the response to critics at the end. This latter in particular gives the lie to Michaels’ propaganda. And of course Michaels had read both Enamuel and Webster before writing his article.

    Finally, going to Michaels’ data source at http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/noaatechmemo.html , we see a number of warnings about combining data from different periods. Michaels seems to have ignored them.

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  15. Scott Says:

    Every analysis has its limitations and its pros and cons. Yes, Michaels used a data set in a non-ideal way to obtain a longer record that enables putting recent decades into a larger context. That’s done all the time. On the other hand Webster used a uniform record, but a time period that produced a biased result. That, too, is done all the time.

    Which is better/worse? Who knows! But you automatically assume that one of these analyses is worse than the other because of who performed it. Uncertainty is the nature of science; you can do an analysis 100 times and get 100 different results. You do the best you can, but it’s never ideal. Otherwise we’d already have all the answers and wouldn’t need to bicker here!

    And yes, the scientific literature is full of multidecadal SST oscillations (and even ENSO has multidecadal cycles), just pick up any issue of Journal of Climate.

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  17. Steve Bloom Says:

    The difference is that Michaels did it despite being aware of the reasons not to and without disclosing the problem to his readers. That was dishonest.

    Please provide or link to evidence for a natural North Atlantic SST cycle that would account for the current spike in activity.

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  19. Chip Knappenberger Says:

    From the NHC FAQ

    http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html

    “Starting in 1944, systematic aircraft reconnaissance was commenced for monitoring both tropical cyclones and disturbances that had the potential to develop into tropica cyclones. This is why both Neumann et al. (1993) and Landsea (1993) recommend utilizing data since 1944 for computing climatological statistics. However, for tropical cyclones striking the USA East and Gulf coasts – because of highly populated coast lines, data with good reliability extends back to around 1899. Thus, the following records hold for the entire Atlantic basin (from 1944-present) and for the USA coastline (1899-present)”