The $1000 Student Climate Challenge Award

Is there a climate crisis??  

 Currently children are being asked to lead a political charge for “climate change action”. Climate is very complex, and most adults have a very poor understanding of all the factors affecting climate change.  Thus, many people believe our children must have a far inferior understanding of climate change and are just being used as pawns in the politics of climate change. Many adults see student strikes as silly political theater, not validation of any climate theory or proof of an impending climate crisis.

But perhaps I underestimate the knowledge and intelligence of our student “climate strikers”. So, I am offering a $1000 award to the student who unequivocally outlines why 1) rising concentrations of CO2 are the cause of recent climate change, and 2) why that change is catastrophic. 

I warn participants, I devoted my whole professional career towards scientific research and education that promotes wise environmental stewardship. Nonetheless I became a climate skeptic. I observed too many people eager to blame climate change for environmental problems that were caused by other factors and had real remedies. So, I suspect no adult, never mind a child, can meaningfully determine that recent weather or recent changes in a species abundance have been driven by rising greenhouse gases. 

But you may prove me wrong. 

Furthermore, to encourage good scientific thinking, if there is no winner in this climate challenge, I will still guarantee a $500 “runner-up” prize to the student who demonstrates the best scientific thinking, even if their conclusions are wrong.

Here are the requirements:

1.    The student must be 21 years or younger. Nonetheless I encourage each student to discuss climate change with your parents, teachers and friends as well as contacting scientists.

2.    The student must email their arguments in a document that is no larger than 5000 words. They must state their name and age and type “The $1000 Student Climate Challenge Award” in the subject line. Email the document by December 1, 2019 to naturalclimatechange@earthlink.net.

3.    The student must use the foundation of scientific inquiry, the “null hypothesis”.   In other words, the student must show that current weather/climate reflects a change that exceeds natural climate change. That requires choosing the appropriate time frames for discussion.

4.    Students must go beyond simple correlations. Correlation is notcausation. Although CO2 concentrations are higher today than they were 200 years ago, higher concentrations are not evidence of causation. 

5.     Students must address relevant alternative hypotheses. For example, why is Arctic warming the result of CO2 warming and not the result of natural oscillations that drive warmer waters into the Arctic?

6.    Students must address why warming is catastrophic. If warming is caused by rising CO2, why would a longer growing season be catastrophic? Or if there is less sea ice why would the resulting increase in photosynthesis be catastrophic? Or what is the evidence of a trend in larger or more tornados?

7.    Consensus is not evidence.  Consensus is merely political theater. Arguments must be based on evidence. Politically motivated scientists tried to refute Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity using a “consensus” argument and writing “100 Authors Against Einstein”. The consensus was still wrong.

8.    Avoid arguments from authority. As Carl Sagan wisely advised “arguments from authority carry little weight  - authorities have made mistakes in the past.” For example, John Muir’s ideas were published in popular papers and magazines regards the formation of Yosemite Valley by glaciers. The geological authority from Harvard, Josiah Whitney, suggested otherwise and tried to smear Muir as just an “ignorant shepherd”. But Muir was mostly correct! Likewise, I warn that using the word “denier” will not make your arguments more correct.

9.    Students can enter as many times as they want. You may want to change your arguments when new information comes to light. Simply note that your new entry replaces your last.

As student essays roll in, I will periodically report in my What’s Naturalnewspaper column, and on my landscapesandcycles.net blog, regards failed common arguments and why it will disqualify your essay from the award.  That will allow every student to improve their argument and re-submit.

I wish every student the best and hope their sincere essays will promote better scientific discourse and understanding.

Sincerely Jim Steele

Director emeritus, Sierra Nevada Field Campus, San Francisco State University

Our Urban “Climate Crisis”

Published in Pacifica Tribune  May 14, 2019

What’s Natural 

Our Urban “Climate Crisis”

Based on a globally averaged statistic, some scientists and several politicians claim we are facing a climate crisis. Although it’s wise to think globally, organisms are never affected by global averages. Never! Organisms only respond to local conditions. Always! Given that weather stations around the globe only record local conditions, it is important to understand over one third of the USA weather stations report a cooling trend.  Cooling trends have various local and regional causes, but clearly, areas with cooling trends are not facing a “warming climate crisis”. Unfortunately, by averaging cooling and warming trends, the local factors affecting varied trends have been obscured. 

It is well known as human populations grow, landscapes lose increasing amounts of natural vegetation, experience a loss of soil moisture and are increasingly covered by heat absorbing pavement and structures. All those factors raise temperatures so that a city’s downtown area can be 10°F higher than nearby rural areas. Despite urban areas representing less than 3% of the USA’s land surface, 82% of our weather stations are located in urbanized areas. This prompts critical thinkers to ask, “have warmer urbanized landscapes biased the globally averaged temperature?”  (Arctic warming also biases the global average, but that dynamic must await a future article.)

 

from Wickham 2013

Satellite data reveal that in forested areas the maximum surface temperatures are 36°F cooler than in grassy areas, and grassy areas’ maximum surface temperatures can be 36°F cooler than the unvegetated surfaces of deserts and cities. To appreciate the warming effects of altered landscapes, walk barefoot across a cool grassy lawn on a warm sunny day and then step onto a burning asphalt roadway.

In natural areas like Yosemite National Park, maximum air temperatures are cooler now than during the 1930s. In less densely populated and more heavily forested California, maximum air temperatures across the northern two thirds of the state have not exceeded temperatures of the 1930s. In contrast, recently urbanized communities in China report rapid warming of 3°F to 9°F in just 10 years, associated with the loss of vegetation.

Although altered urban landscapes undeniably raise local temperatures, some climate researchers suggest warmer urban temperatures do not bias the globally averaged warming trend. They argue warming trends in rural areas are similar to urbanized areas. So, they theorize a warmer global temperature is simply the result of a stronger greenhouse effect. However, such studies failed to analyze how changes in vegetation and wetness can similarly raise temperatures in both rural and urban areas. For example, researchers reported overgrazing had raised grassland temperatures 7°F higher compared to grassland that had not been grazed. Heat from asphalt will increase temperatures at rural weather stations just as readily as urban stations.

To truly determine the effects of climate change on natural habitats requires observing trends from tree ring data obtained from mostly pristine landscapes.  Instrumental data are overwhelmingly measured in disturbed urbanized areas. Thus, the difference between instrumental and tree ring temperature trends can illustrate to what degree landscapes changes have biased natural temperature trends.  And those trends are strikingly different!

The latest reconstructions of summer temperature trends from the best tree ring data suggest the warmest 30-year period happened between 1927 and 1956. After 1956, tree rings recorded a period of cooling that lowered global temperatures by over 1°F. In contrast, although tree rings and instrumental temperatures agreed up to 1950, the instrumental temperature trend, as presented in NASA graphs, suggests a temperature plateau from 1950 to 1970 and little or no cooling. So, are these contrasting trends the result of an increased urban warming effect offsetting natural cooling?

from Schneider 2015

After decades of cooling, tree ring data recorded a global warming trend but with temperatures just now reaching a warmth that approaches the 1930s and 40s. In contrast, instrumental data suggests global temperatures have risen by more than 1°F above the 1940s. Some suggest tree rings have suddenly become insensitive to recent warmth? But the different warming trends are again better explained by a growing loss of vegetation and increasing areas covered by asphalt affecting temperatures measured by thermometers compared with temperatures determined from tree ring data in natural habitats.

Humans are increasingly inhabiting urban environments with 66% of humans   projected to inhabit urban areas by 2030. High population densities typically reduce cooling vegetation, reduce wetlands and soil moisture, and increase landscape areas covered by heat retaining pavements. Thus, we should expect trends biased from urbanized landscapes to continue to rise. But there is a real solution to this “urban climate crisis.” It requires increasing vegetation, creating more parks and greenbelts, restoring wetlands and streams, and reducing heat absorbing pavements and roofs. Reducing CO₂concentrations will not reduce stifling urban temperatures. 

Jim Steele is the retired director of San Francisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus and authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism. 

Contact: naturalclimatechange@earthlink.net