Posted on 02/26/2006 11:12:43 AM PST by alumleg
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are among the most popular and scientifically sophisticated agencies in the U.S. government. Not only do they do good science, they do dramatic, risky, and even romantic things--capturing comet dust, sending surveyors to Mars, flying airplanes into hurricanes, and providing images of impending weather events. They are full of productive, respected scientists. We have published papers from groups at both agencies and have been proud to do so.
But these days, we're trying to figure out what is happening to serious science at NOAA and NASA. In this space a month ago, I described some of the research that supports a relationship between hurricane intensity and increased water temperatures. Two empirical studies, one published in Science and one in Nature, show that hurricane intensity has increased with oceanic surface temperatures over the past 30 years. The physics of hurricane intensity growth, worked out by Kerry Emanuel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has clarified and explained the thermodynamic basis for these observations.
Yet a NOAA Web site** denies any relationship between global climate change and hurricane strength. It attributes the latter instead to "tropical multidecadal signals" affecting climate variability. Emanuel has tested this relationship and presented convincing evidence against it in recent seminars. As for the many NOAA scientists who may agree with Emanuel, the U.S. Department of Commerce (the executive agency that NOAA is part of) has ordered them not to speak to reporters or present papers at meetings without departmental review and approval.
That's bad enough, but it turns out that things are even worse at NASA, where a striking front-page story by Andy Revkin in the New York Times (28 January 2006) details the agency's efforts to put a gag on James Hansen, direct or of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, after a talk he gave at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in December 2005. His sin was that he pointed out that the climate change signal is now so strong, 2005 having been the warmest year in the past century, that the voluntary measures proposed by the administration are likely to be inadequate.
Hansen was told that there would be "dire consequences" if such statements continued. The Times story identifies two NASA public affairs officials, Dean Acosta and George Deutsch, as responsible for delivering this news and insisting that Hansen's "supervisors" would have to stand in for him at public appearances. Those will presumably take place in approvable venues and certainly not on National Public Radio (NPR). Deutsch is reported to have rejected a Hansen interview requested by NPR on the grounds that it was "the most liberal news outlet in the country."
For at least two reasons, this event may establish a new high-water mark for bureaucratic stupidity. First, Hansen's views on this general subject have long been widely available; he thinks climate change is due to anthropogenic sources, and he's discouraged that we're not doing more about it. For NASA to lock the stable door when this horse has been out on the range for years is just silly. Second, Hansen's history shows that he just won't be intimidated, and he has predictably told the Times that he will ignore the restrictions. The efforts by Acosta and Deutsch are reminiscent of the slapstick antics of Curley and Moe: a couple of guys stumbling off to gag someone who the audience knows will rip the gag right off.
These two incidents are part of a troublesome pattern to which the Bush administration has become addicted: Ignore evidence if it doesn't favor the preferred policy outcome. Above all, don't let the public get an idea that scientists inside government disagree with the party line. The new gag rules support the new Bush mantra, an interesting inversion of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield's view on war: "You don't make policy with the science you have. You make policy with the science you WANT." But the late-breaking good news is that NASA Administrator Griffin has said that there will be no more of this nonsense, and Deutsch, the 24-year-old Bush appointee sent to muzzle Hansen, has left the agency abruptly after his résumé turned out to be falsified. A change of heart? Stay tuned.
10.1126/science.1125749
**www.magazine.noaa.gov/stories/mag184.htm
Greenpissers. What else to expect from them?
ib4z
Welcome to FR.
Kennedy has jumped the shark and I have lost all confidence in him and scrutinize closely anything he "pushes".
Why is he pushing so hard?
The NHC produces a lot of data, problem is, it doesn't support the hypothesis. 2005 was not the most devatating hurricane season. Katrina was NOT a cat 5 when it went inland. Tens of thousands did NOT die. There was no concerted effort to abandon minorities, in fact, it was the swiftest and largest response to a natural disaster in the history of this country.
But what does all that have to do with politicians muzzling scientists?
Yes, global warming seems to be taking place but is it all that BAD? After a century of development, the traveling world is locked into otto/diesel cycle engines which produce lots of CO2; but it is water vapor that is the main driver of global warming, not CO2. The president realizes this and calls for our weaning off foreign, and domestic, oil/hydrocarbons; and yet, we in the new energy field have had the answers for years, and we don't see a single DIME of funding. Now, whose fault is that?
The sky is NOT falling. Junk science does NOTHING except further one's own agenda, especially when they benefit from the taxpayer.
Awfully shortsighted, for such a short-timer:
alumleg
Since Feb 26, 2006
It's SO ironic
when "mainstream" types talk gag rules.
How many news feeds
carried the story
of Mims catching NASA at
bad ozone numbers?
---------------------------------------------------
In 1990, Mims had calibrated two of his TOPS devices to agree with measurements from a multi-million-dollar Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) aboard a polar-orbiting NASA Nimbus 7 satellite as it overflew Texas. But then the satellite data began to diverge from his TOPS measurements.
In 1992 Mims checked the TOPS devices against the gold-standard, US$100,000 Dobson spectrometer at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory – and its readings also differed from the satellite’s. Clearly, the problem lay with the satellite’s TOMS instrument.
Confronted by the possibility that their vital observations of the ozone "hole" over Antarctica were in error, sceptical NASA researchers checked – and found the satellite had drifted in its orbit, so that the satellite could no longer see sunlight scattered from a special calibration panel, and was giving incorrect measurements. [That's a 'cleaned up' version of how NASA admitted their mistake!]
Mims suddenly had the attention, and respect, of professional ozone researchers.
His reputation grew further in 1993 when he won a Rolex Award for his proposal to establish an international ozone-monitoring network called SPAN (Sun Photometer Atmospheric Network), equipping a small number of volunteer observers with his invention so they could gather atmospheric data anywhere in the world, on land or at sea, especially in data-sparse regions.
[The Rolex Awards, Forrest Mims]
...................................................................
Forrest Mims III
Forrest Mims III set up a network to monitor ultraviolet radiation and ozone levels, first in his home state of Texas and then across the world, using a hand-held device he invented himself. He also proved that NASA’s ozone- monitoring satellite was giving false readings, after which NASA and other climate scientists started taking him more seriously. Most recently, he has been looking at the effects of smoke, dust and haze on sunlight and ecology. He makes a living writing books about science, lasers, computers and electronics.
Q: Your hand-held ozone monitor became a crucial tool in monitoring stratospheric ozone levels, which protect life on the Earth’s surface from damaging ultraviolet radiation. How did you come to invent it?
A: I became interested in measuring levels of UV radiation when I learned that the US government had closed down its UV-monitoring network in the late 1980s. I then realised that you could measure the ozone layer by looking at UV light at two different wavelengths where it is absorbed by the ozone. So I built some ultraviolet detectors at home and in 1990 I began making daily measurements. I now have almost 16 years’ worth of data and I have published many scientific papers about my findings.
Q: What happened when you discovered that NASA’s satellite measurements of the ozone layer
were out?
A: The satellite measurements began to diverge from my data in 1991. NASA said, maybe you’ve got an aerosol error or maybe your instrument has got a problem. I visited Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, which houses the world-standard ozone instrument, four times, and guess what, it was also seeing a difference compared with the satellite. Later NASA said they had made an error. The satellite was drifting out of orbit. At that stage they agreed to write a paper with me, although they later pulled out. The management weren’t too keen. But that was my first paper in Nature.
Q: How does an amateur get through the peer-review process?
A: Sometimes there is resistance to publishing my papers, but most of them have been published. Now I peer-review papers for scientific journals and I’ve peer-reviewed two-dozen books for scientific publishers. On a number of occasions professional scientists have taken me aside and asked me how to get published in Nature. Only once or twice in my career has somebody been rude or resentful that I didn’t go through the process they did.
Q: Why do you think amateurs like yourself make such an important contribution to science?
A: I once asked the famous Canadian ozone scientist James Kerr, “Why is it that Canada does so much better at measuring ground-level ozone than the US?” He had a very simple answer: we can’t afford satellites. That made my day. That is why an amateur scientist can do science just as well as anyone else: we can’t afford the tools of the professionals so we have to do the very best we can with the tools we have.
[Forrest Mims — An ID proponent you should know]
But what might that agenda be? Helping build housing for the homeless? Selling Priuses? I don't see why this issue is a political one. Conservatives should be the ones leading this charge, not liberals.
Ok, I get the part where some scientists have connected increased hurricane activity with a change in water temperature.
Where is the paragraph that proves man is responsible for affecting the water temperature?
I guess we are just supposed to accept that with no scientific proof.
Maybe if we all ran out and bought hybird cars and electric lawnmowers there would be no hurricanes next year.
Oh yes, we can't have scientists going around talking about climate change. All must be muzzled by Bush, who is an evil Republican trying to keep us beholden to those extremist Muslims who control the oil.
In fact, this is the first scientist who is crying about climate change I've ever heard, because those evil Republicans keep throwing them in Guantanamo, where there is torture, proven by terrorists who talk to the press about their abuses.
In fact, global warming caused by scientists is a proven fact which cannot be denied, like Darwin's theory of evolution, the big bang, stem cells, 5-day forecasts, fat free diets...not only the MSM knows this but also Liberals!
We must protest the muzzling of Scientists big S! I can't believe one scientist escaped the evil Bush administration which has gestapo like powers to keep them all quiet! I'm sure Hansen is not writing a book or looking for crass publicity! I believe! Kerry is really the President! We must listen to Journalists and take their word for everything!
This rant brought to you by a fed up evil conservative.
Not sure about your point regarding water vapor. There are many constituents keeping global climate relatively stable. The amount of water vapor is a big one. But people don't have much of an effect on water vapor content in the atmosphere.
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