Category Archives: Science

Climate Change Digest – June 7, 2014

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Background

Assessment of and Reactions to President Obama’s Climate Plan

Pessimism and Perseverance

 

Plagiarism or just sleazy behavior?

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Background reading.

On April 14 I discovered a journal article which, on initial assessment, appears to be a derivative of a section of a paper of mine from 2009.  The authors didn’t copy text verbatim from my paper.  If only it were so black and white.  The critical section of their Their paper reads like a re-write an expanded version of one section of my paper.  Something ain’t right.  I haven’t determined yet whether it’s appropriate to label their paper “plagiarism” or just “sleazy” but it begs the question, “Plagiarism by citation amnesia?”  Talk is cheap though.  Go to the primary sources and judge for yourself:

Both links above take you to the abstracts in the respective journals.  The articles themselves are behind paywalls.  If you don’t have free access to either journal then go to the bottom of this post for links to no-cost copies.

The essence of my complaint:  Section 4.1 in their paper describes the details of computing the Cramer-Rao lower bound on the uncertainty associated with the parameter of interest.   So does Section 2.F of my paper.  See also my Figure 6 in Section 4.A compared with, well, a bunch of their figures.  As noted above, their discussion isn’t taken verbatim from my paper.  What rubs me the wrong way is that they address the same relatively obscure topic using the same methods but different words – and do so without acknowledging my prior work.  Is it possible that the lack of citation was an honest oversight?   Doubtful.  I know the authors are aware of my paper because a) they list it in the Reference section of their paper and b) one of the authors has have previously made unsubstantiated criticisms of my paper in non-peer-reviewed conference proceedings.  I regarded b) as an annoyance.  Making unsubstantiated criticisms in an unreviewed publication that few people are likely to read is one thing; creating a derivative of my work without citing it is a different story.  I won’t tolerate the latter.  The big question is, “Is their paper a derivative work?”  Is it plagiarism?  Or am I overreacting?  I need to re-read their paper as well as mine and re-assess.  That stated, I’m also interested in the opinions of neutral parties.

PS:  What would our sponsor think?

The same government agency that funded my work also funded them.   Set aside for the moment the ethical issue of not acknowledging the role someone else’s prior work played in your creation, as a taxpaper, wouldn’t you be irritated by paying twice for the same work?

PPS:  Links to no-cost copies of both papers

If you don’t have access to Applied Optics and/or Optical Engineering then you can download a copy of my paper here and their paper here.  (Note:  The free version of my paper is not a reprint of the journal article.  It’s the final version of the manuscript from which the galleys were created.  The content is nearly identical but it’s not formatted in the journal style.)

 

 

Bad news, good news on climate change

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The bad news via Emily Atkin, The 3 Most Sobering Graphics From The U.N.’s New Climate Report:

The overall message of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s newest report is simple: a rapid shift to renewable energy is needed to avert catastrophic global warming.

The good news via The Guardian, IPCC climate change report: averting catastrophe is eminently affordable:

Catastrophic climate change can be averted without sacrificing living standards according to a UN report, which concludes that the transformation required to a world of clean energy is eminently affordable.
“It doesn’t cost the world to save the planet,” said economist Professor Ottmar Edenhofer, who led the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) team.

Follow the links above for the details.

“To serve as custodians of creation is not an empty title; it requires that we act, and with all the urgency this dire situation demands.”

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Bishop Desmond Tutu:

Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse. No more can it be dismissed as science fiction; we are already feeling the effects.

This is why, no matter where you live, it is appalling that the US is debating whether to approve a massive pipeline transporting 830,000 barrels of the world’s dirtiest oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Producing and transporting this quantity of oil, via the Keystone XL pipeline, could increase Canada’s carbon emissions by over 30%.

If the negative impacts of the pipeline would affect only Canada and the US, we could say good luck to them. But it will affect the whole world, our shared world, the only world we have. We don’t have much time.

This week in Berlin, scientists and public representatives have been weighing up radical options for curbing emissions contained in the third report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The bottom line is that we have 15 years to take the necessary steps. The horse may not have bolted, but it’s well on its way through the stable door.

Who can stop it? Well, we can, you and I. And it is not just that we can stop it, we have a responsibility to do so. It is a responsibility that begins with God commanding the first human inhabitants of the garden of Eden “to till it and keep it“. To keep it; not to abuse it, not to destroy it.

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“Data without a good model is numerical drivel.”

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Eli Rabbett, Who You Gonna Trust, Models or Data?:

Paul Krugman makes a useful point at his already established blog

It’s not the reliance on data; numbers can be good, and can even be revelatory. But data never tell a story on their own. They need to be viewed through the lens of some kind of model, and it’s very important to do your best to get a good model. And that usually means turning to experts in whatever field you’re addressing.

because, if nothing else there are things about the data that they know that you do not.  Now Krugman goes on but Eli would like to pause here and, as he did at the NYTimes and discuss how data is not always right.

Data without a good model is numerical drivel. Statistical analysis without a theoretical basis is simply too unrestrained and can be bent to any will. A major disaster of the last years have been the rise of freakonomics and “scientific forecasting” driven by “Other Hand for Hire Experts”

When data and theory disagree, it can as well be the data as the theory. The disagreement is a sign that both need work but if the theory is working for a whole lot of other stuff including things like conservation of energy as well as other data sets, start working on the data first.

Eli’s comment that “Data without a good model is numerical drivel.” reminds John Tukey‘s observation:

The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data.

(That’s not something that “data scientists” or aficionados of Big Data seem inclined to appreciate but so be it.)

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Has the CA drought been made worse by human-induced climate change?

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Has the CA drought been made worse by human-induced climate change?  In his Dot Earth column yesterday Andrew Revkin, A Climate Analyst Clarifies the Science Behind California’s Water Woes, which argued, “No.”   More specifically, Revkin interviewed NOAA scientist Martin Hoerling, who doesn’t think so.  Hoerling is reality-based.  He cites historical data in drawing his conclusions;  specifically, the Palmer Drought index and consecutive days without rain.  Using those as metrics he concludes that the context for the current drought isn’t significantly different than the context for past droughts.   Based on the data he’s looking at, his conclusions are reasonable.  That said, while Hoerling’s analysis seems legit as far as it goes I’m not sold that he went far enough. Joe Romm’s post, Climatologist Who Predicted California Drought 10 Years Ago Says It May Soon Be ‘Even More Dire’ addresses the limitations of Hoerling’s analysis.  It’s not that Hoerling is wrong about the (lack of) trends he observes.  It’s that he’s missing the bigger picture.  Romm (emphasis mine):

Climate change can worsen drought in multiple ways. Climate scientists and political scientists often confuse the public and the media by focusing on the narrow question, “Did climate change cause the drought” — that is, did it reduce precipitation?

…scientists a decade ago not only predicted the loss of Arctic ice would dry out California, they also precisely predicted the specific, unprecedented change in the jet stream that has in fact caused the unprecedented nature of the California drought. Study co-author, Prof. Lisa Sloan, told me last week that, “I think the actual situation in the next few decades could be even more dire that our study suggested.”

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