Open Thread 26

The New England Journal of Medicine published an article from some of the most famous Lancet-bashers.

Has the NEJM been taken over by neocons?

On an obscure site that I debate AGW with some denier nutters, one posted this link to Marohasy /cohenite:-
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/04/more-worst-agw-papers/#more-49…

Any comments after you recover from laughing ?

I have a question about ocean warming. It is obvious to anyone I think that the ocean would expand with warming. What is the effect of local warming. Does it cause a mound of water (the mass hasn't changed)or does the water more or less level itself. I saw a TV program recently about some low lying atolls near Papua New Guinea being swamped. The waters surrounding them were said to have warmed 5dg.

Re #2.

The only accurate comment in there is by Cohenite in his comment at 8:49pm on April 25th where he concedes that he is a "tosspot lawyer".

Canadian government putting deniers in key science management posts:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090511.SCIENCEOTT11A…

Re #3 local variation of sea level: great question. I don't have a solid answer, but I know a lot of good "background" for understanding sea level measurement. Here goes:

I always assumed that "sea level" was genuinely level, apart from the tides. Boy, was I wrong: I discovered a whole line of research on local sea level variation. Currents and winds tend to drive most of the variations, it seems. The best raw data for all this come from satellite radar altimetry (TOPEX/Poseidon) and from another type of satellite work, gravimetry, as done by the GRACE experiment:

http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/

GRACE involves measurement of the strength of the earth's gravitational pull as two paired satellites ('the size of school buses') orbit in formation. Laser interferometry gives extremely sensitive reads of the spacing between the two, which will vary as gravity gets stronger or weaker from the slice of earth over which they are passing.

What has the GRACE experiment unveiled? For one, the solid Earth is subject to material "flow" as isostatic rebound makes some land masses gradually rise, in response to the removal of the huge weight of former ice sheets after they have receded. Second, areas that were never under an ice sheet may have some solid mass "flow" away from them into the newly less dense neighbouring areas that are undergoing isostatic rebound.

GRACE is also one of the most useful sources for data on ice sheet mass balance.

What about sea level? GRACE also yields data on that, which dovetails with the satellite surface altimetry.

A few articles on GRACE results:
Kilo, C-Y; Shum, C.K., et al. "Southern Ocean mass variation studies using GRACE and satellite altimetry", 2008. Earth, Planets and Space v.60 n.5, p.477-485.
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=20569766

Cazenave, A; Cabanes, C, et al. "Present-Day Sea Level Change: Observations and Causes" 2003. Space Sciences Review, v.108, n.1-2, p.131-144. DOI: 10.1023/A:1026238318585
http://www.springerlink.com/content/l5uh627038364344/
(cited by 133)

Chambers, DP. " Observing Steric Sea Level Variations with GRACE and Satellite Altimetry" 2006. EOS Trans. AGU, 86(18), Jt. Assem. Suppl., Abstract G13A-03.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/q67bjr

I don't know if you're following this, but there are some sad developments in the British Chiropractic's libel suit against Simon Singh. Apparently, a judge has ruled that because Singh used the word "bogus", he must now prove that the Chiropractic association _deliberately_ use techniques they know don't work.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=485

Harald -
Grim news indeed. "Deliberately" seems odd - they clearly use the techniques they use, intentionally. It's not like they can say the stumbled into doing so.
The key is now the state of mind of the practitioners; also I'm afraid it sounds like the kind of hair-splitting that gives such a bad name to theologians, philosophers and lawyers: the difference between they know it doesn't work vs. they don't know that it DOES work.

Climate change denialism gets everywhere, even the Nursing Times (URL was really long and complex, so here is a tinyurl):

http://tinyurl.com/pgrvfu

'Anonymous' tries to cover their reason for making a comment by saying they are a 'medical specialist'.

It is pretty pathetic.

Paul:

The Klaus-Martin Schulte kind of medical specialist? Aha...

Dingbat watch: Marohasy claims afresh that we need [a revolution in theoretical physics](http://www.jennifermarohasy.com) based on the revolutionary work of, wait for it, [Alan Siddons](http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/04/on-the-first-principles-of-hea…).

This is the same lunatic bullshit that forced her to hide behind ["Socratic Irony"](http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/view.aspx?ciid=1809484) last time. If most people who claim to be scientists discovered that their beliefs required changing the laws of physics, they would change their beliefs, but no...

Yours truly sees that Heartland is now sending out coded messages to the wingnut 'base'.

http://www.seattlepi.com/dayart/20090522/cartoon20090522.jpg

11 James,

The *Stupids* have no lower limit. It is fascinating to watch.

What's stupifying (!) is the utter lack of actual scepticism from the denizens of The Bog.

7 Harald,

I'm not aware of the Singh case. I suggest that you check that Ben Goldacre and George Monbiot know about this. You can find them both via The Guardian (UK). They have a good record of calling the bluff of liars.

Eli had some fun with cohenite's climate incoherence based on that Marohasy post