An example of climate scientists inability to frame their story

Science and Technology
1

I’ve had a bit more time to sit around than usual, and one thing leads to another and before I know it, I’m bitching at the good guys.
But, I believe it’s a bitch worth dishing out.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016 A study in miscommunication - increasing Antarctic ice extent no mystery! http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2016/02/miscommunication-increasing-antarctic.html While culling through YouTube videos for a project, I came across a NASA Goddard video that presented a text book example of a well meaning, but overly cautious scientist whose's awkward wording and omissions leads to more confusion than clarity. It also highlighted one of my pet peeves - the lack of a coherent and memorable narrative to serve as a skeleton upon which to drape the many varied bits and pieces of information being presented. A unifying concept, such as "Plate Tectonics" which created a real mental visualizing tool onto which the disparate bits and pieces of geologic knowledge fit seamlessly and became a comprehendible whole. Perhaps a concept along the lines of our "Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine" subtitled "It's The Atmospheric Insulation Silly." In any event, this quote at 0:55 set me off. - Speaker: "The increase that we're seeing in the Antarctic ice extent is a little bit of a mystery…" Poor phrasing indeed. Particularly since he never brought it back to explaining how scientists have been uncovering the various geophysical phenomena that have driven the increasing sea ice and solved the one time mystery. Not confronting that meme and explaining why sea ice has been increasing, they reinforce what an unschooled person might assume and what the contrarian PR machine keeps feeding people. Why, I wonder? After all, it is a pretty clear and straightforward story. I follow the short video in question by highlighting the pieces of information I'm familiar with; information that offers a coherent physical explanation for why all that extra sea ice has been forming, and why it's part and parcel of global warming's cascading consequences. Items that were unjustifiably omitted from the video but that could have been included. For supporting evidence I link to various splendid short videos and some articles that provide further details to this aspect of our climate engine. NASA | The Arctic and the Antarctic Respond in Opposite Ways . . . A) Yes overall temperatures are getting warming, more moisture in the air, more snow fall on along Antarctica's coast. B) The ozone hole has removed some of the atmospheric insulation over central Antarctica creating even more extreme cold temperatures. C) These super chilled air masses then slide off the continental dome (elevation ) becoming the fabled Katabatic Winds the, which are also reaching record breaking speeds and low temperatures. D) These super chilled winds blow out over the ocean rapidly freezing surface waters. E) Ocean water currents around Antarctica have gotten significantly warmer recently melting glaciers from the bottom and freshening salt water. F) Likewise, increasing glacial discharge of millennia's old solid ice, is also freshening up ocean salt water and introducing disruption to previous circulation patterns. G) The combined effect is that thin seasonal ice sheet break up get blown north and the freezing winds rapidly refreezes the surface, freshened seawater. H) Remember we are talking about seasonal ice, a think sheet that melts away every year, only to reform the next. I) The real physical proxy for any global temperature change would be the solidity of the Ice cubes that have been fairly stable for millennia, heck for tens and hundreds of millennia in some cases.
for details visit WUWTW
2
Dear Scientists, I truly love you people, your curiosity, your restraint, your ingenuity, your depth of knowledge and your extraordinary discipline, your appreciation for the complexities within everything and so on. But for gosh sake, easily three decades have drained through our fingers and nothing has changed - we have a fatal miscommunication situation between you folks and the apathetic public. Let me offer another example: At: http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum you'll find this quote near the end.
“There hasn’t been one explanation yet that I’d say has become a consensus, where people say, ‘We’ve nailed it, this is why it’s happening,’" Parkinson said. “Our models are improving, but they’re far from perfect. One by one, scientists are figuring out that particular variables are more important than we thought years ago, and one by one those variables are getting incorporated into the models."
What do you people mean no consensus? No consensus on what? The exact details? The exact details of what? What about focusing on all you do know with certainty? No question about the ozone hole and colder temps and more powerful winds! No question about circumpolar currents getting disrupted by increasing warm water! No question of warm global air temperatures leading to more moisture in atmosphere and more precipitation! No question of Sea water freshening! No question that we are witnessing increasingly monstrous amounts of tens and hundreds of thousands of year old glacial ice flowing out into the ocean. What's this obsession with thinking every detail needs to be nailed down, out to three decimal points, before you feel comfortable making rational and logical connections and assertions to our leaders and public? It doesn't mean getting sloppy, it means refocusing your perspective to encompass and better explain the bigger story going on. What's wrong with tying together the strands of information that we do understand with human near certainty? What about framing it in a way that paints a picture, rather than facts that flow in one ear and out the other?
3
Dear Scientists, I truly love you people, your curiosity, your restraint, your ingenuity, your depth of knowledge and your extraordinary discipline, your appreciation for the complexities within everything and so on. But for gosh sake, easily three decades have drained through our fingers and nothing has changed - we have a fatal miscommunication situation between you folks and the apathetic public. Let me offer another example: At: http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum you'll find this quote near the end.
“There hasn’t been one explanation yet that I’d say has become a consensus, where people say, ‘We’ve nailed it, this is why it’s happening,’" Parkinson said. “Our models are improving, but they’re far from perfect. One by one, scientists are figuring out that particular variables are more important than we thought years ago, and one by one those variables are getting incorporated into the models."
What do you people mean no consensus? No consensus on what? The exact details? The exact details of what? What about focusing on all you do know with certainty? No question about the ozone hole and colder temps and more powerful winds! No question about circumpolar currents getting disrupted by increasing warm water! No question of warm global air temperatures leading to more moisture in atmosphere and more precipitation! No question of Sea water freshening! No question that we are witnessing increasingly monstrous amounts of tens and hundreds of thousands of year old glacial ice flowing out into the ocean. What's this obsession with thinking every detail needs to be nailed down, out to three decimal points, before you feel comfortable making rational and logical connections and assertions to our leaders and public? It doesn't mean getting sloppy, it means refocusing your perspective to encompass and better explain the bigger story going on. What's wrong with tying together the strands of information that we do understand with human near certainty? What about framing it in a way that paints a picture, rather than facts that flow in one ear and out the other?
IMO, it shouldn't have to come down to asking our scientists, en toto, to ALSO do the jobs of our statesmen, our media, our educational system, and our general citizenry. Although there are scientists who do try to take on this role.
4
IMO, it shouldn't have to come down to asking our scientists, en toto, to ALSO do the jobs of our statesmen, our media, our educational system, and our general citizenry. Although there are scientists who do try to take on this role.
No doubt! But, when they do communicate they need to do a much better job than they are doing. Ironically, today I came across a 1000frolly 20min video (the Lord Monckton YouTube clone) posted a few weeks ago that, used the same <2 minute NASAGoddard video, as the stepping stone to rip the scientists for all their ignorance and worse, it's really a disgusting piece of work. But that sloppy video is what handed that pig the ammunition, and I see it over and over.