Global
warming can impact our agriculture, ecosystems as well as human health. These
impacts may lead to significant costs to human beings. In order to avoid
potential consequences, many scientists and institutions have been trying to
find reasons for global warming. Most climate scientists agree that the main
cause of the current global warming is the “greenhouse effect”, i.e. the
atmosphere traps heat radiation from the Earth toward space. In addition, there
are still some other theories trying to explain global warming. Two Canadian
scientists, David Vares and Michael Persinger, published a paper in which they
concluded that the global warming and the rise in CO2 resulted from decreases
in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field instead of CO2 emissions
from burning fossil fuels. Recently a blog article reviewed this paper.
The
main point of Vares and Persinger’s paper is that the decrease of Earth’s
magnetic field strength can affects the solubility of CO2 in water. In
addition, Vares and Persinger also said that the increasing CO2
concentration in the atmosphere did not directly result in the global warming.
Instead, the energy change associated with the Earth’s changing magnetic filed can
cause an equivalent temperature which may be responsible for global warming. The
blog author gave some comments on Vares and Persinger’s paper. First the blog
article pointed out that the relation between the strength of the Earth’s
magnetic field strength and concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere
was just correlation rather than causation. Then the blog author found one 2008
paper which was cited by Vares and Persinger’s paper and used to prove the
causal link in their paper actually refuted their own idea that geomagnetism
can explain global warming. Finally, the blog also found a significant
calculation error in Vares and Persinger’s paper. This
means the conclusion made in their paper was completely wrong! Overall, the blog
author was very disappointed with Vares and Persinger’s paper.
Actually,
two Canadian scientists’ paper was not strong enough to prove their ideas. I
think we must be more cautious as scientists or experts in some fields when we
write papers or other publications. Even though we should be bold to imagine or
make assumptions, we still need to be responsible for what we write to the
public.
While the paper by Vares and Persinger is published in a peer reviewed journal, I think the "International Journal of Geosciences" may not be a very reliable source of information. The paper published by Pazur and Winklhofer in "Geophysical Research Letters" has a different conclusion and is published in a more reputable journal. In the paper by Pazur and Winklhofer, they conclude that the anthropogenic emission rate of CO2 is too significant for global warming to be a result of the Earth's weakening magnetic field.
ReplyDeleteRebecca's comment echoes how I feel about this. In the Vares and Persinger paper, they say "it would be preposterous to make the weakening Earth's magnetic field responsible for global warming"; however, they do say that this effect could only exacerbate the problem. I think this is a distinction that should not go unnoticed.
DeleteI found it interesting how the blog author found basic issues such as math calculations in the paper. This does bring to light the caution that should be used when reading peer reviewed journals. It is not vastly uncommon for editors or reviewers of a specific journal to give favors to friends whom submit to that journal.
ReplyDeleteThough fortunate that this blog highlights this mistake, many mistakes in papers go unnoticed. This is even more important when dealing with issues that are politically charged, such as climate change. Opponents of stronger regulations to prevent climate change could use this paper as a reference when defending their opinion that global warming isn't real.
I think the Discover article really hit the nail on the head with correlation versus causation. The original article is lacking the necessary data to make this argument. The first issue is with the data shown in Figure 1. The data for the relative variation in geomagnetic-field dipole moment assumes that this data is uniform across the entire planet. In reality, the dipole-moment of the Earth varies regionally in both direction and intensity. Earth's magnetic field is constantly changing, and it is not doing so at an equal rate across the entire planet. The data from this article is an over-simplification of what is actually a very complex system.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, the graph only starts in 1850. On the geologic time scale, 1850 to now is only a tiny glimpse of the entire picture. Anthropogenic forcing of CO2 levels started around this time, and thus of course the temperature of the Earth is going to be rising. In order to show an actual correlation between dipole moment and global temperature, the authors would need to use paleoclimate and paleomagnetic reconstructions and models that are much more complex.
I'm entirely confused about the existence of the peer reviewed journal article. Firstly, the authors are out of the field. I'll grant them some overlap with studies on magnetism, but climate change and geomagnetism seems to go far beyond their speciality. Secondly, besides the peer review process it appears they have had no interaction with the field (no collaborators or useful discussions with identified geological scientists as co-authors or in acknowledgements). Given the controversial finding, I'm amazed by the reviewers lack of attention to detail that the blog post brought to light as a multiplication error.
ReplyDeleteThis article appears not to be the first time that the lead PI Persinger has made remarkable and controversial claims about the earth's magnetic field. Previously he has attributed fault lines to stronger magnetic fields which either through light interactions, or within the brain cause people to observe UFO's. The neuroscience studies which the blog post refers to as "well-known" in "neurotheology" are also not above reproach. It appears the blog post may have been over-hyping an infamous researcher as a famous one.
As has been mentioned earlier in the comments, the quality of the journal should be taken into account when reading primary literature.
I guess this paper serves as a reminder to be critical of even peer review articles and that if this isn't the type of things we'd like to see in the scientific literature to take our own responsibly as reviewers seriously.
ReplyDeleteGreat summary of the article and blog post. I also find it unfortunate that a number of statements or facts from the article have been discredited and am wary of the credibility of the journal that published it. I am curious as to what the background is of the blog author since they found a calculation error in the paper. I would not take the blog author seriously if they did not have the proper educational background in this field.
ReplyDeleteI think this is an interesting choice of correlation, because geomagnetic field, since they extend from earth's interior to where it meets solar wind, could possibly have an effect on climate change! However, I don't think the peer reviewed paper did a good job in assessing this relationship at all, and i think much more (and better) research could be done in this area.
ReplyDelete