New study brings into question link between a kind of bacteria and environment 4

[zdas04]

A new study by the University of Indiana in collaboration with Cal Tech and Scripts Institute has found that a microscopic creature that was previously thought to exist only in oxygen-rich environments is thriving in an oxygen-deficient/methane-rich environment. This critter is a major factor in the historical atmospheric "record". Makes you wonder how many of the things we "know" about the atmospheric record are 100% the result of faulty correlations.

This is science. The researchers expected an outcome, found a different outcome, adjusted their hypothesis to match observed data, tested the new hypotheses. Really great work.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. ùGalileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[cranky108]

How does that change what was in my science book? Or what people have learned?

Some of these discoveries should be news, yet, what I hear is another murder, a bombing, and someone was arrested.

Any idea why it has such a large range of enviroments?

 

[zdas04]

These bugs in the fossil records are used as part of the computer models that predict historical CO2 and global temperatures. The discovery is a pretty big deal. In the story one of the researchers guessed that the bugs like a fairly solid sea bottom which tend to not exist in boggy, oxygen-poor environments.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. ùGalileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[IRstuff]

These climate scientists must be really dumb to classify Foraminifera as bacteria...

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Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

 

[zdas04]

The "bacteria" was mine. They called them "microscopic organisms".

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. ùGalileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[rconnor]

-----(the joke)--->

​

 

[zdas04]

Interesting. Your short posts are no more comprehensible than your long ones.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. ùGalileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[IRstuff]

The joke flew over someone's head.

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[tinfoil]

If some of the data and parameters of the climate models used to forecast Global Climate Change are based on assumptions nullified by this discovery, why isn't it getting more attention?

 

[rb1957]

because it might not be in line with the mantra

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[zdas04]

I've promised not to write anything about ACC or AGW until 2016.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. ùGalileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[TheTick]

Anything that compels us to learn and understand more is good. Research and resulting enlightenment driven by concern about climate is good. Dogma bad.

 

[zdas04]

That was my reason for starting this thread TheTick. I love to see a scientist find a fact that violates his hypotheses and respond by revising the hypotheses instead of sweeping the new fact under some rug.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. ùGalileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[rb1957]

"to make the punishment fit the crime" ... to make the facts fit the theory ?

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[TheTick]

Amen, Dave!

 

[rconnor]

Can someone link the actual paper? I can't seem to find a link to it in the press release. I know it's somewhere because how else could someone use this as an example of good science without looking at the method and results from the actual paper. I'm probably just blind and can't find it. I did a google scholar search as well.

zdas04, can you link a copy of the paper? I'd be interested in reading it.

 

[zdas04]

The note at the bottom of the article Note "The above story is based on materials provided by Indiana State University." seems to indicate that it is not yet published. You might want to contact the researchers mentioned in the article.


David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. ùGalileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[IRstuff]

Obviously, there's a conspiracy to suppress the facts, or is there? Here's the Indiana Uni newsblurb.

http://www.indstate.edu/news/news.php?newsid=4195

But, note that they are talking about ONE specific species of Benthic Foraminifera, because it's certainly known that Benthic Foraminifera, in general, do live on Oxygen Minimum Zones (OMZs):

Bathymetric preference of four major genera of rectilinear benthic foraminifera within oxygen minimum zone in Arabian Sea off central west coast of India

Live (Rose Bengal stained) and dead benthic foraminifera from the oxygen minimum zone of the Pakistan continental margin (Arabian Sea)

Benthic foraminifera associated with cold methane seeps on the northern California margin: Ecology and stable isotopic composition Note that Rathburn of IndU is a co-author of this paper.

THE DISTRIBUTION AND ECOLOGY OF LIVING (STAINED) BENTHIC FORAMINIFERA ACROSS AN OXYGEN MINIMUM ZONE IN THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BIGHT Rathburn and Burkett are authors of this one

THE ECOLOGY OF BENTHIC FORAMINIFERA LIVING IN AN OXYGEN MINIMUM ZONE ON THE EASTERN PACIFIC MARGIN

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[zdas04]

I certainly am not talking about anything like that. I just found it refreshing that the group found data that didn't fit the hypotheses and worked to fix the hypotheses instead of ignoring the inconvenient data. I have no idea how important the finding is or isn't. I was just impressed with the honesty.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. ùGalileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[rconnor]

Some of you are talking about this press release about research that hasn’t been published yet as an example of good science. How could you possibly know whether this research is good science based off a press release?

Don’t get me wrong, this research sounds very interesting and I look forward to the paper when it’s released. But there is absolutely no possible way for me (or anyone) to honestly comment on the content of the research when we haven’t seen the research.

So this then begs the question, why post it? If you honestly just wanted to post about a paper that found something that violated the researcher’s original hypothesis than certainly you could find a better example. You know, one that is actually published so that you could go through and confirm it was an example of good science.

Your reason for posting it wouldn’t be because you (mistakenly) believe the implications of the research work against the current understanding of climate science, would it? No! You’re on a “pause” from that conversation until 2016.

..but that certainly seems to be what tinfoil took from it. I actually wanted to avoid this discussion but tinfoil’s comment (and the implied message of zda04’s original post) is completely unsupported and speaks to a lack of understanding of the science that needs correcting.

The first thing to realize is that paleoclimatology is based off a number of different, independent proxies. Study of forams and diatoms is only one such proxy. Even if this research determines that all paleoclimatology based off forams is flawed (which is highly unlikely, see below) than it is still not a magic bullet against paleoclimate.

The second thing to realize is how forams are used to reconstruct past climate states and past temperatures. Forams are used for two main things:
1) The oxygen isotope composition of the shells
2) The changing in particular species that result from environmental factors

Composition of Shells
Scientists use the shells of foram to study the isotopes and element ratios. The ratios can then be used to infer the temperature and date of the environment. The key here being that it is the composition of the shells that is used for as a temperature proxy, not their relative density or kind of species. Discovering that a certain species of foram can live in environment with low levels of dissolved oxygen would not appear to impact the current practice of using shell composition as a temperature proxy.

Change/Abundance of a Specific Species
Certain species do well in cold water, others in warm water. Certain species do well in low oxygen environment, other in high oxygen environments. As climate shifts, so does the concentration of various species of foram. This paper appears to make no comment on an anomaly related to the temperature dependency of the species. It does finds that a certain species, thought to only exist in high oxygen environments, has been discovered in low oxygen environments as well. This could be extrapolated to mean that estimates of the oxygen content at different stages in the Earth’s past could be put into question but that requires more investigation. Even if true, what impact on paleoclimatology would that have? Furthermore, would that completely change climate science as we know it? Would it invalidate the findings of the IPCC? Almost certainly not.

“But…but…the press release made it sound like an upcoming paper was a game changer for all of climate science!” Yes. That’s the job of a press release. And that’s why using a press release for a yet to be published paper as an example of good science is bad logic.