Bad science?

[DTWXRISK]

 

This is an interesting story which appeared in today's  SLATE .com written by meteorologist Eric Holthaus.  I don't know if  any of you have followed this particular individuals writings but Eric  is clearly committed and what I would call activist supporter of AGW .  You may recall that he made somewhat of a splash with his commitment last year to reduce his own car to the footprint by nevering  to fly again until C02  build  up in the earth's atmosphere is under control.
 

Anyway and this particular story he appears  to be making  a rather  sound series of observations  and deductions regarding  the diminishing inland lake known as the ARAL Sea .  If you don't know where this LAKE  is then you do a oogle  search.  This lake is located in Western Kazakhstan and to the east of the Caspian Sea.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/09/26/south_aral_sea_s_basin_is_now_completely_dried.html
 

Eric has seen what many of us in the agricultural weather industry has known for while. That the  ARAL SEA -- again a large inland lake  --has almost completely dried up.  As you read the story you  will see that Eric attributes this  to climate change...  AGW  or  Man made climate change.
 

Essentially he argues  that the series of prolonged  droughts  in the area have caused the late to dry up completely over the past 10 years.  Droughts caused by climate  change. Undoubtedly some of the droughts may be cause by the change in the climate over Central Asia ....  and that of course reduces the inflow into the  Aral Sea/ lake.

 

The problem is that there are other contributing factors here which for some reason Eric in his zeal to run around and scream AGW has ignored.  No less than Scientific American back in April of 2008  talked about the  diminishing ARAL sea.  But as you read the  Scientific American article you will see  that they talk a lot more about the shift in the two Rivers which feed the lake...  and serious water mismanagement by both Russia and the Kazakhstan and governments.

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reclaiming-the-aral-sea/

 

My point here is that the store written by Eric Holthaus on the  slate.com website is pretty bad science.  There are several other causes at work which are man made but have little to do with actual climate.  Then of course there  is  the still unproven issue of whether not the recent  droughts  in that  part of the world are a sign of cyclical climate  OR actual substantial climate change. 
 

My own personal view is that I do not think Eric is completely off base here but he really has jumped the gun and did not look of other possible alternative causes....  probably due to his  ZEAL to promote AGW.

  

[donsutherland1]

Although natural variability is occurring within the context of increased radiative forcing on account of the rising atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, it is difficult to attribute this event to climate change or at least suggest that it would not be occurring absent climate change. Attribution science is still not sufficiently advanced to conclusively make such calls. Moreover, the climate models don't show the kind of rapid and substantial decline in precipitation to raise the argument with much confidence.

[PhillipS]

The shrinking of the Aral Sea is certainly man-made, not through climate change but through diversion of the rivers feeding the Aral Sea for agricultural irrigation.  This has been known for quite a while so I'm wondering why this is being brought up this late in the game.

[mitchnick]

The shrinking of the Aral Sea is certainly man-made, not through climate change but through diversion of the rivers feeding the Aral Sea for agricultural irrigation.  This has been known for quite a while so I'm wondering why this is being brought up this late in the game.

the article was in Slate.com = Slant.com