Is Global Warming Causing More Earthquakes, or More Earthquake Recording Stations?
It is sometimes claimed that economists have nothing to add to the climate change (formerly known as "global warming") debate. After all, what do they know about climate science? Well, I think I found one position for them: fact checker for the AP and CBS. An AP story, published on CBS News, is titled "Today's Quakes Deadlier Than In Past." I discovered the story through a link on the Drudge Report, but it is also (at present) the lead story on the CBS SciTech page. I have mocked journalists' publication of scientific studies before, but this one really has to be read to be believed.
Reading the article itself should raise some red flags. First is the statement that "The research proves that destructive ability of earthquakes on Earth increases alarmingly fast and that this trend is set to continue, unless the problem of 'global warming' is comprehensively and urgently addressed." Note the use of the word "prove." Is there some direct connection, even a theoretical one, between global warming and earthquakes? The article never says, but claims that the author has "proved" this fact and "proved" that "the global annual energy of earthquakes on Earth began increasing very fast since 1990." The article also points out that the increase in seismic activity "is not theoretical but that it is an Observable Fact." Yes, Observable Fact, capitalized. (In the "published" article it is labeled "Observed Reality.")
The work is all done by Dr. Tom Chalko, an "Australian scientist." Although the article doesn't say so, a quick Google search shows that the article was published in the NU Journal of Discovery. "NU" stands for Natural University, which, their website tells us, is "nowhere in particular and yet everywhere on Earth." So basically, it is a website, which publishes this "journal" on a very occasional basis (this article is the fifth published since 2001). Dr. Chalko is also on the editorial board. Apparently, Chalko has a PhD in Laser Holography ("The Science of Light") and also writes books on new age healing. None of this is mentioned in the article, and no other scientists or anyone else appears to have been consulted for the CBS piece.
So obviously, this guy is not a geologist or climatologist. But so what? Hasn't he, as he states, compiled all the earthquake data from USGS between 1973 and 2007? And didn't he find a strong change in trend 20 years ago? What of that Observable Fact that he "proved"? Okay, so there is no causative relationship proved. So what?
Take a look at the graphic accompanying the CBS story. Although there are no labels, I assume time is on the x-axis and some measure of earthquake activity on the y-axis. Notice that big jump about one-third in? It seems a bit big for a one-year change, with two distinct time trends before and after. Any idea what could have caused that? Well, let's ask USGS. First they tell us:
Although it may seem that we are having more earthquakes, earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater have remained fairly constant throughout this century and, according to our records, have actually seemed to decrease in recent years.
Hmm, that's interesting. Anything that might have caused a change in the data in the last 20 years, as CBS and Dr. Chalko report?
A partial explanation [for the perception of more earthquakes] may lie in the fact that in the last twenty years, we have definitely had an increase in the number of earthquakes we have been able to locate each year. This is because of the tremendous increase in the number of seismograph stations in the world and the many improvements in global communications. [My emphasis]
Oh, well it all makes sense now. But how many people that read the headline on CBS, or MSNBC, will do any fact checking? Of course, none of this means that climate change is not happening, and that there will not be some negative consequences from it. But journalists' willingness to publish the results from any "study" without doing the most basic fact checking about the data or whether there was actually causation demonstrated is definitely a worrying trend. It also seems to be correlated with increasing CO2 levels.
Update (6/19 at 5:02pm): The story was still the lead CBS's SciTech page mid-morning, but now it appears to be gone -- down the memory hole with no explanation. But don't worry, the link to MSNBC story still works and it is also on Yahoo (and the CBS graphic which was prominently displayed on their SciTech page hasn't been erased yet). The MSNBC and Yahoo stories are actually press releases with the source listed as "Dr Tom Chalko." The CBS story was the press release cut-and-pasted to appear like a real story, but the link to Chalko's article and his byline were removed. Good for CBS if they removed pseudo-science (or rather, non-science), but shouldn't they run a correction as the lead story for the next 12 hours or so?
Update (6/20): The CBS story is now in Google cache. There is apparently disagreement between CBS and the AP over the origin of the story (rather than just the press release). Climate Audit is also following the story.
