This week we start a new series on the tendency of climate science to have it both ways. You might have noticed the pattern: a team of scientists publishes a report that says climate change is causing X. Then a while later another team publishes a report saying climate change is causing the opposite of X. That means, no matter what happens, climate activists get to say the science predicted it (and that it’s bad). But it also means the theory is not science, because it can’t be falsified through testing because it can’t be tested. If your scientific theory says a magic potion will cure baldness and also that the potion will make your hair fall out, your theory is as useless as your potion. So drawing on a list at WattsUpWithThat, our series takes flight with a look at bird migrations. Science has shown that birds are migrating longer distances due to climate change, which is bad for them. And also, birds are migrating shorter distances due to climate change. See how it works?

Here at CDN we love birds, and we appreciate the scientists who watch them, band them, track them and generally help us understand them better. So in poking fun at the contradictions, we don’t mean to ruffle any feathers. Nor is the problem that scientists discover and report contradictory trends: the world is a complicated place. It’s that when they blame everything on climate change no matter what (and always say it’s bad, getting worse and our fault) at a certain point we have to conclude they’re making stuff up.

For instance in May 2009 a paper was published in the Journal of Biogeography called “Potential impacts of climatic change on the breeding and non-breeding ranges and migration distance of European Sylvia warblers”. And the impacts in question involved increased migration distances:

“Migration distance increased generally, by about twice as much in the case of trans-Saharan migrant species than for short-distance migrants… Migratory species can be expected to suffer greater negative impacts from climatic change than species that are resident or undertake only short-distance or partial migrations. Trans-Saharan migrants face the greatest potential increases in migration distances, whereas range-restricted species are expected to experience major population reductions because of the limited, or in some cases lack of, overlap between their present and potential future ranges.”

Got that? Climate change increases migration distances and it’s bad. As of May 2009. But in July 2009 a paper was published in Global Change Biology concluding that

“Global climate change has led to warmer winters in NW Europe, shortening the distance between suitable overwintering areas and the breeding areas of many bird species. Here we show that winter recovery distances have decreased over the past seven decades, for birds ringed during the breeding season in the Netherlands between 1932 and 2004. Of the 24 species included in the analysis, we found in 12 a significant decrease of the distance to the wintering site. The decline in migration distance is likely due to climate change, as migration distances are negatively correlated with the Dutch temperatures in the winter of recovery.”

So scientists find birds in Europe face increased migration distances due to climate change, and at the same time scientists find birds in Europe are experiencing shorter migration distances due to climate change. So, people who like to blame everything on climate change can point to bird behaviour and no matter what's happening it’s all due to you-know-what.

But a theory that predicts everything including contradictory outcomes is for the birds.