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Comments 3301 to 3350:

  1. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    The top 9 cities in the US had no warming last year and all were below their recent high temperature. There was no data on the NOAA site for San Jose, the tenth-largest city, so I stopped at nine cities.

    City, Recent High-Year, High-Temp, 2020-Temp, 2021-Temp (yearly averages)

    New York     2012 57.8 57.3 56.9

    Los Angeles 2014 65.1 63.8 62.7

    Chicago       1998 55.1 53.4 53.4

    Philadelphia 2012 58.4 58.1 58.0

    Houston       2014 74.5 73.4 73.0

    San Antonio 2006 72.1 71.8 70.4

    Phoenix       2017 77.3 77.2 76.3

    Dallas          2012 70.4 68.5 68.1

    https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/cag/city/time-series/USW00094846/tavg/12/12/1895-2022?base_prd=true&begbaseyear=1901&endbaseyear=2000

     

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] These useless trivia bits are not adding anything to the conversation.

  2. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #43 2022

    Art Vandelay @5,

    I think if you look properly, the emissions from countries with significant rising population is far lower than 'around two thirds' the total. The territorial emissions from what we can call 'the developed world' does constitute a third of the global total. Add in China and it becomes two thirds.

    And China's population is not rising any more.

    China's population

    The place where there is a significant projected increase in population is Africa.

    Population growth by continent

    But Africa is presently the source of just 3.7% of CO2 emission.

    Global emissions by country

  3. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    Scientists have attributed recent rain in Australia to the Tongan volcanic blast earlier this year.  The blast has temporarily increased stratospheric water vapor over the Antarctic, resulting in a strengening of the polar vortex - and a positive 'SAM'  "When the polar vortex and SAM are stronger than usual, like they are now, the powerful westerlies stay closer to Antarctica. Therefore, southern Australia sees fewer colder fronts and less windy weather.

    This allows the east coast, between about Brisbane to Hobart, to see more days with onshore winds bringing extra wet weather."

    Unfortunately this has conspired with La Niña as well as IOD (Indian ocean dipole) to increase the liklihood of rain across eastern Australia.

    https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/how-a-tongan-volcanic-eruption-almost-guarantees-a-flooded-summer-for-australias-east-coast/news-story/3b1be3a36b5681ce70d7327392ed0129 

  4. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #43 2022

    "Some of this is very high per capita consumption in developed countries, but even lower consuming people in poor countries have a huge environmental footprint, because of the sheer size of their populations."

    True, and in fact developing countries account for around two thirds of global emissions, and rising, so population is indeed the elephant in the room.  

  5. One Planet Only Forever at 01:39 AM on 2 November 2022
    How sea level rise contributes to billions in extra damage during hurricanes

    The following quote from the opening statements of the article provide an example of the difficulty of clearly communicating in English, a language that is very flexible in its use and interpretation.

    "Had Ian hit a century ago, when sea levels were about a foot lower, the storm probably would have caused billions less in storm surge damage, ..."

    When I read that statement I understand the point that lower sea levels would result in less less storm surge damage, and that recent human climate change impacts have resulted in a higher sea level. But someone not wanting to understand that 'fossil fuel use needs to be rapidly ended because of the harmful climate change impacts' could 'fail to read and understand the entire document' and simplistically argue that "Of course there would have been less damage 100 years ago. There was less built back then. This big article and its referenced studies are just another verbose presentation of non-sense"

    It usually takes more words to be clearer with little chance of 'alternative understanding'. That is why legal and insurance documents are so wordy.

    A clearer statement would have been like:

    "Had a storm of recent climate change intensified strength like Ian, intensified by being over warmer waters with more energy and moisture in the atmosphere, hit with sea levels as low as they were a century ago, before the human induced climate change increase of sea levels, when sea levels were about a foot lower, the storm probably would have caused billions less in storm surge damage to the current day developments hit by Ian."

    Harmful Populists promote harmful misunderstandings by keeping their statements simple in harmfully selective ways. Their claims are irrational and difficult to defend, making them unable to be common sense in a 'learning population'. That is why they attack anyone who would 'ask embarrassing questions they cannot provide common sense answers to as explanations of their claims'. Harmful Populists also 'evade questions they cannot answer with common sense explanations' and attempt to discredit anyone who presents better, more sensible, understanding that contradicts what they want 'common people' to believe.

  6. CO2 effect is saturated

    The commenter currently shown @667 and naming themself 'Spooker' claims to have been awarded a PhD in Physics and asks whether it should have occurred to others that perhaps 'Spooker' "already know(s) the basic science behind the GHE."

    It is not unknown for those who are very well versed in Physics to be for some reason incapable of grasping the mechanisms of the greenhouse effect and deny it exists. William Happer was such a one (I think recently he has been used as a co-author in work that does present the existence of AGW but of a much diminished form, a la the likes of Dickie Lindzen), although he does have the excuse of being very old and, as the adage goes, 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks'.

    What I would ask this commenter presently calling themself Spooker, and ask in a sciency-physics sort of way, if all the IR emitted by the planet surface is absorbed by the CO2 in the atmosphere above within metres of the surface (which for the central specrtum of the CO2 emissions spectrum at ~666cm^-1 is true) and thus cannot impact the planetary energy balance at the top of the atmosphere, where does all the other IR come from? For instance, what is the source of all the downwelling IR that can be seen by instruments on the surface.

    The graphic demonstrating such measurement below was sourced from here.

    Downwelling IR spectrum at Zugsputz

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Snipped portions that referred to a comment that has been deleted. Informative sections left intact.

  7. CO2 effect is saturated

    Spooker @667 & many now evanescent posts :-

    You are far too modest about your PhD in Physics (Acoustics, I hear?).  And you are even more modest about your double Laureate ~ which is in the pipeline (as I hear, from friends in Stockholm).

    Which all makes it so puzzling that your confidence you understand "saturation" (re GHE) seems in a clear contradiction to your evident failure to comprehend GHE.

    (~ At least, as far as can be determined from your many posts.)  But perhaps you can clarify why you think some form of "saturation" is relevant to GHE . . . and at the same time clarify how & why you are correct about GHE while the generality of atmospheric physicists are grossly wrong about GHE.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] The comment in question has been deleted.

  8. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    scvblwxq1 

    "Dear negelj, I don't know the details of the past Global Warming movement or while they were formed but when it collapsed ..."

    Previously you implied you were quite involved in this alleged movement "I've been through the Global Warming movement in the 80s that said that the world would be very hot by now" and now you cant remember a thing about it. How convenient. Do you have a serious memory problem? Do you seriously expect anyone to believe a single thing you say after an answer like you just made? 

  9. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    scvblwxq1

    "Americans are up to 30 percent more likely to have a heart attack in winter because the cold weather narrows blood vessels which raises blood pressure and pulse rate, increasing the risk of a heart attack."

    Factoid of no use because it doesnt say what climate change will do to cold and heat  related deaths. This proper study is far more relevant:

    "This winter warming is expected to reduce the number of direct cold-related deaths, but the decrease is projected to be smaller than increases in heat-related deaths (see the Heat-Related Deaths indicator) in most regions.2/08/2022"

    www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-cold-related-deaths#:~:text=This%20winter%20warming%20is%20expected,Deaths%20indicator)%20in%20most%20regions.

     

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Note that the portions of the comment you have responded to have been snipped, until scvblwxq1 responds to counterarguments made on this thread:

    https://skepticalscience.com/heatwaves-silent-killer.html

    Further note to scvblwxq1: you must respond to any criticisms such as this one before you will be allowed to make any further new assertions.

     

  10. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    Americans are up to 30 percent more likely to have a heart attack in winter because the cold weather narrows blood vessels which raises blood pressure and pulse rate, increasing the risk of a heart attack.

    https://www.healthpartners.com/blog/cold-weather-and-heart-attacks/#:~:text=Studies%20have%20shown%20that%20Americans,overall%20health%20are%20at%20risk.

    The increased blood pressure and increased heart rate from the cold of winter also raise the risk of stroke.

    https://www.heart.org/en/news/2019/01/31/chilling-studies-show-cold-weather-could-increase-stroke-risk

     

    Below 60 degrees people without much clothing on, can and do get hypothermia and freeze to death.

    https://survivaldispatch.com/freezing-to-death-in-60-degree-weather/

     

    In Cleveland, the average high temperature is 61 and the average low temperature is 44, so there is a significant risk of dying from hypothermia if a person is outside for a long time with few clothes on. There are homeless shelters to protect homeless people from the cold weather.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Until you address criticisms of your comment on the Lancet article on this thread, further posts on heat vs cold will be deleted.

  11. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    The climate of the Earth for the last 11,700 years has been an interglacial period within the Quaternary Glaciation.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial

    Moderator Response:

    [BL} Excessive repetition of off-topic material deleted.

  12. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    Dear Moderator,

    My only point about the robot CO2 sensor was that it measured both CO2 release and absorption by the ocean so both those two actions are happening. I saw it on a video a while back so I didn't have a link to post.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Oh, my! Stop the presses! Sometimes oceans absorb CO2, Sometimes they release it!

    I  would say that your point is trivial, but when you first brought up ocean CO2, you claimed that warmer oceans released CO2. Twice. No, three times. Then you made reference to the "robot CO2" stuff in an attempt to justify those bogus claims.

    You are back-pedalling, and it exposes your poorly-thought-out arguments.

     

  13. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    Dear negelj, I don't know the details of the past Global Warming movement or while they were formed but when it collapsed the next movement couldn't be called Global Warming since that name had already been used and Global Cooling had also been used they decided to use the slogan "Climate Change" for their movement. They basically are calling the weather the climate of the Earth which is false. The climate of the Earth is a 2.588 million-year ice age called the Quaternary Glaciation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] I will leave this intact, because your use of phrases such as "Global Warming movement", etc. give as clear an indication of your bias as could possibly be seen.

    And once again,  you have your "facts" wrong. "They changed the name..." is #89 on our list of most common myths.

     

  14. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    Here are two large international studies that show that deaths caused by excess cold substantially exceed deaths caused by excess heat.

    e have 4.5 million people dying each year from moderately cold weather-related causes, mainly from strokes and heart attacks caused by moderate cold, while only about 500,000 are dying from heat-related causes and most of them were also from moderate heat.
    RTICLES| VOLUME 5, ISSUE 7, E415-E425, JULY 01, 2021
    'Global, regional, and national burden of mortality associated with non-optimal ambient temperatures from 2000 to 2019: a three-stage modeling study'
    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext
    "Globally, 5 083 173 deaths (95% empirical CI [eCI] 4 087 967–5 965 520) were associated with non-optimal temperatures per year, accounting for 9·43% (95% eCI 7·58–11·07) of all deaths (8·52% [6·19–10·47] were cold-related and 0·91% [0·56–1·36] were heat-related)."
    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext

    Here is another recent study that found that the excess death caused by cold exceeded those caused by heat.
    ARTICLES| VOLUME 398, ISSUE 10301, P685-697, AUGUST 21, 2021
    Estimating the cause-specific relative risks of non-optimal temperature on daily mortality: a two-part modeling approach applied to the Global Burden of Disease Study
    Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
    "Acute heat and cold exposure can increase or decrease the risk of mortality for a diverse set of causes of death. Although in most regions cold effects dominate, locations with high prevailing temperatures can exhibit substantial heat effects far exceeding cold-attributable burden."
    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01700-1/fulltext

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Repeatedly linking to the same articles constitutes a violation of the Comments Policy of excessive repetition.

    Your erroneous interpretation of one of those studies was pointed out by another poster earlier, on another thread. Until you return to that thread and address the criticisms, further posts that refer to the same paper will be deleted in their entirety.

     

  15. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    Also see the "Lessons from Past Predictions" series which compares predictions made by scientists to how it has panned out. I would say you are listening to peddlars of strawman fallacies because you like what they say instead of reading what the science actually says.

  16. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    scvblwxq1

    "I've been through the Global Warming movement in the 80s that said that the world would be very hot by now and here it is 40 years later still saying it will be very hot sometime in the future. I'm skeptical."

    Please provide a link to back up your claims and precisely what you mean by very hot. There might have been some environmental activists and a couple of scientists thinking the world would be very hot by now , ( meaning I assume at least 2 or 3 degrees of warming above preindustrial?),  but there was no consensus of climate scientists back in 1980s predicting such a thing. 

    The first IPCC report was released in 1990. It reviewed the scientific work of thousands of scientists and concluded we could have several degrees of warming by the end of this century, and that warming between 1990 and 2025 would be about 1 degree C. Warming has been about 0.75 deg C over that period so not far off. And bear in mind the modelling back then was not very advanced. This is from the 1990 summary for policy makers:

    "Under the IPC C Business-as-Usual (Scenario A ) emissions of greenhouse gases, a rate of increase of global-mean temperature during the next century of about 0.3°C per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2°C to 0.5°C per decade); this is greater than thaat seen over the past 10,000 years. This will result in a likely increase in global-mean temperature of about 1°C above the present value by 2025 and 3°C before the end of the next century. The rise will not be steady because of the influence of other factors"

    www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/05/ipcc_90_92_assessments_far_wg_I_spm.pdf

    The full 1990 report is here:

    www.ipcc.ch/report/climate-change-the-ipcc-1990-and-1992-assessments/

     

    You basically dont know what you are talking about.

  17. CO2 effect is saturated

    @668 , 

    you are mistaken ~ I do not object to your postings.  They are entertaining to a certain extent, but do not rise above Bronze Medal for skill of disingenuousness.  

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Response to deleted comment.

  18. CO2 effect is saturated

    @666 , once again you demonstrate a disconnect from GHE concept.

    The fault is not in your stars, but in yourself [excuse Caesar misquote].

    Please start afresh.  Forget "saturation".  Look at the molecules, look at the intermolecular distances, look at the absorptions & radiations.  Think about what is going on at that basic level.  This is basic physics.  This is reality.  Scientists (excluding Angstrom) understand GHE because it is straightforward ~ when you stop to think it through.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Response to deleted comment.

  19. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    Americans are fleeing the colder northern states and moving to the warmer southern states a new study finds.

    https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2022-01-03/americans-moved-south-in-2021-a-study-finds#:~:text=Americans%20flocked%20South%20%E2%80%93%20and%20to,a%20driver%20in%20moving%20decisions.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] If you have a point, make it. Simple assertions of irrelevant factoids will not be permitted.

    Final Warning

    Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right.  This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

    Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive, off-topic posts or intentionally misleading comments and graphics or simply make things up. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
     
    Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion.  If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.

    Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter, as no further warnings shall be given.

  20. CO2 effect is saturated

    TheSpook @664 ,

    again and again in this thread, you seem to be struggling to understand the concept of saturation and its relevance to GHE.   This is stuff which is in textbooks and it is straightforward, if you put your mind to it.   And yet your thoughts seem locked in a futile circle of misunderstanding, and therefore you are wasting your time with excessive repetition.

    Best if you start with a clean sheet ~ firstly define the term saturation (as you understand the meaning and significance of the term).   Then link that to the concepts of the mechanism of GHE.

    Somewhere, you yourself have a semantic and/or logical problem which is impeding your your understanding of what is basically a straightforward concept, namely GHE  (of one or several gasses).

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Response to deleted comment.

  21. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    Southern Ocean storms cause outgassing of carbon dioxide
    January 25, 2022
    University of Gothenburg
    Summary:
    Storms over the waters around Antarctica drive an outgassing of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to a new international study. The research group used advanced ocean robots for the study, which provides a better understanding of climate change and can lead to better global climate models.

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220125112530.htm

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] After several attempts to get you to do so, you finally provide a link to your "robot CO2" claims.

    Now that we see the actual paper, we see that it refers to one area of the ocean (Antarctic), and refers to specific meteorological conditions (storms). A quote from the paper:

    "We show how the intense storms that often occur in the region increase ocean mixing and bring carbon dioxide-rich waters from the deep to the surface. This drives an outgassing of carbon dioxide from the ocean to the atmosphere. There has been a lack of knowledge about these complex processes, so the study is an important key to understanding the Southern Ocean's significance for the climate and the global carbon budget," says Sebastiaan Swart, professor of oceanography at the University of Gothenburg and co-author of the study.

    Once again you confuse a local pattern, under limited conditions, and treat this as if it represents a long-term global effect. You really need to read past the summary of the paper.

    And please turn your links into links. You've been told how.

  22. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42
  23. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/oh/cleveland/KCLE/date/2022-10-27

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

    Moderator Response:

    [BL} Link-only posts are explicitly banned, according to the Comments Policy.

  24. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    The 297 observations from the Weather Underground site is a large enough sample so that approximate methods, when other methods are not available, is a good way to analyze the data. Taking a small sample of 10 is definitely not a good way to compare categories. I am not saying that it is any kind of proof, next year might warm up, but it is suggestive of cooling rather than warming since the beginning of the year in Cleveland. I don't use Twitter for anything serious and seldom use it at all. 

    https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/oh/cleveland/KCLE/date/2022-10-27

    I've been through the Global Warming movement in the 80s that said that the world would be very hot by now and here it is 40 years later still saying it will be very hot sometime in the future. I'm skeptical. The Climate Change articles usually do not even mention that the current climate of the Earth, as a whole, is an ice age called the Quaternary Glaciation and that won't change until all the natural ice melts and we will probably have another glacial period before that occurs. 

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

    It should only take a few years to find out if Dr. Zharkova is correct or not. Dr. Zharkova was the one that asked for a retraction, the other authors disagreed, maybe they just wanted to add a correction.

     

     

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Sample size has nothing to do with the failures of  your "count days above or below normal" technique.

    You have been pointed to articles here at SkS that cover glacial climates. Here is another one:

    https://skepticalscience.com/from-email-bag-Ellis-Palmer.html

    The idea that people are ignoring glacial climates is absurd, and a figment of your imagination. In the above article, you will find additional links to SkS and other posts on glaciation. It also serves as an example of how "published" papers can be horribly wrong.

    Frankly, it is obvious that you will not read or cannot understand anything that does not fit your misconceptions.

    You are getting your Zharkovas mixed up. V V Zharkova is the first author, and did not agree to the retraction. S I Zharkov is the third author (VV's son), and agreed to the retraction. And none of the authors requested the retraction - it was the result of other pointing out the obvious gross errors, and the editors of the journal realizing that the paper was not worthy of publication. If you read the PubPeer discussion of the retracted paper, you will see that V V Zharkova doubled-down, tripled-down, and quadrupled-down on the legitimacy of the paper, in spite of people explaining her errors to her.

    https://pubpeer.com/publications/3418816F1BA55AFB7A2E6A44847C24#

  25. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    The TSI data linked by scvblwxq1@6  shows the TSI for sunspot cycle 25 to-date, so TSI for the period 2018-to-date. The same website also gives TSI data back to the start of the satellite record, so since the end of 1978 (sunspot cycles 21 to 24). Comparing the two data sets (they need splicing together) shows the rise in TSI so far for sunspot cycle 25 has yet to top the peak of sunspot cycle 24, itself a rather weak sunspot cycle, as the graphic of sunspot numbers below suggests.

    SSCs 21 to 25

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Thank you for your efforts. This is yet another case where the sources quoted by scvblwxq1 do not support the position argued by scvblwxq1. We are seeing out-of-context quotes, inaccurate descriptions of the contents of papers, and selective presentation of data.

    If scvblwxq1 was unaware of how the recent TSI data fit into the long-term trend, scvblwxq1 needs to reflect on why (s)he was unaware - and how to avoid such errors in the future. If scvblwxq1 was aware, then scvblwxq1 is not engaging in proper discussion.

     

  26. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    The comparison between heating and air conditioning is misleading. There is way more spent on heating than air conditioning. Around half the total energy used is spent on heating.  

    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/we-need-to-rethink-the-way-we-heat-ourselves-heres-why/

    The Weather Underground history section averages the value for each day during the day so a person can look up the average for any day and compare it to the historical average, which is also provided. I went through all the days of 2022 and compared the average for that day with the historical average for that day of the year.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] You are still not turning your links into links, even though you have been told how.

    The wording of the AC issue I used in the moderator's comment on #6 is virtually identical to your own wording on heating. You now claim that it is a misleading comparison. This is because both statements are trivial - there is far more to it that the short talking points you are making.

    Costs associated with heating are a different issue than heat/cold deaths, and a different issue from temperature trends. You keep bouncing from one trivial argument to another, hoping something will eventually stick to the wall.

    Again, comparing daily temperature to the long-term mean, and simply assigning a "higher/lower" label to each day is an extremely poor way of trying to evaluate temperature trends. Consider the following two scenarios. In both cases, the long-term mean temperature we want to compare to is 10C. If we look at two 10-day periods:

    1. Eight days of 9C temperatures, two days of 16C temperatures, average of 10.4C for 10 days is warmer than long-term average.
    2. Two days of 4C temperatures, 8 days of 11C temperatures, average of 9.6C for 10 days is cooler than average.

    Yet your method of analysis says that the first case has many more days of cooler-than-average temperatures, and the second case has many more days of warmer-than-average temperatures. Your method gives the completely wrong answer to the question of whether the 10 days are warmer or cooler than average. Your method is too simplistic, and cannot correctly assess a simple example, and there is no way it would be able to handle a more complex example.

    Your trivial Cleveland example gets it horribly wrong. This is the problem with your trivial examples and talking points. Until you learn how to do a proper and through analysis, you will continue to fool yourself and come to incorrect conclusions.

    This forum is not Twitter. You are expected to provide a proper analysis, with proper sources to back up your claims.

  27. One Planet Only Forever at 13:10 PM on 30 October 2022
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #43 2022

    Doug Bostrom (and a bit for nigelj),

    Regarding corrections to the use of GDP to measure ‘improvement’:

    The Human Development Report 2020 does a pretty good job of presenting many of the ‘improvements’ to the currently obviously flawed GDP evaluations of improvement. The most glaring flaw is that GDP measurement does not subtract harmful unsustainable economic activity. As an example, when done simplistically, the costs of recovering and rebuilding from harmful climate events is a GDP Plus even though most of that Positive GDP only gets things back to where they were before. There is no improvement. The ability to improve was displaced by the need to recover.

    Regarding the global population problem:

    The following Lancet article “Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: ...” indicates that the peak population could potentially be less than 10.4 billion, especially if the Sustainable Development Goals are achieved and improved on more rapidly. The other benefit of achieving the SDGs is the reduction of the harm done by humans, especially by the most harmful consumers.
    Harmful consumers are a more serious problem than total population.

    Fewer harmfully over-consuming people (causing harmful lasting impacts including consuming renewable resources faster than they renew) allows the total sustainable population to be larger. Many studies indicate that if meat eating was reduced more food would be available for humans with less negative impact, or misery inflicted, on other life.

    There are now many presentations regarding the merits of reduced consumption. An enlightening one is a study by sufficiency researcher Maren Ingrid Kropfeld mentioned in J. B. MacKinnon's book "The Day the World Stops Shopping". The study compared the amount of harmful impact of 4 different consumers:

    • Environmentally conscientious about their consumption (but not limiting it)
    • Frugal (seek out and buy bargains)
    • Tightwads (dislike spending)
    • Actively choose to consume less - pursuing limited consumption (only buying what is 'needed' and buying and repairing more durable things).

    Consumers who 'Choose to consume less' and Tightwads had the lowest level of harmful impact. The Frugal and Environmentally conscientious had far more harmful impact because they did not limit their consumption.

    A closing point about harmful actions:

    Competition for status, with a lack of effective ‘constantly learning’ governing to limit harm done, can produce some very harmful and hard to correct results, including systemic injustice and inequity which includes the development of harmful laws (Florida officials ban the terms 'climate change' and 'global warming') and harmful enforcement of laws (The Supreme Court curbed EPA’s power to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. What comes next?)

    Ibram X. Kendi, in his book “How to be an Antiracist” presents the understanding that Racism is unjustified excusing of harmful actions by making up and defending beliefs about undeniable harmful actions, inequity and injustice. It's useis recorded to have started centuries ago as European leaders tried to explain and excuse their harmful colonization and exploitation pursuits (the Doctrine of Discovery is a harmful part of it - ASSEMBLY OF FIRST NATIONS Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery January 2018). And making up beliefs and excuses for benefiting from harmful injustice and inequity applies to far more than visible differences among humans.

  28. One Planet Only Forever at 12:16 PM on 30 October 2022
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #43 2022

    nigelj,

    I agree that looking back without considering the alternative futures that could have developed can lead to incorrect conclusions. You could conclude that there was no choice for humanity but to end up in the mess that has been developed by the lack of effective collective governing to discover, stop, and correct for, harmful human pursuits of personal benefit.

    As an engineer I learned to seek improved understanding of the worst things that could happen regarding what I am designing and check to ensure that the design will safely protect the public and the environment if those ‘worst things’ actually happen in the future.

    As a structural engineer I am painfully aware of people who claim that the lack of frequent structure failures ‘proves to them’ that engineers unnecessarily over-design things.

  29. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    The Earth has feedback systems like clouds and rain and storage system like the deep ocean that can maintain the temperature of the Earth when Solar input increases for a time but Solar irradiance increases it will eventually increase the temperature. The Sun is by far the major source of heat to the Earth, radioactivity contributes a small amount but CO2 at best is only moving the heat around.

    Here in Cleveland we have had 161 days colder than average and 136 days warmer than average,  using the Weather Underground average daily temperatures, which suggests cooling supporting Dr. Zharkova Grand Solar Minimum. 

    https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/oh/cleveland/KCLE 

    Solar irradiance has increased greatly since 2020, warming the Earth even more than the 50 years of high irradiance reported by Dr. Penza. https://lasp.colorado.edu/lisird/data/tsis_tsi_24hr/

    We have 4.5 million people dying each year from moderately cold weather-related causes, mainly from strokes and heart attacks caused by the cold, while only about 500,000 are dying from heat-related causes and most of them were also from moderate heat.
    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext

    Half the energy we produce goes to heating. We live in heated houses, work in heated buildings, drive around in heated cars, wear lots of warm clothes and shoes much of the time so we probably don't appreciate how cold it is. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/we-need-to-rethink-the-way-we-heat-ourselves-heres-why/

     

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Your assertions about CO2 are false.

    Your statements about Cleveland temperatures do not mean what you claim them to mean,and you have stated them before.

    The link you provide for solar irradiance shows a change of about 1 W/m2 in the  past 4 years. After accounting for earth's albedo (0.3) and the 1:4 ratio between the area of the terrestrial disk and the spherical area of earth, this amounts to less that 0.2 W/m2 of radiative forcing. This is minor compared to the forcing by CO2 over the past 50 years. The data does not mean what you think it means. The variation you see in your own graph is simply part of the 11-year solar cycle, which last peaked in 2015 and is currently rising from the recent minimum. Look at figure 3 in the following paper.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-87108-y

    Your repetition of the Lancet study still does not mean that your interpretation is correct. You have had responses to your first mention of that study that you have not responded to.

    We live in houses with air conditioning, work in buildings with A/C, drive around in cars with A/C. We probably don't appreciate how hot it is. {See how easy it is to turn your words around and use them against you?]

    Unless you change your posting style to follow the Comments Policy, expect to see increased deletions of your posts and eventual removal of your posting privileges.

     

  30. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    The Solar Irridiance data shows that the Sun has been emitting more energy in the last 50 years than at anytime in the last 500 years. That is where the warming is coming from, the Sun.

    The robot CO2 measurement experiments that circled Antartica  and the southern oceans clearly showed that the oceans were both emitting and adsorbing CO2.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] You made these assertions in the exact same words less than 48 hours ago. It was moderated because you did not provide any link to any information to support your assertions.

    You have been pointed to threads where information is available that demonstrates your assertions to be wrong. If you know of measurements, you need to point to a source of those measurements. You need to discuss how those measurements support the argument you are making. You do not get to simply assert a conclusion.

    Note that the Comments Policy includes the following statements:

    • Comments should avoid excessive repetition. Discussions which circle back on themselves and involve endless repetition of points already discussed do not help clarify relevant points. They are merely tiresome to participants and a barrier to readers. If moderators believe you are being excessively repetitive, they will advise you as such, and any further repetition will be treated as being off topic.
    • No sloganeering.  Comments consisting of simple assertion of a myth already debunked by one of the main articles, and which contain no relevant counter argument or evidence from the peer reviewed literature constitutes trolling rather than genuine discussion. As such they will be deleted. If you think our debunking of one of those myths is in error, you are welcome to discuss that on the relevant thread, provided you give substantial reasons for believing the debunking is in error.  It is asked that you do not clutter up threads by responding to comments that consist just of slogans.

    You are violating the "excessive repetition" clause of the policy.. You are violating the "simple assertion of a myth" policy.

    Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

    Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive or off-topic posts. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
     
    Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion.  If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.

    Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

  31. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    scvblwxq1.

    Your solar theory of the recent warming period since the 1970's is wrong. There is only a very poor correlation between surface warming and solar irradiance over the last 50 years. Solar irradiance increased early last century until about 1960, then levelled off or fell slightly for about 30 years, then fell sharply  from about 30 years ago to presently, but warming steadily increasing over that same total 50 year time frame. So you have a poor level of correlation.

    skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

    If global warming over the last 50 years was being caused by fluctuations in solar activity, you would expect a near perfect correlation  between solar activity and warming over that 50 years, because the effects of solar irradiance on surface temperatures are reasonably instantaneous. Instead we see a very low level of correlation if any.

    Fluctuations in solar irradiance over the last 50 years have also been quite small in terms of WM2, and not enough to account for the quantity of warming measured. So nothing in the way of causation.

    With the climate issue the devil is in the detail like this. The fact that solar irradiance is generally a bit higher than 100 years ago doesn't explain the recent warming trend when you look into the details. Thats why we have climate scientists to look at the details.

    The grand solar minimum during the little ice age is suspected of contributing to that cool period, but the little ice age only affected part of the northern hemisphere, temperatures dropped only about a degree c and over hundreds of years. So a similar thing now would clearly do very little if anything to offset the predicted 3 - 5 degrees of warming this century and 8 degrees of warming over 2 - 3 centuries. A grand solar minimum, If it actually happens, is clearly not going to save use.

  32. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    I apologize, the site I have been posting on does not allow links so I got in the habit of not including them. 

    The error in the Zharkova article was a small error in the calculation of the Earth-Sun distance which was n0t a part of the main point of the paper. The error was fixed and did not effect the main point of the paper and a new version is available. 

    https://retractionwatch.com/2020/03/04/heavily-criticized-paper-blaming-the-sun-for-global-warming-is-retracted/

    The article 'modern Grand Solar Minimum will lead to terrestrial cooling' wasn't retracted and is still in effect.

    I know the the 2.588 million year ice age called the Quaternary Glaciation is  the climate of the Earth as a whole and is in effect until all natural ice melts. The warm interglacial period where the Earth's orbit is more circular that we are in will come to an end sooner rater than later. The interglacial periods usually last about 10,000 years and this one has lasted 11,700 years. Then the Earth's orbit will get more elliptical under the influence primarily of Jupiter and we will get 90,000 years of a cold glacial period and the cycle will repeat. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

    Here in Cleveland, Ohio, we have had 136 days warmer than average and 160 days cooler than average so far this year using the weather underground figures. 

    https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/oh/cleveland/KCLE

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Links activated.

    The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box.

    Your opinion that the Zharkova paper had a "small error" that "does not effect [sic] the main point" is not shared by the editors of the journal that made the decision to retract it. In their retraction notice, they state (emphasis added):

    The analyses presented in the section entitled “Effects of SIM on a temperature in the terrestrial hemispheres” are based on the assumption that the orbits of the Earth and the Sun about the Solar System barycenter are uncorrelated, so that the Earth-Sun distance changes by an amount comparable to the Sun-barycenter distance. Post-publication peer review has shown that this assumption is inaccurate because the motions of the Earth and the Sun are primarily due to Jupiter and the other giant planets, which accelerate the Earth and the Sun in nearly the same direction, and thereby generate highly-correlated motions in the Earth and Sun. Current ephemeris calculations [1,2] show that the Earth-Sun distance varies over a timescale of a few centuries by substantially less than the amount reported in this article. As a result the Editors no longer have confidence in the conclusions presented.

    In the And Then There's Physics blog post (the author of which is a Professor of Computational Astrophysics), it is stated (emphasis added):

    However, in the case of the Zharkova et al. paper, the error is completely elementary. It’s something we teach our first-year students.

    Papers do not get retracted for small errors that do not affect the main point of the paper. That Zharkova et al published a paper containing errors that a first-year student would fail on tells us that Zharkova basically has no idea what she is doing in this subject area.

    The second Zharkova paper you mention may not have been retracted, but it is just as useless as the first.

    As for the Grand Solar minimum, you should place your comments on this thread - after reading it first.

    https://skepticalscience.com/grand-solar-minimum-mini-ice-age.htm

    As for what is happening in Cleveland - Cleveland is not the globe, and this year is not climate. Over large areas, and many years, hot records are being broken much more often than cold records - exactly what you would expect in a warming climate. You can read about it more on this page (basic and intermediate versions):

    https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-cold-weather-basic.htm

    https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-cold-weather-intermediate.htm

    ...and counting the number of days above or below average does not tell you if this year is warmer or colder than average. You actually have to, well, average the daily values. It depends on how much the days are above or below the long-term average. A simple count of days throws out a lot of important  information. You have made an error that a first-year student would lose marks on.

  33. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    The Solar Irridiance data shows that the Sun has been emitting more energy in the last 50 years than at anytime in the last 500 years. That is where the warming is coming from, the Sun.

    The robot CO2 measurement experiments that circled Antartica  and the southern oceans clearly showed that the oceans were both emitting and adsorbing CO2.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL} You continue with incorrect assertions containing vague "references" to information of unknown origin.

    If you wish to continue to post in this forum, you need to provide explicit links to your sources of information. You have shown no indication that  you actually read any of the references provided to you, and you show no inclination to actually engage in constructive discussion.

    If you continue with this pattern, expect to see more and more of your postings edited or deleted, and eventually your posting rights will be rescinded.

    Up your game. Provide proper references. Engage in discussion, not assertion. This is a place for dialog, not monologue.

    And read the Comments Policy.

     

  34. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #43 2022

    Population might be termed the elephant in the room that is also a third rail, in terms of open, frank discussion in connection with public policy. Punters like us can talk about it here down in the weeds, but there's not much headroom for this topic in the world of government.

    Not least because of China's clumsy, inhumane, failed experiment and now unfolding aftermath (better hurry up with the elder care robots, mechanized adult diaper-changing etc.). Especially as that policy as if not bad enough was freighted as well with all the optical baggage of China's other circumstances. The history so created is like a highly conductive chain to throw across the live wires of political discussion. 

    Erlich's predictions might be said to have failed in the sense that his modeling was too simple, uncoupled to other models which might well have better informed the speed of  his model of population growth. 

    Meanwhile, does anybody sincerely believe we're having a truly easier time supporting 7.8 billion than we were with 3.7 billion? Everybody's fed, clothed, housed, educated? No? How about with our projected peak of 10.4 billion? We're assured of providing all of the basics before getting there? If not and we agree that it would be best to avoid adding more before catching up with present needs, our population is effectively out of control. Perhaps we could it a low-order detonation as opposed to a high-order explosion. 

    What would be helpful would be a reliable, well-constituted global misery factor, to apply to population figures. For instance, by some measures per capita improvements our quality of life are visible. Odds of death by violence is one such. But what's the net absolute total misery, given our expansion of population? That's where a global misery factor would be a helpful indicator of progress, or not. We can after all lower the global misery factor yet because it's multiplied by population end up with more total misery despite per capita improvements. Even as we reduce the per capita amount of misery, total misery can still increase, with a bulging population.

    What's the point of making more misery? Maybe it would be better not to do that? Could we just nicely but consistently suggest and remind that 2 kids per parental pair is a good parking spot for steering our total population, until we get things better sorted?

    Nope.

    In any case, the article cited by the three nannies is unresponsive to the claim it's supposed to support. 

  35. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #43 2022

    "Overemphasized apocalyptic futures can be used to support despotism and rashness. For example, catastrophic and ultimately inaccurate overpopulation scenarios in the 1960s and 1970s contributed to several countries adopting forced sterilization and abortion programs, including China’s one-child policy, which caused up to 100 million coerced abortions (7), disproportionately of girls."

    I dont accept that the apocalyptic population scenario was over emphasised. The potential was there for exponential growth and complete disaster. Large families were common back then everywhere with not much sign of this changing. Family size in the USA only barely started changing slighly in the early 1960s, so there was no firmly established trend towards smaller families you could assume would continue.

    This was particularly the case In China which already had a huge population. Chinas inhumane response was unfortunate but those sorts of policies were mostly limited to China.

    The population problem turned out to be less than anticipated (but still pretty bad imo) because the demographic transition was faster than anticipated, and the contraceptive pill discovered in about 1960, became widely adopted and food production improved more than anticipated especially in asia. Nobody could have predicted that or assumed that those things would happen.

    You dont downplay a problem because it might possibly be solved at some point in the future. You would need to be certain it would be solved. If anything you highlight the problem to motivate people, but stopping short of exaggeration.

    And one of the reasons the population problem was less than anticipated was Chinas one child policy, something that seems lost on the authors of the study.

    And what are we left with anyway? A massive global population using up the earths resources at a prodigious and unsustainable rate according to UN studies. Some of this is very high per capita consumption in developed countries, but even lower consuming people in poor countries have a huge environmental footprint, because of the sheer size of their populations.

    IMO the authors of the study are deluded, and writing with a lot of benefit of hindsight.

  36. Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    Thanks all! Will have a look as soon as I have the time!

  37. Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    Long Knoll @437,

    There are papers that repeat the spectal comparison for a period of a decade or so as per Harries et al (2001), such as Chen et al (2007)Bantges et al (2016), Rentsch (2020). But measuring outgoing IR is difficult enough without the spectral aspect to the analysis so yearly data would be likely lost in the error bars. Feldman et al (2015), a paper I haven't read, do say they have managed to show a statistically significant result using downwelling surface IR.

  38. One Planet Only Forever at 02:16 AM on 28 October 2022
    Battling heat waves: The silent killer

    scvblwxq1,

    I will start by pointing out that the second Report you refer to is not called what you call it. The actual title (linked) is: Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study.

    I will conclude by quoting the entire "Interpretation" presented in the first report you refer to (Estimating the cause-specific relative risks of non-optimal temperature on daily mortality: a two-part modelling approach applied to the Global Burden of Disease Study)

    "Acute heat and cold exposure can increase or decrease the risk of mortality for a diverse set of causes of death. Although in most regions cold effects dominate, locations with high prevailing temperatures can exhibit substantial heat effects far exceeding cold-attributable burden. Particularly, a high burden of external causes of death contributed to strong heat impacts, but cardiorespiratory diseases and metabolic diseases could also be substantial contributors. Changes in both exposures and the composition of causes of death drove changes in risk over time. Steady increases in exposure to the risk of high temperature are of increasing concern for health."

    There is a little more to be said on this matter.

    Some people continue to learn. Everyone can learn through their entire life. But some people develop preferences for understandably harmful beliefs and related harmful pursuits of personal benefit. The developed harmful beliefs and the benefits that can be obtained from related harmful actions interferes with their ability to learn to be less harmful and more helpful.

  39. Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    Long Knoll:

    Google Scholar lists 233 citations of the source for figure 2 (Harries 2001). You could try looking through those to see if they provide additional data that meets your concerns.

  40. Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    Is there more continuous data available than the individual year comparisons of change in brightness temperature shown?

  41. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

    An article in the Astrophysical Journal, 937:84 2022 October 1 'Total Solar Irradiance during the Last Five Centuries' shows that the enerigy the Earth receives from the Sun has been at its highest level for the last 50 years over the last 500 years. This is where the global heating is coming from and the warming oceans, which have 70 times the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, are releasing their CO2, like a warmed bottle of soda. 

    The Sun has entered a Grand Solar Minimum that will last from 2020-2053 and will result in significant global cooling that may threaten global farmland crop production.

    'Modern Grand Solar Minimum will lead to terrestrial cooling" by Valentina Zharkova, Temperature (Austin) 2020;7(3): 217-222

    from the article:

    In this editorial I will demonstrate with newly discovered solar activity proxy-magnetic field that the Sun has entered into the modern Grand Solar Minimum (2020-2053) that will lead to a significant reduction of solar magnetic field and activity like during the Maunder minimum leading to noticeable reduction of terrestrial temperature...more

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Repeating a bogus claim on more than one thread does not make it any more correct. Oceans are currently warming, and they are absorbing CO2, not releasing it.

    And your "Grand Solar Minimum" myth has also been covered here.

    Any paper by Zharkova is one of the worst sources on this matter. One paper was retracted due to its serious errors, as discussed here. (Follow the links on that blog to other articles, too.) The paper you reference has no useful new information. It was already discussed here (briefly) at SkS in one of our New Research posts.

    ...and you were previously told about the problems with that Zharkova paper here.

     

  42. Battling heat waves: The silent killer

    A recent analysis of 64.9 million deaths showed that deaths caused by cold exceeded deaths caused by heat in all 9 countries studied. The deaths cause by cold mainly present themselves as increased deaths from heart attack and stroke during the colder months. 25% more in some cases

    Estimating the cause-specific relative risks of non-optimal temperature on daily mortality: a two-part modelling approach applied to the Global Burden of Disease Study. Katrin G Burkart, et. al. The Lancet 2021;398:685-97 August 21 Gates Foundation funding

    Another earlier analysis of deaths caused by weather temperature:

    "Cold Weather kill far more people that hot weather" May 20, 2015, The Lancet.

    Summary: Cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather, according to an international study analyzing over 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries. The findings also reveal that deaths due to moderately hot or cold weather substatially exceed those resulting forom extreme heat waves or cold spells.

  43. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38

    The Quaternary Glaciation has two main phases. There is the phase when the Earth's orbit is almost circular like today and it is warmer and there is the phase where the Earth's orbit is more elliptical and it gets less sunlight and is colder. When it is warmer the oceans release more CO2, like today, and when it is colder the oceans absorb more CO2. The colder phase lasts about 90,000 year and the warmer phase lasts about 90,000 years for a total of about 100,000 years for each complete cycle. The Earth's orbit varies like this because of the gravational pull of Jupiter, although the other planets have some effect. This is from Wikipedia, mainly.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL} See the moderator's note on your previous comment. You are very, very wrong on the links between CO2 uptake and ocean temperature, and vastly overestimate the effect of orbital ellipticity on the earth's receipt of solar radiation.

  44. 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38

    The CO2 levels dropped because the Eath receives less sunlight when it is in the more elliptical phase of its orbit. It got 25% less sunlight that made it colder and colder water can absorb more CO2 so the CO2 levels dropped.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] You have returned to continue  your trip through the various climate myths. You are continuing to get things wrong.

    Yo have previously been pointed to the SkS page on Milankovitch cycles. Your 25% number is way off, when looking at global annual values. For global annual values, variations in eccentricity only cause from +0.014% to -0.17% compared to today’s average. Your 25% figure is something you must have obtained from a source that only looked at 65N on the summer solstice. Climate lasts more than one day, and the globe covers more than one line of latitude.

    Your assumption that cooling causes decreases in atmospheric CO2 is also wrong - and is also covered in other posts here at SkS. With our current warming oceans, ocean absorption of atmospheric CO2 is fighting against the rise caused by burning fossil fuels.

     

  45. Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum

    David-acct,

    An anonymous blogger on Curries' web site carries very little weight in a scientific discussion.

    Your claim that the authors of scientific papers on future electric systems have no systems engineering experience is completely false.  There are hundreds of authors that have written papers on future renewable electric systems.  Many of them have systems engineering experience.  How much experience does "planning engineer" have?  We do not know.

    Your claim that Jacobson overestimates the elecrical production of future systems is false.  His paper has been reviewed by at least three experienced systems engineers.  In addition, his publication has been read by hundreds of outside engineers.  People like Clack et al read Jacobson's papers carefully.  If Jacobson overestimated supplu as you claim, Clack would publish a critical paper.  The fact that Clack et al have not published a critical paper tells me that your claim is false.  In any case, many other research groups reach the same conclusions as Jacobson.  Your claim that they are all wrong is completely unsupported.  I note that you have provided no peer reviewed links to support your arguments.

    Your claims that renewable energy will destabilize the grid were answered in practice 5 years ago.   They were made 10 years ago by fossil proponents. Big batteries provide better and faster grid stabilization than thermal generators and even hydro.  Your claims have no merit.  It is a waste of time to bring them up.  Try to catch up with current knowledge.  I note that you have provided no links to support your wild claims, not even to blog posts.

  46. Climate change made 2022’s northern-hemisphere droughts ‘at least 20 times’ more likely

    Thank you for putting numbers on the future of the present. Your proposed situation for the very likely 2.0 degree C temp increase is pretty disheartening. Also, it looks realistic.

    The next study might expand to include the actual yields from the same locations where moisture and temperature were collected. I run a 1,500 acre farm in Iowa where the harvest looks pretty bad. Many fields are running at a 50% yield. One field normally getting 200 bushels/acre produced only 11 this year via two month drought. Such looks bad for food availability.

    Perhaps we need to rise above the Newtonian model of relying on cause-effect thinking about climate change consequences? I've been trying to develop a more systemic way to describe our future via the "effects of effects" instead of the usual cause-effect model applied to climate change. The public, including farmers, somehow relates more closely to such. Time is short; cause-effect studies are untimely and then unhelpful to change. 

    A new publication in Europe goes deeper into the effects from effects thinking. Titled, "Short-term Gain, Long-term Pain:Climate Change as a Faustian Tragedy" it responds to the question raised in a book "Too Early, Too Late, Now what?" It came from my 1975-77 research project done at the Stockholm School of Economics and Sweden's EPA. It was on environmental deterioration becoming climate change, with results from work with twenty major international firms and six governments trying to regulate them. Titled: "Environmental Deterioration: Analytic Solutions in Search of Synthetic Problems, " its results were heavily criticized, even by the then Head of the US version of EPA. He claimed climate change was an "ad hominem" issue to be avoided in serious research. His training was from a law school education.  

    Clearly, what we are now doing to manage climate change is insufficent. 

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Portions snipped. Even if you have forgotten, we remember that we have warned you about repeatedly peddling your own book.

     

  47. Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle

    Thank you very much.  I'll take a look at what you've posted.

    I've read you posts here and at Real Climate for years and I've gained a fair amount of climate science information from them. 

  48. Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle

    stranger1548 @76,


    The climate system is a complex beast and because of this it is possible to have issues like the Arctic climate change where there are not just contradictory findings yet-to-be-resolved, but also apparently contradictory findings but which, when examined in detail, are not actually contradictory but looking at slightly different aspects of the same thing.
    Thus the 'Intermediate' OP here quotes Notz & Marotzke (2012) 'Observations reveal external driver for Arctic sea-ice retreat' which says there is no correlation between PDO & Arctic SIE while, for instance, this 2016 CarbonBrief post by Screen & Francis says the PDO does impact the Arctic warming.
    But digging into the research, Notz & Marotzke are looking at long-term trends in summer Arctic SIE while Screen & Francis (2016) 'Contribution of sea-ice loss to Arctic amplification is regulated by Pacific Ocean decadal variability' are looking at oscillations (so not long-term trends) and winter Arctic climate (so not summer) and are interested in the winter Arctic temperatures and how the PDO impacts temperature at differening SIE levels.

    That is not to say that there are contradictory findings in the literature, but if there are such findings they need to be addressed on a paper-by-paper basis.

  49. Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle

    'This is my first SKS post but I've beem a luker for many years. 

    How has the PDO added to the massive ice loss?  I've been researching it but I find articles from reputable sources that it has caused increasing ice loss while others claim that the effects of natural variablity have been insignifcant. Any help?  

  50. CO2 is just a trace gas

    A new footnote was added to this rebuttal with a Myth Deconstruction as an animated GIF which is potentially helpful to quickly debunk this claim on social media.

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