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John Hartz at 02:34 AM on 23 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
The US-based organization, Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) has this to say about the connection between global warming and ground-level ozone. “Hotter temperatures will speed the formation of ground-level ozone, the main component of smog.” This statement is contained a summary of how global warming impacts air pollution posted on the PSR website. To access this summary, click here. I do believe that the staff of PSR is more knowledgable about this matter than is Dale. -
Daniel Bailey at 02:31 AM on 23 August 2012Patrick Michaels' 1992 claims versus the 2012 reality
Steve, I think you stretch the definition of climate scientist beyond the structural integrity of the universe by including Michaels. Climate propagandist, yes. Climate scientist, no. -
Steve L at 02:20 AM on 23 August 2012Patrick Michaels' 1992 claims versus the 2012 reality
Joe Romm seems to think that Richard Lindzen is the most consistently wrong climate scientist around. Perhaps it's Pat Michaels? I think a contest, with campaign-style pageantry, could really be interesting and maybe even get some publicity. -
shoyemore at 01:45 AM on 23 August 2012Patrick Michaels' 1992 claims versus the 2012 reality
Harry Potter may not have been real in 1990, but one of the series of Potter books (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) is an unexpectedly vivid desciption of the authoritarian takeover of a liberal institution. This is the replacement of Dumbledore as Headmaster by the domineering Dolores Umbridge. One of Umbridge's key "innovations" is the denial of Voldemord's return, and the replacement of the "scientific" subject Defence From The Dark Arts by turgid mumbo-jumbo. This comment may be off-topic, but I hope you see where it is going .... When Voldemord does take over the Ministry of Magic, Umbridge becomes one of his leading collaborators. There is a message in the Harry Potter books about free thought and free enquiry, so that it is great to see them so popular. -
Dale at 00:44 AM on 23 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Sphaerica You brought up inversions increasing not me. I am curious why you refuse to look at the data I linked. It is max hourly count, not monthly average. We have already agreed this has nothing to do with GW and I am glad you agree. That was the basis of my original post in this thread, that ozone is a non issue in terms of GW. You speak of the chemistry. Firstly, ozone relies on solar intensity, not heat. So GW will not cause more ozone. Secondly natural ozone is created and destroyed just as quickly as the oxygen atom is very fluid in its movements. Thirdly, UV and O2 are the prime building blocks, but pollutants can substitute to create the required O atom. Natural ozone is in balance as it creates and destroys evenly. Human pollutants have increased the number of building blocks, but as I said, if you only have the building blocks to create X ozone, you cannot get X+Y ozone from changing anything except the amount of pollution. Heat has nothing to do with ozone creation, so GW has nothing to do with ozone creation. Thus, ozone is a pollution issue, not a GW issue as this article implies. -
Composer99 at 00:03 AM on 23 August 2012Patrick Michaels' 1992 claims versus the 2012 reality
Michaels seems to have a habit of incorrectly representing the science, stretching back to the 90's, given his characterization of what "they" (the IPCC, climate models, mainstream climate science) said when compared to the actual relevant text from the IPCC reporting. -
Bob Lacatena at 22:45 PM on 22 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Dale, First, your chemistry is out of whack. The only building block one needs to create ozone is O2. Pollutants accelerate the production of ozone, but are not necessary. So your statement that "it doesn't matter how much higher the temp is" is completely false. In either a polluted or a pollution free environment higher temperatures coupled with UV radiation will produce more ozone. But for now, in a pollution-intense environment, reducing pollutants is having a notable effect. Your statement on thermal inversion impacts is confusing. Inversions are a local phenomenon, caused by many local factors. What does global warming have to do with more inversions? Inversions will simply help to create an environment where global warming can cause more days of dangerously high ozone levels. I already addressed your statement about trends. Monthly and annual averages are useless because if you double the "dangerous ozone level days" from 2 to 4, your average may still drop because ozone levels other days drop. All the trends now show is that anti-pollution action is helping. It says nothing whatsoever about global warming. At the same time, once again... there are many effects that you will not statistically recognize after 0.6˚C to 0.8˚C of warming, effects that will be very pronounced with 2˚C to 4˚C of warming. You are like the man who jumped from the top of the skyscraper, and was heard to say every time he passed an open window: "so far, so good." Lastly, you previously said:I ask because I'm curious (I'm in Australia, so UV and ozone are of concern for me), not to say "ah ha".
Yet you are insistent on the tired old meme that "it hasn't happened yet, so it won't happen." You should look at this recent post about how Patrick Michaels did the same thing back in 1990. You've been given explanations as to why your logic is flawed, and yet you cling to the hope that this is a non-issue, and you close your eyes to the problem. Sorry, Dale. From what I can see, you're a climate ostrich. -
Ari Jokimäki at 20:03 PM on 22 August 2012New research from last week 33/2012
There was a mistake in the "after that" part. I originally wrote the title so that it implied that sea level rise continues at least 200 years after 2100, but as this study period is 2000-2200, the abstract meant that SLR continues at least next 200 years, i.e. at least 100 years after 2100. I have corrected the title for this paper. -
Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 19:43 PM on 22 August 2012Patrick Michaels' 1992 claims versus the 2012 reality
This is excellent and shows that not much has changed in regard to misrepresentation of the science of the day. (In the early 90s I was chomping at the bit to get onto the Internet, but all that was publicly available in Australia in those days were private services. I started off with Compuserve. Universities and research institutes were linked early on, but otherwise people had to go through AOL or Compuserve or similar. I recall Gopher, BBS's, and some good people on Compuserve itself who were very willing to share expertise.) -
Klaus Flemløse at 19:37 PM on 22 August 2012Patrick Michaels' 1992 claims versus the 2012 reality
Thanks to MarkR for this summary. -
anchr at 18:41 PM on 22 August 2012Patrick Michaels' 1992 claims versus the 2012 reality
The list of examples are rather a minor issue, but since the topic came up .... In 1990, the Internet certainly existed (I was a user back then), but knowledge of it was not that widespread. According to the author herself, she started writing on the first Harry Potter book in 1990 starting with the Potter character from the start, although the book was not published until 1997. As for Michael Phelps, he was born in 1985. So as examples of did-exist-but-were-not-generally-known, these examples are technically correct .... though I don't think this particular passage in the text will go down in history as a great example of convincing and striking rhetoric. -
Bernard J. at 18:26 PM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
I've always said that Homo sapiens is a misnomer and that Homo intellectus is more appropriate, but given the commentary here I would suggest that Homo apoptosis is most apt. -
rugbyguy59 at 16:59 PM on 22 August 2012Patrick Michaels' 1992 claims versus the 2012 reality
Harry Potter is a character in a series of real world books and movies.....,but perhaps the example could be more concrete. Nice summary. You guys do great work. Thanks. -
urostor at 16:27 PM on 22 August 2012Patrick Michaels' 1992 claims versus the 2012 reality
Harry Potter is a fairy tale, I don't think that claiming his "existence" is a good example. -
Doug Bostrom at 15:12 PM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Uncle Pete: Homo industrialis. I like to think of us as Homo bolidus, a species imitating a extremely large impacting body moving along a planet-wrecking trajectory. We're supposed to be smarter than a bag of rocks but so far our collective intelligence seems confined to areas mostly removed from competently planning our future. Hence we're anticipating and superseding the arrival of the next giant bolide with our own act. -
Uncle Pete at 14:38 PM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
I agree with Bernhard J @7 . Homo industrialis collectively deserve a Darwin Award. And I must thank Dana for continuously strapping on the armor of logic and rationality and getting into the breach once more. Am I wrong in thinking that climate scientists in general are rather blase about AGW (Hansen being the exception)? -
sailrick at 14:20 PM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Lindzen "CO2 levels are below the optimum levels for most plants......" Funny how there seemed to be enough CO2 during the entire Holocene, at lower atmospheric concentration than now. And long before the Holocene -
dana1981 at 13:42 PM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Well Lindzen thinks uncertainty applies to everyone but him. He always plays up the aerosol forcing uncertainty, for example, and yet in his own calculations treats it as though the forcing is zero with zero uncertainty. We can't know how the climate is going to change in the future, but we know for sure it's not going to change very much! Frustrating indeed. -
JohnMashey at 13:32 PM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
re: 15, on Steve Schneider People may recall that Steve spent a lot of effort trying to include uncertainty in IPCC and explain it as well as possible to differing audiences, including random groups of people on Stanford lawns for open talks. We were talking one time and he said that Lindzen was so frustrating, not so much because his views were so far off from the data, but more because he just wouldn't admit to any uncertainty about them, and hadn't budged for decades. -
Daniel Bailey at 10:11 AM on 22 August 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #33
And as such it superbly highlights the cognitive bias and deep-seated denial of deniers. -
Steve Case at 10:06 AM on 22 August 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #33
We do have cactus in Wisconsin. Other than that the cartoon is just plain silly. -
Dale at 09:16 AM on 22 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Sphaerica At the bottom of the page I linked to above is the data for individual stations. LA is one of the CA ones. For those who don't want to download and look, the trend is decreasing. I would have thought considering the temperature increase over the last few decades that we'd already be seeing thermal inversion impacts. Yet observations around the world do not show this occurring. Temps have increased between 0.6-0.8C (depending which graph you look at) since 1970. How much does it need to rise before any of the predictions start occurring? Like you say, it's to do with reducing pollants that has caused the reduction. It's nothing to do with GW. I'm glad we agree on that. If you've only got the building blocks to create ten ozone molecules, it doesn't matter how much higher the temp is, or how much more sun hits the air, you're only going to get ten ozone molecules. BTW, here's another link showing how the number of "bad ozone days" is reducing in LA. (http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/amartinez/californias_lungs_need_a_passi.html) -
Bob Lacatena at 08:50 AM on 22 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
For anyone wishing to research this further (there is a lot of health information available on ozone), search specifically for "ground-level ozone". -
dhogaza at 08:34 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Peter Wirfs: "These harmful blooms have been shutting down our fisheries from time to time, which directly impacts peoples livelihoods. Apparently they don't have proof of causation, only theories. But climate change is one of the leading theories." They're nothing new. The question here is whether or not climate change is responsible for what appears to be an increase in the frequency of these toxic algae blooms. It's similar to our state of knowledge regarding extreme weather events. The article you cite discusses other anthropogenic influences that might be responsible, and my guess is that the true answer is likely to be a mix (anthropogenic increases in nutrients due to ag runoff is real, transportation of phytoplankton via ship ballast is real, climate change is real ...), BTW if you're Allen's brother he and I knew each other as teen computer geeks ... -
scaddenp at 07:39 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Broomy, not to mention that the paleoclimatic records would suggest that more CO2 goes into the atmosphere is the actual feedback when the temperature warms. Oceans can hold less; more released from tundra, asian swamps etc. -
Bob Lacatena at 06:46 AM on 22 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Dale, Following your links and looking at the graphs... they are 100% inapplicable. We are not saying that net ozone production will increase. Ozone levels are a rate-of-reaction thing between the competing pathways to create and destroy ozone. It's constantly going on, and usually in fair balance. Your average for an entire state for an entire month is going to be meaningless, as is (for this purpose) any trend. The trends you see probably have more to do with increasing air quality (i.e. removing pollutants that contribute to/catalyze ozone production) than anything else. For global warming, I believe we are talking about the sort of scenario I pointed out in California, for example, a case where an unusual heat wave hits with clear skies and a local inversion -- this causes ozone levels to rise to dangerous levels (for people) for a few days in a very local area (say Los Angeles, for example). I think you can see how this will not show up in the statistics you demonstrated. What you'd really want is a tally, by city, for number of days of ozone above a certain threshold, to see if that's increasing over time. Even then, it wouldn't apply to all cities. Ozone may never be a problem in Minneapolis. That doesn't mean it won't be a problem anywhere, though. -
Pete Wirfs at 06:46 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Regarding Oceanic trends, I've been very interested in this ongoing story off our Pacific coast line. I live within an hours drive of some of the effected areas of our coast; http://www.oceanandair.coas.oregonstate.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=content.display&pageID=174 These harmful blooms have been shutting down our fisheries from time to time, which directly impacts peoples livelihoods. Apparently they don't have proof of causation, only theories. But climate change is one of the leading theories. -
David Lewis at 06:22 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
I found Richard Kerr's "Greenhouse Skeptic Out in Cold" article published in Science 246.4934 (1989) useful to understand Lindzen: Then, as now, some say: "no other US skeptic has such scientific stature". Kerr got Lindzen to admit how unscientific his critique is: "what Lindzen has now is not so much a complete model as an idea about how control of atmospheric temperature works. Indeed, he describes it himself as an idea of a theological or philosophical nature" Kerr quoted Schnieder in 1989 on Lindzen's ideas: "I know of no observational evidence supporting it". His latest 2012 paper was rejected by PNAS editors as you discussed in your analysis because it was low quality and its conclusions were not justified. Nothing has changed. In his book "Storms of My Grandchildren" Hansen shares a story about when he shared a cab with Lindzen: "I considered asking Lindzen if he still believed there was no connection between smoking and lung cancer. He had been a witness for tobacco companies decades earlier, questioning the reliability of statistical connections between smoking and health problems". Hansen says didn't ask that question during that cab ride, but he says he did ask Lindzen later, at a conference both were attending: "He began rattling off all the problems with the data relating smoking to health problems, which was closely analogous with his views of climate data" -
David Lewis at 05:36 AM on 22 August 2012North Carolina Lawmakers Turning a Blind Eye to Sea Level Reality?
A big part of what's going on in North Carolina is the ongoing battle between locals and the US federal government over who pays when the inevitable losses due to rising sea levels occur. It isn't so much that lawmakers think they can control the sea. New development in areas near the sea that everyone knows will be wiped out one day by sea level rise is encouraged by quirks in existing federal law. If you can get away with building it, you can benefit. There's the Stafford Act. When the predictable new peak storm surge wipes you out, a disaster declaration by the President is all it takes to turn your area into a massive redevelopment project. You can get the benefits of the economic activity and the enjoyment of the coastal property, and when the storm surge comes, someone else will pay. The Act allows the US federal government to pay for rebuilding no matter what, supposedly to put things back the way they were, even though in the face of an accelerating rising sea level common sense would dictate taking that rising sea level into account. "Victims" can be owners of newly constructed rental coastal property wiped out by a storm surge caused by rising sea level everyone knows is coming, and putting things back the way they were can include rebuilding the home and even the beach in front of it, by trucking in sand. And there is the federal Flood Insurance program. It was supposed to be an attempt to discourage people from developing in high risk flood prone areas, but in practice in high risk areas exposed to rising sea level it encourages further development that would otherwise not occur because mortgage money was unavailable. (No federally regulated financial institution can write a mortgage unless flood insurance exists). NFIP flood insurance is the only flood insurance that is available in most flood prone areas in the US. Private insurance views flood insurance as basically impossible to write. Hence the attempted action by the North Carolina lawmakers that looked to outsiders as if they were attempting to legislate how fast the sea will rise. The state has a big say in determining what properties can be insured, because although the national authority FEMA retains the final say, it is the state and locals who draw up the flood insurance maps. This N.C. sea level law was directed at people who draw up the flood insurance rate maps. They were being directed to falsify what the real risk was, as seen by a North Carolina panel, because North Carolina doesn't think it will be required to pay when the flood comes. Once the map has been falsified, development can proceed. If the flood insurance rate map says there is "x" risk, that's what the risk is. FEMA will sell you a flood insurance policy and the bank will grant you a mortgage. At that point it does not matter what scientists have discovered. Its an old issue that will become more important as the years go by. Eg: from the 1985 Pilkey et.al. A National Strategy for Beach Preservation "Sea level is rising and the American shoreline is retreating. We face economic and environmental realities that leave us two choices: (1) plan a strategic retreat now, or (2) undertake a vastly expensive program of armoring the coastline and, as required, retreating through a series of unpredictable disasters." If you add global warming driving accelerated sea level rise to what Pilkey et.al. saw in 1985, you get what FEMA Director Craig Fugate said earlier this year in a speech: "We cannot afford to continue to respond to disasters and deal with the consequences under the current model.... Risk that is not mitigated, that is not considered in return on investment calculations, will often set up false economies. We will reach a point where we can no longer subsidize this." -
Doug Bostrom at 05:26 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Getting back to Lindzen and Crew, if a scientist trades on reputation to mislead the public and persists in doing so in places where critical public policy decisions are being made, with an eye to mutating public policy to fit a fictitious worldview, is the public owed some explanation and guidance by the malefactor's peers? Accepting that members of the lay public are ill-equipped to discriminate between one collection of letter salad and another and that it's particularly difficult to pick an expert when paper qualifications are identical, is there a way for professional societies and the like to provide some guidance? Leading up to this little screed I wrote for Planet3. If a professional society offers specific guidance to members concerning ethical behavior and then acts on that guidance by casting judgment on particular individuals, does it have an obligation to also treat such cases as Lindzen's? -
Hyperactive Hydrologist at 04:56 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Apologies I posted that link without reading it properly the paper doesn't conclude that N is a limiting factor in plankton growth. "A similarly rigorous demonstration of N limitation has not been achieved for marine waters. Therefore, we conclude that the extent and severity of N limitation in the marine environment remain an open question." However 2 papers relating to iron deficiencies in Antarctic and Pacific subarctic.Moderator Response:[DB] An additional, related paper is here:
Global phytoplankton decline over the past century (PDF here; author letter response here).
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Hyperactive Hydrologist at 04:40 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Broomy, There are nutients deficiencies in the oceans that limit the growth of plankton. -
Doug Bostrom at 04:38 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Broomy, see Climate change and marine plankton for a thumbnail intro and leads to tons of good literature. -
Jeffrey Davis at 04:24 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
re: #9 The idea that there are built-in climate regulators is an attractive one, but exactly when are they supposed to kick-in? CO2 has been increasing steadily (and I believe exponentially), but neither Lindzen's Iris Effect of cloud formation nor a carbon-absorbing plankton bloom have ever materialized. These effects haven't developed in the past -- witness the advance and retreat of glaciers. Why they should pick now (or the near future) to work their magic would need to be explained. -
Broomy at 03:47 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
I've looked through the site and don't find anything that addresses my question. I accept that the earth is heating up, but has anyone studied the impact of this heating on a feedback loop in which the earth stores more CO2 than prior to warming? For example, if the oceans heat up it seems that it would provide an environment more conducive to plankton growth. I read once many years ago that the CO2 stored in plankton dwarfs that stored in land-based plants. Is it possible that global warming will stimulate plankton growth so that the oceans store considerably more CO2 than it did prior to the warming? Or, does warming inhibit plankton growth and actually reduce the storage capacity of the oceans, and thereby reinforce the earth's warming? -
Doug Bostrom at 03:40 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Lindzen trades on his history and associations. He's been throwing gravel in the mental gears of the population for a couple of decades now, never changing his story even as research increasingly proves him wrong. When a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and MIT Alfred P. Sloan Professor tells you that temperature records in the US show no sign of concern, why wouldn't you believe him? There comes a point where shame is the only effective means of dealing with a miscreant. In this case, appropriate shaming can only come from a unique group, Lindzen's own peers in the scientific community. Unfortunately that community is too squeamish about social propriety and (let's face it) scared of Lindzen's silverback status to deliver the message the public needs to hear. -
Bernard J. at 02:54 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
I swear, it's as if Nature and History were washing their hands of us.
As I've just noted on a ThinkProgress thread (still in moderation as I type):With such species-wide, recalcitrant stupidity evolution may very well decide to give humanity a collective Darwin Award. And we can't say that we didn't know that we were nominated.
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Jeffrey Davis at 02:53 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
I made my (grim) joke, but I wanted to add that the idea that since CO2 is plant food that it's therefore always beneficial is ludicrous. After all, we can't do without water, but we drown in an excess. And it doesn't need to be a huge excess, either. -
Jeffrey Davis at 02:32 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
re: 1 Sprengel's Law Ominously, it's also known as Liebig's Law. I swear, it's as if Nature and History were washing their hands of us. -
dana1981 at 01:29 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Bernard @1 - I hadn't heard specifically of Sprengel's Law, thanks. michael @2 - thanks. Composer @3 - valid point, the specific impacts are a question of science, and whether those impacts are 'good' or 'bad' is a somewhat subjective question. I think most people would agree that increasing droughts are a 'bad' consequence though! -
Composer99 at 01:22 AM on 22 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Actually, I disagree with Lindzen et al's assertion that:Whether increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is bad or good is a question of science.
Science can tell us the impacts of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. We decide whether these are good or bad based on what we value. Since the impacts include ocean acidification, sea level rise, and the decline of food production, all of which imply degradation of human well-being or even destruction of human life, I would say they are bad - indeed, very much so. -
chriskoz at 22:56 PM on 21 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Dale@20, The claim that AGW will increase formation of O3 is supported by simple chemistry as explained by Spherica@19. It's so simple that you don't need to look for past trends to confirm that. However while you're looking at past treands you must remember, that O3 formation in troposphere depends largely not only on temperature, but also on the NOX & VOC emissions from vehicles, diesels & power plants. Your methods of research suggests that you do not take that second dependency into consideration. The reason of the decline in background O3 since 2000 is the decreased above emissions due to some successful regulations by EPA. You can read about it e.g. here. Finally, please note, that background O3 levels might rise very slightly due to AGW (indistinguishable from background noise of local NOX/VOC pollution) the effects of O3 levels on health are non-linear, just like in case of extrere weather events). Therefore locally, especially in large cities, O3 extremes, reinforced by weather extremes will become more serious when mean temperature shifts to the right. Jim Hansen's climate dice analogy also applies here. -
EliRabett at 22:27 PM on 21 August 2012Climate skeptic claims prebunked by Keeling
Oh yes, you can see the variability in the MLO record at one of the links above, with a link to where you can download the hourly data, so no Paul, that dog don't hunt neither http://rabett.blogspot.com.au/2009/10/ian-plimer-is-con-artist-one-of.html -
michael sweet at 20:19 PM on 21 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
Dana, You have the patience of Job cranking out all these counters to WSJ crap. Keep up the good work. -
Tristan at 19:44 PM on 21 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Sphaerica I'm pretty sure more than 0.6C warming due to GHGs has already been realised. -
Bernard J. at 19:07 PM on 21 August 2012Lindzen, Happer, and Cohen Wall Street Journal Rerun
CHL proceed to repeat the grossly oversimplified myth that more CO2 is good for plants:
This is an important point, and worth nominating in the form of Sprengel's Law of the Minimum."CO2 levels are below the optimum levels for most plants, and there are persuasive arguments that the mild warming and increased agricultural yields from doubling CO2 will be an overall benefit for humanity."
Given the recent climate impacts on wheat in Russia and corn in the United States, for example, this contrarian argument is a rather large pill to swallow. -
Bernard J. at 18:57 PM on 21 August 2012New research from last week 33/2012
Sea level is predicted to rise at least 80cm by 2100 and continues to rise at least 200 years after that
I'm pleased to see the "...after that" part of the equation getting some attention. There's a lot of talk about "x metres/y degrees by 2100", but these are such arbitrary and transient (to future generations) landmarks that I emphatically believe that we should be reporting the plateaux in temperature and sea level to which the planet is committed, and to which it continually and increasingly becomes committed over time. Don't worry about just our grandchildren - consider the lives of our great-great...great grandchildren, to n generations. They, and the biosphere in which they will live, have a right for us to not FUBAR their existence. -
Dale at 15:17 PM on 21 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
Sphaerica @19 I ask because I'm curious (I'm in Australia, so UV and ozone are of concern for me), not to say "ah ha". I had a look at CA readings via the EPA site (http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/weather.html). At the bottom it has 2001-2010 readings per state. This is why I'm curious because observation (so far) does not support the claim. I assume this is another "it's coming, and it's bad" thing? -
EliRabett at 14:15 PM on 21 August 2012Climate skeptic claims prebunked by Keeling
Steve Ryan published a paper on the effect of the volcano on the MLO record. Suffice it to say, slim to none Most impressive are how aircraft measurements match the MLO record over a period of more than a year, showing that MLO does indeed measure CO2 in the free troposphere. -
Bob Lacatena at 13:35 PM on 21 August 2012Global Warming - A Health Warning
18, Dale, I'm just taking a shot at this answer, but... First, we've only seen about 0.6˚C of the 1.4˚C warming to which we have committed, and the likely 2˚C to 4.5˚C for which we are on track. You are unlikely to see an appreciable change in the measurement of ozone (yet) because we haven't yet seen the warming that will help separate the signal from the noise. This is true of a lot of denial reactions. "It hasn't happened yet" is not a valid argument against the proposition that it will happen. Your instinctive search for evidence that it has already happened, followed by an "ah ha" when it hasn't, is a symptom of a case of ostrichitis. Second, and more to the point, the chemistry of ozone creation is fairly clear.It is an endothermic reaction, meaning it requires heat (as well as ultraviolet light).[The reaction is exothermic, however increased temperatures do still increase the rate of reaction.] This means that higher temperatures will increase the rate of reaction, i.e. increase ozone production. California is the perfect testbed. Ozone is already worse in parts of California in the summer months than many places, and California will feel the effects of increased ozone from GW that much more. Ozone is high in California in the summer when skies are clear (letting in the UV) while temperatures are high (speeding the reaction). This is further complicated in California because air inversions are common, which prevent the newly created ozone, as well as pollutants that contribute to its generation, from dispersing. Will everyone everywhere have to worry about ozone? No. Is it an immediate problem, that will affect us right now? No, I don't think so. Is it something that can be ignored? Absolutely not.
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