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Comments 56901 to 56950:

56901. katecell at 23:36 PM on 9 July 2012
       Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
       Kate Cell Shutesbury, MA
56902. Tom Curtis at 22:37 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Bernard J @32, eco-system degradation is certainly a problem, but it is a distinct problem from global warming. So the first point is that any difficulty we have tackling eco-system degradation does not automatically carry through to an inability to tackle global warming. Further, increased energy use per capita could well be a means of tackling eco-system collapse, provided energy production can be decoupled from GHG emissions. For instance, with increase energy availability, most human water needs could be provided by desalinization and/or recycling. With a ready supply of water and energy, food can be provided by hydroponics, thereby eliminating the problems of soil degradation. Consequently I cannot accept your pessimistic prognosis. More importantly, it is a simple fact about human nature that you will not persuade them to downsize their demand. Some few you may, but the result will be simple that those amenable to your views will have less relative wealth, and consequently less influence on the course of the economy. You may consider this fact disasterous, but I consider it just as a constraint on solving the problems. It certainly does not mean the problem cannot be solved - but it does mean that pushing solutions that require us to wear a hair shirt is a waste of time.
56903. Tom Curtis at 22:22 PM on 9 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       Dissembly, I try to avoid discussing topics with people who persistently misrepresent what I have said - as you have done. Such people are either incapable or, or uninterested in rational discussion. In either event, discussing things with them is a waste of time.
56904. Jen at 21:18 PM on 9 July 2012
       Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
       Jen MSc. FRAS
56905. MarkR at 20:23 PM on 9 July 2012
       Michaels and Cato Unwittingly Accept the Climate Threat
       "People have been died in the past from diseases, therefore they'll die in the future, therefore we shouldn't bother investing in drugs". Isn't that following exactly the same logic as Michaels, or did I miss something?
56906. Dikran Marsupial at 19:54 PM on 9 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       Marco The mass balance argument makes no assumptions about natural sources and sinks, other than that they exist. The mass balance equation tells you the difference between total natural emissions and total natural uptake, whatever the natural sources and sinks are. Thus if there are unknown sources and sinks, their net activity is still represented by the green line in figure 1. The question to ask anyone making the "unknown source" argument is "if the natural environment is a net source, why isn't the observed increase greater than anthropogenic emissions?". Then then either need to show that the rise is greater than anthropogenic emissions (i.e. the observations are incorrect), or that nature can be the cause of the increase while being a net carbon sink! However, what they will probably do is dodge the question.
56907. Dikran Marsupial at 19:47 PM on 9 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       Stephen Baines Conservation of mass is all that is required to demonstrate that the natural environment (i.e. the oceans and terresrtial biosphere) are a net carbon sink. As such it is hard to argue that the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 can be a natural phenomenon when the natural environment is taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere that it puts in. Now if you can see an error in the line of reasoning, then please do point it out. The mass balance argument makes no assumptions about where CO2 from natural or anthropogenic emissions ends up. It would make no difference to the argument whether all anthropogenic CO2 were taken immediately by the natural environment, or whether it all stayed in the atmosphere permanently. The thing that causes the rise is an imbalance between total emissions and total uptake; mankind emits more CO2 than it takes up, and hence is a cause of the increase, the natural environment takes up more than it emits, and hence is opposing the increase. As I said, it is misleading to consider the fate of individual molcules in determining the cause of the rise, as their fate is largely determined by the exchange fluxes, which have no effect on atmospheric CO2 concentrations whatsoever. This in not merely academic. The mass balance argument on its own is sufficient, so it is important that any challenge to that position is resolved one way or the other.
56908. Bernard J. at 17:48 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Tom Curtis at #24. The problem of how much energy humanity uses lies not just with the energy itself (especially with how it's obtained), but with what humans do with that energy. The issues that the planet has with the serious pressures on species, on whole ecosystems, on soil and water reserves, amongst other things, are the manifestations of human energy use. Even if we were to cap the global human energy use to today's levels, we would still be eroding the natural capital of the planet such that rates of species extinctions, of ecosytem degradation and loss, of water and soil resource degradation, will all continue to increase toward eventual collapse. The only way that we can avoid the inevitable result would be to dramatically reduce our per captia resource use, and as humans are showing no inclination to reduce either that or the strong correlate that is energy use, it seems that the only choice currently is how much climate change we add to the other agents of biospheric compromise that will lead to global societal collapse. It's thermodynamics - there's no such thing as a free lunch, especially when all embodied costs are accounted for.
56909. Tom Curtis at 17:20 PM on 9 July 2012
       Hansen and Sato Estimate Climate Sensitivity from Earth's History
       curiousd @37, Park and Royer (2011) is a good place to start. They find an ESS of 3 to 4 degrees C is a robust feature of the geological record during periods with no ice sheets at the the Earth's poles; and 6 to 8 C in periods with ice sheets at the poles. Hansen and Sato have also recently estimated ESS, but somebody else will have to provide the link.
56910. Rob Painting at 16:39 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Clyde - when it comes to extreme weather the increased severity and frequency of heatwaves are pretty much a global warming slamdunk. These SkS posts explain the concept: 1. Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming 2. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2) - see the heading entitled "damn statistics". So the basics are; that with no climate warming the probability of record-breaking warm extremes decreases with time, whereas in a warming climate the probability of record-breaking increases. All very intuitively easy to grasp. And you will note that one of James Hansen's papers shows a dramatic increase in warm temperature extremes in the observational record. See: 3. Quantifying Extreme Heat Events Bottom line: expect more severe and frequent record-breaking warm events in the future.
56911. skywatcher at 16:17 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       #27 Clyde. If you're still unable to make the connection between heatwaves and global warming - perhaps you can answer the question as to why heatwaves such as the one the USA is experiencing (and, for example, Texas last year, and Russia the year before) are demonstrably happening more frequently and with greater severity in global trends established over the past 60 years (Hansen et al 2011)? The global pattern and trend is unmistakeable. Note that this is based on observed surface temperature data, not modelled. You can pretend it's 'natural variability' if you like, but the variability is not the same as it was 30 years ago. Roll the dice now, you'll get a 3-sigma heat event in your area sooner than you'd like. Are ya feelin' lucky?
56912. Marco at 15:34 PM on 9 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       Bob, I fully agree with you. I have, in fact, made a very similar argument on several occasions. It's generally evaded by the pseudoskeptics that trot out the "only 5% of emissions are anthropogenic!" Just making sure others can make the same argument!
56913. scaddenp at 15:15 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Clyde, no one weather event is "caused" by AGW. The warming climate changes the frequency and severity of extreme events. This obviously is effecting insurance now and will do so more into the future. See this article and perhaps respond there. While the US might bring energy emissions down, how much of this is done by exporting emissions to China? World CO2 emissions continue to rise and climate responds to the global emissions, not the local ones.
56914. Clyde at 15:06 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Just something to ponder. I say the recession was the main cause. Others disagree. One thing for sure, it wasn't massive govt regulations or Cap & Trade that caused the drop. I guess if the economy ever starts growing at 3-4% for a couple of years we'll have a better idea if the recession was a big factor. America’s carbon emissions may drop back close to 1990 levels this year. Total energy carbon emissions were 5,473 million tons in 2011 and last year fell below the 1996 mark of 5,501 million tons. The first quarter 2012 reduction of 7.5% makes it possible that this year emissions will fall back essentially to the 1990 level of 5,039 million tons. That is shockingly good news. Details from the EIA here. PDF page. I didn't see a place to post on CO2 levels. My apologies if this isn't the right place.
56915. Clyde at 14:58 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Kevin C 17 The material on Disaster losses is quite concerning, Does the IPCC SREX say GW is causing the "extreme" weather events happening today? Theres a difference between being concerned over material loss & whats causing the events. Heres another reference. "The heat wave today is primarily natural climate variability," agreed Dr. William Patzert, an global climate change researcher with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Read more here. He goes on to say how bad things will be do to GW. He doesn't say when anybody can say GW is causing the events.
56916. curiousd at 14:29 PM on 9 July 2012
       Hansen and Sato Estimate Climate Sensitivity from Earth's History
       Tom Curtis, I Love it! Thank you! You need to look for grains of humor in this deadly serious business, and so now I get to impress my "ordinary physics" prof colleagues with the delightful wonkiness of the ESS versus the EGS. So cool. (so to speak) So.....I guess by Hanson - Sato latest, the ECS is 3.0 degrees C plus or minus 0.5 degrees by their fit, at least. So is there a latest and greatest ESS? Or alternatively a cluster of results you could recommend for the ESS?
56917. scaddenp at 14:09 PM on 9 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       Working properly, a carbon tax should be redistributed back on a pure per-capita basis. If you are using less carbon than the average citizen (by, for example, buying electricity from renewable generation or using non-carbon methods of transport to commute), then you should be better off under such a system. Australians should be pushing for that. Blaming carbon for price rises is only a viable business option if every competitor does exactly the same thing. Otherwise the consumer buys the cheaper product and you lose market share. Using wartime spending has a model has the problem that Americans are still paying for it. The money has to come from somewhere.
56918. caerbannog at 13:57 PM on 9 July 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       Shoot -- messed up the first two links -- let's try again. Part 1: New McCarthyism Described by Climate Scientist Michael Mann Part 2: Climate Denialists Worse Than Tobacco CEOs Lying Under Oath, Says Mann
56919. dissembly at 13:56 PM on 9 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       This might be interesting to people: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030 The article is called "A Plan to Power 100 Percent of the Planet with Renewables", and makes direct comparisons with the US's wartime munitions production and the construction of their highway system. When they bring carbon taxes into it, it is as an after-thought, because it "makes sense" to tax environmental damage (hardly a sustained economic analysis), and it is introduced as a part of a coordinated plan involving tariffs and the removal of fossil fuel subsidies. This, as I remember it, was reflective of the level of discussion within the environmental movement only a few years ago, the context during which the Greens opposed Rudd's version of the carbon tax. The fall in line behind the carbon tax policy has almost killed us.
56920. caerbannog at 13:44 PM on 9 July 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       FYI, Bill Blakemore of ABC News (USA) just put up a 5-part video of an extended interview with Michael Mann on the ABC News web-site (the full transcript is included). Here are the links: Part 1: ‘New McCarthyism’ Described by Climate Scientist Michael Mann Part 2: Climate Denialists Worse Than Tobacco CEOs Lying Under Oath, Says Mann Part 3: Climate Denialists Would Be Remembered as Villains, Says Mann Part 4: Unprecedented Crisis for Humanity — But There’s Hope Part 5: Climate ‘Groundhog Day for Scientists and Journalists Alike (Thanks to climatesciencewatch.org for the links) Dr. Mann absolutely does not pull any punches in the interview. I suspect that WUWT could be a very popcorn-worthy place to check out over the next few days. Anyway, after you watch the videos, please do tweet, FB, blog, whatever the above links to get them all over the web where Google and other search engines can find (and rank) them.
56921. dissembly at 13:44 PM on 9 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       "in which business pays more, so their customers pay more, so the government reimburses the customers - leaving the government with less to spend on public services and welfare. In the end, the government is paying the carbon price with no corresponding increase in taxation on businesses or on the highest income earners." - I'm sorry, this was misleading. I got a bit carried away there. Of course business pays more *to the government* through the carbon tax (which, of course, is why it is called a 'tax'). The leakage in the system is not here, but in the cap & trade scheme, and in the wastefulness of the market allocation of investment.
56922. dissembly at 13:36 PM on 9 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       @skywatcher #28 "I have a question for you. Why do you think "the majority of average people" oppose the carbon price? Could it possibly be because of a massive right-wing political/media campaign that has successfully reframed the carbon price as a carbon tax?" The right may have sowed the seeds, but they fell on fertile ground. They conducted a dishonest and malicious campaign, yes, but they also conduct such campaigns on many other issues without changing most peoples minds. This campaign spoke to people because people have genuine cost-of-living concerns right now. People were nervous about the idea of a carbon price beforehand, by the way. - "the average Australian and small business actually believes they will be poorer - that they are being taxed with no benefits. I'm sure you know this is not the whole story - it's the fallacy of discussing only the costs without the benefits." But you're committing the fallacy of taking a stratified, highly heterogenous society and treating it as if everybody received the same benefits and paid the same costs. In fact this isn't true. A carbon price resembles a flat tax (like the GST) more than it resembles a progressive tax (like income tax); which means it will affect you more by a disproportionately greater amount the further down the income scale you go. Which brings us to the tax cuts and welfare benefits that will supposedly offset the carbon price: You wrote: "most ordinary people and small businesses will not be poorer under the carbon price, as they also get a raft of other tax breaks which should compensate them for the goods and services they pay for that have a higher price directly due to the carbon price." I've already addressed this in part, I'll make three more comprehensive points here; 1) It is difficult to see exactly how much more people will be paying due to the carbon price - and thus very difficult to decide what fair compensation is. The bakery chain Brumbys made itself famous recently by having an e-mail leaked from a manager instructing stores to blame price rises on the carbon tax. This is precisely what the mentality of every other business will be; pass on every increased cost, including costs that may be someway back down the chain from raw materials to store shelf, to consumers - even when they haven't even incurred such costs yet. 2) We are currently under a long-term downward trend in terms of welfare payments, both in terms of how much is paid, and who is eligible for payments. How much of weflare increases are increases the government might have been forced into anyway? Will we received a breakdown of what percentage of welfare increases in the future are to be labelled "carbon tax" and what percentage "cost-of-living increases"? Money is fungible. Both cost-of-living increases, and welfare cuts, are happening anyway. People feel they deserve income tax cuts and welfare increases whether or not there is a carbon tax. 3) So let's imagine a model, in practice, in which business pays more, so their customers pay more, so the government reimburses the customers - leaving the government with less to spend on public services and welfare. In the end, the government is paying the carbon price with no corresponding increase in taxation on businesses or on the highest income earners. The net distribution of wealth is from poor to rich, and the entire process is extremely wasteful - relying, as it does, on a market to allocate investment in alternative energy in an indirect way (which i've already argued is far from guaranteed). Society, as a whole, loses wealth, the wealth gap is greater, and the benefits - at the end of this whole messy process - are not even guaranteed anyway. "How many average Australians actually know this??" Everyone does. It's been on the front pages of newspapers (even the Murdoch press), and it's been included in every discussion of the carbon tax that I've seen in the tv media.
56923. dissembly at 12:58 PM on 9 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       @Tom Curtis - "The minimum cost of your plan amounts to the equivalent of an increase of the GST to 15% plus a 5% tariff on all exports; or alternatively, a 10 year depression (very low or negative growth for 10 years)." Bizarre. Neither a 10-year depression nor an increase to the GST are equivalents of each other, and neither is directly equivalent to any of the many other ways in which a public works campaign can be funded. This is either extremely naive on your part, or extremely poorly intentioned. The fact is, an increase in progressive taxation (not even remotely like raising the GST) could fund a substantial amount of this plan. The mining tax alone would have netted billions more under Rudd's scheme than Gillard's, a genuinely progressive mining tax would have done better again. A recent estimate held that even under a UK-like tax system, another $108 billion per annum would be available in the Australian budget. But your statements are incorrect from the other direction, as well; a massive public works campaign would stimulate the economy (and, in fact, is precisely what many economists advocate during recession), and the economics of nationalisation make the process both cheaper and less wasteful (and entirely removes one of the glaring holes in the carbon cap & trade scheme - simply because you try to incentivise investment doesn't mean investors will actually do what you need them to do, and in fact, right now they are hoarding their money against a rainy day; you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink). You seem to believe that an economy is a bucket that can be filled and unfilled, and nothing else. But progressive taxes are different to flat taxes, and government spending is different to private spending. And again, you seem to be arguing not simply that the carbon tax is a good idea, but that alternatives don't exist - a ridiculous position, but especially from someone who seems to think it's worthwhile spreading information about global warming. You wrote: "If you do not have a realistic plan to persuade a major party, and the majority Australians to vote for these consequences as part of your plan before the end of this electoral cycle, you do not have an alternative plan to the Carbon Tax." Again, a naive and unrealistic assessment of how politics works, and one which ignores each and every point I made on this subject in earlier postings. A "realistic plan" is not limited to an electoral cycle (as governments can be pressured at any stage during their tenure) & not limited to a political party (as parties only deal with the situation they face). Furthermore, and once again, the carbon tax is not an alternative plan to what I've outlined - it, in fact, makes the plan I've outlined more difficult, by sucking strength from the push for alternative energy as a way to address climate change. That's why the government of the day proposed it, and that's precisely the effect it has had on the environmental movement. Regarding the graphs; thank you for linking me to the source. It appears that this is not related to any specific model of a given carbon pricing scheme (as i incorrectly thought), but in fact, is modelling carbon trading between countries based on their respective energy budgets; it's dependent upon the emissions trading actually being relatively unproblematic, which in turn depends very heavily on the nature of carbon offsets, which in turn depends on what alternatives are developed in any given country. The graph describes the target we want to reach. Well, great! The argument is about how to get there. I am familiar with the second graph you posted, in fact I just saw it in Beyond Zero Emission's "Zero Carbon Australia" - a plan that outlines the theoretical capacity to completely eliminate fossil fuels from Australia's energy grid within ten years.
56924. Ger at 12:04 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       In transferring the knowledge into the society, one does wonder why it takes so long for anything is being accepted in some societies. I think http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/sapienza/htm/social_capital_jeea.pdf is a good reading for that.
56925. Tom Curtis at 11:01 AM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       TonyO @23, on the contrary, it is still on the cards that we could tackle global warming at a cost that does not preclude continuing economic growth (see my immediately preceding post). It is urgent, however, that we stop dawdling about doing so. A further 10-15 years of inaction will make your prognosis accurate.
56926. Tom Curtis at 10:59 AM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       rpauli @22, the primary constraint on human well being, at least in material terms, is the energy available to meet those material needs and desires. Currently humans use enough energy for that purpose to generate 0.028 W/m^2 of energy globally. In contrast, we receive an average of 240 W/m^2 from the Sun. That means we could increase our energy use from renewable sources till it used just 1% of energy from the Sun that arrives at Earth and expand our energy consumption by a factor of 85. It would be preferable if that expansion came without a concurrent expansion in population so that we could expand our energy consumption (and hence wealth) per capita; but it is not necessary. Scenarios of doom and gloom because of a need to switch to renewable energy are therefore completely unwarranted. Nor is there an immediate need to stop population growth (although there is a need for population to stabilize within the next century). Nor are the prospects of doom from Global Warming so certain that we cannot afford a measured approach. That measured approach requires that we immediately and unilaterally (for all Western nations) end emissions growth and start reductions at at least 3% per annum by 2015 as the prelude to negotiating a global agreement to reduce effective global emissions to zero by 2050. It does not mean simply cutting of all combustion of fossil fuels, which would introduce a human disaster worse than any in prospect from global warming.
56927. Tom Curtis at 10:15 AM on 9 July 2012
       Hansen and Sato Estimate Climate Sensitivity from Earth's History
       curiousd @35, transient climate response (TCR), the Charney Sensitivity, aka, the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), and the Earth System Sensitivity (ESS) all have clear definitions in computer models. The Earth System Sensitivity is the change in temperature with a doubling of CO2 with constant forcing after the system has reached equilibrium, allowing all feedbacks fast and slow to operate. The Equilibrium Climate Response is the change in temperature with doubled CO2 and constant forcing after the system has reached equilibrium with only fast feedbacks allowed to operate. The transient climate response is the average temperature in the twenty year interval centered on the year that CO2 reaches double the initial value when it is increased by 1% per annum throughout the model run. Outside of models, we cannot control things so easily. CO2 increases at greater than 1% per annum, and not be the same percentage each year. Fast feedbacks and slow feedbacks both occur. However, the TCR as scaled for the appropriate forcing still approximates to the current expected temperature during a period of increasing CO2. The scaled ECS still approximates to the temperature we can expect a hundred or so years after CO2 emissions begin to be held steady. And the scaled ESS approximates to the temperature the Earth will be at if CO2 concentrations are held near constant over thousands of years. In each case, however, they are only approximations. In any event, the time it takes for the deep ocean to warm is not a feedback. It is only a constraint on the response time.
56928. Tony O at 09:39 AM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       We are committed to change much worse than that which has destroyed previous civilizations. To make matters worse our super economic efficiency has, in many cases, been at the price of resilience. We are so much more vulnerable than most realize. It would appear whatever happens, we are committed to much pain. It is still possible that a better system will arise out of the ashes, but the transition will be horrific. The longer we carry on as we are the less will come out at the other end. The steps we need to make will also change society in a way that will help us get through it all. This is the change that conservatives fear above all and why they are so reactionary. Carry on as we are without any action and by the end of the century we will have set in motion changes that will in all probability claim humanity itself. This is less scary to the conservative mind than changing the concept of property. They truly believe better dead than red, and they have a pretty wide definition of red.
56929. Tom Curtis at 09:32 AM on 9 July 2012
       Roy's Risky Regression
       Alexandre, an introduction to the basic information can be found in the article What is causing the increase in atmospheric CO2?. For the data on volcanic emissions, the article Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans? is a good start point. Anthropogenic Emissions from Land Use change and deforestation represent 10% of all human emissions (0.9 PgC of 10 PgC). Over the last century, human caused deforestation and other land use changes have been by far the largest cause of change in land cover, and hence natural changes cannot be significantly larger than that (and in fact are known to be a net sink of CO2 by the mass balance argument).(Source) Evidence that CO2 rise coincides with the start of industrialization is found in ice cores (Scroll to bottom for thousand year record), and also in other markers, including sponges: (Source) A little discussion of the O2 decline may be helpful. Because the change in solubility of O2 in water with change in temperature significantly differs from that of CO2, the change in O2 concentration is not effected by other possible CO2 sinks. That means the decline in CO2 concentration means any large unknown natural sources of CO2 must not come from a source of combustion but must come from a low C14 source generated by photosynthesis. These facts together almost completely preclude the existence of such putative natural sources. Because of the importance of the O2 decline, it is worthwhile lookinig at the chart below from the IPCC TAR which shows it: The observed decline in O2 is straighforward. The diagonal arrow from the start point marked "fossil fuel burning" represents the expected change in CO2 and O2 concentrations from known fossil fuel consumption. The arrow marked "ocean uptake" represents the uptake of CO2 by the ocean, which does not effect the O2 level. The arrow marked "land uptake" is the uptake of O2 by photosynthesis, which also reduces O2 concentration. Finally, the small arrow marked "outgasing" represents outgasing from of O2 from the ocean, which does not effect CO2 concentration. That outgasing is partly the result of a warming ocean, and partly a result of the very slight decrease in the partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere. These factors are reasonably well, but not exactly known. The most important fact is that because the fall in O2 concentration is significantly less than that predicted from known combustion of fossil fuels, the uptake of CO2 by photosynthesis must exceed the combustion or decay of modern organic material from either anthropogenic (Land Use Changes) or natural sources.
       Moderator Response: TC: word "corals" deleted and "sponges" added.
56930. r.pauli at 08:42 AM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Great post. But we should realize that "Do Something..." does not mean wimpy-ass dumb tweaks to business-as-usual. ("OK, I'll bring a cloth bag to the supermarket" ) Nope, our tepid compromises mean nothing. ( OK we will try carbon cap and trade - but only if we keep up profits.) Nor does it mean we can try smart actions too late. ("OK, if you insist, a carbon tax - but that's all I will accept.) No, we cannot let runaway climate change begin. It really means no more carbon combustion - none. And we have to sequester carbon. Oh and no more hockey stick Population growth. None. No more humans ("OK, we'll accept 1.5 children per family [but only voluntarily!]") The wonderful thing about physical laws of climate science is that there really is no room for compromise. We are defeated, and all we can do is mitigate this defeat to a level that may permit multigenerational survival. No negotiations. We can only decide now how difficult we want to make it. Sorry, no compromises.
56931. Tom Curtis at 08:39 AM on 9 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       Bob Loblaw @31, as an addendum to your (2), the natural source must not be pure source of Carbon or a hydrocarbon that has been combusted. Otherwise the O2 concentration would be falling 10 times faster than it currently is. So, it must come from ancient plants (to account for the changes in C13 ratio and C14 ratio) but it must not be combusted. Therefore it can only be leakage from pure subterrainian reservoir of fossil CO2. The immediate problem is that no such reservoirs have been noticed; and buried organic materials do not form CO2 in large amounts because they are cut of from a ready supply of oxygen.
56932. Bob Loblaw at 08:28 AM on 9 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       Marco: OK. Let's assume that there is a natural source we don't know about. What characteristics would it have to have, to be the main cause of the increasing atmospheric CO2? To begin, we know that at least 50% of the anthropogenic emissions are removed, because the rate of increase is only 50% of those emissions. With that 50% amount, all the rise is anthropogenic. So, if only part of the rise is anthropogenic, then we need a natural sink that removes more than 50% of our anthropogenic source. Let's make a WAG that only 10% of the rise is anthropogenic, which requires that 95% of the emissions be removed (i.e., the 5% that is not removed is 1/10 of the rise that equals 50% of the emissions). The natural source then has to make up the other 90%. What are the implications of this? 1) if natural sinks are just as efficient at removing this natural source as they are at removing the anthropogenic source, then this natural source has to be 9X larger than the anthropogenic one. (9+1=10, x5% not removed, leaves 0.5 as the atmospheric rise). This would be extremely unlikely to have gone unnoticed. 2) in addition, the natural source has to have the same isotopic signature as the anthropogenic source. It has to smell, taste, look like CO2 from fossil fuels. 3) to get away from 1), you need to find some plausible physical mechanism whereby CO2 from a natural source - CO2 that is indistinguishable from fossil fuel-derived CO2 - is somehow not soaked up by a sink that efficiently removes the anthropogenic source. This is akin to magic. Bluntly, the whole argument of an "unknown" natural source that is causing the increase, while the anthropogenic one is easily counteracted by natural sinks, is a dog that just won't hunt.
56933. Tom Curtis at 08:01 AM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       fungelstrumpet @19, the strategy of ignoring the A in AGW is doomed to failure. The simple reason is that "their favourite colmnist" is sure to also be telling them that "it is the sun" and that solar scientists are predicting a Maunder Minimum, so the problem will magically go away; or perhaps that "it's a natural oscillation" which, having oscillated up is about to oscillate down and so will again magically disappear. What is worse, we, having neglected the A, will be unable to counter them, for it is the A that is the sole basis for our predictions of ongoing, and increasingly rapid warming. On top of that, you can be sure that "their favourite colomnist" will very quickly tell them, if we drop the A, that we were wrong about the A all along, and what else are we wrong about that we are not telling them. Like it or not, the only successful communication strategy has been, and remains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
56934. jimspy at 07:38 AM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       I'm with Funglestrumpet @19. Details, shmetails. All we laymen need to know to shut down the deniers is that it is them vs. the virtual unanimity of the climate science community. How often do 98% of scientists agree on anything? I think it's time to get beyond the debate stage, marginalize the naysayers, and pressure the world's leaders to act in unison. How on earth did we get past Y2K so smoothly? What process was used to kick everyone's tuchas on that issue? Whatever it was, we need more of it. (And I also agree we need to re-think nuclear. Yes, I'm fully aware of the dangers; I just think we're going to have to re-evaluate those dangers as "acceptable risks".)
56935. scaddenp at 07:27 AM on 9 July 2012
       It's the sun
       And as a final point - if we were getting warmer because we were getting closer to the sun, then we should see that in the TSI measurements. As shown in the main article, this is not the case.
56936. funglestrumpet at 06:58 AM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       One of the main problems with trying to convince the general public of the danger is the concentration on whether GW is AGW or not. They get hung up on that point and because they refuse to believe that we are to blame, they think we we cannot supply the solution. This is an easy position to adopt because it means no effort on their part and it helps them believe what their favourite colmnist has said in their daily/Sunday paper. Not only that, but it is happening very slowly in terms of human lifetimes, which is a deception, I know. However, if an asteroid were headed our way, would we just put our head between our knees and kiss our backsides goodbye, or would we try and do something? Even the general public would support action despite the fact that it is clearly not an asteroid of our making and the possible actions are far more limited than the current climate changes ones are. Also, even the thickest of newspaper columnists would support taking action in such circumstances. Well, having said that, there are a couple I can think of and a peer of the realm who would say it is nothing to worry about in order to get attention. So what am I recommending? Well, stop debating the 'A' in AGW. Take it as read that we are to blame and leave those who disagree to carry on the debate elsewhere, away from the mainstream. Push quantifying the precise long-term temperature effects of cutting GHG emissions within possible sensitivities to GHG (obviously narrowing the sensitivity band as sensitivity becomes more clearly constrained) and start a serious debate on alternative energy supply. In particular, lend support to Thorium nuclear reactors, which I believe the USA and China are now collaborating on. We simply cannot afford to take the 'If its nuclear, it must be dangerous and must not be used' approach. Not using it is damn dangerous if Mr Roberts is anywhere near correct in his prognosis. It would not hurt to start compiling a list of persons who we believe are against taking action for reasons that do not have a valid, ie not debunked, scientific foundation. The time might well arise when the only way to get some action is to get people facing charges of crimes against humanity. That might even shut up a certain attention seeking peer. Finally, David Roberts is correct when he says that we do not need to know the details in order to act. We know the science of the greenhouse effect and we know that we are pumping GHGs into the atmosphere. The dangers are clear and so too is the necessary action.
56937. llosmith at 06:43 AM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Composer99 @13: The link in 10 should read LINK
       Moderator Response: [RH] Fixed link that was breaking page formatting.
56938. Kevin C at 06:15 AM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Clyde: Have you read the IPCC SREX, rather than second hand reports of its contents? The material on Disaster losses is quite concerning, especially given the current fragility of the global economy.
56939. curiousd at 05:49 AM on 9 July 2012
       Hansen and Sato Estimate Climate Sensitivity from Earth's History
       Maybe I now know enough to make a slight correction to something someone told me(not sure who the someone was) here in one of many helpful answers to my questions. The recent pre print Hansen and Sato made available here states they determine a "fast feedback" response which includes CO2, water vapor feedback, sea ice, clouds, aerosols. The warming up of the entire ocean, (like the melting of Antarctica and Greenland)is longer term, on order of "100s of years" Someone - I think incorrectly - confused fast feedback response, which is a portion of the equilibrium response, with the "transient response". "Transient response" means you run a simulation to include continual addition of CO2, which, unfortunately, is what "really happens". Also, the warming up of the ocean is not included in either the fast feedback response or the transient response because it can take 1000 years for the ocean temperature to equilibriate with the surface?? Do I now have this right?
56940. Alexandre at 04:53 AM on 9 July 2012
       Roy's Risky Regression
       Tom Curtis at 08:22 AM on 8 July, 2012 That's a great summary! Do you have any link with that information so I can keep it as a reference?
56941. Clyde at 04:30 AM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Paul Magnus 11 Even at the current rate of extreme events societies globally are going to collapse. We are just arriving at 1c. Not even there yet. The IPCC SREX report disagrees with your position. No strong evidence to support GW is causing "extreme" weather events. Read more here.
56942. ranyl at 04:08 AM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       How long is the lag in the system? For El Nino it seems about 6 months, for the sun it seems about 2 years, the Argus current takes 4-35 years to reach the North Atlantic, but what is the lag between CO2 forcing and heat realisation? Say it is only 20years for 80% warming like Hansen's suggests, then considering the rise in CO2 since 1990, 350ppm to 393ppm, or 35% or all humankind's CO2 emissions in the last 20 years, and the last 10 years has had low low sunspot activity, been shaded by the Asia smog and S02, with nitrogen fertilizes effects rducing warming further due to ozone formations from NO destroying methane and predominantly La Nina conditions and maybe things are sobering. And the man in the video never mention so much stuff as well, like waste, pollution, overexploitation, invasive alien's, methane re-rise, forest fires, the albedo accelerator that is kicking in terms of ice sheet surface, snow melt and sea ice loss. These weathee extremes are clearly serious and the last time USA hada major drought the whole economny sort of stopped, and let's face it the world's ecomony isn't that robust at present. How to do we get to 350ppm? And given paleo data that isn't that safe! Make the impossible possible he says? That would take a transformative scale change to all levels of society across the world. That seems impossible, unless everyone takes on board that environmental change is now and serious and is soemthign to do everything about otherwise the legacy we leave is civilization chaos which in past times has never been pretty. Adaptation is also needed to protct food and water security agaisnt the times. So a reasonable challenge, so like the man in the video says why isn't everyone making their primary drive to restore to 350ppm and to prepare for the changes to come?
56943. dagold at 03:29 AM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       I watched Robert's talk with interest. We clearly need to build a 'critical mass' of support to pressure the extraordinarily reluctant politicians to even begin addressing the problem. The 'educational' approach Roberts takes is important. But I am wondering if old fashioned story telling approaches might also be key. I am crafting a potential TED video that combines my personal health story- 2 serious diseases, multiple hospitalizations and surgeries- culiminating in a liver donor liver transplant from my brother. It has it all!- my initial 7 year denial of the scientists and the consequences (ambulance, hospitals, surgeries), systems being pushed out of equilibrium, complete with graphs of upward sloping liver function tests ('Keeling Curves!'), tipping points crossed, and, finally, maturing to the stage of facing the information, making the hard choices-asking a family member to donate over half their liver- and (for me) coming out to the other side...all in analogy to climate change. (please see 'My Personal Story' on www.itsphysics.org for more of the story) Coming soon to a theater near you.
56944. Composer99 at 01:20 AM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Whomever can fix it: Tom Curtis' link @10 is broken.
       Moderator Response: TC: Fixed, and thanks for spotting it.
56945. Rob Painting at 18:49 PM on 8 July 2012
       It's the sun
       Icyhot - in addition to Tom's comments, the beauty of the mainstream climate science view of atmospheric CO2 as Earth's thermostat - is that it has explanatory power. Turn up the CO2 and the Earth gets warmer, turn it down and the Earth cools. Aside from maybe one outstanding complication, the Miocene, this relationship holds true for hundreds of millions of years back in time. There are, of course, other control knobs on Earth's climate - such as the Milankovitch Cycles, but CO2 is very clearly the Big Kahuna. If, as you suggest, the Earth is moving closer to the sun, why then was it much warmer on Earth further back in time?
56946. villabolo at 15:57 PM on 8 July 2012
       Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
       Giordano Hernandez I would have gone postal if all that vitriol were directed at me. Hang in there.
56947. Paul Magnus at 15:45 PM on 8 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Here is a good article on current rate of extreme events http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/07/511194/what-is-causing-the-climate-to-unravel/
56948. Paul Magnus at 15:07 PM on 8 July 2012
       The GLOBAL global warming signal
       Here we have the graph of ghg well, co2 emissions.( I am sure that total ghg emissions is going to be much steeper) we can see that there is a marked up tick around 1945. http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/chart751.png I think that that might correlate quite closely to the the up tick in sea level rise rate acceleration, The next surge will be soon and must be related to the albedo effect in the article and it's effect on Greenland ice sheets. What seems likely in the south is massive collapse and disintegration. So the ice going tthere will result in a jump in sea level rise rathere than a rapid increase in rate,
56949. Stephen Baines at 15:04 PM on 8 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       DM. We're on the same page. The only rather academic difference is that I think conservation of mass is not a sufficient condition to argue that humans are the sole cause of the current increase in CO2. You also have to assume that removal processes do not distinguish between anthro and natural CO2 in the atmosphere. That assumption is implicit in the equations as you have presented them. Alternatively, one could characterize variations in atmospheric CO2 as a system of two distinct budget equations that track the anthropogenic CO2 and the natural CO2 in the atmosphere separately. One could then set the loss term for the anthro CO2 into one natural reservoir equal to anthropogenic emissions. In the other equation another natural reservoir could contribute CO2 to atmsophere while not interacting with the reservoir that serves as a sink for anthro CO2. Of course, in doing all that, one would be contradicting physical reality. Removal processes cannot distinguish between anthro and natural CO2 any more than my bank can discriminate between the dollars deposited as salary and those deposited from tax refunds once they are in my checking account. None of the evidence we have in hand suggests that atmospheric CO2 acts as anything other than single reservoir of well mixed gas with respect to loss processes. Still, I can't tell you how many people I meet are prone to think human derived CO2 must behave differently -- it's ingrained in their psyche.
56950. Marco at 15:01 PM on 8 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       Dikran, I fully agree that the natural environment is still resulting in a net uptake. I was merely pointing out that some may still claim, even after they accept the "net" versus "absolute", that there is a net natural emitter that is larger than the anthropogenic contribution. Better have arguments for that available, or they have another few hours to spread that new confusion!

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