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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 5901 to 5950:

  1. 'Disinformation ecosystem' - in broader context beyond climate

    Why on earth was a warning placed on this video?  Could it be those climate denier algorithms?

  2. 'Disinformation ecosystem' - in broader context beyond climate

    @ Marcin 

    I'm located in the US and when I click on the link it takes me to my YouTube account and once the video loads it states "This video may be inappropriate for some users” I have the option to click on the link below the warning that states: "I understand and wish to proceed".

    It's sickening to me to see what my country has become. This video puts it in the spotlight. As a biological and medical scientist I am disgusted by the anti-science I see here in the US. We are seriously considering leaving this country.

    Just last night I visited a forum I used to participate in trying to educate the climate deniers. I was astounded with the human caused climate denier comments. There's no getting through to a person with a climate denier mind. I wanted to jump in and correct all the distortion of facts and disinformation, but I realized I never want to waste anymore of my time on a forum with people of that mindset. I wasted years on there and the same people are parroting the same BS.

    I digress.

  3. michael sweet at 06:18 AM on 21 April 2021
    It hasn't warmed since 1998

    Vonyisz:

    Interesting questions.  Most of your questions are answered in other posts here on Skeptical Science.

    First I would point out that the OP you are responding to was written in December 2007.  Since then, as the OP correctly predicted, the temperatures have risen substantially and no-one seriously claims that the temperature is not increasing any more.

    There are indeed many metrics that can be measured for heat content of the entire Earth.  Most or all of them are measured.  For a general audience, like here on Skeptical Science, the surface air temperature is easiest to explain and relates to peoples lives best.   The total ocean heat content (all the way to the bottom) is probably a more scientific measurement but does not relate to people as well.   Global warming warms the ocean all the way to the deepest depths.  In general, the warming is slower the deeper you go.

    I recently saw an article (sorry no cite) that said the surface ten meters or so of land has heated up more than scientists thought.  As you point out measuring the heat content of soil is difficult, but scientists make the best estimates thay can.  Scientists are contually improving heat measurements.  Skilled scientists know these measurements and consider them but for the average man on the street (or woman) the surface air temperature means the most.  The surface air temperature is noisier than ocean heat content but people relate to air temperatures better.

    I have seen calculations similar to yours about melting the ice in the Antarctic (or Greenland).  The point is that if all the ice in the Antarctic melted 65 meters of sea level rise would result!!  So if only 0.1% of the Suns energy melted ice it would result in 6 centimeters of sea level rise per year!  What a disaster that would be.  

    It turns out that scientists working full time on these difficult questions can reach fairly good approximations of all these measurements.  Sometimes a new measurement changes the picture a little (like the land measurements mentioned above), but overall where the heat goes is well known.  If you ask about a single one of the measurements you mentioned above perhaps someone can give you a citation.  You have too many questions here to specifically answer them.

  4. It hasn't warmed since 1998

    Vonyisz @408 :

    You have gotten yourself all tangled up.  Please step back and look at the overall picture ~ and at what has changed over the past (say) 150 years in our modern world.

    The mean sea-level has risen, and continues to rise.  The amount and distribution of planetary ice has reduced, and continues to reduce.  The planet is warming ~ warming in ocean, topsoil, and lower troposphere.  All the regions where plants & animals live.

    You do not need to know worldwide soil temperature "all over the earth at a depth of one meter".   Unnecessary detail !

    But you do need to know the overall trend of warming ~ how large it is, what is causing it, and what we should do to counteract it.  Over many decades, the climate scientists have discovered the trend, and its causations.

  5. It hasn't warmed since 1998

    I would have a methodological questions. As this text suggests:
    „To claim global warming stopped in 1998 also overlooks a simple physical reality - the land and atmosphere are just a small fraction of the Earth's climate (albeit the part we inhabit). The entire planet is accumulating heat due to an energy imbalance. The atmosphere is warming. Oceans are accumulating energy. Land absorbs energy and ice absorbs heat to melt. To get the full picture on global warming, you need to view the Earth's entire heat content. More than 90% of global warming heat goes into warming the oceans, while less than 3% goes into increasing the atmospheric and surface air temperatures. Nuccitelli et al. (2012) showed that the Earth has continued to heat up since 1998.”
    – global warming is not really about temperature, but about the amount of energy.
    But this is often misunderstood. Throughout the media, global warming is portrayed as if it could be characterized by changes in temperature.
    Q = c * m * ΔT, but here c is not an exact value, consider large pressure and temperature differences
    E (pot) = m * g * h, E (kin) = (m * v ^ 2) / 2
    And I would have more questions here.
    1. What do we refer to the amount of energy? Atmosphere? The kinetic and potential energy of air? With or without hidden heat? (The equivalent potential temperature (theta-e) is the temperature a sample of air would have if all its moisture were condensed out by a pseudo-adiabatic process (i.e., with the latent heat of condensation being used to heat the air sample), and the sample then brought dry-adiabatically back to 1000 hPa.) Surface? How deep? One meter? More? Caves? Groundwater that has a connection to the surface? Top 200 meters of oceans? Or the whole ocean? Energy stored in salinity and depth? Ice? Melting or freezing energy? Potential energy?
    1.conc. Average global temperature? Why? When misleading in light of the above: the amount of energy (no matter how we determine what we include in it) is not equal to temperature. Thus, a change in temperature cannot be equal to a change in the amount of energy! Not me saying that. The quoted text does this.
    2. We determine what we want to measure. Can it succeed? Can we assign a global average to the temperature of the entire earth? When I buy myself a pair of pants, at least three metrics help me with that. And do we characterize the average temperature of the earth (or rather the total amount of energy) with a single data? Even if we do, what are we going to do with it? What usable speech data does this tell us? This is because exactly what spheres are included in the total energy calculation are closely related to this data. If we calculate this as accurately as we wanted, what can we say about how long this accuracy has been available to us in the past? 10 years ago? 100 years?
    2.atm. Do we really measure the temperature and humidity and density of the entire atmosphere? Do we really know the temperature of the earth's surface all over the earth at a depth of one meter?
    2.surf. Do we know how much energy is stored in that part of the earth’s surface that is involved in the processes detailed here, absorbs sunlight, and largely heats the atmosphere? Do we know its density? Do we know your specific heat? Do we know its water content? Maybe it's not just the top one that counts? Could it be several meters in some cases? Who can say that? How to calculate? If someone says something, what to expect from him? How do you justify his theory?
    2.oce. Do we know the temperature and the amount of dissolved salt everywhere in the oceans? Of course, we don't have an instrument everywhere, we fill in the missing data with approximation calculations. What is the ratio of the total error rate caused by the approximate calculations to the percentage of change to be examined? I read in several places that only the top 200 meters of the oceans matter in terms of global warming. Others write 100 meters. Many people write that the deep ocean has only long-term effects, it doesn’t count in the heat balance in the short term. Why a hundred? Why two hundred? Why doesn't it matter? The limit drawn here seems very arbitrary to me, and in terms of the change in total energy ... it is important to decide and justify: whether or not to include the deep ocean in the energy balance when examining global warming!
    2.conc. I see a lot of temperature charts pros and cons. This is how the temperature goes up or how the earth cools. But none of the camps really show how the total amount of energy on earth measured according to the principles detailed above has changed, at least in the last 10-20 years, where perhaps we already have evaluable data in this regard. How can we start a scientific debate without clarifying the framework? The concepts? Principles of repeatable measurements? How is the data processed? Both camps bombard the media with marketing texts that pick it up as raw material and distort it so that it will no longer be completely untraceable to the average person.
    3. A degree of warming of the whole ocean is approx. on the order of 10 ^ 24 Joules. Melting the ice of Antarctica would absorb 10 ^ 24 Joules of energy. A degree of warming of the dry air is on the order of 10 ^ 21 Joules. The Sun kisses the Earth with 10 ^ 24 Joules of energy in one year.
    Based on these, the scare that the entire Antarctic ice sheet will melt soon seems rather doubtful. This event would eliminate the amount of energy in a whole year of solar radiation (of the same order of magnitude). This needs to be justified! While land ice heats the air when it forms and cools the air when it melts, the formation of coastal ice hanging in the ocean heats both the surface of the ocean and the air, but its melting typically cools the deeper layers of the ocean. Interestingly, land ice can be coastal ice. I hope I use good concepts. The direction of energy as a whole: heat is transferred to the atmosphere from the deeper parts of the ocean. People with CO2 can't warm up the ocean as a whole, just the top few hundred meters. And that is my next question. Are we counting the incoming solar rays and the outgoing infrared rays in the total amount of energy on earth? For example, the city is 35 degrees Celsius in vain if objects are 50-70 degrees Celsius and radiate heat unbearably to humans, while the same 35 degrees in the forest is unpleasant but tolerable because here the temperature of the objects is not higher than the air temperature. Here, the air temperature alone is very misleading. And sorry for the analogy, do we count the energy on the ocean heat transfer road to the total amount of energy on earth? I would like to draw attention to a trap. When the ocean conveyor delivers less energy, the average temperature in the upper part of the ocean is lower, but in this case heat is trapped around the Equator and the poles cool. On the other hand, with higher energy transport, the surface temperature of the oceans increases, most of the excess heat arrives at the poles from around the Equator, so significant warming begins here, more significant than at the Equator. However, the excess heat at the poles also means that the earth's surface can radiate over a larger surface at a higher temperature (T ^ 4). Overall, more heat is dissipated compared to when the capacity of the oceanic strip was smaller, disregarding other factors. I am thinking in particular here that, as soon as the Arctic ice melts in the summer, this process must be taken into account, because the thermal insulating effect of the ice will disappear.
    3.conc. Is it conceivable that a change in the latter will affect a change in the distribution of the total amount of energy on earth? Perhaps these and other relevant metrics can bring the understanding and explanation of global warming closer to both experts and the average person?

  6. Marcin Popkiewicz at 21:24 PM on 20 April 2021
    'Disinformation ecosystem' - in broader context beyond climate

    The video has been flagged as 'age restricted'. Either you share your personal ID documents with Google or you won't be able to watch the movie. Most people haven't done that, so the audience will be severely limited.

  7. Why scientists shouldn't heed calls to 'stay in our lane'

    Sad for Ben Santer to lose a friend to "trumpism".

    I have lost a cousin who has cut himself off from his siblings & extended family ~ in part because Global Warming is a Hoax.  Add some conspiracy ideation and a "suspicious mind" about the (presumed) nefarious intent of his siblings/cousins.  His adult children try to keep their heads down and wait for it all to pass (but they don't seem hopeful).

    He is not insane in the strict medico-legal sense, but IMO he is intellectually insane.  Nor do I think he has an organic brain dysfunction and/or early dementia, as far as I can tell.   But judging by the shenanigans on the internet (especially the echochamber of GreenHouse denialism at WattsUpWithThat ) his is not a wildly uncommon case.  Additionally, there must be millions who go along for the ride, as a matter of identity politics.

    Fortunately, I rarely encounter flagrant denialists in everyday real life.  But obviously they exist, even in the higher echelons of government.

    The real question is :- Which way is the tide running?   And are politicians starting to see the light . . . or are they merely responding to increased public & media pressure, and are simply dissembling while hoping they're dealing with a transient wave of publicity.

    From what I've seen during the past 5 months [ i.e. since mid-November 2020] , the denizens of WUWT  are a bit glum, but consider themselves to be bravely holding out against all this unscientific AGW nonsense (and its underlying Marxist World Revolutionary push).   Bravely holding out until the public is brought to its senses by sky-rocketing electricity prices and the inevitable arrival of decades of drastic Global Cooling.   Due soon.

  8. 'Disinformation ecosystem' - in broader context beyond climate

    What a depressing parade of denialists, opportunists, narcissists, and conspiracy theorists. You cannot appease these people or convince them with facts. Tell them they are idiots and that they are spreading ignorance. Its about the only language they will understand.

  9. Wind and solar energy are job creators. Which states are taking advantage?

    We dont have an automated economy, so we need to create jobs so people can build the automated ecomomy. And to build the power sources that fuel the automated economy (renewables). You cant put the cart before the horse.

    However the completely automated economy is probably a fantasy. I doubt the world has enough material resources for millions, perhaps billions of robots etcetera because that is what you are talking about. The services sector will still employ quite a lot of people.

  10. Wind and solar energy are job creators. Which states are taking advantage?

    Withut critisizing Ig guy above, - The linked article provides excellent information about the number of jobs in each state by source of electric generation. Below are some pertinent data from the Texas and California which have some of the largest penetration of renewables in their electric generation mix.

    The electric generation mix in Texas is a approx 25% wind and approx 45% from natural gas. The attached link cited in this article shows the employment numbers are approx 25,500 for wind generation and approx 7,900 for jobs in electrical generation from natural gas. that equates to approx 5 jobs in wind generation to produce the same amount of electricity from natural gas.

    The same report cited in this article shows jobs in the solar sector is approx 124,000 of which 50,500 is in solar construction leaving approx 74,000 for electric generation from solar, where as 20,500 jobs are in the natural gas electric generation sector. The electric generation mix in California is approx 15% while electric generation from natural gas is approx 34%. That equates to approx 9 jobs in solar to produce the same amount of electricity from natural gas.

     

    https://www.usenergyjobs.org/2020-state-reportswww.usenergyjobs.org/2020-state-reports

  11. michael sweet at 00:44 AM on 20 April 2021
    Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    John O'Neill:

    According to this World Nuclear News article from September 2020, the Terrapower sodium cooled reactor you refer to has not been submitted for certification.  They hope to start commercialization by the end of the decade.  Likewise Canadian Terrestial Energy is a start up with a paper design and little else.

    Can you provide references that support your claim these reactors are more than paper designs?

    The storage of the Terrapower reactor would only raise output less than 50% for 5 1/2 hours.  That doesn't sound like cheap storage to me.  Both these designs have signficant problems to deal with for example: liquid sodium reactors have chronic sodium fires and molten salt reactors have no materials to manufacture valves.

    Since nuclear power plants have to be run full out all the time to be economic they do not fit into a renewable system.  The claim that with storage the reactors fit well with wind is simply propaganda from the industry.  In addition, they are too expensive to build and run and take too long to build.  Even the builders of the reactors you mention do not expect their designs to be buildable before 2030 best case.  We need to change over to renewable energy before those reactors will be ready.

    When a nuclear power plant is shut down it takes time to build replacement renewable energy.  If we really try to build out wind and solar there will be a substantial decrease in carbon emissions in a short period of time.  As more and more renewable energy is built out emissions have already started to decrease. 

  12. Wind and solar energy are job creators. Which states are taking advantage?

    ...and yet the people arguing against taking action on climate, or other environmental issues, keep using the excuse that the proposed actions are "job killers".

    And the people employed in the fossil fuel industry worry about losing their jobs and being unable to buy the essentials of life. Being able to provide them with alternative jobs is a benefit, not a cost.

    Automated production isn't free - it takes huge amounts of capital investment. The idea that automation will make stuff for free is a pipe dream.

  13. Wind and solar energy are job creators. Which states are taking advantage?

    Very often I see the argument that something is good because it creates job. That is a mistake. Work is not an asset, it's a cost. Imagine we could produce all goods and services we need without any person doing any work because exactly all production was automated. Then all goods and services would be free. On the other hand, imagine that some sector, e g renewable energy production (or fizzy drinks), would create an enormous amount of jobs, say 8 billion new jobs. Then, unless the rest of the production was automated, everyone would be busy producing renewable energy (or fizzy drinks) and nothing at all except renewable energy (or fizzy drinks) would be produced. Work is a cost because work is the price we pay to keep the production going. It's not work that is an asset but labour. But labour is an asset only as long as work needs to be done.

  14. Explainer: The polar vortex, climate change and the ‘Beast from the East’

    As more and more researchers look at the effects of the weakening polar vortex, we are now starting to see these types of cold snaps in TX.

    More climate extremes ahead for Galveston County, experts agree

    Moderator Response:

    [BW] Corrected the broken link

  15. The choice is clear: Fair climate policy or no climate policy

    Eggsasperated: You are incorrect. Please learn the difference in Meaning of those two words.

  16. The choice is clear: Fair climate policy or no climate policy

    Eggsasperated @4 ,

     Should we discriminate against  certain people, such as criminals?

    Is "discrimination"  automatically a bad thing?   Are you discriminating against discrimination?   ;-)

    Equity - like probity  or disinterested  - is one of those underused words.  And critical thinking is aided by usage of precise words, in the handling of concepts.   In a sloppy way, words are too often used as slogans.  Phrases, too, can suffer that fate ~ "The Climate Is Always Changing"  is an example of a slogan used to short-circuit real meaning.

    Yes, the word equality  also is too often used as an unthinking slogan.   Equity  is a rather legalistic word ~ but it deserves prominence when we consider the world's problems.

  17. eggsasperated at 22:20 PM on 17 April 2021
    Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

    The view that an increase from 2 billion to 8 billion people breathing out billions of tons of CO2 is carbon neutral cycle and not a problem is interesting.  Using that logic, we could say that burning fossil fuel and building concrete infrastructure is simply releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere from whence it came is a carbon neutral cycle too - albeit on a longer time frame.

    Moderator Response:

    [TD] The long time needed to recycle the carbon injected into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels in fact is the problem. Read the post about breathing, and if you want to comment more on that topic do so there not here.

  18. eggsasperated at 21:38 PM on 17 April 2021
    The choice is clear: Fair climate policy or no climate policy

    Equity is just a nice word for discriminating against people to achieve equality of outcome.  

  19. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    'In a renewable energy world baseload power is very low value. Peak power on windless nights is most valuable. Current baseload plants are dinosaurs.' At least three nuclear designs going through certification - the Bill Gates/Terrapower sodium cooled reactor, the Canadian Terrestrial Energy molten salt graphite design ( based on the Oak Ridge Molten Salt Reactor Experiment ), and Moltex (an innovative fast reactor using plutonium chloride salt in fuel tubes similar to those of current reactors) - propose directly heating nitrate salts, as used in concentrating solar power plants. This would enable the reactor part to make heat 24/7, at ~ 500 megawatts, but store it to make power on demand at 1000 or 1500 MW, with only an additional turbine or two. This would integrate well with wind, which usually manages a 30-40% capacity factor. This would be much better than the current scenario, where part time wind, backed by natural gas, is undercutting baseload nuclear. Overall emissions rose after the closure of Vermont Yankee and San Onofre. They will certainly go up again when Indian Point, near New York, closes. Andrew Cuomo, governor of NY state, admitted that the closure of upstate reactors would lead to more gas being burnt, but would not relent on forcing the Indian Point reactors, which provided about a third of the city's power, to shut. They had been in the process of getting a twenty year licence extension, and could probably have had a further twenty years, as have several similar power plants.

    https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/US-NE-ISNE?wind=false&solar=false

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Link 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.

  20. The Conspiracy Theory Handbook: Downloads and translations

    The Conspiracy Theory Handbook is now also available in Turkish, which marks the 10th available translation of this very helpful handbook!

  21. The choice is clear: Fair climate policy or no climate policy

    'This' may invalidate the 'choice'? 'We' have ten years? “ . . . our best estimate is that the net energy
    33:33 per barrel available for the global
    33:36 economy was about eight percent
    33:38 and that in over the next few years it
    33:42 will go down to zero percent
    33:44 uh best estimate at the moment is that
    33:46 actually the
    33:47 per average barrel of sweet crude
    33:51 uh we had the zero percent around 2022
    33:56 but there are ways and means of
    33:58 extending that so to be on the safe side\
    34:00 here on our diagram\
    34:02 we say that zero percent is definitely\
    34:05 around 2030 . . .\
    we\
    34:43 need net energy from oil and [if] it goes\
    34:46 down to zero
    34:48 uh well we have collapsed not just
    34:50 collapse of the oil industry
    34:52 we have collapsed globally of the global
    34:54 industrial civilization this is what we
    34:56 are looking at at the moment . . . “
    Louis Arnoux. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxinAu8ORxM

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] You have been warned before about posting comments that consist of little more than quoted material. You are skating on thin ice, approaching violation of the comments policy.

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

    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.

     

  22. wilddouglascounty at 23:36 PM on 10 April 2021
    The choice is clear: Fair climate policy or no climate policy

    It seems to me that this article does an excellent job of describing the complexities of what true equity is and where the inequalities exist in the regional, national and international spheres. Alas, these well described complexities could also be used to argue precisely the opposite conclusion: that the inertia that arises from built in reinforcements for the advantaged that are inherent in those inequalities is the primary reason things have not changed in a timely fashion so far. So if we want to be able to change things, we must work within the framework of inequality in order to make it worthwhile for those who have concentrated power and resources to adopt the low carbon economy required to reduce carbon emissions.

    I'm not trying to defend the inequalities that have been created through the fossil fuel economy; indeed these inequities make it even more difficult not to see the transition to a low carbon economy as yet another way for those with power to retain it. But I believe we are in an "all hands on deck" time if we are to avoid an even more dire future, meaning that we need to enlist those who benefit from inequity alongside those on the short end. The "haves" have unfortunately but predictably been reluctant to redistribute the concentrated wealth that comes hand in hand with a fossil fuel economy but it will be easier to attain the common good of a low carbon economy if they can be allies instead of barriers. The 'haves' have already shown a willingness to create a 'gated community' version of the future where the 'haves' increase inequality in order to maintain their power, leading sometimes to violence and more/new forms of inequity. Some countries have used governments to reinforce the concentration of economic power in the form of totalitarian/fascist repression, while other countries have used their governments to spread the wealth more equitably. But this has been difficult to maintain considering that all governments are responsive to their own sources of their power and find concentrated power irresistable.

    As we look at the technological and cultural challenges of transforming to a low carbon future through such endeavors as Project Drawdown, I think we need to devote similar attention to the barriers that are caused by the concentration of political and economic power that goes with it. Change does not occur unless the barriers to change are removed, no matter how attractive the alternatives are. The barriers to a low carbon future are intertwined with the barriers to equity and I daresay that even if we can remove enough barriers to create a low carbon future, we will find the barriers to equity even more resistant.

  23. There is no consensus

    Karlengle:

    You may find it informative to read the American Meteorlogical Society's author information web page. They publish several highly-respected journals in various specialities in atmospheric science.

    https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/publications/author-information/

    The review process is described here:

    https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/authors/journal-and-bams-authors/peer-review-information/

    ...and what they expect from editors and reviewers is here:

    https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/editors-and-reviewers/obligations-of-editors-and-reviewers-in-the-ams-scientific-publication-process/

    A couple of Skeptical Science pages on peer review:

    https://skepticalscience.com/clouds-over-peer-review.html

    https://skepticalscience.com/pal-review.htm

    The second of those links shows a case where "skeptic" scientists basically did what they keep accusing the mainstream scientists of doing. Another blog post on the same story can be found at ThinkProgress:

    https://archive.thinkprogress.org/the-true-story-of-pal-review-a-bogus-charge-from-climate-disinformers-639b5393fd4b/

    Two more examples of misbehaviour at journals:

    https://www.desmogblog.com/energy-and-environment

    https://retractionwatch.com/2014/01/17/climate-skeptic-journal-shuttered-following-malpractice-in-nepotistic-reviewer-selections/

  24. There is no consensus

    BaerbelW @893

    Thanks for the links.  This will definitely add to my toolbox!

  25. There is no consensus

    Karlengle @892

    Have you browsed our TCP homepage about (esp.) our consensus-related studies yet? I'm fairly certain that we by now have answers for all the various attacks lobbed by the usual suspects at them. Most will be answered in the FAQs and others in one of several blog posts and rebuttals published over time and listed a bit further down on the homepage. And there's also The Consensus Handbook with even more information!

  26. There is no consensus

    Tom Dayton, Thanks for the insight into the peer review process!  Sounds pretty grueling... 

    I was asking because one of the main responses I get from deniers when I give the studies on consensus, are links to notable deniers going into details on their own reviews about the studies always claiming a smoking gun of trickery and deception on these studies.  One usually has to get pretty deep in the weeds to dispel those.  I always look for the simpler explanation that makes sense to the possible audience of my discussion.  I've usually given up on convincing the other person, but I want to always frame my arguments to appeal to those with a cursury interest and not get mired in the snowing attempts from deniers.  It would be good to argue that denier biased "reviews" of studies are not reliable, and the scientific peer review process is much better at catching bad science.

  27. Skeptical Science to expand impact as 501(c)(3) non-profit

    Congratulations on becoming a 501(c)(3)! For all the reasons you presented so clearly, this will empower your organization to have a much bigger impact. The work you are doing is brilliant and essential—and helping to empower many, many others to become forces for change.

    I look forward to seeing your "Theory of Change". Having worked for several years facilitating transformational change leadership with nonprofit organizations, I deeply appreciate how vital it is to embody a clear understanding of how to drive real change, no matter what arena it may be in. And if there is any issue where transormational change is desperately needed--climate change is it!! Kudos to Skeptical Science for taking this step!!

  28. prove we are smart at 17:27 PM on 9 April 2021
    The choice is clear: Fair climate policy or no climate policy

    This article puts words to my thoughts. An example here in the Upper Hunter Valley,with my local NSW state govt here in Aust unwilling to unshackel from its fossil fuel donations and an election in under 6 mths. The local populace are very pro mines, so a losing stratergy for any politic party if anti coal. People want action on climate change but not if it is too disruptive, ha . https://reneweconomy.com.au/surge-in-new-coal-mine-proposals-in-nsw-triggers-fresh-calls-for-coal-moratorium/   Sometimes I think we get the leaders we deserve- not the leaders we need..

  29. There is no consensus

    Note there is more the Naomi Oreskes paper here. It is not clear to me from the context whether the Oreske article was peer-reviewed. Editorial-type and some review pieces in Science journals are not always peer-reviewed, though papers are in Science. However, the Oreske paper was in section called "essays on science and society". Since it was presenting an actual analysis rather than comment, I would guess "yes", but it isnt that clear.

    The Oreske conclusion is not substantively different from other peer-reviewed studies of consensus however. It is extremely difficult to challenge the conclusion that a very strong scientific consensus on AGW exists from the evidence.

  30. There is no consensus

    Karlengle: Perhaps I misunderstood your question. I thought you asked to see the peer reviews of the publications. Are you instead asking how to tell whether a given publication was peer reviewed?

  31. There is no consensus

    Karlengle: "Peer review" of submissions for scientific publication usually is done double blinded--the reviewers don't know who the authors are, and vice versa. Authors are given the reviews regardless of the final decision of acceptance or rejection by the journal or conference. For many decades, those reviews remained private, as a way to support frankness. But some publications are changing the model to open reviews.

    (In fact, at this very moment, I am in hour 10 of 12 hours of a conference subcommittee meeting--fortunately three sessions of four hours. All 37 subcommittee members are watching discussions of each submitted paper by two of those members, summarizing each paper's review by them plus by two to four reviewers who are not on the subcommittee. Substantial effort went into carefully recruiting those two to four external reviewers, curating discussions among those reviewers to clarify disagreements in their reviews, and crafting demanded or suggested revisions to the authors.)

  32. There is no consensus

    Hi, I have a question about peer reviews.  Are there lists somewhere that show who has peer-reviewed studies/papers being mentioned?  For example, I have been searching for peer reviews of Naomi Oreske's consenus study, but I'm not having any luck?  Any places you can point me to?  When offer these studies at online discussions, I invariably get linked to critiques given by bloggers.  Of course, these bloggers, being climate deniers offer all sorts of claims of dishonesty and bad studies, but it seems like if these studies where peer reviewed, those reviews would hold much more water than a denier blogger with no real expertise in climate science...

  33. CO2 is plant food

    johnd@44

    Hi johnd,

    CO2 is not the basic buidling block for a carbon based life.

    CHNOPS, which stands for carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur, represents the six most important chemical elements whose covalent combinations make up most biological molecules on Earth.

    Carbons ability to hybridize orbitals is the key factors here, not the CO2 molecule.

    It's also Carbon's capability of forming a vast number of compounds, more than any other element, with almost ten million compounds described to date. Carbon's widespread abundance, its ability to form stable bonds with numerous other elements, and its unusual ability to form polymers at the temperatures commonly encountered on Earth enables it to serve as a common element of all known living organisms. Carbon is important because of its ability to form long chain-like molecules (carbon chains form the backbone of organic molecules.

    Finally, consider the abundance of carbon in the universe ( 4,600 ppm in the universe) versus the next group 14 element silicon (650 ppm in the universe) and you see that carbon has a  unique abilty  to hybridize its S and P electron shells, thus making 4 electrons of equal energy level, this proptery of carbon really was the only way to achieve a carbon based life here on earth. Why? Because carbon can form stable bonds with itself, but also with a variety of other types of elements. This is why life is "carbon-based" or predominantly carbon.




  34. CO2 is plant food

    Eclectic @42, @43

    I truly enjoy your responses.  I've learned so much from posting the links and comments from the occasional denialist I run across.

    I told the Canadian to go ask the Midwest farmers if the extra CO2 in the atmosphere helped their flooded fields in 2019 and the econimic impact it cost.   I suggested that while he's at it, please ask the CA farmers if the extra CO2 in the atmosphere helped their drought stricken crops last year and to explain how climate change impacted these events.

  35. CO2 was higher in the past

    Robert Murphy#46 
    "And that is true, except it says nothing at all about CO2 levels." From: 'The Undesigned Universe' - Peter Ward
    “ . . . it>
    62:26 is these ocean state changes that are
    62:28 correlated with the great disasters of
    62:30 the past impact can cause extinction but
    62:35 it did so in our past only once that we
    62:38 can tell whereas this has happened over
    62:40 and over and over again we have
    62:42 fifteen evidences times of mass
    62:45 extinction in the past 500 million years
    62:48 so the implications for the implications
    62:51 the implications of the carbon dioxide
    62:52 is really dangerous if you heat your
    62:55 planet sufficiently to cause your Arctic
    62:58 to melt if you cause the temperature
    63:01 gradient between your tropics and your
    63:03 Arctic to be reduced you risk going back
    63:07 to a state that produces these hydrogen
    63:11 sulfide pulses “ www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ako03Bjxv70

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] You have been warned before about posting comments that consist of little more than quoted material. You are skating on thin ice, approaching violation of the comments policy.

    The comment you claim to be responding to (#46) was posted in 2011. Do you really expect to be engaging in discussion with that participant?

     

  36. CO2 is plant food

    Perhaps rather than considering that CO2 as being plant food it is more exact to describe it as the basic building block of a carbon based life form, given all life as we know it is just that.

    Typically, 99% of the human body consists of six elements, oxygen 65%, carbon 18.5%, hydrogen 9.5%, nitrogen 3.2%, calcium 1.5%, and phosphorus 1.0%. which explains why when the human body combusts, so too with most other materials, all that is left is carbon.

  37. CO2 is plant food

    TVC15 @#40 ,

    the Canadian denialist has linked to an "amusing" website article showing :- 

    (A) "Plants have been starved for CO2 at the low levels existing before the industrial revolution".    (Which would be why the South American Amerindians have dwelt in semi-arid wastelands for thousands of years rather than discovering the lush vibrant Amazonian Jungle ? )

    and (B) "Mankind has been living on the edge of extinction with low levels of atmospheric CO2"  . . . since all (terrestrial?) plants die if atmospheric CO2 falls below 150ppm.

    I gather that under experimental conditions, plants can survive with less than 150ppm CO2  ~  but this is confounded by many other associated factors that would apply in a real world situation (including very extensive glaciation).

    See my comments in #34 above.

    But the very low CO2 scenario is moot because of recent anthropogenic CO2 emission.   Without current human emissions, the planet would have continued for millions of years before reaching below the 150ppm mark.  During that time, "assisted" or natural evolution would likely produce plants adapted to low CO2.  Assuming that the humans of the future would decide not to burn a few gigatons of coal occasionally . . . or chose not to use heat to decompose calcium carbonate rock.

    Humans "on the edge of extinction"  is alarmist hogwash.

  38. CO2 is plant food

    TVC15  @#40 ,

    undeniably, CO2 is a plant food, and the increased planetary greening is of benefit to insects and goats.  Whether the general increased greening is to be beneficial to humans, is an arguable point (see the Lead Article, above).

    Also note that some of the greening in India has come from increased irrigation, and some of the greening in China has come from extensive governmental tree-planting programs.

    And the greening of past decades may be plateauing out ( I do not have a convenient citation for that).

    What is amusing, is how so many prominent denialists will vehemently [and correctly] assert that nearly all life on Earth is supported by the tiny amount of CO2 in the atmosphere . . . yet, minutes later, they will assert that the atmospheric level of CO2 is simply too tiny to affect Earth's climate.

  39. An exponential increase in CO2 will result in a linear increase in temperature

    Crashed: That sentence is an attempted summarization. Would it be clearer if it were expanded to "...rather than examining only noisy short-term temperature data, we should remove the effects of those other factors on temperature so we can estimate the effect of CO2 alone, then examine how much atmospheric CO2 is increasing."

  40. An exponential increase in CO2 will result in a linear increase in temperature

    Crashed @14 ,

    Quite right.  And it goes in the opposite direction, too  ~  some "skeptics" say well-established physics theory (e.g. gravity causing downward acceleration, or CO2 radiational properties causing planetary warming) must be false because whatever-it-is  has not yet happened.  Or more precisely: has not yet happened "enough"  to impress them to a drastic extent.

    Rather like the tale of the Optimist who fell off the top of the Empire State Building  ~  "25 floors and okay so far . . . 28 floors and okay so far . . . 32 floors and okay so far . . . "

    Until the final predictable Splat  onto the pavement, the Optimist refuses to make a realistic assessment of the overall situation.

    You see that sort of thing very often with "skeptics"  ~  the globe isn't warming (enough) . . . the ice isn't melting (enough) . . . the sea-level rise can't accelerate ( because  it didn't do so during the previous century).   And they turn the logic inside out, to claim this proves AGW & climate science must be fake.

    Crashed ~ if you could analyse & explain that sort of stupid thinking, I would be very grateful !

  41. An exponential increase in CO2 will result in a linear increase in temperature

    Some skeptics have claimed that these projected amounts of warming have not been borne out in the surface temperature changes over the past decade. But there are many factors which impact short-term global temperatures, which may conceal the long-term warming caused by increasing atmospheric CO2. So if we want to know if the IPCC projections are realistic, rather than examining noisy short-term temperature data, we should examine how much atmospheric CO2 is increasing.

     

    That is not really helpful. When you break it down what it says is... some skeptics might say that what's happening on the ground doesn't reflect the theory, so for that, we use the theory to proove that what didn't happen will happen in the future.

    You cant use what we expect to see in the future as a rebuttal against what we haven't seen in the past, that seems like abit of a fallacy.

  42. CO2 is plant food

    Ops I meant Canadian denier. 

  43. CO2 is plant food

    The climate deniers are getting out of hand here in the US.

    I have a Canidain denier trying to covince me that CO2 is plant food and good for the earth.  He proceeds to back his beleif by posting this on LinkedIn.  

    …CO2 is Greening Planet Earth…

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  44. Daniel Bailey at 09:27 AM on 6 April 2021
    CO2 is not the only driver of climate

    Sigh.  If only people would stop checking their cerebral cortex at the border to Denierstan: people live in the troposphere, not the thermosphere.

    I know they both start with "t", but that's all they have in common.

    From NASA scientist Martin Mlynczak:

    "There is no relationship between the natural cycle of cooling and warming in the thermosphere and the weather/climate at Earth’s surface. NASA and other climate researchers continue to see a warming trend in the troposphere, the layer of atmosphere closest to Earth’s surface."

    https://climatefeedback.org/false-claims-coming-ice-age-ecosystem-unreliable-news-sites-blogs-social-media-accounts/

    "Observations have shown that solar flare activity on the surface of the Sun is in the quiet phase of its continuing 11-year cycle. This causes cooling of the thermosphere—a layer of the atmosphere that starts 65 miles above the surface—and will not cause noticeable cooling at the surface"

    https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/metros-claims-of-coming-mini-ice-age-have-no-basis-in-reality/

    https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2018/09/27/the-chill-of-solar-minimum/

     

    Please surprise us by demonstrating some actual skepticism.

  45. Rob Honeycutt at 07:38 AM on 6 April 2021
    CO2 is not the only driver of climate

    Well, Likeitwarm... I'd say that's one seriously ludicrous piece of writing you've linked to there. 

    It's a long Gish-gallop of anti-science, so was there any specific point contained in it that you'd like to see addressed? If you don't narrow it down a little it would require a very long response to debunk the loads of crap written on that page.

  46. CO2 is not the only driver of climate

    Hi.  Neophyte here again and I do consider myself that, but I keep trying to learn.

    I think this'll be on topic, but possible it should be under "it's the sun". Sorry if I made a mistake.

    I ran into this article: https://coldclimatechange.com/carbon-dioxide-is-a-cooling-gas-according-to-nasa/

    Let me know what you think of it.  I'll keep reading.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Link 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.

    ...and pay attention to Rob Honeycutt's comment, along with the portion of the Comments Policy that states:

    No link or picture only. Any link or picture should be accompanied by text summarizing both the content of the link or picture, and showing how it is relevant to the topic of discussion. Failure to do both of these things will result in the comment being considered off topic.

     

  47. Philippe Chantreau at 08:23 AM on 5 April 2021
    Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    MA Rodger,

    It may be too late for that. Down the comment thread at NTZ she seems to argue against space being a heat sink.

    Other commenters refer to G&T as if it held any value.

    It seems NTZ is every bit as much a waste of time as WUWT.

  48. Clock is running on our reliance on vegetation as a steady 'carbon sink'

    The new netflicks movie Seaspiracy makes the point that killing off the bigger fish eventually reduces the ability of the Ocean to sequester CO2.

  49. Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    Rob Honeyutt @434,

    Even though Zoe Phin's credentials are not that of a climatologist, I would suggest her work providing the basis for the 'article' presented @431 (her work is set out here) is so poor, she should approach her college and ask for her money back. Evidently her education has entirely failed.

    What Zoe Phin manages to show is no more than "Look!! Lots of numbers with decimal points. So I'm right and AGW is fake!!!" Or in her own  baseless words "The greenhouse effect hypothesis is simply incorrect and should be abandoned for the sake of empirical science."

    The first table of numbers presented by Zoe Phin are presumably taken from CERES and shows that high, uppermid & lowermid clouds have increased through the period 2003-19 while low cloud shows no statistical trend. However I don't see any use of this data within the analysis provided.

    The second and third tables (again presumably from CERES but quite where from CERES is a different matter as this is modelled data not measured data) shows annual global average values for surface upward & downward IR and TAO upward for clear-sky/all-sky and with/without areosols. These numbers are not the sort of thing that can be measured globally and further are a ridiculously good fit with GISS annual global average SAT which shows to anybody with half a brain who thought to examine them that the values are modelled numbers not measured numbers.

    The extent of the analysis provided by Zoe Phin is simply to compare the 2003-19 averages of these annual global average IR numbers and declare the upward surface IR do not vary enough between clear-sky/all-sky for clouds to play any role in any greenhouse effect. Thus Zoe declares AGW must be fake.

    The averaged clear-sky/all-sky TOA upward IR numbers vary by 25Wm^-2, enough to provide 20% of a theoretical +33ºC greenhouse effect, not a million miles from what would be anticipated. But the analysis dismisses the relevance of TOA IR. We are told "Less top-of-atmosphere outgoing radiation doesn’t cause surface heating."  So what does less energy leaving the planet do? Where does the energy that is now failing to exit planet Earth go? These are the questions Zoe Phin needs to answer before she continues to make a total fool of herself.

  50. Rob Honeycutt at 06:29 AM on 3 April 2021
    Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    I would note that Zoe Phin's credentials are "B.S. Economics, M.S. Quantitative Finance, 10-year Wall Street veteran"

    These are most certainly excellent degrees and experience to have, but they are far from what you would want to rely on for topics like, changes in planetary energy balance and the earth's greenhouse effect.

    When you need an expert in economics and finance, you certainly don't go looking for a phycisist or a climate scientist. I'm not sure why people think the reverse is rational.

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