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dana1981 at 01:27 AM on 26 April 2012Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans
adelady @7 - we've got a post on that graphic coming up in the near future. Steve L @8 - looks like the caption (which I copied from the paper) is incorrect. Good catch, I'll fix it in the post. From Peru @4 - I should also note that ENSO - one of the factors considered by F&R - acts to transfer heat to the lower ocean layers, which is what Levitus are observing. So the two are not incompatible. -
Lazarus at 01:10 AM on 26 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
"Knappenberger cites a paper he co-authored, Davis et al. (2003), which found that heat-related deaths are less common in hotter cities. This makes sense" Also the most vulnerable have already succumbed to the heat - survival of the fittest. -
Steve L at 00:58 AM on 26 April 2012Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans
In Figure 2, the legend indicates the black line to represent 700-2000 m. The caption, however, says "the grey-shaded area represent +/- 2*S.E. about the pentadal estimate for the 0-700m estimates." The grey-shaded area is around the black line. Is the legend or the caption correct? -
Bernard J. at 00:27 AM on 26 April 2012Eocene Park: our experiment to recreate the atmosphere of an ancient hothouse climate
Sometimes chance is a bastard. A few days ago I spent about two hours and about two thousand words comprehensively addressing dr2chase's difficulty in understanding the proximal and distal effects that an Eeocene climate would have on the physiology and ecology of humans in a post fossil carbon world. I was more than anguished, then, to be about four words from clicking 'submit' when my laptop shut down automatically, and sent the entire piece to the æther forever. I am in no mood to repeat the hours spent typing, but I will make two points that I had previously elaborated on for a number of paragraphs...You seem to have a theory that because we did not evolve under these conditions, we will not persist under these conditions. How do you explain all the people living in warm places already?
Easily, once the temporary benefit of technology, the brief evolutionary span of its operation, and the confluence of a number of other factors are accounted for. I attempted to detail the overall situation once, however self-education would be perhaps even more valuable for dr2chase, and it would permit me to direct those several hours to other endeavours.I seem to be completely talking past you, because have I've said all of the above before. The way it looks to me, you have a theory. I have data. My data is inconsistent with your theory. Data wins. How could you disagree with this?
I have the advantage of scientific theory. You have incomplete data. Incomplete data rarely wins, especially when it appears to contradict soldily established scientific theory. When you rely on (very) imcomplete data for your conclusion-drawing, any attempt by others to inform you is almost certain to end as an exercise in simply talking past you. Oo, and Tom - don't worry, I am fully cognisant of the pace of evolution! I had elaborated on the significance of this for the likely future of our species in the contexts of both finite energy density availability courtesy of fossil carbon, and of the climate alterations that will result, but despair prevents me from trying again, and anyway it's probably not central to the thread. -
adelady at 23:45 PM on 25 April 2012Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans
Seeing as someone mentioned Foster & Rahmstorf, here's a different way to look at the trend. Not by cancelling out ENSO effects, but by displaying them. (And just omitting the volcano years.) Three separate trend lines, one each for El Nino, neutral and La Nina years. Funnily enough, they all seem to have the same slope. The graph (pdf) The page it's from -
Glenn Tamblyn at 23:10 PM on 25 April 2012Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans
This paper, the 0-2000 m data and Meehl et al packaged together make a convincing case. The skeptic refrain for some years has been 'It (the surface) hasn't warmed since X and the climate scientists don't know why' Well here is a big part of the answer. Thats one of the good things about science, many people, all chipping away at problems, often finds the answer So queue change of opinion from skeptics in 3...2...1........ chirrup... -
Realist at 23:10 PM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
#39 William, 33 degrees and 100% humidity is a very common occurance on the equator when it rains. Just check out Jakarta. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 22:47 PM on 25 April 2012Why Are We Sure We're Right? #1
elektron @66 read this earlier post I wrote some time ago here. It discusses how the magnitude of the warming we are experiencing limits the range of possible explanations. Jet exhausts in the Stratosphere are certainly a contribution because water vapour in the stratosphere doesn't get removed from the atmosphere quickly. The stratosphere is also the main location where Methane gets converted to CO2 & Water Vapour. Jet Con-Trails have also been identified as having a small cooling effect as well. The principle reason why evaporation of water from land is only a relatively small component is because evaporation from the oceans is so massive. Also, as I discussed in my previous comment, it isn't necesarily increased evaporation that is the issue. It requires increased temperatures to allow the atmosphere to hold that increased amount of water, otherwise it justs rains out again. Increases of GH gases other than water are needed to cause a warming that allows more water vapour to be held by the atmosphere. -
muoncounter at 22:42 PM on 25 April 2012It's cosmic rays
Svensmark must have read 'Star-Begotten' by HG Wells. However, Watts can in no way take the role of the 'quiet little man'. ‘Those cosmic rays of yours,’ he said. ‘They are the most difficult part of your story. They aren’t radiations. They aren’t protons. What are they? They go sleeting through the universe incessantly, day and night, going from nowhere to nowhere. For the life of me I find that hard to imagine.’ ‘They must come from somewhere,’ said a quiet little man with an air of producing a very special contribution to the discussion. And when all other arguments against AGW have failed, they invoke a mystery. ‘And so, having eliminated everything else,’ said the barrister, ‘you lay the burden of change and mutation — and in fact all the responsibility for evolution — on those little cosmic rays! Countless myriads fly by and miss. Then one hits — Ping! Ping!— and we get a double-headed calf or a superman.’ -
Glenn Tamblyn at 22:27 PM on 25 April 2012Why Are We Sure We're Right? #1
Steve Case @33 Sorry about the delay in replying - just in the middle of selling my business and life has been hell Yo asked "Glenn's list is a good one for the basics of the greenhouse effect, but I should like to know if he's sure he's right about the positive feed backs that elevate CO2 Climate Sensitivity from the basic 1.2°C to 3°C or more." I think the ground for thinking that CS is something like this is quite solid, although there is still significant margins on the current estimates.Item 10 on my list about the Clausius-Claperon eqn goes to the heart of this. Warmer air can hold more water vapour. It is often suggested that increased evaporation will produce increeased water vapour levels but actually, in a warmer world, water vapour levels are likely to be higher even without greater evaporation. Put simply, evaporation pumps water vapour into the atmosphere and precipitation pumps it back out again. Water vapour levels will be in long term balance when global evaporation and precipitation rates are qual (obviously at short time scales and regionally this doesn't hold; I am talking more about longer averages) But precipitation needs clouds. No clouds, no rain. And clouds largely only form when water vapour content is close to the saturation level for the atmosphere; when relative humidity is nearly 100%. This is why clouding seeding has never been too successful. If the air temperature is higher, the amount of water vapour needed to reach saturation is higher. And clouds can't form until reaches that level. So evaporation will keep increasing the water vapour content of this warmer air until it does reach saturation so clouds can form. If we could wave a magic wand and instantly increase the air temperature everywhere by 5 Deg C, the most immediate and visible impact that much of the cloud around the world would vanish - re-evaporate back into the air. Only when evaporation has built water vapour levels up higher can cloud formation and precipitation start again. There are obviously local effects, dry air regions etc but this basic property that rain can't happen unless their is enough water vapour in the air is absolutely fundamental science. Thus water vapour MUST producea positive feedback. There are valid questions of how much. Clouds in contrast have both cooling and warming effects, depending on the type of clouds. The net impact is thought to be a slightly positve effect. So for changes in clouds to counteract the definite positive feedback of water vapour, there would need to be not just a change in the total amount of cloud, but a change in the mix of cloud types. No one has put forward a reasonable explanation for why that might happen. Without this, clouds can't counter the positive feedback from water vapour. There is however a whole range of other evidence in support of CS values in the 3 range. This come from a wide range of studies looking at past climates going back centuries, 100's of 1000's of years, Millions and even 100's of millions of years, responses to volcanic eruptions etc. It isn't just climate models predicting CS values of that range, it is physical evidence from past climates. And since temperatures significantly higher than now have actually been the norm for much of the last 1/2 billion years, warming now isn't unusual, unprecedented or unlikely. The climate could quite easily return to a warmer state if we push it that way. Human Civilisation developed in a relatively cool 'Goldilocks' climate. -
william5331 at 22:07 PM on 25 April 2012Climate Change Boosts Then Quickly Stunts Plants, Decade-long Study Shows
In this article it seems they are talking about an increase in temperature that then remains at this level. This results in faster growth rate at first but then diminished growth over the years. There is a somewhat related phenomenon which is well known for plants and animals. They grow faster and faster as the temperature is increased but the lethal temperature is only a degree or two above the temperature of maximum growth. At first thought you might expect a bell shaped growth curve. However it is only like a bell curve on the left (colder) side. It is a cliff on the warmer side. -
Tristan at 21:09 PM on 25 April 2012Why Are We Sure We're Right? #1
Cogent and succinct, Fran. -
Martin Lack at 20:57 PM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
Chip (#32), No matter how many times you protest otherwise, your position appears to be that "mitigation is too expensive". As many others have pointed out, this myth no longer stands up to scrutiny. Therefore, despite your probable antipathy towards him, your position reduces to invocation of Charles Darwin's 'evolution by natural selection' (and to hell with everyone else)... and for what? Just so that your friends in the fossil fuel lobby can continue to sell us the "idea" that it is not yet time to invest in alternatives! We have the technology to solve our problems (superconductors instead of copper cables in our electricity transmission systems, etc) but, in order for the political will to emerge to implement the solutions, we must first acknowledge the nature, scale and urgency of the problem we have created (by pumping CO2 into the atmosphere 1000s of times faster than the Earth can recycle it). Because you are not doing this, you remain part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Please stop kidding yourself that CO2 is not the primary cause of the increasingly-obvious climate change we are seeing, put down your shovel, and help us all stop digging this hole any deeper than it already is. See also my 'Jared Diamond’s warning from history' (15 Feb 2012).Moderator Response: [DB] Text revised per request. -
bill4344 at 20:51 PM on 25 April 2012It's cosmic rays
Well, my first thought upon reading Watts' rapturous acclaim was 'so the Astrologers were right, after all'! ;-) If this thing holds up I'd expect triumphalism from that quarter, too, and not just our contrarian friends. (Just think of the woooo impact of Quantum Mechanics. As Terry Pratchett says 'It's Quantum'!) Let's face it, if it doesn't hold up, we'll get triumphalism anyway (in fact, that's what Watts comments thread is full of, with the occasional brave soul pointing out that he/she thought they were all supposed to be, um, 'skeptical'!) Yet again: hundreds of papers arising from years of hard-won science that builds on findings dating back over a century - it's all BS mate, crap! Particularly all that dodgy paleo crap and expecting us to believe minute trace gases make any difference. But give 'em one paper based on paleo reconstructions of the impact of rays from the outer reaches of the universe - doubts, who has doubts? Hypocrisy and just plain silliness I can identify; but me, I make no claims to being able to assess the science, hence my bringing it up here. -
indulis at 20:32 PM on 25 April 2012Cliff Ollier: Swimming In A Sea of Misinformation
Sorry I should have said "Not one of whom has published a single scientific paper on climate science in a reputable (peer reviewed) journal." -
william5331 at 20:32 PM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
I read somewhere that humans can tolerate 33 degrees wet bulb temperature but not much above that. ie, while you will be OK at 40 degrees if it is dry and you can ingest enough fluid, at 100% humidity 33 degrees is your upper limit. With the expected added moisture in the atmosphere, if we do warm up one would expect some parts of the world to become uninhabitable except with mechanical aids. -
indulis at 20:22 PM on 25 April 2012Cliff Ollier: Swimming In A Sea of Misinformation
Prof Cliff Ollier is also part of the Australian Climate Science Coalition which includes such well known and respected thinkers in the climate field such as: - Prof Bob "My logic is impeccable CO2 lagged temperature rises in the past, so it can't be the cause now" Carter - Dr David "I will ignore BEST and continue to claim that 'heat islands' are being used to "inflate official temperatures" Evans - Professor Ian "The CO2 is mostly from volcanoes, I will ignore carbon isotope analysis of atmospheric CO2, and any facts to the contrary from the USGS- anyway the world is not warming!! Plimer Not one of whom has published a single scientific paper in a reputable (peer reviewed) journal. The ACSC web site also has links to the Heartland Climate Conference and other denier hangouts. -
Robert Murphy at 20:18 PM on 25 April 2012It's cosmic rays
Sounds like Svensmark has decided to go full Climastrology. -
indulis at 19:59 PM on 25 April 2012Cliff Ollier: Swimming In A Sea of Misinformation
Some more facts which from The Australian Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO's "State of the Climate 2012" contradict Prof Ollier's opinion (it was an just opinion piece after all). - "Most of Australia has experienced warming over the past 50 years" including Western Australia at 1.2 to 1.6C. - "Lowest on record" rainfall in Western Australia (WA) in 2010. - 6mm to 7mm sea level rise per year in WA. -
indulis at 19:40 PM on 25 April 2012Cliff Ollier: Swimming In A Sea of Misinformation
Does Prof Ollier really expect us to believe that the effort and scrutiny he has put into his opinion piece matches the science used by CSIRO in putting together the Australian Coastal Sea Level Rise maps? Any peer review by someone knowledgeable in the field before publication? Anyway, The Australian newspaper (Murdoch's New Ltd stable) is well known to be reporting on "bizzaro world", and not on the dimension we inhabit. While 99%+ of qualified scientists working in climate science agree with AGW and the magnitude of its effects, The Australian's climate change reporting is the opposite. Australian Science magazine- "Australia’s authority on science since 1938" and published by the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science- analysed climate science coverage by The Australian newspaper and found the coverage Biased Against Climate Change "“In the real world, scientists accepting the climate consensus view outnumber denialists by more than 99 to one. In the Alice in Wonderland world of [The] Australian, their contributions were outnumbered 10 to one [by articles authored by deniers].” The tone of editorials on the subject tended to be abusive, and implied that scientists were in league with extremists to overthrow civilisation." The Australian is no better when it comes to climate policy coverage- according to Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ) "When neutrals were discounted, there were 84 per cent negative articles [opposing climate change policy] compared to 17 per cent positive [supporting]." If Prof Ollier doesn't trust instrument data he can go to the South Perth Sea Scout Hall and Deep Water Point jetties, which are now a LOT closer to the water level at both high and low tides (both on the Swan River which runs through Perth, Western Australia, and which ). He will find that if he walks out on the Scout Hall jetty he will likely get his feet wet as it is almost always under water. Summer or Winter. High or low tide. I am sure they did not build it that way, when I was a kid in the 60s the jetties were a lot higher above the water. Maybe they built them out of shrinkwood? -
Eric (skeptic) at 19:36 PM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
"more people die from heat than cold in the United States every year." It's not that simple. I downloaded the 2006 all causes link from here http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/mortality/gmwkiv.htm and scrolled quickly through the mortality causes by month. Cancers and a host of lesser diseases, alcohol abuse seem to kill with no clear distribution. There is more winter mortality with diabetes, dementia, and Parkinson's, and hypertension has Dec, Jan, and March peaks. Likewise with heart attacks and chronic heart disease (Jan, Mar, Dec peaks while Jun, Aug and Sep have the least). There are fewer strokes in summer. Pneumonia has clear Jan and Mar peaks. I probably have missed some important skewed diseases. -
bill4344 at 19:23 PM on 25 April 2012It's cosmic rays
According to Watts, Svensmark has now unveiled a GCR Theory of Everything! There's no need for a link, he's tethered to piece to the homepage so the gang all know the world as we knew it is now over (think I'm exaggerating? Read Watts' piece!) I'm sure you're probably already aware of it, but I thought I'd point it out!... -
Rob Painting at 15:41 PM on 25 April 2012Ocean Heat Content And The Importance Of The Deep Ocean
Markx - the oceans have around a thousand times the thermal capacity of the atmosphere.In other words they can absorb a great deal more energy, than the atmosphere, before this causes a change in temperature. This is due to the greater mass of the ocean - there are simply more molecules in the ocean to 'divvy up" energy to. The actual process of ocean warming is very complex, but we fully expect the oceans to warm much more slowly than the atmosphere. -
Paul Magnus at 15:36 PM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
"2C above pre-industrial levels – the limit of safety, scientists say, beyond which climate change becomes catastrophic." Can someone tell me where this comes from? We're did we agree that a 2C warming was the right limit to try for? It just seems to have appeared from thin air. How do we know that 2C is safe? -
dana1981 at 14:54 PM on 25 April 2012Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans
From Peru - F&R found that the warming hasn't slowed if you first filter out those three factors. However, without removing those factors, the warming trend has been dampened in recent years. That's what I meant. In addition to the 3 factors considered by F&R, deep ocean heating and human aerosol emissions likely played a role in that dampening. -
From Peru at 14:33 PM on 25 April 2012Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans
This post says: Levitus et al. have once again reminded us that although the surface warming may have been dampened in recent years, (...) Isn't this inconsistent with the results from Foster & Rahmstorf 2011 that found that the warming have continued without any slowdown?
Or the "surface warming" of what dana1981 is talking about is not the global surface temperature but just the sea surface temperature?
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Tom Curtis at 13:17 PM on 25 April 2012Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
Muoncounter @69, I find it interesting that Spencer used the more appropriate UAH LT channel in a blog post in 2009, but that by the time it came to publication, he was using the less TMT channel:
The reason for the switch seems evident. Not only does the TMT data give more of a "striated" look", but it has more line segments that appear to match his magical slope of 6. The reason for that is that by switching from TLT to TMT, he has contracted the range of temperature variation from approximately 0.7 degrees C to 0.4 degrees C, and thereby increased the slope of all line segments.
Despite reducing the temperature range, he has the gall to warn us that by using the TMT channel he has increased the temperature range, saying:
"The midtropospheric temperature anomalies are somewhat magnified compared to the surface temperature anomalies, a fact which must be kept in mind if comparing feedback parameters computed relative to the different temperature measures."
Based on models, it is expected that mid tropospheric temperatures will increase more rapidly than surface temperatures. But the TMT channel does not measure mid-tropospheric temperatures, but a weighted average of temperatures from the surface up into the stratosphere, and are not expected to increase more rapidly than surface temperatures. Even if Spencer had not been deeply involved in developing the TLT channel to compensate for this, he would have known it anyway simply by comparing the temperature scales of the two plots. More directly relevant to this discussion, however, is that most line segments in the plot do not have anything like the slope he so desires. This is not clear in the TMT plot because the mass of lines in the center conceals the detail. Therefore I have blown up a detail of that section so that you can judge the slope of the lines for yourself:
Clearly the majority of the line segments are near vertical, which if interpreted literally based on Spencer'theory would indicate that no change in forcing could result in a change in temperature. Comforting news indeed, for it implies that whether the Sun snuff's out quietly, or goes Super Nova, the Earth's surface temperature will maintain a pleasing constancy.
Uncle Ben rightly objected that such a finding would be ridiculous. What he has not shown is any reason why neither the near vertical lines nor the near horizontal lines indicate the climate feedback parameter (or the inverse of the climate sensitivity), but the carefully selected 5 or 6 segments that happen to match Spencer's pre-chosen slope do.
In fact, the very assumption that some segments will reflect the climate feedback parameter uncontaminated by noise, while others will only reflect noise, seems absurd to me. Nature does not conveniently compartmentalize the year into periods when only the feedback parameter is influential, and periods when noise completely dominates. Yet that, essentially, is what Spencer's method assumes.
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markx at 12:44 PM on 25 April 2012Ocean Heat Content And The Importance Of The Deep Ocean
Rob, a question (thanks!): How is it that the oceans have apparently only warmed about 0.1 C over the past 57 years but the atmosphere has warmed by about 0.8 C since 1979? I find it hard to understand, as the oceans are the major heat sink and I'd have thought the water cycle would rapidly equilibrated such a discrepancy. -
muoncounter at 12:15 PM on 25 April 2012Roy Spencer finds negative feedback
Tom Curtis#64: Well done, sir. Your clear presentation of these somewhat cryptic figures leaves us with little room to 'agree to disagree.' The point about the lower figure d's progressive drift to the right in response to long term forcing is worth emphasizing. It is clear that if you follow the curve from left to right, there's been an overall warming of some 0.5 degrees. But that's just a model run, the 'skeptics' say. Per Uncle Ben#66, "in the real data, it appears to me that conditions are not nearly as noisy..." Oddly enough, we can see what the real world looks like courtesy of this Sept 2009 blog post.
-- sourced immediately above
These data are Lower Troposphere (eliminating the TMT problem you identified above) and are averaged over a 3 month interval. The upper and lower trajectories in the circled 'cooling event' are on a much lower slope than the 6 (Watt/m^2)/degree line shown. Spencer describes this event as showing "a classic radiative forcing signature." Recalling that these slopes are inverse sensitivity, lower slope is higher sensitivity: Spencer's own analysis of the real data thus shows that sensitivity to radiative forcing is far greater than he has subsequently maintained.
Similarly, the entire packet of data points fall on a lower slope (on the order of 1.5 (Watt/m^2)/degree by eyeball). This figure resembles the lower figure d you showed, which has a comparable overall slope of 1.3. Further, the 3 month averaging reveals that the low sensitivity 'slope=6' is based on transient, short-term noise.
BTW, the magical slope=6 comes from Spencer 2007:
Our measured sensitivity of total (SW + LW) cloud radiative forcing to tropospheric temperature is -6.1 W m^-2 K^-1.
However, he concludes:
While the time scales addressed here are short and not necessarily indicative of climate time scales, it must be remembered that all moist convective adjustment occurs on short time scales.
That short-term (weather and seasonal) sensitivity is greater than long-term (climatic) sensitivity should be no surprise. Thus goes the Nobel Prize.
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Fran Barlow at 11:49 AM on 25 April 2012Why Are We Sure We're Right? #1
Those interested in supporting Grahame Readfern over at his blog on the Anna Rose v Minchin I can engage in a flawed debate on Climate Change can follow the link to do battle. I've had my say. -
Realist at 11:41 AM on 25 April 2012Renewables can't provide baseload power
Before wanting subsidies removed, the electricity price is in an unsubsidized market should be considered as that will ultimately be the price. Even at 24 c/kwh in NZ, I doubt that is without subsidies. -
grypo at 10:37 AM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
- Knappenberger is not talking about the biological adaption of the human race, but about changes in behaviours to better cope with high heat levels. - Yes, I certainly know what Chip is suggesting. Changes in behavior do not need that we treat the poor and elderly as canaries in the coal mine in order to adapt. We don't need a 'wake up call'. As Chip points out there are fairly well known adaptions that need to take place to deal with rising temperature. It is his twisted logic on mitigation and the EPA that everyone is taking issue with. -
muoncounter at 10:30 AM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
Chip K#23: "It is not obvious to me that ..." You're entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts (although this isn't the thread for GHG mitigation arguments). Doc Ford#33: "... combat any perceived effects of short-term climate change through the use of air-conditioning," Ah, the 'let 'em get air conditioning' response. One can almost hear an echo of the fabled line of Marie Antoinette in that: 'The poor have no fans.... ' As usual, there is a more complicated response to consider: ... cold adaptation is usually more difficult physiologically for humans since we are not subarctic animals by nature. We do not grow dense fur coats nor do we usually have thick layers of fat insulation like polar bears. Despite this reality, more people die from heat than cold in the United States every year. Those who succumb are usually babies left in locked cars on hot days and the elderly poor who cannot afford air conditioning. The effect of heat on our bodies varies with the relative humidity of the air. High temperatures with high humidity make it harder to lose excess body heat. As for the glib assurance 'we can quickly adapt,' some can, others can't: Heat-related deaths among high school and college football players in the United States nearly tripled between 1994 and 2009, according to a new study. -
dana1981 at 10:30 AM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
Chip @32 - I do reckon that improved technologies and deployment and communication will continue to improve, but firstly that does not support your argument that a higher frequency of heat waves would be beneficial, nor do I think those advances will keep up with the increased heat wave frequency caused by global warming. The reasons it's not a good thing are 1) in the meantime you get events like the 2003 European heat wave and 2) the costs of adaption are not low, and particularly difficult for poorer regions to cope with. Doc Ford @33 - nobody claimed that global warming proves human-caused global warming. Causation is discussed in many other posts on this site if you'd like to learn about the subject (i.e. see here and here and here). Regarding the myth that mitigation will be costly, see here. These myths are off-topic in this post. -
Chip Knappenberger at 10:12 AM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
dana1981 (#30), You say, "already adapted" but I gave you three examples of cities which in matter of only a couple of years, were able to take measures to reduce the impacts of heat-waves. Adaptations, in many cases, are fairly straightforward. Also, earlier in our discussion, you made a point that you thought that some of the adaptations that were taking place (which were responsible for the declining high temperature sensitivity trends over time) were not being driven by climate change. Don’t you reckon that such trends (e.g., improved medical technologies, heat watch/warning systems, etc.) will continue? Adaptation to heat takes place somewhat spontaneously, as well as being in a direct response to an increased threat of heat waves. It proceeds gradually over time perhaps accelerated by a wake up call. The net result is a declining sensitivity to heat waves. It is hard for me not to view this as a good thing. -Chip -
Tom Curtis at 10:05 AM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
First, to clear up some confusion (william @25; grypo @28), Knappenberger is not talking about the biological adaption of the human race, but about changes in behaviours to better cope with high heat levels. Such changes include (but are not limited to) stopping strenuous work, staying in shaded areas, drinking plenty of fluids, immersing yourself in water, and air conditioning. As Dana and others point out, such adaptations come at a cost, both in increased electricity and water requirements, and in lost economic productivity. What I find odd about Knappenberger's argument is that it shows no recognition of the scale of the problem. Below is a chart comparing a range of temperatures experienced over the 20th century with those expected by the end of the 21st century with Business as usual:
The image was made by taking Lindzen's image of annual station averages from about 1850-1990 and superimposing a copy of itself in red with a 4 degree higher mean. As can be seen, what we are looking at is current record breaking years becoming the long term mean.
This graph understates the issue in two ways. First it is a graph of annual averages, and the divergence from the mean of heatwaves will be greater than that for annual averages. Second, as Hansen has shown, the standard deviation of temperatures is increasing so that the maximum temperature and frequency of extreme heat events is increasing faster than the mean.
So, what we are looking at is the current economic cost of adaption becoming an ongoing, daily cost year in year out, plus an exponentially increased cost of adaption to future heat waves.
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sidd at 09:41 AM on 25 April 2012Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans
I am impressed by Fig. S5 The amount of heat accumulating in (mostly) the 0-700m layer north of 70 degrees in the Atlantic over 50 yr. is on the order of 5e21 J this is a trend of 1e20 J/yr i note that melting 300GT/yr ice as indicated by PIOMASS is a heat sink of that order of magnitude. sidd -
dana1981 at 08:25 AM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
Again Chip, cities which are already adapted to heat waves and variability aren't the issue. It's the cities which are unaccustomed to high temps, but which will see ever-more frequent heat waves which are the problem. As grypo @28 notes, while cities will eventually adapt to the increase in hot weather, in the meantime people will die until they are prepared for the changing climatic conditions. This will particularly be a problem in developing nations where adaption will be more of a challenge, since the necessary adaption measures cost money. -
Don9000 at 08:13 AM on 25 April 2012New research from last week 16/2012
Thank you Daniel--I have in the past managed to find a few items via google searches--usually from government sites, but hadn't thought to go through the authors. I find it a bit odd, to say the least, that the author can make even a pre-press version of the article available in this way, when the host publication takes the approach it does. Oh well! Ours is not to wonder why . . . -
Chip Knappenberger at 08:04 AM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
dana1981 (#27) "global warming may very well lead to greater temperature variability, and certainly more heat waves." That may be true, but 1) Zanobetti et al. did not look at heat waves (but the studies I listed above did), and 2) in the Zanobetti study, the cities in climates with the greatest amount of summer temperature variability were the cities whose populations were the least sensitive to temperature variations. So, it follows that if temperature variability increases, then the population's sensitivity to it should decline--just as I expect will happen as heat waves become more frequent. As Zanobetti et al. note, "there is strong evidence of adaptation to usual temperatures." -Chip -
grypo at 07:39 AM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
This is probably the first time I've ever heard a suggestion that we sacrifice lives in hopes that adaption down the line will save some lives used as an anti-mitigation argument. This type of thought process is rather dangerous. I would hope it gets ignored. The logic gets even more tortured when saying that attempting to prevent these initial outcomes is dangerous (as in the EPA). Let's all try and imagine this type of thought process being used all types of these situations. We can do better than this. I guess we should learn that they will say almost anything. -
dana1981 at 07:36 AM on 25 April 2012Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans
ribwoods @1 - thanks, typo corrected. -
dana1981 at 07:36 AM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
Chip - global warming may very well lead to greater temperature variability, and certainly more heat waves. -
Eric (skeptic) at 06:58 AM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
As clearly spelled out in the OP there are two topics in this thread, short term mortality attribution and long term extreme heat impacts. It would be nice if everyone clearly specified which topic they are referring to. (most appear to be addressing the short term attribution issue) Also, needless to say, carbon mitigation economics, regulations, etc is off topic. IMO I think cost of heat adaptation is a separation issue too, but JMO. -
Flakmeister at 06:39 AM on 25 April 2012New research from last week 16/2012
This goes with #9... http://www.stsci.edu/institute/conference/faint-sun/posterList -
Flakmeister at 06:29 AM on 25 April 2012New research from last week 16/2012
Opps... I may have mispasted things... http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/science/T120420005829.htm This concerns the suns field becoming quadrapolar... -
william5331 at 06:28 AM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
Chip is of course, absolutely correct. If we have heat wave after heat wave, the human population will, over time, become adapted to higher temperatures. What he forgot to mention is that this process involves cutting off the non-heat-tolerant part of the population. In other words lots of deaths. Evolution is a remarkably fast process when you apply heavy selection pressure. Look at how fast we have changed wolves into everything from Pekaness to Rotweilers. Has anyone asked the heat intolerant tail of the population if they agree to this process. -
Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
Chip Knappenberger - Your discussion of Jacobson 2010 is primarily an emphasis on uncertainties. But please note that uncertainties cut in both directions - these CO2 related issues (particulates, ozone, local heat) may just as well have much worse effects as much better. Christidis et al 2010 shows that adaptation is reducing both heat and cold related mortality, which is good. But using adaptation to claim that heat events do not increase baseline heat related mortality on those grounds is merely pushing the cost off to adaptation. The discussion over whether GHG emissions regulations would be effective is another discussion, and I would suggest taking a look at: Northeast USA Carbon Pricing Benefits Exceed Costs The economic impacts of carbon pricing Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits where these are discussed. The overwhelming conclusion of the studies that I have seen is that GHG mitigation is immensely less expensive, to the point of being quite profitable, than adaptation/fixing it afterwards. I realize that you are part of an advocacy group, and that the general thrust of New Hope is towards reducing regulations (as per the group publications) - but even if adaptation reduces the impact of heat event mortality, it's going to be more expensive overall than avoiding the heat increases in the first place. -
Chip Knappenberger at 05:54 AM on 25 April 2012Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
muoncounter (#21), Whatever you or I may feel about the need for "regulations," at the very least, we would want them to be effective. It is not obvious to me that GHG emissions regulations in the U.S. would be when it comes to mitigating climate change. -Chip -
nealjking at 05:52 AM on 25 April 2012New research from last week 16/2012
Something bothers me about the paper that says that increased levels of CO2 will drive the foraminifera extinct: As I recall, the lifecycle of foraminifera (specifically the creation of their exoskeletons from the CO2 in the ocean; and the deposit of these exoskeletons at the bottom of the oceans; eventually being compressed into limestone) is the principal means of removing CO2 from the atmosphere/ocean/biosphere, and is denoted as "the biological pump". If the biological pump breaks, we'll be stuck with excessive amounts of CO2 for a lonnnggg time. Are these different foraminifera that we're talking about, or are we kicking the football out of the stadium?
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