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Comments 62101 to 62150:

62101. ManOfFireAndLight at 09:24 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       BBC Radio 4's Costing the Earth covered London's sewers recently and reported that 2mm of rainfall is enough to inundate the sewers resulting in raw sewage flowing straight into the Thames. A parallel here could be that something that initially seems to be a perfect solution to tackle climate change could quite quickly become not much more than a sticking plaster on the gaping wound of extreme weather events, drought, famine and so on.
62102. michael sweet at 09:16 AM on 12 March 2012
       Renewables can't provide baseload power
       My local paper had an article on financing a nuclear power plant. It is only possible because the local ratepayers must pay 10 years in advance of receiving the power and the power company makes 15% even if the plant is never built. They stand to profit $150 million now and they have not even applied for a permit to build yet. If that is the only way to finance nuclear it is not economic.
62103. michael sweet at 09:12 AM on 12 March 2012
       ‘Storm of the Century’ to become ‘Storm of the Decade’
       If you include a meter (or two) of sea level rise the surge becomes even higher. How many times can a city be flooded before people abandon the low lying areas? Much of New Orleans has not been rebuilt, and seems unlikely to ever be rebuilt, because people are unwilling to take the risk. Parts of southern Florida have also not been rebuilt after the bad hurricanes 5 years ago. As the OP says, it is very expensive to repair the damage when the sea wall is overtopped.
62104. Doug Hutcheson at 08:50 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       I heard about Global Warming many years ago, in the 80's I think. At the time, I thought to myself "That's interesting, but nothing to worry about for now". I also heard about Peak Oil about the same time and had much the same reaction. After the global financial melt-down and as I was no longer in the ranks of the employed, I had the time to look at what had happened. Examining the GFC led me to links pointing to Peak Oil and I was slightly disturbed by the immediacy of that problem. It seemed to be a dagger to the heart of Civilisation As We Know It, which it is in fact, but links from there led me to the topic of Global Warming and suddenly the scales fell from my eyes. As has been mentioned in the comments on another thread, we seem to be worse off then cyanobacteria, in that we are set fair to totally consume the very resources which sustain us, with only one probable outcome. I have come to the conclusion that the Four Horsement of the New Apocalypse are:
       • AGW
       • PO
       • GFC MkII (MkIII etc)
       • Overpopulation
       Population growth underpins all the others, leading me to observe that there are just too many of us, even if (fond hope) we eventually get our emissions under control and develop an alternative to fossil energy. Perhaps nature will evolve a new pestilence to decimate us, perhaps starvation will decimate us under the impending food and energy supply insecurities, or perhaps we will decimate ourselves through war. All I am sure of is that our population will ultimately collapse and it will not be pleasant for the survivors. Alarmist or Realist? I think it is realistic to be somewhat alarmed about the path we are on. Perpetual growth is an economic nonsense. We would be wise to be planning now for a shrinking population and economic contraction, but which politician would want to be part of that picture?
62105. adelady at 08:14 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       For me, I suppose there never was any doubt. My attitude was basically political/technical/environmental. I'd grown up through the cold war and watched the brilliant sunsets of the atom bomb testing era. We'd come through the fear of nuclear catastrophe with only a few childish nightmares as well as the real horror when the cold warriors came a bit too close to getting hot. The industrial pollution that darkened my city's skies had largely abated. I'd watched the international negotiations and general argy-bargy about acid rain and ozone take a good while, but eventually the agreements got done. We got rid of asbestos mining and manufacture. All very sensible and quite tedious if you look at the diplomacy involved. Like Glenn, I always read New Scientist back then. And I simply took it for granted that this problem would be just like the others we'd dealt with. Jimmy Carter had put solar panels on the White House roof and I presumed that in the natural order of things, everyone in Australia would have them in plenty of time to deal with the problem. When Reagan took them down, I dismissed that as him being foolish again, just like his claims that trees were more of an atmospheric problem than cars. Because when my own water heater needed replacing not long after, we got a solar system. And I seriously thought everyone else would be doing that too. I'd taken a little interest in the science. Just like acid rain and ozone, I'd look at reports and maps but I simply relied on the science as reported to be accurate. The Rio conference came up with a lot of grandly worded virtuous intentions and I thought they'd get down to the nitty-gritty sooner or later. And somehow or other, the wheels fell off without me even noticing. Now it's much, much later than I ever thought it would be. All my confidence that we'd notice we'd made a mess, just like all the other messes, and we'd get on with cleaning it up has gone. I'm worried sick about my children's children - and their grandchildren as well - and, far from dreamily wondering about how different their lives will be from ours, I'm horrified. It didn't have to turn out this way and it breaks my heart.
62106. scaddenp at 08:04 AM on 12 March 2012
       CO2 lags temperature
       jzk - I cant quite see why you think that there is an inconsistency between CO2 acting as a feedback to amplify the milankovitch effect and the statements from Roe? 'CO2 amplifies the warming which cannot be explained by orbital cycles alone.' does not in anyway imply the CO2 was the driver - the milankovich insolution variation was clearing the dominant forcing. However, the magnitude of the effect (and change in SH to NH forcing) is extremely difficult to explain from insolution and albedo change alone. See the paleoclimate chapter of AR4 WG1 for details of the relative forcings.
62107. funglestrumpet at 07:27 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       This is a very honest piece of writing, thanks. However, personally, I don't give a monkey's about whether the current warming is anthropogenic in origin, or due to the excessive flatulence of the ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal instead (or of my mate, Dave, but that another story). It seems to me that far too much of the debate, if such is what it is, centres on whether we humans are responsible for climate change or not. Unfortunately, all the public sees is scientists arguing the point between themselves to a very minor extent (think the usual suspects), if they see it at all, and the media arguing with the scientists to a major extent. They, therefore, see no point in supporting action on the issue, believing that genuine doubt exists. They don’t know that columnists such as Peter Hitchens and Melanie Philips haven’t a clue what they are talking about. The result is that the public takes a position along the lines: ‘If it ain’t quite broke, don’t quite fix it.’ Just for the record, I would be astounded if we humans are not responsible for the change in climate that we are experiencing. Unfortunately, I will also be astounded if we as a species make the changes that we need to make if we are to avoid a dire future. And one of the major reasons is the AGW vs. GW debate that the public sees in the media, not the one that is already as good as settled scientifically - the one that is screaming: “Hit the f***ing brake, NOW!” We know about greenhouse gases and how to cut our production of them. While we get on with doing that, we can send a team out to search for bugblatter beasts. It’ll keep the media happy, and make a change from their slipping the police a few bob for information about celebs. The public need to be made aware that by the time they see that the climate is broke, it will be far too late to be able to fix it. When they see just how much they have been deceived, the only solace will be seeing them turn on the deceivers: the media, Lindzen and the like, the WUWT kindergarten, and of course, Monckton. Perhaps Monckton will turn to that other toff, Lord Lucan, to give him some tips on disappearing. Monckton, more than most, will sure as hell need them, ‘Don’t you know?’
62108. r.pauli at 07:16 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Thanks Andy for your superb article, (and thnx for the correction #12) We might further discuss Richard Alley's sewage analogy - because human sewage outflow is (ahem) essentially linear. There is roughly the same amount per person. Population increases may make for an exponential increase - but it is still roughly the same per person. When you say: "e) The climate crisis is gradual, with the effects unfolding over generations." Starting gradually, but scanning charts of climate crisis data generally seem to appear exponential - possibly due to poopulation (oops!) or certainly exponential increases in industrial combustion. It may be alarmist -- but also may be correct -- to calculate a problem with climate tipping points that is hyperbolic. (Here the hyperbolic limit may be the limit of sustainability range rather than a mathematical singularity) While Superbowl commercials and food poisoning can temporarily trigger exponential sewage flow - it may be worth considering another metaphor for global warming - especially in scenarios past the year 2100. Hansen may explain it as like a Venus syndrome, but to me, multiple tipping points is insanely hyperbolic. On the geological time scale, these Parliamentary, alimentary plumbing engineering quick-fixes are not really enough. We are underestimating the danger Don't you think?
62109. Martin Lack at 07:06 AM on 12 March 2012
       Lindzen's Junk Science
       #1 Composer99 As I have said elsewhere, Lindzen's talk was given to an audience comprised mainly of Repealtheact rentamob (i.e. members of the supposedly "sceptical" public) and scientifically-illiterate journalists. Apart from Lord Monckton and Sammy Wilson, the only other MP present (in the audience) was former Trade and Industry secretary Peter Lilley. The closest one could possibly get to celebrity status would be James Delingpole. When I last checked, the Repeal the Act ePetition had just over 1000 signatures so they are never going to change policy that way (100k required to trigger Debate) but what is more concerning is Monckton's claim that Lindzen was whisked away afterward to brief a Cabinet Minister. This is clear interference in UK politcs and I would love to know what MIT think about it.
62110. Joel_Huberman at 05:43 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       Wow! An excellent primary article, followed by fascinating, informative discussion! I simply want to add another positive comment about Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". It was seeing that movie that started the process of converting me from an interested spectator regarding environmental issues to what some call an "alarmist". Being a scientist (which means being a skeptic), I didn't immediately "believe" any of Al Gore's claims, but the movie motivated me to ask whether there was any scientific justification for his claims. With help from many sources, I found that Gore's claims were largely justified. My continuing investigations over the years since Gore's movie have convinced me that, in many ways, the perils we face are even worse than Gore described. I'm now in the process of retiring from my previous scientific work (in the area of molecular biology), and I'm trying to figure out how I can best utilize my new-found understanding of AGW to promote constructive responses in my home country (the USA). Any suggestions from readers of this message would be welcome (huberman@buffalo.edu).
62111. actually thoughtful at 05:35 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       Lazarus - could you bold the change - I don't see a difference. Thanks.
62112. Andy Skuce at 05:13 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Just over a year ago, Paul Krugman had a blog post "Stuff Happens" that refers to the Great Stink. He provided a link to a pdf of pages 58-76 of Halliday's book. I'll add this link also to the main article. In the "update" at the end of Krugman's post he urges his readers to be retentive when it comes to making jokes about this subject, for instance, his example: "the effluent society". I have to admit, it took a lot of self-restraint to keep scatological jokes out of my article.
62113. Lazarus at 04:53 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       I'm sure; "once it is understand that CO2 is a critical component of the greenhouse effect" Should read; "once it is understood that CO2 is a critical component of the greenhouse effect" Other than the typo, an excellent piece.
       Moderator Response: [AS] Thanks! (underline added to comment for emphasis)
62114. Andy Skuce at 04:51 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       On the subject of "plant food", Halliday has a whole chapter, Where there's Muck there's Brass? devoted to the subject. Indeed, some people did argue against the practice of flushing precious organic fertilizer into the river and the sea. Here's an example in a 1859 letter to The Times:

       ...the gradual but sure exhaustion of the soil of Great Britain by our new sanitary arrangements, which permit the excrements (really the food) of fifteen million people, who inhabit our towns and cities, to flow wastefully into our rivers. The continuance of this suicidal practice must ultimately result in great calamities to our nation. (GSOL p. 109)

       To be fair to the Victorian "plant food" promoters, they were for the most part honestly trying to find a way to recycle the human waste and to devise means of making solutions to the sewage crisis pay for themselves. Contrast this to today's "CO2 is plant food" advocates who, I suspect, raise this point as a specious argument to delay emission regulations or carbon pricing.
62115. dansat at 04:48 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       Andy, That is the best piece of writing I've read in the last month. As a die hard fan of old London Town, I look forward to your next piece! Dan
62116. r.pauli at 04:43 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       There are endless stories of persistent folly and blunder. The progression of Dutch Elm disease and the Chestnut Blight were widely discussed and never acted upon. Also see Ehrenreich's book "The March of Folly" about how nations get stuck in political blunders - situations where all the prevailing wisdom was unable to change the human event. Vietnam was one - the momentum of history cemented inaction. All this may be a trait of our species. The aim then is to somehow evolve. ( Oh goody... a real challenge )
       Moderator Response: [AS]Thanks for the recommendation! A small correction: the author of that book is Barbara Tuchman, not Barbara Ehrenreich.
62117. Nick Palmer at 04:29 AM on 12 March 2012
       Peter Sinclair interview with Michael Mann
       William @16 Some of them may be over-religious types, but I'm pretty sure, having argued with lots on Youtube etc, that libertarians, hardline right and left types and just sheer bloody minded contrarians make up the largest proportion of deniers/sceptics.
62118. Yvan Dutil at 03:14 AM on 12 March 2012
       James Hansen's Motivation
       @takver The problem with all those techniques is they need energy. Hence this increase the cost. In addition, you have to put the CO2 somewhere. When a train load of coal per day is used in a power station, this is not a trivial issue.
62119. dhogaza at 03:07 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       John Russell:

       I wonder if any of the 19th century denial ever took the form of, 'x is plant food'?

       Well, as a matter of fact, those who were sellng nightsoil from the city's cisterns argued against losing their jobs, and the farmers purchasing it were unhappy about losing this cheap source of ... plant food! :)
62120. les at 02:51 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Great article. A similar parallel I occasionally proffer is the From Horse Power to horsepower story... Although the advent of the motorcar is a step on the road to AGW... the important point being that overcoming human caused pollution, far from bringing about economic collaps, mostly energised the economy.
62121. Joel_Huberman at 02:23 AM on 12 March 2012
       How you can support Skeptical Science
       John, it's now 2012, and your web site (which I've just discovered) is clearly doing very well. I intend to study it thoroughly when opportunity permits over the next several months (I have lots of other stuff on my agenda). But I'm so impressed by my initial explorations of your web site that I'm about to send you a donation via PayPal. Please update your March 26, 2010, message to let us viewers know how we can help you improve the web site in 2012. Surely some of the agenda that you laid out in 2010 has already been accomplished, and probably there are now new needs not previously anticipated.
62122. Joel_Huberman at 02:01 AM on 12 March 2012
       We've been through climate changes before
       This is the first article I've read on Skeptical Science. I was tipped off to its potential interest by Joe Romm on his Climate Progress blog. I was delighted not only by the interesting article but also by the intelligent, frequently informative comments. How different from the comments I usually see (for example at the Scientific American web site) posted after articles dealing with climate change! Congratulations to Sarah and to all commenters! I want to echo MattJ's (#26) suggestion: Sarah's article would have much greater impact on scientifically trained readers if its graph showing global temperature fluctuations for the past 750,000 years had a properly labeled vertical axis (showing the magnitude of the temperature changes in degrees C or F). I hope that Sarah will update her article with such a modified graph.
62123. JMurphy at 01:26 AM on 12 March 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #8
       I have some links that tell you what is going on in some of the so-called skeptical sites without having to go there yourself - unless you want to, to confirm that they have actually posted something as dodgy as is being claimed ! Another Nail in the Coffin... Neverending Audit What's up with that Watts (But it's a shame that Denial Depot seems to have gone quiet since last August) More seriously, I like : Moyhu Jeff Masters (Oh, and Idiot Tracker is always worth a look, but that would make 7 links in total, so I'd better not...)
62124. shoyemore at 01:15 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       There was a good TV documentary on Bazelgette a few years ago in a series about major engineering projects Modern Industial Wonders of the World, starting with an 18th century Scottish lighthouse, and ending in the Hoover Dam. It included the Panama Canal, the US Transcontinental Railroad, the Great Eastern and the Brooklyn Bridge. A box-set of the series might be on e-bay. There was a program on Bazelgette's London sewage works. It shows how the right effects were brought about (clean water) for the wrong reasons (smell is not a disease vector). Interesting to compare "human effluent" with CO2 and what deniers say about it. I mean, it is a "natural by-product of nature", and must therefore by a good thing, right? It is "plant food", right? So why is Big Government trying to control it, and make the little guy pay taxes to keep it away from drinking water?
62125. John Russell at 20:20 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Absolutely superb article Andy. I'd never thought about these parallels before. I wonder if any of the 19th century denial ever took the form of, 'x is plant food'?
62126. Glenn Tamblyn at 19:51 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       "So far, we’re not doing any better than cyanobacteria." Arguably we are doing much worse. cyanobacteria have survived for 2-3 Billion years. Whats our track record?
62127. Glenn Tamblyn at 19:08 PM on 11 March 2012
       We've been through climate changes before
       Andrew Sipocz I read somewhere a while ago, but can't confirm this, that significant parts of the US Plains States were once desert. That features like the South Dakota Badlands were once sand dunes and that explains the geology/topography of the region. Rolling hills that are actually old sand dunes, where when the surface gets broken through, erosion of the old dunes then causes features such as the Badlands.
62128. takver at 19:01 PM on 11 March 2012
       James Hansen's Motivation
       To answer 5. Jose_X , There was a scientific breakthrough announced in January 2012 regarding an improved method of removing carbon dioxide (CO2) cheaply from industrial smoketacks and even scrubbing the air. Still early stages of research yet, but shows promise. See Alain Goeppert, Miklos Czaun, Robert B. May, G. K. Surya Prakash, George A. Olah, and S. R. Narayanan, Journal of the American Chemical Society - Carbon Dioxide Capture from the Air Using a Polyamine Based Regenerable Solid Adsorbent (Abstract). My article includes a non-scientific description and links to all associated media releases and the article abstract.
62129. Glenn Tamblyn at 18:52 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       Strangely, I didn't have an epiphany moment. I have an engineering background which gives you a range of basic science. And I have always been interested by Science and scientific ideas and thinking Probably my biggest on-going source was 'New Scientist'. Interesting, topical but not too hard-core. So over the years an acceptance of AGW coalesced. Then as the years passed and the world basically was doing diddly-squat about it I started getting onto a limited number of blogs - reading and later commenting. And I quickly realised how many people who were skeptical on-line were either poorly informed or deeply biased. Then as you start putting arguments to people, pointing out the fallacies in their viewpoint - not differences of opinion but actual logical fallacies, failure to consider all the evidence etc - and again and again they don't shift their view, you start to realise that their 'skepticism' isn't really rational but has other deeper psychological underpinnings. This also forced me to expand my knowledge base - paleoclimatology, radiative transfer physics, the change in the Sun's heat output over deep time etc, carbonate chemistry in the oceans. And as one does so, the skeptic arguments just get thinner and thinner. Then when you see that not one 'skeptical scientist' is acting as an 'honest broker', never do they present the full picture, you realise that 'professional skepticism' is a sham. Their motives may be many and varied - pecuniary, political, philosophical, ideological, personal esteem or the lack of it, defence of a worldview even if that requires closing the mind to the evidence. Psychology would be such a wonderfully interesting topic if its consequences weren't so serious. Finally some very key data then narrows the options for what is causing AGW and then it really really jells. Put simply, any argument about AGW that just looks at Surface Air Temperatures without considering other key information - Ocean Heat Content changes are the Elephant in the Room here - is either ignorant or deliberately mendacious. I hope to have a post up this week looking at the Elephant and just how much it informs our opinions. At this point you realise that commenting on Anti-AGW sites has one purpose and one purpose only. To try and make a sensible case to all the 'lurkers' on the site. Just ignore the main players and their regular acolytes, they are a lost cause. But so many un-commited people can be informed with the facts or misled by the misreprentation.
62130. Glenn Tamblyn at 18:19 PM on 11 March 2012
       James Hansen's Motivation
       Simple question. How do you get someone like Hansen in front of conservative audiences? Won't shift the hard core, but for the many disengaged right-wing, the moderateness of his tone might have an impact.
62131. Tony O at 17:42 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       Perhaps our perceptions are coloured by where we enter an argument. When I first heard about global warming, it was a possible minor problem a long way into the future. I then thought no more about it until about 5 years ago, when we had the massive sea ice melt of 2007. Maybe it was this this set me on a path of always thinking the scientists are far too conservative. However, just because I can see a problem does not mean I can put figures to that shortfall. Gradually most of what I saw as incompleteness has been answered. In hindsight I realise I could see changes as far back as the early eighties. The edge of the Western Australian wheat belt had moved westwards. Moora traditionally too wet for proper wheat growing had become a very productive wheat area. I am still deeply pessimistic about where we are heading.
62132. Bruce at 17:26 PM on 11 March 2012
       Oceans Acidifying Faster Today Than in Past 300 Million Years
       Rob, o.k. We need to beat the drum but I am both a farmer and a fisherman. It is about impossible to produce fish for sale and avoid enormous fuel consumption. Small scale farming can be much more energy efficient but where I live (calif.) we aren't really fed by small scale farming. I have been pushing the ocean acidification message for five years, I was in the acid test movie but people don't understand the bottom line. Whether you're an australian or a u.s. consumer on average you are responsible for about 17 tons of Co2 emissions . We need to get that down to less than one ton. I'm not trying to bait anyone but let's get real , we need good working models for how to pull this off. How do we(and I'm trying) produce food with extremely low fossil fuel consumption? Energy in and calories out gallons of fuel consumed and pounds of food produced. Numbers Rob, what does it take ? Please excuse my frustration but I have used up 5 years of the 20 or 30 years I think we have to make the necessary changes , changes 7 billion of us need to make. I know the odds. I know the price of failure
62133. Doug Hutcheson at 16:04 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       

       If our leaders are ever to be motivated to timely action on climate change by a Big Stink, then that stink is going to have be raised by us, their electors.

       Quite right. Science can tell us the parameters of the problem, but only concerted action by populations can provide necessary responses to the problem. Each must do whatever he or she can. I will continue writing letters to the editor and emailing my representatives, which is my right and my responsibility in a democracy. Those who have more influence have a moral obligation to exert it and not shy away from "getting involved".
62134. actually thoughtful at 15:23 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       The equivalent to the big stink may well be the next strong El Nino. El Nino's seem to magnify the heat-related effects of global warming. It would be ideal to have one this summer, in the run-up to the US elections.
62135. actually thoughtful at 15:07 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       When I set out to understand the controversy, I was struck by two things - one skeptical arguments simply don't hold up to inspection. And I was thrilled and intrigued by the absolute cleverness of the way climate scientists figured things out about the past (tree rings as a proxy for temperature data, for example). Brilliant! For those who engage in online discussions and have a signature - I suggest something simple like "The world is warming, man is to blame." - It keeps the topic ever-present, even if you are discussing the precise number of angels that can dance on a pinhead.
62136. Lloyd Flack at 13:14 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       Looking at the comments here, what is not getting across to the public is the urgency of the problem. If you look at it in detail the urgency comes across automatically. But we cannot reasonably expect everyone to look at that level of detail. We have to convey the urgency simply but not so simply that we can be attacked as misleading. As you convey the urgency you also have to give realistic solutions with realistic costs. The denialists are exagerating the cost of solutions but there is a temptation to treat techically immature solutions as if they were economically viable now. A bit of counting chickens before hatching is going on in renewables. But there is plenty that we can do now.
62137. Andrew Sipocz at 12:01 PM on 11 March 2012
       We've been through climate changes before
       I'm looking for a good, recently published N.American paleoclimatology book; one that focuses on the late Pleistocene and Holocene. I read through the Desert's Past (Paleoclimates of the Great Basin) and found oodles of good information there, but not so applicable to my region. I work in SE Texas and apparently during the Holocene Optimum we experienced a significantly different climate; one that was at least drier if not warmer, or at least more prone to long drought. Unfortunately our surface sediments are muddled enough by ubiquitous burrowing rodents and tree throws leading to argument on what really lead to today's land forms. Further, human action could have caused much of what we see in palynological studies so I'd like to read up on what solutions a broader study on N. American Holocene climatology has to offer. If the Texas H. Optimum climate was what I think it was, and if we are facing a similar climate (or maybe already), then we have some unpleasant suprises awaiting us.
62138. Tom Curtis at 12:00 PM on 11 March 2012
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       sOnathan @171, I recommend to you the two excellent replies by Chris and Rob Painting (and Dikran's sage advise). As they have covered much of the territory I would have, I will try to restrict my comments to points they have not already covered. 1) Ocean Heat Content The obvious point here is that David Evans has picked a high point in the data as his start point, thereby artificially increasing the apparent discrepancy between the data and the models. This is made obvious by comparing the graph shown by David Evans with that shown by Rob Painting. Evans justifies his start point by saying,

       "We’ve only been measuring ocean temperature properly since 2003, using the ARGO system."

       That claim is simply false. Prior to Argo, a number of different methods where used to measure ocean heat content, of which the largest was the XBT in which over 5 million eXpendable BathyThermographs were deployed from the 1960s onwards. They do not give perfect information, but imperfect information is not the same as no information. The habit of ignoring imperfect information because it does not tell you what you want to here is, to put it mildly, not scientific. What is more, the Argo program was not yet extensive enough in 2003 to give significantly improved data compared to the XBT program: It is only in 2006 that it became an effectively global program. But had Evan's zeroed the curves in 2005 or 2006 it would not have told the right story, which I guess is exactly the point. 2) Hansen's 1988 predictions You have to wonder why Evans chooses to focus on a 1988 model when computing power was to crude for the model to include aerosols, a known significant factor, instead of on later models from the 2001 IPCC report, or the 2007 IPCC report. This is particularly the case because Hansen's predictions are known to be wrong, and are predicted to be wrong by the global warming community. This is primarily because the forcing factor of CO2 was determined in 1998 to be overstated by 18%. Therefore, as a criticism of AGW, Evans' blogpost is fourteen years out of date. More concerning is Evans little edit to the 1988 forecast graph indicating that scenario A is what happened. For reference, here is a comparison between actual 2010 GHG concentrations and Hansen's scenario B projections for 2010: Table 1: Scenario B greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration in 1984, as projected by Hansen's Scenario B in 2010, and actual concentration in 2010 GHG 1984 Scen. B 2010 Actual 2010 CO2 344 ppmv 389 ppmv 392 ppmv N2O 304 ppbv 329 ppbv 323 ppbv CH4 1750 ppbv 2220 ppbv 1788 ppbv CCl3F 0.22 ppbv 0.54 ppbv 0.24 ppbv CCl2F2 .038 ppbv 0.94 ppbv 0.54 ppbv To be fair, Hansen's scenario A projection for CO2 was 391.5 ppmv, which is pretty close. But CO2 concentrations where well less than Hansen's scenario A projections in the 1990s due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and caught up again in the 2000s due to the rapid industrialization of China. The net effect is that on average the CO2 forcing was well below the Scenario A projection, and because of thermal lag, it is the earlier (and lower) part of that projection which has the most significance for current temperatures. It should also be noted that NO2 concentrations and CFC 12 concentrations are less than Hansen's scenario C projections. Overall the effect is as if GHG concentrations had tracked just below Hansen's scenario B. The interesting question to ask Evans is, why did he state Scenario A is what happened, and how did he check? The answer, as it cannot have been a thorough check will reveal that what he is doing is not science, but propaganda. This is also shown by his use of the HadCRUT3 temperature index, which is known to have less than global coverage, which is known to create inaccuracies. What is more, it is also known that it is obsolete and is about to be replaced by HadCRUT4, which like GISTEMP shows 2010 as being hotter than 1998. That would lift the end point of the temperature graph to just below Hansen's scenario B projection. Given the actual development of GHG concentrations, that's not such a bad projection, but of course, again, its the wrong story. (For far more details on Hansen's 1988 projections, I suggest you read Dana's excellent article on the topic.) I notice Evan's finishes with a call for a debate. Well, apparently unknown to Evans, there is an actual scientific debate about AGW that goes on in the scientific literature. Unfortunately for Evans, in that debate you are required to handle your data with integrity, which it would appear would leave Evans shooting blanks. In fact, the stunning dearth of "skeptical" voices in the scientific literature really seems to come from that one requirement. Until so-called skeptics actual start publishing their theories in respectable, climate oriented scientific journals, the proper assumption is that they cannot because their argument evaporates when you are required to handle data with integrity. It therefore follows that on climate they really have nothing interesting to say.
62139. Jose_X at 11:54 AM on 11 March 2012
       James Hansen's Motivation
       Does anyone know how much success has come from research to sequester CO2? For example I had read of various lab success in using the sun, semiconductors, and/or bacteria to absorb CO2 and turn it (back) into oil or some other stable form. We have enough sunlight to drive the process but it would still have to be cost effective and end up + over the lifetime of the devices and also be economical.
62140. Andy Skuce at 10:22 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Thanks for the comments. Chris: yes, indeed, what you say is more strictly correct. Really, I was trying to make the rhetorical point that the effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is, on human scales, forever, whereas a pulse of pollution in an estuary can be flushed out over a time period measured in days. I'll tweak the text.
62141. Chris McGrath at 10:16 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       Yes, a fabulous and insightful piece.
62142. rustneversleeps at 10:02 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Big thanks and kudos for this , Andy.
62143. Chris McGrath at 09:39 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Well done Andy. A very interesting historical perspective. I'd suggest making some minor changes to your sentence: "The mean lifetime of fossil fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is 12-14 thousand years (Archer et al, 2009), the Thames in London is flushed twice a day by tides." I suggest changing this to "The mean lifetime that fossil fuel CO2 affects the atmosphere is 12-14 thousand years (Archer et al, 2009), the Thames in London is flushed over hours or days depending on riverflow and tides." The reason for the first change is that CO2 from fossil fuels does not remain (literally) in the atmosphere for 12-14 thousand years on average. Rather, it moves through the carbon cycle in the atmosphere, oceans, land and biosphere for that time (see the Archer article you cite and his other work). This means it continues to affect the atmosphere and climate over that time period. The reason for the second change is that flushing of rivers depends on their rate of flow and in their tidal sections this is affected by tides. Even if the flushing were purely from the tides there would not be a complete turn-over. All partially enclosed water bodies such as bays and rivers that are flushed by tides have a tidal prism. They are not fully flushed with each tide. Some of the water sloshes back and forth and can remain for a long period of time (slowly turning over at the edges only). I don't know the tidal prism for the Thames but I'd suggest referring to "hours or days". In a dry season when there was little flow and small tides, making the tidal prism large, the turnover might be longer but I won't worry about that. These points don't relate to the main thrust of your article but I thought you'd like to be aware of them none-the-less. Thanks again for your very interesting article.
62144. OPatrick at 09:19 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       An outstanding article Andy (you've added significnatly to my reading list) and an outstanding comment thread. In many ways I'm jealous of those who have recently awakened to the alarming nature of this issue, I sense that in a way it gives a greater confidence in your understanding of the issues - and of course "you're only as young as the last time you changed your mind". I grew up with a strong sense of the importance of the environment instilled in me and in the early to mid 80s it would seem this ensured a concern about anthropogenic climate change. I can't remember a time when it wasn't part of my environmental awareness and by the time I came to my O' level English project (at 16 years old) I was already writing about these concerns in words that I would barely change today. The obvious concern for me then is whether I have ever really questioned or tested these beliefs. Having spent some seven years studying philosophy, and the philosophy and history of science in particular, I've certainly challenged many of my assumptions and I know I have changed my modes of thought as a result, thrown out lazy, convenient and comforting beliefs. But my concerns about our influence on the climate have only strengthened. I'm as certain as I can be that I've been honest with myself, but even so every time a 'sceptic' challenges me to question my beliefs (so about 5 times a day on average I'd guess) I still go through the process of wondering if this is so tied up with my identity that I can't let it go. It would be wonderful if I could, how easy and comfortable life would be ... for now.
62145. sauerj at 09:06 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       R. Gates (@16): I agree SO much with your sentiment! I hope, & pray, that real change is within 5-10 years. In some way, I find myself hoping for some major, catastrophic event that happens sooner than later, at least BEFORE tripping points are passed. But, what I hear at work (from educated, technically versed men that should know better but never take the time to read good sources on the subject), OR what mass media thinks are the "issues" of the day (& lack of indepth climate reporting), OR sick-minded denier ridicules on sites like realclimate OR letters-to-editor on our local paper, it seems like we have a LONG way to go! When versed, intelligent engineers don't have the foggest idea about ANYTHING pertaining to climate science, to me, this is very concerning! Though a bit of a stretch, I think the civil rights movement has some parallels concerning what I believe, SADLY(!!!), will be long drawn-out timeline here. When the blacks came back from the semi-integrated WWII battle field, it took another 20 years before the civil rights movement brought about real policy change. And, it was a HUGE uphill battle. To me, though a few beacons have shone in the last 20 years, it seems like, only in the last couple years, has a grass-roots core of action-minded people been developed (i.e. with growth at sites like www.350.org, www.climateprediction.net, etc). It is like we just came back from WWII; now we have the real, uphill work ahead of us. But, in the same spirit of MLK, the work will have to be done with upmost integrity and dignity otherwise we will only be shooting ourselves in the foot.
62146. witsendnj at 08:29 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       It's certainly encouraging to know that thoughtful people can examine the evidence and change their minds. I do know complete skeptics who were turned into alarmists overnight because of "An Inconvenient Truth" although for me, I was immersed in other things at the time I saw it, and was somehow able to believe for a while that climate change was going to happen far away, and in the distant future. I didn't become an alarmist until 2008, when I realized all the trees are dying. It scared the daylights out of me, and I read everything I could find about climate change. Ironically, I no longer believe it is climate change that is killing trees (yet) because they are dying everywhere, even in places where there are no insects, or drought, or significant temperature rise. It's become quite obvious to me that tropospheric ozone, which is well known to be toxic both to humans and to vegetation, is killing the trees, both directly and by making them more vulnerable to insects, disease, fungus, drought and wind. The optimism bias against this conclusion is even stronger, I've found, than the urge to deny the existential peril from climate change. It's too bad, because if people would really look at trees and see the terrible condition they are in - even trees in landscaping nurseries being fertilized and watered - perhaps the understandable resistance to the drastic sacrifice required to avert continuing emissions would be reduced. http://www.deadtrees-dyingforests.com/ has links to research, including the draft EPA report that the Obama administration didn't want on the table, which concludes that ozone is causative in damage to forests - and annual crops as well.
62147. Bert from Eltham at 08:08 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Great article Andy S! A conservative friend asked me why anyone should pay a carbon tax in Australia. I asked him how much a year do you pay to get rid of your sewerage, garbage and hard rubbish. He thought about it and replied, too much! It then dawned on him that dumping any pollutant into our atmosphere and thus our environment also should not be free of cost as it affects us all. I then invoked the user pays principle much admired by conservatives. If you pollute then you pay for the damage. Bert
62148. Rob Painting at 07:56 AM on 11 March 2012
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       s0nathan - climate models do not anticipate La Nina & El Nino to suddenly disappear, so clearly the figures in your post are wrong - surface temperatures are not expected to increase in a straight line. This is from a recent Real Climate post by climate modeler Gavin Schmidt: Note how the observations are still within the range of the IPCC climate model ensemble. And also check out figure 1 in my comment @170. The ocean heating rate and TOA (top-of-the-atmosphere) radiation flux fall within the simulations of the 15 climate models used there. And this is quite revealing too:
62149. Chris G at 07:46 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       sauerj (#13), One of my favorite quotes, by Ghandi: "Ah, because I have learned something since last week."
62150. Chris G at 07:15 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       FYI, my perception of the relationship between energy price and food price: FAO Food Price Index Commodity Fuel (energy) Index 30-Year

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