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skywatcher at 12:56 PM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
#20 Agnostic - am not sure if 50cm/annum is reasonable - even in Meltwater Pulse 1A it was most likely up to ~50mm/yr, maybe a bit higher, which is quite enough to be going on with... -
DrTsk at 12:51 PM on 13 January 2012Climate's changed before
muoncounter, could you provide the above graphic in a normal scale for reference? -
stressedchef at 12:33 PM on 13 January 2012CO2 limits will make little difference
Without wanting to overcomplicate the point, I would say that: a) it's overstating things to say that CO2 limits by all countries are needed; a large number of countries emit very little due to small size, poverty or both. A suitable agreement between the top 20 emitters would cover most global emissions and most of world trade. Adding further parties is useful for reducing trade distortions and adding a bit more abatement potential, but balanced against this is the difficulty of making progress in full multilateral forums with 190+ parties. b) An agreement/set of agreements need not be through the current UN process; while this is looking healthier post-Cancun and post-Durban than just after Copenhagen, it remains a very difficult process. Other tracks can be (and to a significant extent are being) pursued as well, including unilateral national/regional policies (California, Australia, EU), bilateral agreements (Australia/Indonesia discussions for example) and smaller multilateral groupings (Major Economies Forum eg). The 'success' or 'failure' of a particular UNFCCC conference/process remains important, but it is far from the whole story. -
Tom Smerling at 12:23 PM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
#12 @Sceptical Wombat I agree. That's why I posed it as a question -- Is there a trend? -- rather than a statement. I'd like to hear from some other statistics folks about this... -
Sceptical Wombat at 12:15 PM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
It is not strictly true that wet states get wetter and dry ones get drier. For instance Louisiana shows up as much below normal but this was the state that got dumped on by Catrina. What does appear to happen is that the wet extremes get wetter and the dry extremes get drier sometimes in the same place in different years. Given that I come from "a place of droughts and flooding rains" this does not augur well for me. -
scaddenp at 12:08 PM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Also William, you came here saying that you wanted to find the truth. Good for you, so do I. However, dont let that turn into a search for reasons for doing nothing. First you find out what the science actually says, then you do a risk assessment to determine action. -
Sceptical Wombat at 12:06 PM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
Tom I would not put too much reliance on the trend line until we have a few more high years - at the moment it appears to be pushed up by one year's data. I can see a certain peer in a few years telling everyone that extreme weather events have been declining since 2011. -
Steve Metzler at 11:37 AM on 13 January 2012Climate Change Denial and the Media - Banishment of Science Reality
@Doug H "...I am surprised that I ended up as, I hope, a true sceptic... It also might have something to do with my training in analysis, in that I like to start with the data when framing a software design. OTOH, it might just be chance." Programming computers since 1974, and a skeptic of the Randi school for at least 10 years. No, it's not chance, and it has a name: it's called "critical thinking". -
Tony O at 11:21 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
Oregon is looking better and better -
Riduna at 11:20 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Philippe Chantreau @ 10 A further problem is that SLR is as non linear as melting of ice sheets. Present rate of increase, a mere 3.2mm/annum worries no one and, based on that rate, few people believe that within 50 years we are likely to be looking at SLR in the order of 50cm/annum. And when that point is reached it will be far too late to "adapt" to the coming threat to major coastal cities. Move cities and their 3-4 billion inhabitants to higher ground. No problemo! Really? -
skywatcher at 11:17 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
#9: Which situation do you think is most stressful for plants, animals, people on flood plains, or people relying on limited water supplies? 1: Really average conditions, everywhere gets just about the amount of rain they typically expect. 2: Extremes of wet and dry with associated extreme drought and flood? -
skywatcher at 11:09 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Sea levels have been changing for billions of years
Yes, they have, and always in response to some kind of forcing. Ditto climate change. They never change without a forcing of some sort. We are providing a very large forcing by altering the planet's radiative energy balance with all our FF-derived CO2. Uniquely in geological history, we are aware of this issue. We are a step ahead of orbital forcing or plate tectonic forcing that has altered sea levels in the past. We are, unlike the continets and the Earth's orbit, able to see what we are doing, see that it is altering sea levels (among many other things), and do something about it, say... by substantially reducing our CO2 emissions. -
Riduna at 11:08 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Rob @ 5 "it'll take about a thousand years to get there ....." 500 years according to Hansen. He talks of a 5 metre SLR by 2100, My estimate based on decadel doubling of land-based ice loss is 4 metres. But 4 metres or 5 metres - who's quibbling? -
ClimateWatcher at 10:57 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
So, do you suppose that in 1970, when the wet-or-dry number was about 2%, that people were concerned that 'every where is just about average'? -
scaddenp at 10:57 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
So William, you dont think removal of FF subsidies, "Hansen tax" etc can change FF use? The primary obstacle to action at the moment is misinformed denial. Climate (and sea level) has changed in the past but mostly slowly and before we had settled agriculture, but AGW forcing are causing climate change at rates normally associated with large mass-extinction events. The good news is that we can solve this problem, unlike say an asteroid strike. Perhaps you might like to take the challenge here. If you are entertaining the idea that its not bad, then please see Its not bad -
Doug Hutcheson at 10:40 AM on 13 January 2012Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
Sorry, meant to add this link to Sks debunking Singer: Fred Singer Denies Global Warming -
Doug Hutcheson at 10:33 AM on 13 January 2012Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
It is not within my sphere of expertise to post a formal rebuttal, but I note two telling points: 1) It is an opinion piece, an article, not a peer-reviewed scientific paper; 2) Note the provenance: it was published in ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT VOLUME 22 No. 4 2011, which is an organ of the fossil fuel industry, not a scientific journal. So, the article fails the test of credibility right at the outset. Prudence dictates it should be regarded as a suspect source unless and until it is published in the formal scientific manner. I note that Singer has authored work which has been debunked here and elsewhere, but I am not dismissing this article on that ground. -
William Haas at 10:27 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
If human caused CO2 is really the cause of all of this then I think that there is little that is going to be done that will actually reduce CO2 levels and with it sea levels. If CO2 levels are not the cause than what will be will be. Sea levels have been changing for billions of years and I doubt that we are ever going to be able to change that. Very low level property close to the sea has always had a certain risk associated with it. -
Doug Hutcheson at 10:19 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Mal @ 13: Just proves the old saying that failing to plan is planning to fail. If I were one of those residents living in a future flood zone (declared or not), I would quietly and quickly put my home on the market, hoping to attract a buyer from the deniersphere. My brother in law recently purchased a property in a canal estate, not ten feet above the high tide mark. I had to bite my tongue when he told me how cheaply he had bought it. Sigh. -
Doug Hutcheson at 09:56 AM on 13 January 2012Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
Mods: Rob Painting's graphic @ 5 must have been moved. When I try to display it, I see "The requested URL /files/current/sl_global.jpg was not found on this server." On topic, am I right in thinking that the rate of melt of the ice sheets will increase as they lose mass: ie the more they melt, the faster they melt? Something about mass relative to surface area, if I recall my high-school physics from 45 years ago.Response:[DB] Graphic updated.
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John Hartz at 09:50 AM on 13 January 2012Lean and Rind Estimate Human and Natural Global Warming
Zachary Shahan at PlanetSave has reposted the article with the following introduction: "The folks over at Skeptical Science recently put together a great summary post of a Lean and Rind paper on human and natural factors influencing global warming. The obvious conclusion was that humans are driving global warming. In particular, there’s no way solar activity, volcanic activity, and the El Niño Southern Oscillation are causing the warming. The first chart below says it all. But, for those who want more than a chart, I’m just going to repost the whole piece (click to enlarge any of the images or charts). Thanks to Skeptical Science for the great work they do on this front!" Source: Planetsave (http://s.tt/15cER) -
Rob Painting at 09:44 AM on 13 January 2012It's not bad
Edit: Debunked Saleska paper removed from the positive column - the Amazon did not green up during the exceptional 2005 drought - see:Samanta (2010) Nemani (2003) also excised. It does not imply enhanced forest growth with future global warming. A further reduction in cloud cover over the Amazon will lead to more warming of the forest canopy and, possibly, exceeding a heat tolerance threshold. See SkS post: Amazon Drought: Heat Stress Linked To Mass Tree Die Off In 2005 and 2010 -
dr2chase at 09:13 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Regarding change required in coastal cities, I think there might be more than one way to look at it. Consider Florida. in 1912, what was in Florida? Not much. Says Wikipedia, "In 1900 its population was only 528,542". Humans are well-known for their loss/gain asymmetry, so we may see the flow of millions of people out of (coastal) Florida in the space of a century as something catastrophic, but in terms of new construction and infrastructure required somewhere, it's no different from the century we just had. One difference is that all the wealth that people perceive they may own in Florida real estate will evaporate, and it will evaporate well ahead of the rise in sea level (once it becomes widely believed that the sea level is rising and will continue to rise). But it was pretty well worthless (to "civilized" people) 100 years ago (swamps, alligators, mosquitos, snakes, malaria, yellow fever), so really, no change there, either. So if you take that view, and it's not that hard a view to take, climate change in the US will just be a matter of moving people around. And taking that point of view, I do wonder, how will people behave if we start to see centimeters-per-year in sea level rise? Where will they move? -
jabarnard at 09:02 AM on 13 January 2012CO2 is not a pollutant
I think the question hangs on whether you believe global warming is on net harmful at the levels predicted. If you don't believe that the net effects of a 2 degree temperature rise are harmful then it's hard to get to the point of calling CO2 a pollutant. While there have been many dire predictions based on the 2 degree theory I have yet to see a well reasoned quantification of the relative benefits versus harms. Where can I find that?Response:[DB] Try here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives-intermediate.htm
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Tom Smerling at 08:56 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
Jeff Masters again: Percentage of the U.S. in extreme droughts or extremely wet, 1910-2011 Notice the red trendline, relative to the black horizontal mean for the period. A trend?
Figure 3. Percentage of the contiguous U.S. either in severe or greater drought (top 10% dryness) or extremely wet (top 10% wetness) during 2011, as computed using NOAA's Climate Extremes Index. Remarkably, more than half of the country (58%) experienced either a top-ten driest or top-ten wettest year, a new record. Image credit: NOAA/NCDC.
Moderator Response: [RH] Fixed image width. -
scaddenp at 08:54 AM on 13 January 2012Global Warming: Trend and Variation
And please tell us the physical basis for this proposed longer variation. -
John Hartz at 08:53 AM on 13 January 2012Climate Change Denial and the Media - Banishment of Science Reality
@Brian Purdue: Kuddos on an excellent article. One issue that you did not explicitly deal with is the power of the fossil fuel industry to affect how the mass media deals with climate change by virtue of purchasing megabucks worth of advertising. Perhaps a follow-up article is in order. -
muoncounter at 08:30 AM on 13 January 2012Global Warming: Trend and Variation
QE#72: Why do you suggest the observed trend is 'mistaken'? Please avoid vague language like 'mistakenly think' or 'may actually be.' If you are proposing 'its a natural cycle,' see the appropriate thread. If you believe in a so-called 1500 year cycle, see this thread. -
Mal Adapted at 08:18 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Doug H.:I feel that planning for a pessimistic sea-level outcome this century would be prudent.
So do I, but the denial industry has made that problematic. In coastal Virginia, some "skeptical" residents don't want their local government to do any planning:When planners redesignated property as a future flood zone, activists said officials were acting on a hoax. They argued in meetings and online that local planners are unwitting agents of Agenda 21, a U.N. environmental action plan adopted in 1992 that the activists see as a global conspiracy to grab land and redistribute wealth in the United States.
What a world 8^(! -
QuestionEverything at 08:16 AM on 13 January 2012Global Warming: Trend and Variation
AusssieinUSA. See my post #64. What we mistakenly think is a trend may actually be a short segment of a longer variation. -
AussieinUSA at 08:00 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
@ Daniel Bailey - Thankyou for your excellent response. -
Brian Purdue at 07:52 AM on 13 January 2012Climate Change Denial and the Media - Banishment of Science Reality
Kiwiiano - To answer your question, this is what the late Stephen Schneider, a great science communicator, said the article’s link “attack climate scientists”. “I’m pretty damn angry that media companies are putting profits ahead of truth. The media are deeply broken… That’s a real threat to democracy.” -
Kiwiiano at 07:36 AM on 13 January 2012Climate Change Denial and the Media - Banishment of Science Reality
It mystifies me that media that would crucify a politician, bureaucrat or regular citizen for being economical with the truth can turn a blind eye and publish the most outrageous lies about science. I guess it suits them, they are captive to the money trail as much as any of the skeptics. -
Daniel Bailey at 07:03 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
@ AussieinUSA"but with warming oceans wouldn't that mean in my area we would get wetter, whereas Washington State would be getting drier which typically happens during El Nino years?"
Not necessarily. Implicit in your statement is the presumption that the existing weather patterns will hold true in their geographic localities and in their existing seasons. We have already measured the northward migration of the ITCZ (Inter-Tropical-Convergence-Zone), the poleward expansion of the Hadley Cells and the anomalous WACCY (Warm Arctic, Cold Continents) weather in the Northern Hemisphere (NH). The demise of the Arctic sea ice is merely the thermometer telling the tale of the health of the NH's air conditioning system, itself at the heart of the main engine powering the NH circulatory systems. That engine, persistent in its current operational fashion for literally millions of years, is being forcibly shifted into a different functional norm. An ensemble of the models used by the IPCC, given the ongoing warming that simple physics tells us is already in the pipeline, tell us to expect continued drying:
[Source]
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AussieinUSA at 06:58 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
@ scaddenp - No I am not saying that at all. -
scaddenp at 06:52 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
Aussie - are assuming that with warming earth that El Nino would be more common? This is unsettled science. -
william5331 at 06:50 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Let's assume for the sake of the argument that climate change is not happening and if it is we are not causing it. It would still be incredibly worthwhile to stop burning fossil fuels. 1) they are very valuable feed stocks for industry and as such are more valuable than as fuel 2) We will need them in the future to stop a slide into another ice age which really would wipe our our civilization. If we used them to keep Atmospheric Carbon dioxide to about 300ppm, they would last a very long time. 3) We are corrupting foreign governments and bringing misery to the people of oil rich societies. This misery comes back to bite us in many ways. 4) The fossil fuel money comes back to buy up main street, wall street, air ports and sea ports all resulting in us becoming tenants in our own countries. 5) Burning fossil fuels releases a whole raft of nasty carcinogenic pollutants etc. etc. etc. -
funglestrumpet at 06:49 AM on 13 January 2012Climate Change Denial and the Media - Banishment of Science Reality
I have no desire to silence the false skeptics by means of legal instruments. But surely there has to be a limit to how far they are allowed to promulgate myths that have been debunked in serious peer reviewed journals. Surely there should be a moratorium on such activity until the debunking is shown to be itself debunked (if it ever is, of course). I know that this is simplistic and I am only advancing as a thought starter. One thing I do know is that people who are in a position to influence public opinion and do so against the received wisdom, despite being scientifically illerate on a subject, are endangering the lives of a great many people, and deliberately so. One is tempted to wonder whether these people should face a charge of committing a crime against humanity. I certainly do not think that their simply saying: "Oops!" is going to cut it when the public eventually catches up with the science and can see how they have been deceived. (Wouldn't it be nice for certain mishief makers to be stripped of their peerages?) -
PhilMorris at 06:42 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Rob@5. A thousnd years to get to a 25 m rise? If we've learnt anything over the last few years, it is that the rate of global warming and the effects have been far greater than the IPCC predictions. The Greenland and Antartic ice sheets don't have to melt to cause sea level rises - they just have to slide off the underlying ground into the ocean. Not long ago the predictions were for the Artic to be ice free in summer around 2050. Now we're looking to 2015, and totally ice free in the early 2020's. We've already reached the tipping point. Even if all fossil fuel buring were to stop tomorrow, human activity would still be releasing substantial quantities of GHG through agriculture and land use. And we know that fossil fuel burning will continue unabated for the forseeable future. -
AussieinUSA at 06:30 AM on 13 January 2012Global Warming: Trend and Variation
Sit on the beach and watch the tide come in. You will see some big waves, some small. The water's edge will advance and recede in a way that is not entirely predictable. But there is an overall patern that emerges as the hours roll by, and the beach narrows before you. This is still without doubt to me the best analogy of global warming. I use this all the time now, and kudos to whomever first came up with it! -
AussieinUSA at 06:24 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
I have to say that I take this prediction with a large grain of salt. I live in Southern California's high desert, and during El Nino conditions we get more precipitation on average. I know weather is quite the complex thing, but with warming oceans wouldn't that mean in my area we would get wetter, whereas Washington State would be getting drier which typically happens during El Nino years? Don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean I think it is a good thing to our flora and fauna, just a opinion of mine. -
Philippe Chantreau at 06:07 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
Problem is, even 2100 seems remote and not so much of a concern for many. Humans are ill equipped to plan and commit for that kind of time frame. Not so long ago, a typical life expectancy was 40 to 50 years in what is now the developped world. In a lot of the rest of the world it's not that much higher. Billions of humans live with constant reminders that they may very well not be around in 1 year from now. -
muoncounter at 05:40 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
Your last Masters quote is from his 11 Jan 2012 blog entry. A great illustration of the wet get wetter, the dry get drier:
--source
The numbers on this map are rankings of 'wettest' (high numbers) and 'driest' (low numbers). Seven states had their wettest year on record, and an additional ten states had a top-ten wettest year. Texas had its driest year on record, and four other states had a top-ten driest year.
I actually heard someone wondering why 'they just don't build a pipeline for all that floodwater' to irrigate the drought-stricken.
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TheTracker at 05:23 AM on 13 January 2012U.S. 2011: The Wet Get Wetter, the Dry Get Drier
Excuse me for being the most boring person on earth, but this is a reminder that we need to get serious not just about energy conservation, but also about water conservation. We were doing a lousy job of managing this precious resource before we decided to add climate change to the equation. The program: 1. Water efficient agriculture. 2. Market pricing for water. 3. Effective treatment and water recycling. 4. Overhaul of water rights -- system that recognizes water as a shared asset, like the atmosphere. 5. Ramped up storage of water for the inevitable droughts and to minimize draws from rivers and lakes during low-flow periods. 6. Planning for (where necessary) high-cost high energy solutions like desalinization. Note that fossil fuel burning can also be water-intensive. Charging a market price for water would bring us a step closer to fair market prices for fossil fuel energy. -
dana1981 at 04:50 AM on 13 January 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
Agreed with Albatross @25. The point of this post is not to say that UAH is wrong, the point is that the fake skeptics like Taylor and Michaels (and based on their comments, also Christy and Spencer) have refused to consider the possibility that UAH data could be the source of some of the discrepancy. The post shows that this is probably even the most likely explanation. As Michael Hauber noted @21, a true skeptic would consider the possibility that more than one factor could be contributing to the discrepancy, and would certainly not ignore the inconvenient possible explanations. The individuals in question have not behaved as true skeptics. -
Stephen Baines at 04:23 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
tmac57...I'm pretty sure the personal savings rate in the US is nearer positive 2-4%. It's been higher over the last few years in response to lost equity in the housing market and fears about the economic future spawned by the financial crisis. My guess is the rate varies substantially with economic status. In a way that pattern proves your underlying point that people on the whole respond to very obvious and more recent stimuli. I just wouldn't be as extremely cynical about it. -
Stephen Baines at 04:23 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
BernardJ, RobP and Tony O...I agree wholeheatedly. The fact that the debate has been framed arbitrarily by the 2100 endpoint has warping effect in my opinion. The kinds of changes to city-centers that will be occurring over the next several centuries is unheard of in history. Think about it, do people really think central NYC, Miami, Sydney or London could manage the consequences >4 meter of sealevel rise without substantial downside even over 2-3 centuries? That is a lot of infrastructure and people. Then there is all the heritage, natural and cultural, that is under threat as well. And this is a multi centrury pattern we are committing to now. This is one aspect where the IPCC and virtually every reasonable scientifically body is probably acting too conservatively, simply because they are trying their damnedest to appear level-headed. They should be depicting the full range of possibilities on this front so people can really assess what the risks are. -
Albatross at 04:15 AM on 13 January 2012Skepticism About Lower Atmosphere Temperature Data
Folks, We have a troll who is determined to try and derail this thread by making numerous off-topic, unsubstantiated, unreferenced remarks and being argumentative., while also ignoring the citations and facts presented to themAnything to distract from the disgraceful behaviour of Mr. Taylor and Dr. Pat Michaels. In fact, they do not seem to have read the OP in its entirety or followed the links provided. This is entirely consistent with people calling themselves "skeptics" when they are not true skeptics at all. I strongly encourage people to ignore such disingenuous behaviour and focus instead on the facts at hand. That is, as detailed in the main post, Mr. James Taylor, like Dr. Pat Michaels are wholly unskeptical when it comes to the UAH data. Worse yet,Taylor and Michaels continue to misrepresent, distort and use those data in their ongoing misinformation and PR campaign. While Fred may be OK with that (he has not said anything to the contrary) most of us with a conscience, ethical standards and a humble respect for science will not stand for it. Now there are other examples of "skeptics" being unskeptical of the satellite temperature estimates, in particular the UAH data, and i am more than happy to discuss those too. -
Eric (skeptic) at 03:30 AM on 13 January 2012Climate Change Denial and the Media - Banishment of Science Reality
"too reality" -> "to reality" -
tmac57 at 03:04 AM on 13 January 2012Climate and Sea Level: An Emerging Hockey Stick
One source that I checked said that the net national savings rate in the U.S. is -2.5% . If the U.S. populace is unwilling to make sacrifices in the short term to provide for their personal future,what are the odds that they will make any sacrifices to provide for the welfare of future generations? There seems to be a mass denial going on about more things than just the climate.
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