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

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Comments 70451 to 70500:

  1. Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
    Norman @4, The area studied in your post is rather arbitrary. Please look at the latest paper that Hansen et al are working on. Available here. They conclude: "The "climate dice" describing the chance of an unusually warm or cool season, relative to the climatology of 1951-1980, have progressively become more "loaded" during the past 30 years, coincident with increased global warming. The most dramatic and important change of the climate dice is the appearance of a new category of extreme climate outliers. These extremes were practically absent in the period of climatology, covering much less than 1% of Earth's surface. Now summertime extremely hot outliers, more than three standard deviations (σ) warmer than climatology, typically cover about 10% of the land area. Thus there is no need to equivocate about the summer heat waves in Texas in 2011 and Moscow in 2010, which exceeded 3σ – it is nearly certain that they would not have occurred in the absence of global warming. If global warming is not slowed from its current pace, by mid- century 3σ events will be the new norm and 5σ events will be common." Please note the highlighted text. Also, not the following key figure from Hansen et al. (2011) for a truly global perspective: Jun-Jul-Aug surface temperature anomalies over land in 1955, 1965, 1975 and 2003-2011 relative to 1951-1980 mean temperature in units of the local standard deviation of temperature. [H/T Daniel Bailey]
  2. Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
    Agnostic @23, As a former member of an Australian political party who drafted some policies relating to environmental matters, I'm just pleased to see that the legislation has put it's foot through the door. The first year of operation will allow the public to see that carbon pricing will not cause the sky to fall - and thus leave those who would repeal the tax with so much less wind in their sails. Subsequent years will most likely see changes and adjustments made to the existing legislation. The biggest hurdle has been crossed, now it just a matter of keeping the bill in law and ammending and improving it to suit needs.
  3. Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
    Oh Marcus! "Some of the money raised in the first 3 years will be going to an Independent Authority that will invest the money in Clean Energy Projects. Luckily, thanks to the efforts of The Greens & Independents-in both Houses-neither Coal Seam Gas nor Carbon Capture & Storage will be included for funding by said Authority." Govt doesn't have a great track record of investing in anything!!! Insulation....schools.... etc. Why not give tax breaks or investment incentives to private companies to come up with the technology? And what do you mean 'luckily'? What you are saying is "luckily" the govt decided not to invest in the only two currently viable technologies that could replace some of our peak power load. How is that lucky? I admire your idealistic view of the world - but idealism won't get us anywhere....
  4. Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
    Lots of backslapping and feel good comments here, but I don't read anything anywhere that tells me what the carbon tax will achieve? A price on carbon, yes - but if Australia has no alternative fuel sources (fossil fuel provides 100% of Australias base load and peak load power - which is 93% of Australias total power usage) then a price on carbon will just make everything generated using fossil fuels (which is everything!) more expensive. To argue that Australias consumption will reduce means that someone has discovered a viable base load power alternative which didn't exist yesterday (or that Australia has agreed to go Nuclear) - You can't dial up or down coal fired power stations. So - for those of us concerned about real climate action - the carbon tax achieves nothing.
  5. Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
    Skywatcher @9, Too true. Who will be this austral summer's drought/heat wave victim, or next boreal summer's drought/heat wave victim? Southern Africa is currently enduring a heat wave, with temperatures between 35 C and 45 C. Also see here. Is it now their turn for a 2 or 3 sigma event?
  6. Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
    Rob Painting "That continued warming of the Earth will cause more frequent and intense heatwaves is hardly surprising, and has long been an anticipated outcome of global warming." From the two graphs below it would appear that the intensity of heat during a hotter phase does seem to be greater in the more recent years, but it does not show an increase in the frequency of hot cycles. One may be able to claim that global warming will have a greater probability of causing a higher avearge temperature during a heat wave, evidence does not show or prove the conclusion that frequencies of heat waves will increase. source. source.
  7. Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
    The Prime Minister and Members of Parliament sitting on the cross benches do indeed deserve congratulations for passage of legislation putting a price on carbon. The real value of this legislation is that it gives certainty to investment in energy generation from the least polluting sources and provides substantial public funding to promote the development and application of technology to curb carbon emissions. However, in other respects, is it worth boasting about? There are no performance targets associated with the legislation and the purely nominal target of reducing carbon emissions by 5% below 2000 level is just that – nominal and giving a poor example to major emitting countries. Worse, government is very unclear about the actual level of reduction it aims to achieve and, when clarity is sought on this point, it refuses to provide any response. One might, at the very least, have hoped for orderly reduction in dependence on and use of fossil fuels. Instead we get repeated, categorical assurances from the Minister for Climate Change that coal has a long and lucrative future and investment in it is encouraged. The legislation provides a good structure for reduction of carbon emissions and the orderly, rapid abandonment of fossil fuels and development of the innovative technology required to achieve this. Indications are that there is far too little political will to actually achieve these outcomes. Actions speak louder than words – particularly ambivalent ones.
  8. Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
    Tom51 @ 15 When Tony Abbott seized the Liberal Party leadership from Malcolm Turnbull in December 2009, he won by just 42 votes to 41. As the impacts of climate change become ever clearer, Abbott’s support is unlikely to increase. And when we consider that not just Turnbull, but 3 other former leaders of the Liberal Party have supported pricing carbon, Abbott is beginning to look a bit lonely. With David Cameron, John Key, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gordon Campbell, we have conservative leaders from 4 similar English speaking economies taking firm action to reduce CO2 emissions. These men ought to serve as good role models for whoever leads the Liberal Party in Australia.
  9. Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
    Arkadiusz Semczyszak @ 11 The revenue raised by pricing carbon will be used for legitimate purposes. All taxpayers with incomes below $80,000 will get tax cuts - most about $300 a year. Combined with adjustments to welfare payments, this means that 55% of revenue will be returned to households, with 2 in 3 receiving compensation at least equal to the impact on their cost of living. The balance of the revenue will be used for industry assistance and a renewable energy investment fund. Tony Abbot describes this as a “money churn”, but he missed the point. The price differential between products and services that are emissions intensive, and those that are not, will still provide the same incentive to alter spending behaviour, regardless of how much compensation is paid.
  10. Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
    That figure (Hansen's Fig 6) is a very elegant way of expressing how extreme events (the 2-3 sigma reds and browns) are on the rise due to AGW, but not uniformly everywhere every year. The next time somebody suggests Texas wasn't extreme, or that Australia / Europe / Russia / Amazon has had such events before therefore there's no problem, they should be referred to that graphic. Roll the dice each year, fancy being under a red or brown in your local summer? It's getting more and more likely...
  11. CO2 Problems: Parallel concerns breed parallel denial
    Good article, chukbot. Thanks for debunking one more piece of misconception. I found minor detail worth the correction. In Pedantic Semantics section you say: If the pH of a solution changes from 9 to 8, the solution has acidified, even though it is still basic. IMO, it's more correct to say: If the pH of a solution changes from 9 to 8, the solution has acidified, even though it is still alkaline. I'm not a chemist but I think from primary school that 8 is definitely alkaline, since it's 1 degree above (10 times more alkaline ions) the basic.
  12. Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
    DB, I think one would have to have a moderate understanding of statistics to understand just how chillingly dead-on that paper is to what I really did not want to hear. I don't know how to convey what an increase from 0.1-0.2% to 6-13% coverage of 3 sigma (or greater) anomalies means to a person who doesn't know what a Gaussian distribution is. Dr Hansen's saying that "...there is no need to equivocate..." is perhaps an understatement. I was hoping that recent events would remain anomalous for some decades; the data would indicate that is unlikely. It's all there in figure 6, Europe 2003, Australia 2009, the Amazon, Russia and the Middle East 2010, and Texas 2011. The area with 3 sigma warming sometimes pops in different places in different years, it waxes and wanes, but it is growing inexorably. Thanks, I think.
    Response:

    [DB] The graphic that Chris refers to is this one:

    Click to enlarge

    Figure 6. Jun-Jul-Aug surface temperature anomalies over land in 1955, 1965, 1975 and 2003-2011 relative to 1951-1980 mean temperature in units of the local standard deviation of temperature.

  13. Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
    Maybe Roger Jr. could be induced to comment. He has had a lot to say about RC11 on his own blog, briefly at Real Climate and a comment yesterday at Kloor's where he says it is a "nonsense paper" On his blog he describes the methods in RC11 as Stats 101 ball and urn stuff tricked out with a bunch of complexity. Rahmstorf retired from the fray early at Real Climate and I don't blame him. You folks here at SkS have the chops and the persistence to talk this over with the junior Pielke. It needs to be done. Paul Middents
  14. Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
    DB inline#5: That is a beautiful paper. No doubt he will be denounced by the usual denouncers for it. People who deny the global warming cause of these extreme events usually offer instead a meteorological "explanation". For example, it is said that the Moscow heat wave was caused by an atmospheric "blocking" situation, or the Texas heat wave was caused by La Nina ocean temperature patterns. Of course the locations of the extreme anomalies in any given season are determined by the specific weather patterns. However, blocking patterns and La Ninas have always been common, yet the large areas of extreme warming have come into existence only with large global warming. Today's extreme anomalies occur because of simultaneous contributions of specific weather patterns and global warming. Too bad he didn't use the phrase 'rolling thirteens.'
  15. Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
    What are your thoughts on Roger Pielke, Jr.'s critique (and the NOAA follow-up)?
  16. The Climate Show 21: Carbon, coal and BEST
    Well, there's my Friday evening entertainment all sorted... :-P
  17. Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
    Suggested reading: “Capitalism vs. the Climate”, The Nation (USA), Nov 28, 2011 print edition. Click here to access this in-depth and thought-provoking, cover story by Naomi Klein.
  18. Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
    **** correction "..., have experienced unusual or record warm/dry events within Y years..."
  19. Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
    I'm thinking that the work on the probability of the Moscow heat wave/drought could be extended to multiple locales. For instance, one might ask the question, "What are the odds that X regions of Australia, the US, China, Russia, and possibly others, have occurred within Y years of each other?" You could might have to look at the historical records to see how much concurrence, if any, has existed for droughts in the same regions. If the number of such events occurring in close proximity to each other is common in history, but not associated with global warm periods, then it means less. If they have been mostly uncorrelated in the past, and are becoming more correlated, or if common occurrences are associated with warm periods, then it means more. I'm going to throw out a guess that you would find an association between the frequency of these events and warm periods, and you might find the regions just poleward of Hadley cells were the most likely to be unusually warm and dry. Otherwise, yeah, at best you can attempt to keep the undecideds from being swayed by misinformation. If the undecideds really cared, they would not be undecided; there is plenty of information available. Maybe the trick is to catch them at the moment they start to care. Maybe attributions of crop damage, food prices, and social unrest will work better than appeals to preserve the habitat of what most people consider exotic species. On the other hand, appeals to preserve their own children do not work on those who have convinced themselves that nothing bad will happen to them.
    Response: [DB] Dr. James Hansen has a pertinent new article out on his website: Climate Variability and Climate Change: The New Climate Dice
  20. The Climate Show 21: Carbon, coal and BEST
    John, Dana, Hats off to you both.
  21. Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming
    Kudos on a very well-written article about rather complex analyses.
  22. The Climate Show 21: Carbon, coal and BEST
    I knew you'd come through for me in time, Dana :-)
  23. Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
    3 - Invicta You've hit the nail on the head there. Many climate hawks (ie those who want strong action on dealing with climate change; blame Joe Romm for that one..) spend a lot of time trying to argue to point with the denialist fringe. Pointless. Such people have invested emotionally in the denialist-narrative, that suits them very nicely, for various personal reasons; they won't be shifted - it's a faith. Of course plenty on the 'climate hawk' side are somewhat intractable and faith-based too.. But the others outside this schism - the great apathetic wedge in the middle - won't form an opinion on CC until CC intrudes rudely on them. It is already doing so, of course, but it's too nebulously attributed. Putting probability numbers such as "80% this extreme weather event that flooded your house/ dried your reservoir/ flattened your crops/.. was down to climate change" changes the picture dramatically. If the attribution is valid, and reported consistently, CC stops being a wishy-washy creep of the 'global average thermometer over a decade' (which that no-one directly experiences anyway) Much more of this sort of research/reporting please!
  24. Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
    "In Europe, a large part goes back to the fuel companies". Really, Ark, you got any evidence to back that up? Here in Australia, some of the money raised in the first 3 years will be going to an Independent Authority that will invest the money in Clean Energy Projects. Luckily, thanks to the efforts of The Greens & Independents-in both Houses-neither Coal Seam Gas nor Carbon Capture & Storage will be included for funding by said Authority.
  25. CO2 Problems: Parallel concerns breed parallel denial
    Interesting Arkadiusz refers us to a paper that does not support his conclusions. In his subsection from Seki et al 2010 entitl;ed "Changes in the CO2 were also rapidly:", he highlights and describes a part of a figure 9, whose data do not come from Seki et al. In fact, they come from: Raymo et al, 1996. Mid-Pliocene warmth: stronger greenhouse and stronger conveyor. Mar. Micropaleontol. 27 (1–4), 313–326. Here, we see that not only are the errors in the ~370-470ppm pCO2 estimates for the mid-Pliocene given as +/-65ppm on the graph, and suggested +/-25ppm in the text, the most rapid variation is 29ppm over 3600 years, or 66ppm over 31,200 years, with undefined age errors referred to an earlier paper (Shackleton et al 1990), the rate of CO2 drop in the first instance is 0.008ppm/yr, and increase in the second instance is 0.002ppm/yr. Now ignoring the errors discussed in the papers and above, hands up who would like atmospheric CO2 to be increasing by as little as 0.005ppm per year? Not exactly rapid, compared to modern rises several orders of magnitude larger! Arkadiusz, be careful with your sources, and placing your own amateur interpretations of large variations put on a scale where the x-axis reads hundreds of thousands or millions of years...
  26. Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
    I'm with Marcus. Abbott's 'blood oath' to repeal will only come to define him as the purely negative anachronism he is. As the economy continues to fail to fall apart post CT what has 'Dr. No' got left? Turnbull then becomes the obvious leader of the Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Then neither major Australian party in denial - of AGW, anyway - woohoo! Although I agree with Bernard that some will attempt to sheet home the global impact of Berlusconi's egregious incompetence to the Great Big New Tax, I seriously doubt that people are that stupid.
  27. Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
    2-les Spending too long here or similar sites can make you (me) think that the lunatic brigade are what is important. In truth I think the important people are the great majority who couldn't care less either way. (in my experience) Until the message gets through that what's going to happen will or is affecting them (us) directly they will continue to care less and bother their politicians not at all. In which case we are all simply using all this electricity for our own amusement.
  28. Models are unreliable
    411, dhogaza, No, no, no. What if the cloud feedback is negative, as RW1 claims? Then climate sensitivity is 0.5C per doubling, or even 0.0C per doubling. Maybe even -1C per doubling! You darn science types are always making false assumptions and jumping to alarmist conclusions.
  29. Models are unreliable
    You've got to love the way uncertainties in parts of climate models get conflated with "models are unreliable", or "models do not have preditive ability". Say it's mid-August in Melbourne, the daytime temperature is a respectable (and close to average) 15C. Can I forecast the exact temperature two weeks from now? No. But I can say that it's likely that the average temperature during September will be a bit higher than 15C. Some days will be cooler, but it's very likely, but not certain that most will be warmer. As for October, I can forecast that nearly all days will have a max temperature higher than 15C, and for November and December, it's unlikely that any day will be below 15C. I know this because the underlying forcing, not visible in a short timeseries with large variability, shows up over a longer period of time. The underlying forcing beats the variability every time. I know that October will be warmer than August, although not every October day will beat every August day. In the same manner, I can be very confident that the 2010s and the 2020s will be warmer than the 1990s and 2000s, even though not every later year will beat every earlier year. The models forecast this very well, alongside a great deal of more complex factors. Some factors not so well, but claiming unreliability belies an inability to understand the usefulness of models. Is the model unreliable because it cannot pick out the exact variability due to noisy variations in the short term? If you're forecasting the weather two months ahead, yes, but if you're forecasting the climate, no.
  30. Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
    1 - invicta I guess this is off topic for this thread but thinking that accurate predictions will have any impact is deluded. Google words like "YU55, NASA, coverup" and see what turns up. AFAIK the presence of the comment was well known, none of the lunatic bridgade have any "evidence" beyond what scientists provide - yet NADA scientist are "liers"!! Don't over estimate the intelligence of those we're up against.
  31. CO2 Problems: Parallel concerns breed parallel denial
    Thanks for an interesting article. Would Figure 6 with a log-linear Y-axis add to the discussion, or do the different sources/smoothing/whatever make this uninformative?
  32. Models are unreliable
    Sphaerica: "Let me see if I get this right: 1) Clouds are a factor that models do not handle as well as desired 2) Therefore clouds are not handled at all 3) Therefore models are unreliable and have no predictive skill 4) Therefore we don't know what climate sensitivity is" Typically #4 is "4) therefore climate sensitivity is about 1C per doubling, max", no ??? :) ITSM that's where they always end up. Even Curry does it ... her "uncertainty monster" argument is that poor treatment of uncertainty causes climate scientists to *overestimate* sensitivity. Not "underestimate error bars" ...
  33. Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
    NewYorkJ - I guess it's not only the USA in which political liberals are inept at messaging!
  34. Increase Of Extreme Events With Global Warming (Basic Version)
    I have just been reading this article communicating the science of climate change in physicstoday regarding the way scientists communicate with the public about climate science. When do you think scientists will be able to say accurately things like - there is a ...% chance that this event was due to climate change- on a regular basis rather, than the 'sceptic' friendly 'It is impossible to attribute any specific event to AGW'? Weather forecasters use similar phrases regularly and it would convey a more realistic scenario to the unenlightened. Wouldn't it?
  35. CO2 Problems: Parallel concerns breed parallel denial
    Here's my favorite graph showing "no change". Haven't seen it elsewhere, don't know why.
  36. Models are unreliable
    In addition to their 'undercarriage,' models get better with time. People who run models learn from prior work. That seems to be a significant problem with the denials - they just keep repeating the same old generic 'models are unreliable.' For example, listed here are several publications from a NASA water cycle study group. These folks are addressing the very issues that Camburn is looking for: evaporation, clouds, soil moisture, etc. But really: is there something likely to come out of this detail work that will undo the warming to date? That will undo the fact that forcing from atmospheric CO2 keeps rising? That these nonsensical objections (Warming paused! You can't be sure! There's no basis!) are just distractions from the real questions? Sphaerica's assessment is quite correct. We are in this situation. Meanwhile there's a tropical storm in the Atlantic in mid November and the worst storm in 37 years in Alaska on the same day.
  37. CO2 Problems: Parallel concerns breed parallel denial
    re: 4-6 Ooops! It should in fact be concentration on the Y-axis. That will teach me to copy/paste code :( I'll fix it momentarily.
  38. CO2 Problems: Parallel concerns breed parallel denial
    Re: JH @2 Sure! Top to bottom, Fig1: Taken from the written statement of Dr. John Everett before Senate EPW hearing on “EPA's Role in Protecting Ocean Health”, May 11, 2010. Fig2: Global CO2 rate data taken from Thomas Conway and Pieter Tans, Annual Mean Carbon Dioxide Growth Rates NOAA/ESRL (www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html) Fig3: MLO data from Pieter Tans and Ralph Keeling. Mauna Loa Annual Mean Data, NOAA/ESRL/Scripps (ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_annmean_mlo.txt). IS92a Scenario from IS92a CO2 concentrations (http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/vemap/supplemental/IS92a.dat). Dr. Everett's projection (described in his remarks in part II) is based upon the assumption of a constant accumulation rate of 1.87 ppm/year; the extrapolations based on MLO (1959-present) and global (1980-present) rate data are calculated by integrating the least-squares linear fit with the 2009 CO2 concentration as an initial condition. Fig4: IPCC AR4 Working Group I, figure 6.1. (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-3.html) Fig5: MLO data as with Figure 3; all others from the Paleoclimatology archive of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. Law Dome data were the 75-year smoothed series from Etheridge, D.M., et al., 2001, Law Dome Atmospheric CO2 Data, IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series #2001-083. NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA. (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/metadata/noaa-icecore-2455.html) Taylor dome data were from Indermühle, A., B. Stauffer, T.F. Stocker and M. Wahlen, 1999,Taylor Dome Ice Core CO2 Holocene Data. IGBP PAGES/World Data Center-A for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series #1999- 021 NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA. (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/metadata/noaa- icecore-2419.html) Vostok data were originally published in Barnola, J.-M., D. Raynaud, Y.S. Korotkevich, C. Lorius. 1987. Vostok ice core provides 160,000-year record of atmospheric CO2. Nature 329:408-414; the data were retrieved from the NCDC archives (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/metadata/noaa-icecore-2442.html). Fig 6: Same data as Figure 5; rates have been calculated by dividing the difference between successive concentrations by the length of time between them, and assigning the resulting rate to the midpoint of the time interval (ie, given a time series [Ti, Xi], a new time series is constructed [ti, Yi] where ti = (Ti + Ti+1)/2 and Yi = (Xi+1 - Xi) / (Ti+1 - Ti))
    Moderator Response: [John Hartz] Thanks. The captions should now be inserted into tbe article.
  39. CO2 Problems: Parallel concerns breed parallel denial
    Re: DM @1 Based simply on this data, you could argue that - the trend in the global ESRL data is significant only at ~93% confidence interval. However, MLO data which stretch back to the late 1950's and are in good agreement with the ESRL data in their overlap, show a significant increase (p~01^-7)
  40. The Climate Show 21: Carbon, coal and BEST
    Well who doesn't love an animated GIF, after all? http://sks.to/best is now live, by the way.
  41. Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
    "Carbon tax bill passes" "Carbon pricing scheme" Sheesh...they got it done in the end, but they've done a horrible job of selling it. They haven't managed to convince anyone to call it anything other than something that sounds purely negative - the big bad government taxing them more, although this is certainly on the media too. I mean, they could just as well call it the "Clean Energy Promotion and Income Tax Relief" bill, and it would be just as accurate. Instead, Australians come away with the false impression that it's simply a tax on them with nothing positive. Maybe someone can find a poll on this, but how many Australians know that there are income tax offsets that will put many of them ahead?
  42. Models are unreliable
    408, Camburn, Say something beyond the obvious, and make an actual point rather than a vague and wholly uncertain implication. And remember to support it with facts and references.
  43. Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 2
    I've read the entire report a couple of times and some chapters more. How you can misconstrue section 8 like that is beyond me, but sure, I would definitely encourage any skeptic to read the entire IPCC.
  44. Australia Legislates an Emissions Trading Scheme
    RE the above in your post: "we commend the former Liberal leader, Malcolm Turnbull... David Cameron... John Key... Arnold Schwarzenegger..." There is another name to add: former Premier of British Columbia, Gordon Campbell, who on July 1, 2008, brought in North America's first broad-spectrum carbon tax, a revenue-neutral (ie, income taxes have been lowered; BC now has the lowest personal income tax in Canada), slowly-rising (started at $10/t CO2 emitted in 2008, rising $5/y; now at $25/t CO2 emitted), and relatively comprehensive tax on combustion of fossil fuels. It generates ~$1B/y in revenue now, is having an impact (albeit still small, but growing) on fuel consumption and fuel switching, and is accepted (even applauded) by about 70% of BC's population. In short, it's a roaring success. Campbell is to be saluted, along with the other names you offer. Notably, Campbell is a politically conservative, but he never shied away from the word 'tax'!
  45. Models are unreliable
    dhogaza: The models do well with co2 because of the simple physics. However, there is a lot more to climate than just co2 levels. The hydro cycle is critical.
    Response:

    [DB] Please provide peer-reviewed evidence that models do not deal adequately with the hydrological cycle.  This is a climate science website; opinions are of no value without a scientific undercarriage to support them.

    Climate models have this scientific undercarriage; your opinions do not.

  46. CO2 Problems: Parallel concerns breed parallel denial
    HH#17: "the Younger Dryas?" It certainly appears to be. They show in supplemental information a detail of that anomaly. There's a big jump in methane (up to 800ppb), which settles to a plateau at a higher level (700) than prior to the jump (500). All from GRIP ice core, as are the data depicted here.
  47. Models are unreliable
    406, dhogaza, Let me see if I get this right: 1) Clouds are a factor that models do not handle as well as desired 2) Therefore clouds are not handled at all 3) Therefore models are unreliable and have no predictive skill 4) Therefore we don't know what climate sensitivity is 5) Therefore we don't even know global warming is happening (natural cycles!) 6) Therefore we can't be certain to what degree we should take action 7) Therefore we can't be sure if we should take action at all 8) Therefore we shouldn't take any action at all QED!
    Response:

    [DB] Moved to the appropriate thread.  My bad.

  48. Hyperactive Hydrologist at 05:13 AM on 11 November 2011
    CO2 Problems: Parallel concerns breed parallel denial
    Muon, Does the decline and then rise in N2O and CH4 between 13k and 11k have something to do with the Younger Dryas?
  49. Models are unreliable
    Camburn: "2. My impression of section 8 is that there is confidence in the output of the models concerning termperature because this is simple physics." This alone contradicts your claim that models don't have predicative ability. Of course you immediately contradict yourself to some degree: "As far as multiple model runs and picking the middle as a result. Being the models do not do well with clouds, hydro, etc which do affect not only weather, but clmate as well, the outputs of the models should be in question." Well, of course model outputs are in question - does the actual sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 lie a the low end or high end of the 2.5-4C range that's constrained by a bunch of scientific study, including but not limited to research involving GCMs? Just because modeling of clouds is identified as being an area where models don't do as well as one would like (because of restrictions on resolution, there are people who do very interesting work modeling clouds using high resolution models on small slices of the atmosphere) doesn't mean that there is no constraint on the magnitude of cloud feedbacks. Your - and the denialsphere in general - say "cloud feedbacks aren't as well constrained as the radiative properties of CO2" (for instance) and conclude "therefore, the magnitude of cloud feedbacks is not constrained at all" and furthermore argue that cloud feedbacks must be strongly negative to the point of counterbalancing CO2 and water vapor forcing. That's just crap.
  50. Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 2
    Camburn#43: "a mistake of credibility on my part. " Isn't your bigger mistake the fact that you are basing your 'models are unreliable' case on this one section of some very long documents? Documents that contain, as both Sphaerica and Tom Curtis quoted, statements that models are indeed reliable? Some call that 'quote-mining;' others might call it 'cherrypicking.' BTW the models thread is 'Models are unreliable,' #6 on the thermometer at the upper left of every SkS page.
    Response:

    [DB] Agreed.  Any further discussion of models, as Camburn has persisted in, is OT here and should be taken to the Models are unreliable thread.

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