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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.

Recent Comments

Comments 7301 to 7350:

Eclectic at 20:06 PM on 22 June 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

Lawrie @9 , Slarty Bartfast maintains that there is no global warming of any significance at a statistical level or at a physical planetary level. So to him, albedo is irrelevant.

Being more than 24 hours since his last posting, it seems unlikely that Slarty will return to attempt rebuttal of criticisms of against his many positions. But we can hope he will return, to give a grand explication of his apparent errors and inconsistencies.

In order to save the valuable time of SkS readers, I have looked further into Slarty's blog of May / June 2020 , and I have pulled out some points of interest. Slarty's statistical/mathematical skills are (IMO) far exceeding his climate science knowledge . . . and somehow I am reminded of the very emeritus & climatically-challenged Ivar Giaever !

I have taken some care not to misrepresent or quote-mine Slarty. And please note that Slarty, in his blog, describes himself as: physicist / socialist / evironmentalist.

1. Sea level rise cannot be more than slight , because there is no CO2-AGW or CO2-led Greenhouse effect. And so our coastal cities have zero danger of submersion.

2. What little CO2-greenhouse effect is present now, is produced by CO2 reflecting IR back to the planetary surface.

3. Weather stations fail to give valid planetary data because they are far too few, and (just as importantly) they are not evenly spaced.

4. "temperature records just aren't long enough ... to discern a definite trend ... you need at least 50 years."

5. "[land ice] In Antarctica (and Greenland) this is virtually all at altitude (above 1000 m) where the mean temperature is below -20 C, and the mean monthly temperature NEVER gets above zero, even in summer. Consequently, the likelihood of any of this ice melting is negligible."

6. AGW forcing does not supply enough heat to melt ice at the poles [he seems to include the Arctic, too].

7. The Arctic is not warming. [Presumably news to those alarmist Inuit who live there.]

8. Berkeley Earth Study repeats the sins of Hadley/ NOAA / etc but in a more transparent way ~ and BEST generates a falsely-positive warming trend through its misuse of Breakpoint Adjustments (rather than using raw data).

9. Slarty's oceanic thermal expansion calculations are wrong [as pointed out by MA Rodger].

And there's more !

MA Rodger at 20:01 PM on 22 June 2020

Sea-level rise likely to swallow many coastal mangrove forests

Eclectic @4,

I fear we will be wasting out breath trying to put Slarty Bartfast straight. His grand work on SLR which he set out on a webpage in his blog and presented @2 disappeared following the criticism of it here.

But it is now reappeared with its silly errors unchanged.

Perhaps the silliest part of his blog is his own cedentials which in the circumstances he should be presenting to the world. Yet he hides behind his pseudonym and the description "Physicist, socialist and environmentalist (not necessarily in that order)." His physics has the feel of a school-book regurgitated, giving the impression of somebody who thinks he is a man-on-a-mission when, if you read his blog, he is actually a deluded fool in freefall. Despite all the words and equations, he still manages to say nothing of any interest.

Beyond him presenting himself here at SkS, I would give him and his silly misconceptions no heed.

Lawrie at 11:34 AM on 22 June 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

Any process that absorbs visible light decreases albedo. Photosysnthesis, the process that produced fossil fuels, would seem to be way ahead of solar power. Following on from Slarty's logic then the quickest way to reduce global warming would be to clear fell all the earth's forests and replace them with reflective concrete

Eclectic at 11:22 AM on 22 June 2020

Sea-level rise likely to swallow many coastal mangrove forests

MA Rodger @3 , there are several "profound logical errors" in Slarty Bartfast's own blog. I am not planning to go into them here, for they are mentioned (at least some of them) on another thread = 2020 News Roundup #25.

And as yet, I have seen only part of his blog.

I can say that he demonstrates admirable skills in mathematical analysis ~ but he seems not to realize that he has built his edifice on a base which is simply unphysical.

( In science, can there be any crueller word than "unphysical" ? )

nigelj at 09:32 AM on 22 June 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

Slartibartfast appears to think global warming is caused largely by the heat output from industry, transport and electricity generation. A simple google search shows global temperatures were exceptionally high during the first half of 2020, the period of covid 19 lockdowns and reduced heat output from transport, electricity generation and industry. Wheres the cooling trend his theory would predict?

Preston Urka at 06:22 AM on 22 June 2020

Renewables can't provide baseload power

Some 7 years later from a very contentious discussion, I hestitate to post, but here goes!

I feel the answer to the question of "Can renewables provide baseload power?" should be "No. However, renewable energy's deficiencies can be mitigated to provide baseload power using energy storage and overbuild." - which is they way the rest of the article reads.

Storage and overbuild are mitigation strategies, not an inherent part of renewable's capabilities.

Also, it is not a great service to a reader to paint a such a rosy picture. To get to 100% renewables a major amount of work has to be done (referencing the items in the description):

for scale, https://www.iea.org/world, 23,696 TWh electricity (not total energy) in 2017
storage is at 200 GW globally, relatively small to a baseload scenario

https://www.iea.org/articles/will-pumped-storage-hydropower-expand-more-quickly-than-stationary-battery-storage
note this makes a breakdown into pumped hydro/pumped thermal/batteries/caes irrelevant - altogether very small
good news VTG, but still somewhat small - https://irena.org/newsroom/articles/2019/May/Driving-a-Smarter-Future

https://www.iea.org/fuels-and-technologies/renewables

Renewable electricity generation by source (non-combustible), World 1990-2017
geothermal is an even smaller drop at 85 TWh (0.3%) globally
solar CSP is a tiny drop at 11 TWh (0.04%)

Once we take into account overbuild of renewables, the overbuild of transmission to support previous, more storage, and demand management, it becomes a (doable) daunting task.

I also feel the point about the renewables studies are a bit too optimistic. Jacobson's paper in particular has a number of refutations with just as well-reviewed papers as his - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.03.114 being an obvious starting point. My point isn't that 1 guy is correct and 1 guy is wrong - my point is that this is not a settled argument - and we can't bet our biosphere on optimism.

I will say that if you want to quote a source, although not as optimistic, this is a much better paper than Jacobson: https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re-futures.html

Casually reading this post I would conclude this is a done deal and we should all stop worrying about climate change. That is probably a bad message to take away.

Eclectic at 00:42 AM on 22 June 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

MA Rodger @6 , I gather that the "industrial energy" converted into temperature rise ~ is calculated according to Slarty's own special system. I have been enjoying reading some of Slarty's blogsite, but I have only dipped my toe into it, so far. He displays a great number of algebraic equations, which I have (perhaps wrongly) not looked into ~ this is a failing of mine, deriving from my past experience of the reams of equations publicized by Lord Monckton (the Moncktonite mathematics suffer major revision every so many months . . . yet always lead to absurd conclusions).

Slarty seems to calculate on the basis that any industrial (i.e. Anthropogenic) heat energy produced in [say] England, will remain within the national borders. No flow of wind or water across those borders, nor any transfers per evaporation/condensation.

There are other peculiarities in his blog. He states that the Milankovitch cycle produces a 10 degreeC oscillation of global temperature. Perhaps he thinks Vostok represents the entire planet. Also, he seems to feel that the CO2 in the atmosphere produces "Greenhouse" by reflecting infrared radiation back to the Earth's surface.

There were one or two other points he made which seemed in error, at my first glance at his blog : but I've forgotten what they are, now. Perhaps I can dig them out later. Of course, his blog may not be quite as bad as I first gathered ~ I may have been mistaken in my own thoughts, and too hasty in my skimming, and some of the errors may be more a matter of him expressing himself in an odd way or through excessive abbreviation of ideas. Still, it's always a red-flag worry when the earnest blogger seems to arrive at a different conclusion than the world's scientists. There's usually some blunder at the bottom of it all.

MA Rodger at 23:14 PM on 21 June 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

Eclectic @4,

I fear the stiffest 'head wind' the grand theorising of Starty Bartfast on Energy Use faces is the history of these primary energy uses he employs so boldly.

He employs the 2018 Primary Energy Use of UK which is given as 177Mtoe, equivalent to 0.97Wm^-2 for the UK land area. I'm not sure of the conversion to a +0.42°C temperature rise for the UK, but taking that ratio, the UK would have been subject to a cooling of -0.02°C since 1965 (using OurWorldInData energy numbers) and a cooling of -0.11°C since Primary Energy peaked in 2003 (using the same source as Slartibartfast). The thermometers have evidently not been informed of this as, from the HadCET annual data where we should be the farthest from any outside influence, the annual CET averaged 9.5°C in 1965, rose to 10.5°C in 2003 and by 2018 was 10.7°C, thus giving no sign of any cooling associated with changing levels of UK Primary Energy Use.

Eclectic at 22:02 PM on 21 June 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

Post Script explanation ~ my final comments @4 are referring to icemelt.

Eclectic at 21:59 PM on 21 June 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

SlartyB @3 , the combined areas of England Belgium Netherlands & Pennsylvania come to less than 0.07% of global area. ( And most nations of the world are much less densely populated.) So your hypothesis of "waste heat" being a major part of Anthropogenic Global Warming . . . is sailing itself into a very stiff headwind ! Perhaps you will be kind enough to "show your working" for your supportive arithmetic?

( Off-topic :- In another thread, MA Rodger has indicated your arithmetical blunder wrt sea level rise from thermal expansion. Your other assertion ~ that the AGW forcing of 0.6 or 0.9 watts/m2 is far too small to produce significant sea level rise in the coming 100 or 200 years ~ also seems to be in error. For myself, a rough back-of-envelope calculation shows that only about 1% of the AGW forcing is sufficient to cause 2+ mm/year of sea level rise. Which fits in with the mainstream science. And which leaves plenty of scope for an accelerating rise in that near future. )

MA Rodger at 19:58 PM on 21 June 2020

Sea-level rise likely to swallow many coastal mangrove forests

Slarty Bartfast @2,

You are evidently not the real Slartybartfast, the designer of planets from Hitchhiker's Guide the the Galaxy because he would not make the profound mathematical error and logical error which you make on your blog post.

Firstly, in your calculations, you use the 'linear' coefft of thermal expansion which is the linear expansion of a solid, something which involves expansion in all three directions. The value for water is given in tables solely to allow the easy calculation of the differential rate of expansion when a volume of water is held in a container. Thus your 0.66mm/yr SLR (from the linear coefft of 69e-6/deg C) due to 0.9Wm^-2 global energy imbalance should be 2mm/year (from the volumetric coefft of 207e-6/deg C although note this coefft does vary with temperature, pressure and salinity). As most of the energy imbalance does end up warming the oceans, the actual thermal expansion component of SLR isn't greatly lower than that value (as the graphic in the Moderator Response shows).

Secondly, you fail to make the explicit point (although you do manage to demonstrate it) that the melting of ice is a far far more thermally efficient means of raising sea level. Thus if the 0.9Wm^-2 global energy imbalance were solely applied to melting ice, it would result in 130mm SLR pa. We are saved from this SLR as the global energy imbalance is spread over the whole world while glaciers and ice caps are concentrated in a few particular regions. As the world around the planet's ice warms, that ice does attract an increasing percentage of that imbalance, resulting in SLR far in excess of the limit you impose using solely the land area of ice fields.

CD at 11:21 AM on 21 June 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

@ Tom Drayton

Yes I've read the RealClimate post and it makes the same point I made in my <a href="https://climatescienceinvestigations.blogspot.com/2020/06/14-surface-heating.html">recent blog post</a>, that the waste heat is only about 0.03 W/m^2, or the equivalent of a global temperature rise of about 0.013 K. This sounds trivial until you realize it isn't spread evenly across the Earth's surface. The point I made is that when examined on a country-by-country basis, this heating can become very large, e.g. 1.0 K for Belgium & the Netherlands, 0.66 K for England and 0.5 K for Pennsylvania. That is not trivial and it accounts for almost all the temperature rise seen in these states/countries in the entire 20th Century. I'm surprised that doesn't make you stop and think.

Tom Dayton at 09:12 AM on 21 June 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

Slarty Bartfast, that is a very old, and long discredited, myth. See, for example, this RealClimate post.

CD at 08:42 AM on 21 June 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

I noticed that one of the proposals of this article is more solar power. Yet solar power decreases the Earth's albedo and thereby increases local surface warming. This warming (even without CO2 greenhouse emisions) can be as high as 1 degC as I note here - climatescienceinvestigations.blogspot.com/2020/06/14-surface-heating.html

In thermodynamics there is no such thing as a free lunch. All human activity warms the planet. So what is the plan? Go back to prehistoric living and get everyone to live in a cave?

Moderator Response:

[DB] Sloganeering snipped. Please comport further comments to comply with the Comments Policy.

CD at 08:32 AM on 21 June 2020

Sea-level rise likely to swallow many coastal mangrove forests

And what is causing this sea level rise exactly? Because it can't be "global warming" or CO2 emissions. There just isn't the energy available to do this as I have calculated here - climatescienceinvestigations.blogspot.com/2020/06/15-truth-about-sea-level-rise.html

Moderator Response:

[DB] Please refrain from sloganeering. Human activities are the dominant contribution to SLR since 1970.

Per Slangen et al 2016,

Anthropogenic forcing dominates global mean sea-level rise since 1970

"the anthropogenic forcing (primarily a balance between a positive sea-level contribution from GHGs and a partially offsetting component from anthropogenic aerosols) explains only 15 ± 55% of the observations before 1950, but increases to become the dominant contribution to sea-level rise after 1970 (69 ± 31%), reaching 72 ± 39% in 2000 (37 ± 38% over the period 1900–2005)"

Takeaways:

1. Although natural variations in radiative forcing affect decadal trends, they have little effect over the twentieth century as a whole

2. In 1900, sea level was not in equilibrium with the twentieth-century climate, and there is a continuing, but diminishing, contribution to sea-level change from this historic variability

3. The anthropogenic contribution increases during the twentieth century, and becomes the dominant contribution by the end of the century. Our twentieth-century number of 37 ± 38% confirms the anthropogenic lower limit of 45%

4. This would increase even further if increased ice-sheet dynamics were considered to be a consequence of increased anthropogenic forcing (to 83% in 2000) and if reservoir storage and groundwater extraction were included (to 94% in 2000)

5. Our results clearly show that the anthropogenic influence is not just present in some of the individual contributors to sea-level change, but actually dominates total sea-level change after 1970

From Cazenave et al 2018 we know that land-based ice sheet mass losses comprise the biggest component of measured SLR, with that contribution increasing:

A continuance of violating this site's Comments Policy will result in further moderation, up to and including a revocation of commenting privileges.

Jack Middleton at 07:54 AM on 21 June 2020

Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming

'veganism will solve the problem' argument' is a strawman argument. Veganim will solve as much as veganim will solve. Surely, if someone is claiming 'veganism will solve the problem' is not a credible proposition, unsceintific and not worth consideration?

A plant based diet is the smallest change that will have the biggest impact. The smallest, easiest change, esspecially for a westerner, the most easily implimentable with the least amount of life disruption, which will have the most significant impact at reducing, and in some cases eliminating, climate change causes of many kinds.

Have you considered the extent of deforestation which has occured so far in order to fascillitate the current demand for land in animal agriculture? This is land which currently cannot be rewilded to mitigate carbon emmisions.

For many reasons, this analysis seems baised, strawmans the claims made and is unfair in the analysis of the data.

nigelj at 07:51 AM on 21 June 2020

COVID-19 is the quiz, climate change the final exam

Eclectic @2, thanks for that reference and I did skim through about 50 comments before my eyes glazed over and stomach soured. And the comments are indeed the usual absurdities about government climate conspiracies and rhetorical hand waving, that becomes so tedious to read. Hence I just stopped well before the bottom of the list. I could not go on. The nausea was too much.

Yes scientific modelling is sometimes revised. But I would say to people 1)look at the overall track record of science which is clearly pretty good and 2) who else would you prefer to listen to? Somebody with qualifications in law or astrology? Some self appointed unqualified guru who sells books for millions of dollars? Somebody nashing his or her teeth and going by instinct? Some media person like Rush Limbaugh? Surely science is preferable to these people.

But sigh, you cant reason with the WUWT supporters. Which is why I just dont much bother any more. IMHO they are the libertarian fringe, haters of governments especially left leaning ones. For them government is the source of all problems, even although testing for failed drugs like Thalidomyde was carried out by the private sector that the libertarians champion. Somehow all failures are blamed on someone in government.

These WUWT supporters are unable to apply their critical thinking skills in a objective and non emotive way and apparently unable to see how the dreadful covid 19 numbers in America largely substantiate the scientists predictions. Instead they nitpick about the precise numbers.

But then, from what some other chracter said apparently nobody is really dying, that is all another conspiracy by the hospitals to exaggerate the problem for god only knows what reason, your guess is as good as mine. No matter how much we might point out there is no credible motive, and no hard evidence, the fanatical crazy people remain unconvinced. You cant tell people stuff, but you cannot make them understand.

Eclectic at 22:29 PM on 20 June 2020

COVID-19 is the quiz, climate change the final exam

Nigelj @1 , if you have a strong stomach, you might venture to skim through the comments made below an "article" [of June 19] on the egregious WUWT blogsite ~ a stub of an article, titled: Fauci: Americans "Don't Believe in Science".

The usual suspects have rushed in (by my count: 200 posts in 18 hours) to conflate COVID-19 matters with climate science matters. A not-so-unusual number, on a blogsite where almost any article about any type of science . . . triggers a great burst of outraged comments.

One particular gem is: "Science from a climate point of view is bought and paid for by a ring of vicious governments paying for a predetermined outcome." (Well I guess that lets the Bolsinaro & Muscovite governments off the hook?) Though I would love to see the listing of those vicious governments which allegedly seem keen to create extra political difficulties for themselves by promoting AGW awareness in their citizens.

Other comments are showpieces of rhetorical handwaving & self-deceiving obfuscation of the actual state of affairs. All marvellous . . . yet nothing new under the WUWT sun.

nigelj at 07:50 AM on 20 June 2020

COVID-19 is the quiz, climate change the final exam

In New Zealand active cases of covid are near zero, following a lockdown and associated television campaign of how to avoid getting the virus. Its been similar in Australia. Our political leader in NZ has repeatedly been in the media with a very clear, simple, consistent science based messaging on the dangers of the virus, and what to do like hand washing, social distancing etc, and is repeatedly shown on television doing this before attending to her duties. It looks like this has helped.

However the emphasis has been on what to do rather than too much on the virus itself, possibly in order to avoid negativity and scaring people into panic. She has a degree in communications skills, and one suspects this has been a useful influence. It's all been the polar opposite of people like Trump and Bolsonaro. That said keeping the virus out will be very difficult and its all far from over.

However I was interested in whether leading by example really has much actual influence on people. Management theory and daily life experience says it does, but that lacks a certain rigour. I found a couple of published studies that show empirical evidence that leading by example has an influence here and here.

william5331 at 07:20 AM on 20 June 2020

Michigan dam break shows how climate change strains infrastructure

So we are getting more rain and we need more rain. The problem is to control this added bonus without letting it cause damage. Get beavers back into every catchment. Look what Eric did.

https://mtkass.blogspot.com/2017/08/restoring-our-soils.html

Moderator Response:

[DB] Advertising link snipped.

MA Rodger at 18:24 PM on 19 June 2020

PETM climate warming 56 million years ago strongly tied to igneous activity

DPiepgrass @7,

I'm not familiar with the term 'Fully General Counterargument' but the idea that there is some legitimate response that negates any proposed finding, even one well-supported by evidence, some catch-all that destroys all opposing view: the idea that there is such a legitimate response s is pure bunkum. Such a legitimate response would rely on ontological truth and there is and never has been an ontological truth.

By the way, the reply to the putting-lipstick-on-a-model nonsense is:-

"And you put lipstick on a pig-in-shit trying to make out like it's a model. How stupid do you think people are?"

DPiepgrass at 02:38 AM on 19 June 2020

PETM climate warming 56 million years ago strongly tied to igneous activity

"you can put lipstick on a model but it’s still a model!"

Say what? All of science is built on models, and not only that but human understanding is built upon mental models. This phrase is a Fully General Counterargument (FGCA) against science. (Being in possession of an FGCA leads to irrationality because it allows the arguer to avoid updating their beliefs in light of new evidence.)

One Planet Only Forever at 07:41 AM on 17 June 2020

How Climate Change Reinforces Racism

nigelj,

I would defend the title because I understand Racism to be a sub-set of Othering.

And Othering includes a lack of caring about people who are identified as Others by race. Humans can learn to avoid harmful unjust Othering. But they can be easily impressed to harmfully consider Others to be unworthy of consideration (making people Fear Others is also very Easy).

And climate change can be seen to strengthen the resolve of many people to "Resist reducing how harmful their actions are to Others, and resist helping Others". They call actions like pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals (which include climate action), unjust names like Money Grabs and Attacks by the poor on the Wealthy.

The systemic origins of Othering can be understood to include competition to develop perceptions of Superiority relative to Others. And Colonizing Europeans can be seen to be a major source of the systems that create that harmful Othering.

What is needed is developing a sustainable global common sense that the only valid "Identification of Others deserving actions that the Others would consider to be Harmful to Them" is based on expanded awareness and improved understanding applied to help develop Sustainable Improvements for the future of humanity (like achieving all of the SDGs which, by the way, can be seen to include anti-racism actions as well as other identified anti-Othering actions). And the people identified as Others that way would be Helped to correct their beliefs and behaviours and have their potential to impact Others restricted until they learn to be Better (more helpful, less harmful people).

Doug Bostrom at 07:16 AM on 16 June 2020

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #23, 2020

The ECS matter is becoming very concerning.

nigelj at 06:49 AM on 16 June 2020

How Climate Change Reinforces Racism

Very good video but one nit pick. I dont think that the title "climate change reinforces racism" is accurate because its hard to see how climate change would lead to racial discrimination and racial prejudice, the normal definition of racism. Better to say climate change reinforces racial inequality.

scaddenp at 07:10 AM on 15 June 2020

No silver lining: The COVID-19 pandemic won't slow climate change

Yes, and I am taking the option to WFH 2 days a week permanently. Not that this will change my CO2 emissions at all however, since I walk to and from work. IT section though is making some big changes since WFH was both popular and productive. More of this should reduce the rate at which CO2 is building up in the atmosphere. Not a cure, but a good start.

michael sweet at 06:25 AM on 14 June 2020

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #23, 2020

Gavin at Realclimate posted on higher ECS today

michael sweet at 05:39 AM on 14 June 2020

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #23, 2020

The Guardian newspaper has had a lot of articles about climate change lately.

This article talks about the new model runs for the IPCC AR6 due next year. About 25% of the models have climate sensitivity of 5C compared to teh range of 2-4.5C (3C is commonly used) that has been found for about 40 years. 5C would be much worse change than 3C.

There were not a lot of references to original articles but I found the article to be a reasonable summary for laymen on this topic. (I do not read a lot about climate sensitivity but I have heard about these new models with higher sensitivity.) Apparently changes in cloud modeling (long known to be a weak area) have lead to this increase.

This RealClimate article from November 2019 discusses this issue with more technical detail.

nigelj at 06:25 AM on 13 June 2020

No silver lining: The COVID-19 pandemic won't slow climate change

New Zealand left covid 19 lockdown about a couple of weeks ago, but many people are still working from home. The CBD is still pretty empty during the day. It appears quite a few businesses intend to make working from home a permanent thing, for at least some of their staff, judging by general media comments.

There are no official surveys yet, but the numbers appear significant and a couple of large businesses have made official announcements. Could make some permanent difference to traffic volumes and reduced construction activity, so this is not insignificant for climate change.

michael sweet at 19:26 PM on 12 June 2020

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #23, 2020

The Guardian reported that new research dramatically increasing the assessment of how much economic damage extreme weather causes.

The original scientific article estimates the cost of Hurricane Harvey due to climate change was about $67 billion, about 3/4 of the total damage.

Thank you for all the hard work organizing this section Doug.

James Charles at 17:16 PM on 12 June 2020

Arctic methane outgassing on the E Siberian Shelf part 1 - the background

Is this the case?
“Michael G. O'Brien
James Charles
What has happened during the past 125K years is uplift of the ESAS clathrate deposits from their formation and safe zone 700 meters deep to 50 meters deep by mantle convection . At that depth when the ice is gone latent heat takes two years to start the chain reaction of methane runaway. They were not import last interglacial because they were safely deep enough then. “
www.facebook.com/JoseBarbaNueva/posts/10221619560135827

I emailed Prof. D. E. Archer and he was kind enough to reply.

"This doesn’t make much sense to me. Mantle convection does not move methane hydrate, because the hydrate is in the sediments on the crust, not in the mantle. There isn’t a chain reaction of melting; melting takes heat rather than giving it off, like regular ice.

hope this helps. "

JWRebel at 07:44 AM on 12 June 2020

Sea-level rise likely to swallow many coastal mangrove forests

Would be good to expand on the value of mangroves a little more. It is mentioned, but their main value is not just protecting against damage to coastal properties.

Dawei at 01:03 AM on 11 June 2020

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #23, 2020

Thanks as always — happy to see the new Agronomy category.

MA Rodger at 22:25 PM on 10 June 2020

The History of Climate Science

Tacoma Loren @42,

I didn't spend very long on the experiment bit of your video but did watch through the 'atmosphere' bit. Given the experiment, I was thinking you would be providing a 'safe' explanation of the 'atmosphere' but there are some statements that are fundamentally wrong.

First a minor comment.

I'm not entirely sure that it is true that CO2 is the "primary GHG in the stratosphere." And the escape-altitude doubling if the GHG concentration doubles?

The big issue is that the GHG effect of CO2 is entirely in the upper troposphere not the stratosphere. And the H2O effect is almost all in the lower troposphere.

As your experiment set out, the colder an object, the less IR it emits. At higher altitudes through the troposphere, the temperature drops. But when you get to the stratosphere, the temperature starts rising again. Thus for a frequency of IR which escapes into space from the stratosphere, an increase in the concentrations of the responsible GHG (and thus an increase in the altitude of escape to space) will result in a warmer escape altitude and so more more IR escaping. This will cause global cooling.

Temperature with altitude

It is thus for escape altitudes in the troposphere with its cooling-with-altitude that adding GHGs results in warming.

Now GHGs work across different frequency bands of IR. The CO2 warming results from a band centred on 15 microns. The very centre of that band is saturated all the way into the stratosphere so the IR at that very centre will be cooling with added GHG as the size of that central band escaping from up in the stratosphere increases with increasing CO2. The existence of the stratospheric escape-altitude can be seen as a spike in the centre of the 15 micron absorption band in the graphic below. (There is a similar spike at the centre of the ozone absorption band at 9 microns.)

(As CO2 increases, there are other wavebands that come into play so it is not all a one-way street. Zhong & Haig (2013) might be a useful read as to what happens to the wavebands.)

So I would suggest the main ammendment of the 'altitude' bit of the video would be to replace 'stratosphere' with 'upper troposphere' and 'troposphere' with 'lower troposphere'. And if it doesn't add too much complexity, the "thickness" or "blocking effect" of the GHG is not the mechanism (mentioned near 29:30) but the temperature-with-altitude is. Hope that helps.

Tacoma Loren at 07:38 AM on 10 June 2020

The History of Climate Science

Hello All. This is my first post. Thank you to the people who run this site and everyone who contributes - it's an excellent public service.

I used to be a high school physics and chemistry teacher. I recently posted a video of a table top demonstration that shows CO2 emitting IR at room temperature, without any fancy equipment, just thermometers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yK1EZ-RfDg&t=497s

Please view the video and give me feedback, especially on the second part of the video where I explain the role of CO2 in the stratosphere. I want to be sure I got it right.

Bob Loblaw at 03:49 AM on 10 June 2020

How much would planting 1 trillion trees slow global warming?

I am a climatologist, not a forest ecologist, but I have dealt with forest carbon cycles and monitoring. My main familiarity is with boreal forests - and I know enough to know that different types of forest have different characteristics.

Much of what you say makes sense to me. In boreal forests, much of the stored carbon is in the soil, not the biomass (living). It gets into the soil via root decay, plus leaf litter (annual input from deciduous trees) and fallen branches and trees trunks ("detritus"). These decay over time, and are gradually incorporated into soidl carbon - and gradually transformed to more stable compounds.

Boreal forests are dominated by fire regimes. A cleared area can lose a lot of carbon as detritus and soil carbon decay faster with warmer soil temperatures. It takes quite a bit of time for new biomass growth to overtake the increased decay, so disturbed forests lose carbon for a while before the become a sink again.

One item I'd disagree with in the details: leaf temperatures will not differ significantly from air temperature. Air near the ground is heated by the input from the surface (soil, shrubs, trees, etc.), so the difference is minimal. Trees do represent a method to bring soil water up to the surface (transpiration), so the water vapour flux is indeed enhanced by vegetation.

Any vegetation cover adds organic matter to the soil and enhances soil structure in ways that reduce runoff and alter the hydrology.

Stefan at 05:23 AM on 9 June 2020

Toward Improved Discussions of Methane & Climate

Hello,
I would be very grateful for any feedback from the as to whether the latest paper from Mrs. Shakova (Understanding the Permafrost–Hydrate System and Associated Methane Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, Shakova et al, 2019).
I'm just trying to understand whether this paper (and others issued since this article was originally published) has provided any more scientific clarity to the plausability of the abrupt methane release and its potential consequences to the climate and humans.
Sorry for such a question I'm just an ordinary person trying to comprehend all the information which I cannot always properly follow or challenge in any way....

Moderator Response:

[DB] Thornton et al 2019 had some things to say about some gross errors in Shakhova et al 2019:

"The recent paper in Geosciences, “Understanding the Permafrost–Hydrate System and Associated Methane Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf” by Shakhova, Semiletov, and Chuvilin, (henceforth “S2019”), contains a number of false statements about our 2016 paper, “Methane fluxes from the sea to the atmosphere across the Siberian shelf seas”, (henceforth “T2016”). S2019 use three paragraphs of section 5 of their paper to claim methodological errors and issues in T2016. Notably they claim that in T2016, we systematically removed data outliers including data with high methane concentrations; this claim is false. While we appreciate that flawed methodologies can be a problem in any area of science, in this case, the claims made in S2019 are simply false. In this comment, we detail the incorrect claims made in S2019 regarding T2016, and then discuss some additional problematic aspects of S2019."

baeb at 03:16 AM on 9 June 2020

How much would planting 1 trillion trees slow global warming?

There are several characteristics of forests that aren't mentioned as far as I can see in the article or the posts. (1) Mature forests sequester a large amount of carbon in soil micro-biology mainly through large amounts of mycorrhizal fungi and their creation of humates. This will build over time and remain there. (2) Tree leaves represent laminate surfaces containing water so their temperatures change slower than air around them, so they condense water as dew and in many places condense large amounts of water. (3) Roots and dead tree matter particularly on slopes reduces runoff and rapid evaporation so water helps cool forests (4) Forests change the amount of water in an area in many other ways. Rainfall and snow doesn't evaporate as easily in shade as in fields or parking lots so it is released slower and tends to contibute to more vegetation growth. The difference is large in hot areas. (5) As I understand it, forests don't emit mid and far-range infrared as much as an adjacent area of earth, rock, pavement, etc. because they don't get hot and cool themselves through transpiration. This increases water vapor in the air along with nucleating pollen, that contributes to rain down wind which encourages more biomass. Water vapor becomes clouds which can create albedo themselves, rain for more plants, lower temperatures blocking sun, but of course they also operate as greenhouse gases so there are some questions there. But water that goes up also comes down.

The work of Prof. Walter Jahne (online) is interesting on this and there were at least two Science magazine articles on the modeling 20 years ago of rain, vegetation, and climate alteration. Which is to say that the effect of forests on global temperatures is, just like climate, a very complicated issue. But I would like to know what anyone with expertise in both forest ecology and climate thinks about these issues (if there is such a person) and its relation to the important topic of the crisis we face and what to do about it.

One Planet Only Forever at 01:42 AM on 9 June 2020

The History of Climate Science

Great presentation.

Interestingly, The latest BBC Ideas item in its Sustainable Thinking collection is about the History of Climate Science and includes Eunice Foote.

The video is "Three pioneers who predicted climate change". The video content begins with Eunice, presenting interesting bits of info not mentioned in this OP, and concludes with Keeling. It is less than 5 minutes long (all of the BBC Ideas Sustainable Thinking videos are brief).

There are many other Climate Science related bits in the Sustainable Thinking set of videos. But I would encourage everyone to explore all of the content. Climate Science is only a part of the important understanding needing to be pursued and applied to help develop a Sustainable Improvable future for humanity.

John Mason at 17:56 PM on 8 June 2020

The History of Climate Science

@39 - very true. That familiar, angular etch-pattern in slices of iron meteorites - the Widmanstatten pattern, was in fact first described a few years before Count Widmanstatten's write up, by a guy called G. Thomson. There are probably dozens of other examples!

Bob Loblaw at 10:40 AM on 8 June 2020

Polar bear numbers are increasing

Prager U is a notoriously unreliable source for scientific information on climate change. A long history of misinformation.

For another takedown, read Barry Bickmore's perspective (not polar-bear-specific, so starting to wander off topic here):

https://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2016/04/21/dick-lindzen-prager-u-and-the-art-of-lying-well/

JWRebel at 09:29 AM on 8 June 2020

The History of Climate Science

all came to a similar conclusion independently of one another

The article states this about Suess and Revelle, but it could well be applied to the question of Foote's influence on Tyndale. In fact, scientific and technical discoveries have an uncanny way of coming to light independantly in the same period of time ... there seems to be kind of fortuitous serendipity to the questions being asked and the inspiration it awakens across nations and peoples.

John Hartz at 08:39 AM on 8 June 2020

Polar bear numbers are increasing

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