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Comments 83201 to 83250:

83201. LazyTeenager at 22:12 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       A point that is often overlooked by the deep time climate skeptic geologists is that there was life back then but not human life. And there was of course no human civilization and in particular no USA as it looks at the moment. I am pretty sure that the conservatives that form the base of the "climate skeptic" movement have no intention of returning to some deep time climate changed past where the best we can manage is living in trees.
83202. CBDunkerson at 22:11 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       SteveBrown wrote: "If you were at University earlier than 1980, then you are unlikely to have had much exposure to the explosion of knowledge in Earth Sciences from the various ocean and ice-core drilling programs that began in the mid 70's." There seems to be something similar to this with alot of 'meteorologists' too... especially the television weather reporter variety. Many of the older and/or more conservative ones seem to be violently opposed to basic global warming science while most of the younger ones accept it as established fact. There will always be some of that with any new advance in science, but global warming faces the added problem of corporate and political opposition. Scientists who might otherwise 'keep up to date' are less likely to do so when the new science runs counter to their biases in other areas. Fortunately, those who have tried to 'revise' their religion to make opposition to global warming science a matter of faith (like evolution and abortion in the past) have mostly failed. That could have been a disaster far greater than the problems we face with political and economic biases.
83203. Lloyd Flack at 21:58 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Skywatcher, I think you're right about how the intuitions that geologists and meteorologists develop in their work can mislead them about climate change. I've noticed a different set of misleading intuitions among people in information technology. They confuse climate models with the programs that are used to estimate them. They think that the models are as fragile as the programs that they write. But the big distorters are ego and ideology. Some might say money but generally that has as little credibility when made against deniers as it does when made by them. I think for people in the fossil fuel industry protecting their sense of vocation is probably more important than protecting their profits. They want to see themselves as doing something useful and resist any idea that that their whole career has been in something that is now doing more harm than good or will soon do so. And this ties in with ideology and having a position on the environment as an identifier for their side. Too many people are more interested in beating ideological opponents than in finding the truth. Let yourself see ideological opponents as evil and you stop considering that they might be right on some things. This happens on all sides. If you attribute to an opponent a motive that he or she knows to be false you have just machine gunned your credibility with them.
83204. LazyTeenager at 21:58 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Thingadonta reckons ----------- 1) Extractive industries have been going on since the stone age, and will go on for at least 10,000 years more. For most minerals, you simply can't 'run out' of them. ---------- Yes you don't run out of minerals you run out of the money go mine them. We don't make our cars out of gold or burn diamonds in our fuel tanks. Scarcity will put a stop to the practical use of many minerals. If grades go down by a factor of 10, the mining machinery gets 10 times bigger, the processing machinery gets 10 times bigger and the investment gets 10 times bigger. The only reason we can mine a lot if stuff now is because we have a very rich society that can provide the necessary capital. If there is a serious economic set back in our future it's game over. There are no rich minerals sources left that would provide a starting point that could allow the restoration of our current state of wealth.
83205. JMurphy at 21:48 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Arkadiusz Semczyszak, you have dragged that one up before, almost a year ago. I hope it's alright to also drag up my response : However, the Polish Academy of Sciences, as a whole, support the conclusions of the IPCC, as shown by this statement in Polish. Perhaps Arkadiusz can confirm or deny the contents ? That statement represents the views of all the Divisions and Institutes, including the Division of Earth and Mining Sciences, of which The Institute of Geological Sciences is a part. Alongside them in that Division, but not denying, are The Institute of Geophysics, and The Institute of Oceanology. The Division of Mathematical, Physical and Chemical Sciences don't appear to be denying either. The geologists are virtually gish-galloping : it's warmed/cooled before without human intervention; it's too soon to know for sure; CO2 has been higher in the past; political correctness; too expensive; etc., etc.
83206. Steve Brown at 21:45 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       It would be interesting to know if there was a correlation between the age of Geologists and potential denialist traits. If you were at University earlier than 1980, then you are unlikely to have had much exposure to the explosion of knowledge in Earth Sciences from the various ocean and ice-core drilling programs that began in the mid 70's. It may just be the same old duffers that still can't accept plate tectonics!
83207. Glenn Tamblyn at 21:44 PM on 9 June 2011
       There's no room for a climate of denial
       apiratelooksat50, Sphaerica I have corresponded with APLA50 in the past. If you guys would like a 3rd party in this conversation for some balance my email is glenn.tamblyn@bigpond.com.au
83208. Glenn Tamblyn at 21:41 PM on 9 June 2011
       There's no room for a climate of denial
       I am currently reading Paul Gilding's 'The Great Disruption' - about Climate Change and all the other upheavalswe face and how he thinks we will and won't deal with it. He uses an interesting phrase for a stage in this process - "Denial Breaking Down'. Not outright denial, but a sort of modulated, reducing denial in the face of the evidence. He is not just referring to the denial retreat from 'It Ain't' so to 'It is So but Climate Sensitivity is Low' stance. He also describes the 'its real, its happening, but it won't be THAT Bad' variety. 'We don't have to do THAT much to deal with it' variety. 'We still have time' variety. 'We ARE doing something about it' variety. 'Sure we have to deal with climate change but we still have to have GROWTH you know' variety. Until we get to the 'Shit this is BAD - PULL OUT ALL THE STOPS' we are all still in some sort of Denial.
83209. CBDunkerson at 21:30 PM on 9 June 2011
       Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
       dorlomin, given that both warmer water and increased ice export have been driven by increased greenhouse warming, which will continue so long as we keep adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, I'd argue that continuation of the Arctic sea ice decline is "guaranteed". The only thing which might be able to stop it would be an immediate radical reduction in GHG emissions... but at this point it seems obvious that isn't going to happen, and it might be too late to prevent the Arctic ocean from melting out even if it did.
83210. pdt at 21:28 PM on 9 June 2011
       Imbalance in US TV Media Coverage of Greenhouse Gas Regulation
       "[dana1981] I said there's less of a motivation with regs, not no motivation. With regulations, polluters just have to stay below a certain emissions threshold. There's no incentive for them to go lower. In a market system like cap and trade or carbon tax, they can profit from reducing emissions even further." I don't see the logic here either. In cap and trade and straight regulations there would be a cap. The whole idea of cap and trade is that there is a cap, which will effectively set the price of carbon based on the difference between carbon technologies and non-carbon technologies. A carbon tax is a straight pricing scheme. Regulations would essentially be like cap and trade without the trade part. If emissions should be lower, we would tighten the regulations, just like what has been done for NOx and CO from cars (and now soot from diesel engines). In the U.S., we have a cap and trade system for NOx from power plants, I'm guessing we are emitting at the cap. What motivation is there to go below the cap in that system? "Plus in those systems, revenue is generated through the carbon price, some of which is then funneled into low-carbon tech R&D. So there's both more motivation and more opportunity to create low carbon technologies with a carbon pricing system than with carbon regulations." R&D will be done in areas where people see opportunity. If regulations are enacted, R&D will follow because there will be a market for new technologies. I work for a company that spends a substantial amount of money on R&D for that very reason. Regulations have been demonstrated to work well. I still don't see the great benefit of cap and trade or carbon taxes.
83211. arcticio at 20:53 PM on 9 June 2011
       Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
       Daily satellite updates from the Arctic on arctic.io/satellite
83212. Paul D at 20:50 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       rockytom what is an economic geologist??
83213. Norman at 20:48 PM on 9 June 2011
       There's no room for a climate of denial
       DB response to post 28. The only thing that the evidence supports is a relatively stable temperature for the last 8000 years but not a stable climate. Climate is not just temperature but also rain patterns. I did post some other links but they were deleted. I can try again to prove this point. Climate change destroyed Mayan civilization. Sahara was not always dry. Here are two links to drastic climate changes. I am sure there are many more. The one I posted above indicates the Arctic was warmer 5500 years ago than today as the summer ice was almost completely gone and we still have a good chunk left in September even if it is less than in the 70's.
       Response:

       [DB] Actually, evidence indicates that the world now is as warm as the peak of the Holocene Climate Optimum with yet more warming in the pipeline.  Other evidence strongly suggests the demise of Arctic summer sea ice within 20 years, with the system proceeding to a year-yound no-ice solution in the decade following that. Yet other evidence suggests the rate of warming now is at least 10 times greater than that experienced during the PETM.

       And there are many more converging indicators all pointing to the same conclusion:  the world is warming due to our activities and there seems to be little we are willing to do about it.

       But there's no problem, right?

83214. Paul D at 20:48 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Heh, heh, heh. We have known about the geologist link to denial activism for years. I don't think it is a coincidence that if you want a profitable career in science a teenager would look at where the jobs are and notice that many geologists work in the fossil fuel industry. If you combine that with parental influences and careers advice from schools and colleges that have connections with industry employers, then you get the geologist migration.
83215. Dikran Marsupial at 20:31 PM on 9 June 2011
       Christy Crock #6: Climate Sensitivity
       agnostic Indeed "the ability of CO2 to absorb and radiate energy is a constant", however this describes the radiative forcing due to increased CO2, climate sensitivity describes the response of global temperatures to that additional forcing.
83216. Dikran Marsupial at 20:27 PM on 9 June 2011
       Christy Crock #6: Climate Sensitivity
       okatinko wrote "precisely I doubt the validity of this assumption since the various forcing have different spatial repartitions" As I have already pointed out, those different spatial repartitions have no effect on the equilibrium global average temperature, as the averaging averages them out. "My point is that the temperature can be higher with a lower energy input, " Yes, but that is a statement about the absolute temperature, not the rate of change of temperature with a change in the forcing. CLimate sensitivity is the latter, not the former. "T(F, x, y...) where x, y.. are parameters describing for instance the repartition in latitude," In my original notation I used A and B as index variables representing the state of the planet. It was you that incorrectly changed t to be a function of f alone, not me. Climate sensitivity appears to be exactly what yopu have in your notation when your write ∂T/∂F |x,y..., where x and y etc. describe the configuration of the planet independent of the forcings, which has not changed between the last ice age and the current interglacial, but has changed between e.g. the Triassic and now. Hence on geological timescales climate sensitivity does change, but only on geological timescales. Note glaciation is not a change in planetary configuration as it is a consequence of a change in forcings (i.e. a feedback within an essentially constant system).
83217. dorlomin at 20:23 PM on 9 June 2011
       Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
       FWIW there are two trends that have strongly influenced the rate of sea ice melting in the NH, there is additional warm water moving into the area and the winds have been more in favour of exporting ice out of the arctic. A change in either of these may see the rate of decline slow or even briefly reverse the trend. Just so people keep in mind that the trend is not guarenteed.
83218. skywatcher at 20:20 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Very interesting and insightful article. It's strange how people who have some of the best tools for understanding how dangerous climate changes can be (think Snowball to Hothouse Earth as an example) have those within their ranks who would claim it's nothing to worry about. I've certainly come across the attitude of geologists that the past 100 years (or past 10,000) is a pathetic timespan of no consequence, and that the Earth will happily survive whatever climate change befalls it. Of course, they seem less concerned about the development of civilisation and agriculture that has occurred during a very stable past 8,000 years... You get a similar reaction from some of those at the other end of the earth observation spectrum - meteorologists. Of course our favourite denier is a weatherman, but also a number of weather forums are surprisingly dominated by climate skeptics. It should be noted that there are some prominent meteorologists like Jeff Masters doing a great job of understanding and explaining climate change. I think the issues for the skeptical meteorologists and weather enthusiasts focus around several issues: the failure to grasp that unpredictable weather does not mean unpredictable climate (though they happily accept that summer will be hotter than winter); a general feeling of 'nature' being too big and powerful for us to make any difference to it; and a deep belief in cycles, possibly derived from observing the annual meteorological cycle. The sad thing is that, in their way like the geologists, meteorologists and weather enthusiasts are in the perfect position to observe the strange goings-on in the weather system that are the signals of climate change. Both groups don't like to see humans as capable of being an agent of change to the things they study, despite it being rapidly clear that humans are creating their own geological epoch (the Anthropocene), and are influencing spectacular changes and events in weather.
83219. krob88 at 19:56 PM on 9 June 2011
       How does global warming affect polar bears?
       This is so sad that the polar bears are badly affecting by this climate change. One of the reason of melting these cold region is human technology advancement. Due to which there are many natural calamities are taking place worldwide. Polar bears and global warming
83220. skywatcher at 19:52 PM on 9 June 2011
       There's no room for a climate of denial
       #27 - also worth noting the quasi-log scale of the graph DB shows you - the right-hand side of the graph details changes much more rapid than the left-hand side of the graph. I recall seeing a similar graph without the scale adjustment and it's even scarier, because 21st Century climate appears as an almost vertical line on a 20,000 year scale. I hope DB's wrong about the update to the graph.
83221. nigelj at 19:49 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Ive noticed as other posters have that climate change deniers are often conservatives. But then the key thing about conservativism is its opposition to change and the key thing about climate change is unprecedented change.
83222. bg at 19:30 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Well, one of these Polish geologists gave an interesting interview for Polska Times. Quote: "At this time [decades], the CO2 content [at the Warsaw crossroads] has increased nearly a thousand times [?], because such increase in the number of cars. However, annual average temperatures haven't increased by even a single degree."
83223. scaddenp at 18:11 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Arkadiusz - wow, that is embarassing. Either this was written by uninformed lobby within the academy or Polish geologists are somewhat misinformed. The feedback of Pt7 is slow - it hasnt cut in yet thank goodness as the oceans are still moping up nearly half our emissions, and carbon isotope accounting shows that increase in CO2 in atmosphere is from fossil emissions. How come they dont know that? See CO2 is coming from the ocean
83224. jyyh at 18:09 PM on 9 June 2011
       Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
       As the Bering strait is shallow the warmer water on ocean surface has an access to the arctic that may only be countered with the river runoff to the Sea of Northern Lights (former Arctic Ocean), which itself is warming up (due Siberia warming up). But it's nice to have Woodgate & al. to provide some numbers. Some years back I found a site where a research group published the actual measurements of currents across the Bering strait, but I lost it, and maybe that project has been discontinued as satellite observations on ocean currents have become more reliable.
83225. David Horton at 18:05 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       "They argue that the current increase p.CO2 may be largely of natural origin" - you are just being silly now Arkadiusz - we have the isotope signature, and we have the measure of how much CO2 has been industrially produced which matches the increase in the air. Are you guys really going to continue believing that the global warming at a fast rate seen over the last 100 years, and especially the last 40, clearly matching, and accounted for by, that increase in CO2 is just coincidence? Some coincidence, some belief, some obsession, extreme danger for the rest of us.
83226. Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 17:44 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Polish geologists are also skeptical: Attitude of the Committee of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences to the question of impending of global warming. They argue that the current increase p.CO2 may be largely of natural origin (Point 7: "Warming of the oceans reduces their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide whereas a smaller area occupied by permafrost intensifies decomposition of organic matter in soil and therefore, stimulates increased emission of greenhouse gases.").
83227. ddawson377 at 17:08 PM on 9 June 2011
       Al Gore and Dr Thompson's thermometer
       There appears to be a broken link in the body of this article. I can't see the graph. Douglas
83228. sailrick at 16:10 PM on 9 June 2011
       Imbalance in US TV Media Coverage of Greenhouse Gas Regulation
       I caught a few moments of a show on PBS radio the other day. There was a panel of news media people, who were discussing the media's role in reporting on climate change. They were all making the excuse that since it has become a political issue, they have to cover it as such. Hogwash of course. Maybe NPR would do another show to set the record straight? At the very least they should be made aware that it wasn't appreciated.
83229. P. Curtis at 15:42 PM on 9 June 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Thanks for the compliments. I feel very happy that those of intelligent status think I am doing well :) Science is my greatest passion so it's always good to know I am succeeding in it.
       Response:

       [DB] Just keep working hard at it if that's what you enjoy.  The only thing separating you from anyone here is time and effort.  Good job!

83230. David Horton at 14:54 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       "if David means these minerals wont run out, but simply are too energy intensive and contribute too much to global warming," that's what I meant. However as Stevo notes, high grade easily extractable ores are getting harder to find.
83231. Lloyd Flack at 14:54 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       It's not just geologists. I've seen the same tendency in some archeologists. I wonder if some of it is because they are used to dealing with climate changes but not doing attributions of all the changes because they don't have the required detailed data. Does this lead to some of them thinking of climate as something that just changes? That is, because they can't do attributions they fall into the trap of thinking of attributions as impossible and/or unnecessary.
83232. Albatross at 14:42 PM on 9 June 2011
       There's no room for a climate of denial
       All, This video perfectly demonstrates denial at work. Now the video is funny, but what it says about we humans is extremely sad. The Anthropocene is not going to end well for many of us, largely because of the consequences arising from the problem highlighted in this video. [H/T to Bernard J. @103 at Deltoid]
83233. Stevo at 14:41 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Thingadonta @6 True, we only mine the very highest grade top of the resource pyramid but please note that the very highest grade top is coming down. At the gold and copper mines I deal with in my work the average yeild in both resources has fallen from 6 down to 3 grammes per tonne. In other words the amount of ore needing to be processed to produce the same amount of metal has doubled in the last 2 to 3 years. Recent briefings about the role of the company I work for warn us that remaining metal ore stopes here in Australia are trending to be of lower yield and deeper down under the ground. Costs of extraction and ore processing are increasing as a result. After all, you have to tunnel further and deeper to reach the ore and then process twice as much of it to obtain the same amount of metal as you did before. Admittedly, things may well be different for coal or aluminium mining. As for rate of warming, plenty of peer reviewed evidence, including that sourced from geological records, clearly points to a rate closer to 3 degrees when feedbacks are included. Plenty can be found at this site. I also expect that the scientists who are more likely to be influenced by income rather than scientific integrity would be the ones who go for the big salaries in the corporate sector an not the folk who perform the less financially lucrative university of government positions. (Of course, that is only my personal opinion.)
83234. scaddenp at 14:30 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       However, David Evan's has failed to provide any convincing evidence for such a belief. Normal natural climate change does not involve changing atmospheric composition at such a rate as human have done. I agree that rate is what matters. "And also, university salaries, reserach grants etc are also paid for/funded by the promotion of AGW, so this is fundamentally no different to the claim about scientists in the fossil fuel industries skeptical about AGW because of their salaries." This is patent nonsense. Funding agencies fund scientists to find out what isnt known without regard to what outcome the research has. Noone researchs "AGW" - they only research climate. Fossil fuel disinformation is only interested in "research" that can cast doubt. If we get climate sensitivity wrong, then we eventually find out too. Better hope it isnt on the wrong side the uncertainty.
83235. thingadonta at 14:09 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       While I generally sympathise with parts of the aobve article, there are points at which I do not. First to David Horton's misunderstanding of extactive industries (if I read him right). 1) Extractive industries have been going on since the stone age, and will go on for at least 10,000 years more. For most minerals, you simply can't 'run out' of them. We only mine the very highest grade top of the resource pyramid, and the huge volumes of various minerals in the earths crust will sustain most minerals for tens of thousands of years. (Flannery also got this concept totally wrong in the Future Eaters book, where he said mining industries in Australia are on the way down-look at Austrlia's mining industry now). Take for example, Aluminium. We only mine it where the earth's processes have concentrated it to a point which is economic to extract, however Al is in virtually every rock-you will only 'run out' of Al when we run out of rocks. Pretty much the same goes for all other minerals, with a few possible exceptions such as those produced organically only under special conditions, such as liquid fossil fuels. (But we have tar sand oil resources for several hundred years+ yet, but these are nore difficult to extract). So, in contrast to Horton's comment that we cant 'keep digging up minerals and burning or melting them in huge volumes as in the last 200 years', we have at least 10,000 years of Al resources in Australia alone at current extraction rates, and other minerals. However if David means these minerals wont run out, but simply are too energy intensive and contribute too much to global warming, then that is a very different argument. But even then, there will always be mineral demand as long as I sit on this chair and write on this PC. 2) To the above arcticle. You havent mentioned rate. Rate of warming and the way the earth responds by reducing energy pertubations is as important as the long term level of change. (This is why David Evans abandoned the AGW consensus. In his words there is good evidence that the earth responds to warming by depressing further warming). The geological record strongly suggests that earth changes are generally very slow (the old catastrophist versus gradualist positions). Although there are exceptions. One scientist puts it: 'Earth history is like the life of a soldier, long periods of boredom followed by short periods of terror'. The AGW argument is solely in the field of 'short period of terror'. So with reference to past climate change, the rate is as important as the degree. 1.5-6 degrees of warming with doubling C02 might be in the ball park (I think more like 0.1-0.5), but not if it takes 1000 years. ( -Ideology snipped- ). Economic geologists work daily with uncertainty, and they feel that market forces are generally better, in the long run, at regulating human exageration, which is why they are skeptical of AGW, because it is an academic-based movement largely outside of market regulation. If an economic geologist exagerates an oil find, drilling and science coupled with investors (ie market forces) eventually finds this out, but if an academic exagerates rate and degree of warming, only less effective and much weaker market and social forces are in place to bring this kind of exageration down to earth, eg longer term observation (eg lack of warming) and democratic principles (voters voting out a carbon tax, for example). 'Peer review' is useful as an internal regulator but can be weak, peers can be self-selecting and are also prone to consensus groupthink etc.
       Response:

       [DB] Speaking of geologists and warming rates:

       "The rate of release of carbon into the atmosphere today is nearly 10 times as fast as during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), 55.9 million years ago, the best analog we have for current global warming, according to an international team of geologists."

       [Source]

83236. Norman at 14:00 PM on 9 June 2011
       There's no room for a climate of denial
       DB about denial and the psychological forces that drive it? I am questioning a particular point the author made, the 8000 years of stable climate and now we threaten it with relaease of carbon dioxide via industry.
       Response:

       [DB] The available evidence does indeed indicate a stable climate for the past 8,000 years:

       

       Perhaps in a few decades we can update this graph with an arrow and an accompanying legend which says "Agriculture ends".

83237. scaddenp at 13:45 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Not aware of any climate skeptics in my group - and we oil,gas, coal focused.
83238. scaddenp at 13:36 PM on 9 June 2011
       There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature
       J Bob. I use MATLAB all the time. Just never heard of "System Identification" toolbox. Note I said " R instead of MATLAB for the tools if the statistics Toolbox wouldnt cover it" - I am well aware of the statistics toolbox in MATLAB. Just more likely to go to R for non-trivial stuff (or more honestly, hand them R experts here instead).
83239. J. Bob at 13:32 PM on 9 June 2011
       There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature
       Sphaerica @ 21, you say "And for this reason, meeting your insistence on a direct correlation between CO2 and temperature is simply unrealistic.". That sounds "skeptic" to me. It's not that there is not a connection between temperature & CO2, (as noted by atmospheric absorption bands), but how much, and under what conditions. What I am pointing out, is the only direct data available are some long term temperature readings & relatively recent standardized GHG (CO2 since 1958) readings. So at this time, as I said before, I wouldn't bet the farm on proxy and model results. We might have to wait a few more years to see if there truly is a global temperature plateau, and note the corresponding GHG data to prove or disprove the model predictions.
83240. Norman at 13:15 PM on 9 June 2011
       There's no room for a climate of denial
       I am not sure of the claim "Another common denial argument is that ''climate has always changed in the past''. For the past 8000 years we have been in a stable climate. Society has never lived through the degree of climate change we are now causing." Is the 8000 years of stable climate a valid claim based upon availabl evidence? "Based on the paleoclimate record from ice and ocean cores, the last warm period in the Arctic peaked about 8,000 years ago, during the so-called Holocene Thermal Maximum. A recent study suggests that 5,500 years ago, the Arctic had substantially less summertime sea ice than today. However, it is not clear that the Arctic was completely free of summertime sea ice during this time." Above quote from http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/faq.html
       Response:

       [DB] You do realize that your comment basically validates this entire post?

83241. rockytom at 13:14 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Re: geologists and climate change denial I can not speak for all geologists, but as a geologist I think that if fellow geologists are scientists, they will judge climate science and global warming by the evidence. And most geologists are scientists. Those that are not are the most likely denialists. Most economic geologists are supported by the energy companies (e.g., coal and petroleum) and they have their prejudices and vested interests. Also, most deniers are conservatives and we have conservative geologists. Cheers. Tom
83242. David Horton at 13:07 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Yes John, there is certainly an imbalance. Some of it is certainly do with the geologist's links to the extractive industries, and perhaps guilty, certainly fearful, recognition, that digging up minerals in huge volumes and burning or melting them isn't a process that is going to be able to continue in its form of the last 200 years for much longer. But I have a feeling that some of it is more visceral than this, a feeling that geologists, those physically rugged explorers of deserts and mines, and untrammelled mental explorers of billions of years of the history of earth's crust with its massive changes in geography and climate, are a bit above all this fiddling around with what they see as minor changes in a period of 40 years or so, a period without geological meaning. When I first visited a late Pleistocene site I was to spend a lot of time (as a palaeoecologist) working on, I was greeted by a dinosaur palaeontologist, who had reluctantly had to be involved, telling me he had no interest in this site (some 30,000 years old) because these sediments were just the scum you removed to get to the interesting palaeontology. There is also I think a sense that they (I think especially of Plimer here) have seen so much bigger swings of climate in the past that they can't conceive this current change as anything but a tiny little blip, a mosquito biting a mammoth perhaps. They have also it seems no ability, humans having had no involvement in creating previous climate change, to imagine us humans having any role in changing the climate at all (a constant theme of denier blogs and posts). Nor do they seem able (being a descriptive and not a predictive science) to make the imaginative jump from seeing trends now to outcomes in the future, when molehills do indeed become mountains. I don't, I'm afraid, have any useful suggestions. A pity, having them on board would certainly be useful in terms of looking at precisely what we are in for based on previous experience. Perhaps there is something in the mindset that makes you become a geologist, or that develops once you are there, that makes them impervious, by and large, to an interest in the Earth's future to match their interest in its past.
83243. J. Bob at 12:46 PM on 9 June 2011
       There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature
       scaddenp @ 24, MATLAB is an analysis software package that leans toward matrix analysis decomposition. It is used extensively in industry. It has a number of "toolboxes", that range from Statistics, Process control systems, Image processing, finance, etc. It's not cheap, but it does do a pretty good job. One of the better features is the "linking" of different "toolboxes" as needed, as well as the Simulink simulation package. MATLAB
83244. Albatross at 12:18 PM on 9 June 2011
       Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
       Eric @443, "I find it amusing that so many can deny the effects that the PDO has on temperatures over the past 130 years." You are arguing a strawman.
83245. Don Gisselbeck at 12:16 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       It is time to point out, yet again, that the only reason there is any debate on the issue of climate change and the need to do something about human CO2 emissions is that about $1 billion per day in profit for the carbon industry is at stake. Remember that fundamentalist free-market ideology could not stop the world doing something about ozone depletion, profits were simply not high enough.
       Response: [JC] Don, I don't think it's quite that simple. Climate change is a much more significant & problematic issue than ozone depletion as fossil fuel permeates every part of society. Consequently, there are a number of psychological issues such as fear of change, finite pool of worry quota, etc that get in the way of people accepting the risks of climate change.
       
       Also, it's more difficult for people to conceptualise climate change. The idea of the ozone layer is quite visceral - a protective layer shielding us from deadly radiation inexorably being eaten away by our pollution. Long-term climate trends are not as vivid a concept. Of course we go into these issues in detail in our book :-)
83246. Byron Smith at 12:14 PM on 9 June 2011
       Geologists and climate change denial
       Great article, and I think your replies on the ABC site have been very good. Gracious and to the point.
83247. Eric the Red at 11:43 AM on 9 June 2011
       Christy Crock #6: Climate Sensitivity
       Agnostic, I echo Tom's response that no one is arguing the no-feedback effect. The direct effect attributaed to CO2 has remained virtually unchanged (although there may be saturation effects at very high levels). I disagree that the sensitivity has never been less than 2.5 or been as high as 5. Also, can you reference that 20% value?
83248. Eric the Red at 11:37 AM on 9 June 2011
       Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
       I find it amusing that so many can deny the effects that the PDO has on temperatures over the past 130 years. Even when the data is clear as day, they close their eyes.
       Response:

       [DB] Scaddenp kindly pointed you previously to this post on the PDO.  That would be an appropriate venue to discuss it, if that is your wish.  It is off-topic here.  Please kindly reconsider your tone, as others are trying to help you.

83249. Tom Curtis at 11:37 AM on 9 June 2011
       Christy Crock #6: Climate Sensitivity
       Agnostic @32, the no feedback forcing of doubling CO2 is close to a constant throughout history. I believe that at very high and very low concentrations of CO2 it does change, but over the range of CO2 concentrations over the last 500 million years, it is effectively constant. However the feedback responses need not be constant through history. In particular, distributions of continents, ocean currents and shallow seas can make a large difference. This can be clearly observed in the different climate sensitivities in the Arctic and the Antarctic. Clearly if the Antarctic continental configuration was duplicated in the Arctic, climate sensitivity would be lower, while if the Arctic configuration was duplicated in the Antarctic it would be higher. Another difference arises from mean global surface temperatures. Given glacial conditions, climate sensitivity will be higher. This follows from the difference in insolation at, for example, 50 degrees North compared to 60 degrees North. A retreat of permanent or seasonal snow and ice by one degree at 50 degrees will result in a greater net warming than the same one degree retreat at 60 degrees. The difference in surface areas of a one degree latitude band also makes a large difference between those two latitudes. None of this, however, shows that climate sensitivity has ever been less than 2.5 degree per doubling for a no ice albedo feedback. In fact, given the CO2 in the atmosphere accounts for 20% of the total greenhouse effect, averaged over the temperature range between snowball Earth and current temperatures, and ignoring ice albedo effects, the climate sensitivity per doubling of CO2 has been 5 degrees. Further, as the water vapour feedback increasingly dominates the CO2 greenhouse effect with increasing temperature, climate sensitivity ignoring albedo effects will rise with increasing global temperatures, not fall. With those two facts in mind, I would say Hansen's estimate of short term climate sensitivity (no ice albedo feedback) from the last glacial maximum is a fair estimate for current conditions, but that his slow feedback is probably an overestimate. The slow feedback will certainly be greater than the fast feedback until there is no permanent ice sheets on Antarctica, and only winter snow inside the Arctic or Antarctic circle. But it will not be as great as that during the height of the glacials (or even the average of glacials and interglacials).
83250. Tom Curtis at 11:06 AM on 9 June 2011
       Coral: life's a bleach... and then you die
       Eric (skeptic) @60: 1) I am sure the those sections of the tourism industry sufficiently profitable to not be driven bankrupt by the expense would much rather pay for a geo-engineering fix than go bankrupt. I am also certain that they would rather not have to pay to save the reef by ensuring the reef was not under threat to begin with. Neither of these facts alters the fundamental injustice in libertarian terms of a cost being imposed on the tourism operators involuntarily by the actions of others. You suggest there is a lot of overlap between the fossil fuel industry and tourism. Unless there is complete overlap, and their most certainly isn't, that is irrelevant. Further, the tourism industry is not an unusually great emitter of fossil fuels, coming well behind mining, heavy manufacturing, aluminium refineries, and indeed, ordinary business travel in that regard. 2) Your claim that there would be no secondary effects is dubious at best. The paper from which your proposal comes states:

       "If our technique were to be implemented, global changes in the distributions and magnitudes of ocean currents, temperature, rainfall and wind would result. Even if it were possible to seed clouds relatively evenly over the Earth's oceans, so that the effects of this type could be minimized, they would not be eliminated. Also, the technique would still alter the land–ocean temperature contrast, since the radiative forcing produced would be only over the oceans. In addition, we would be attempting to neutralize the warming effect of vertically distributed greenhouse gases with a surface-based cooling effect, which could have consequences such as changes in static stability, which would need careful evaluation. Thus, it is vital to engage in a prior assessment of associated climatological and meteorological ramifications, which might involve currently unforeseen feedback processes. It is important to establish the level of local cooling which would have significant effects on ocean currents, local meteorology and ecosystems. This will require a fully coupled ocean/atmosphere climate system model."

       (Source) Changing the distribution of ocean current, rainfall and wind will certainly have secondary effects, and while a purely regional usage of the scheme only may have those effect, the paper indicates that a global implementation would have those effects. "Changes in static stability" are particularly concerning to me. Your scheme involved changing the condensation rate of water in a cyclone prone area during periods of ideal conditions for cyclones. But yet you assure us without support from the modelling in the paper on which you are relying that "There should be no secondary effects". 3) Because there most assuredly will be secondary effects, a consortium of private individual or companies will certainly not undertake this sort of large scale geo-engineering. They could not bear the costs, nor shield themselves from any potential legal action as a result of secondary effects. This is quite apart from the issue of free loaders.

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