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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 8351 to 8400:

Eclectic at 08:23 AM on 16 January 2020

There's no empirical evidence

ClimateBuddha, your childhood memory sounds a bit dodgy.

What you are asking about, is basic textbook stuff. Time for you to do some self-educating. Start with Wikipedia, and go on from there.

Eclectic at 08:09 AM on 16 January 2020

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020

Seqenenre :- As Doug says, the amount of extra heat energy involved is enormous in total. As well as producing a sea level rise (with its own major effects on coastal humanity) you find the heat energy "sloshing about" in uneven distributions. Heat coming to the surface to produce El Nino surges of global air temperature. Heat driving the "fewer but stronger storms/ hurricanes". Heat undercutting & melting the Antarctic ice, and increasingly melting the arctic sea-ice. Heat leading to increased flooding & droughts & heat waves.

The surface air temperature (that we live in) is a sort of "tail of the dog" ~ the oceanic dog moves itself slightly . . . and the tail moves a lot.

Even within the ocean, you see important fluctuations as the overall water temperature rises. Vast areas of coral can bleach and die, as shallower water experiences "watery heat waves". Tropical / warm-water fish must move to cooler habitats, further away from the equator. The effects on marine life are much larger than you would intuitively expect.

"Tiny" changes can sometimes have large effects. We are used to the large swings of temperature with the seasons: typical winter/summer change might be 20 degreesC or more . . . yet (counter-intuitively) a sustained gain of 1 or 2 degrees can build up to a colossal effect on the whole planet. We must look at "small numbers" with a scientific eye, rather than with our usual "everyday eye".

I am always amused by science-deniers such as Lord Monckton ~ how, one day they can be arguing that 0.04% of the atmosphere (as CO2) is such a tiny amount ("and which has only increased by one part in ten thousand, in the past 100 years") and is so tiny as to be entirely unimportant in this world . . . and the next day they argue the 0.04% is so very important because "it sustains all life on earth".

ClimateBuddha at 06:56 AM on 16 January 2020

There's no empirical evidence

got any links for this John Seers?

as a kid I remember being told that co2 would stop heat penetrating as it does leaving.

we were told to expect much colder winters and much hotter summers.

This seems to have changed.

Doug Bostrom at 06:16 AM on 16 January 2020

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020

Seqenenre, it sounds like a small number but message and effects are notable.

As expressed elsewhere, the energy required to raise the temperature of such a large mass at this rate is "equivalent to every person on the planet running 100 microwave ovens all day and all night." Warming the entire ocean at this rate is a fairly shocking confirmation of the effects of increases in what some dismiss as "only a trace gas." 225 zetajoules is a very large amount of energy.

What looks like a small absolute change in the temperature of the upper ocean results in profound changes in moisture in the atmosphere and hence what we can expect in behavior of rainfall, convective storms, etc.

Thermosteric sea level rise is about 0.7m per degree centigrade warming of the ocean. With an accelerating rate of ocean warming, seemingly small increases in temperature will stack up to become a significant problem.

michael sweet at 05:13 AM on 16 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

The Australian bushfires are unprecedented. I read The Guardian regularly (an Australian newspaper). In early December when "unprecedented" started to be used to describe this years fires deniers pointed to 1974 as having burned more acres.

Since then The Guardian has had many articles sourced to fire experts that describe the current fires as burning in temperate rainforests that have not burned in hundreds of years. The fires in 1974 were grass fires that burned in the outback. Grass fires often cover much more acreage than forest fires.

The grass fires happen after large winter/spring rains. This causes high growth of grass which dries out in summer. Large fires result that are not controlled. Similar fires happen in Africa, the USA and other places around the globe. They are often (by far) the largest fires by acreage, but do not cause much damage.

The current rainforest fires have no precedent in Australia. They are caused by the three year drought combined with extreme record heat that dries out trees that normally are too wet to burn.

This report from the US National Fire Protection Association describes the difference between grass, brush and forest fires. Comparing acreage of grass and forest fires, as the deniers are doing here, is comparing apples and oranges. They are completely different.

The point that extreme fires are happening around the world is a good reason to be concerned about future fires. That is not what makes the Australian fires unprecedented. The Australian fires are unprecedented because they are burning in areas that have never burned before in human experience.

Comparisons to the deaths 10 years ago in the Victoria fires are also deceptive. The Victoria fires were the first ones where forests burned from climate change in Australia. Many people stayed on their properties to defend the properties from the fires. This was a good strategy in the past when fires were not extreme climate change fires. Many people died defending their properties.

This year everyone is fleeing the fires so few people are being killed. Obviously, people learned 10 years ago that it is a bad idea to defend property from extreme climate change fires. Duh.

The fires in Australia are unprecedented because they are burning in areas that have never burned before. Acreage and death rates are distractions by deniers.

Seqenenre at 04:55 AM on 16 January 2020

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020

In a CNN article the lead author said the ocean temperature (I am not quite sure what this means) was 0.075 degrees Celsius above the 1981-2010 average in 2019.

That does not look like very a serious problem to me. What am I missing?

SkepticalBrian at 04:51 AM on 16 January 2020

Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

there are a too many comments on here to review, maybe I misse it, but can anyone explain how irrigation is NOT a significant contributor to greenhouse effect? The evaporative cooling is often cited as a climate cooling effect which is incorrect, as the energy used in evaporation is merely transported elsewhere and released during condensation. The albedo of the otherwise arid lands is changed and the re-radiation to space is diminished As heat sinks into the ground more. So the constant irrigation of millions of ha of land worldwide does not constitute a "short lived" WV effect, it is a constant significant factor. Any land that need to be irrigated at all is contributing. Plus, all the hydrocarbons burned created a continuous stream of WV.

MA Rodger at 23:01 PM on 15 January 2020

There's no empirical evidence

ClimateBuddha @399,

Out at the distance of the orbit of the Earth, a heat source as strong as the sun can heat a surface up to a temperature of 394K = +120ºC. The temperatures on the moon's equator at mid-day appraoch this value. The primary reason for the Earth's noon-day tropical temperatures never getting close to matching such high levels is because the moon rotates so slowly. During a moon-day, the surface is subject to heating by sunlight for 29½-times longer than during an Earth-day. And through the long moon-night, equatorial temperatures drop to -180ºC, so the heating required to reach those +100ºC moon temperatures is even more impressive.
The Earth's atmosphere reflects more sunlight than the moon, but this is an average value. On Earth there will be places and times with zero cloud so giving similar reflectiveness to that found on the moon, usually in high desert regions. But with the Earth-day 29½-times shorter than the moon's, there is not the time for the surface to heat up to anything like those +100ºC values. And that's with the Earth's night-time temperatues far higher than those on the moon. The heating through an Earth day, the maximum day-night temperature range is way less than 40ºC compared to the moon's 280ºC.
Greenhouse gases will not prevent high maximum temperatures. Instead, they prevent the temperature from falling down to those freezing night-time temperatures.

Eclectic at 21:47 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Barryn56 @ #35 , thank you for providing the reference to the "ncbi.nlm.nih.gov" article. (IMO it is not off-topic . . . as this whole thread is rather non-specific in subject.)

Permit me to make a thumbnail sketch for SkS readers :- The article is fairly general, and discusses data relating to some of the world's wildfire-prone regions. But it is far from exhaustive in scope, and it particularly concentrates on 30 years of records (mostly up to about 2013 in its cited references).

To quote from the article : "The comparatively brief periods of observation discussed here are strongly influenced by regional interannual variability and are too short to be indicative of longer term trends."

To put it another way :- for noisy data such as that of major wildfires / areas burnt / severity of damage / etcetera (and constituted of incomplete world coverage) . . . 30 years or 60 years of data would be insufficient to draw any very useful conclusions.

Even 100 years of better-quality data would be unhelpful, because of the "Moving Target" nature of Climate Change, combined with the Moving Target effect of the major changes such as population increase; fire-fighting technology changes; communications & mass media changes; and so on.

Barryn56, the article could not help being vague & imprecise. So really, for wildfires, we must be guided by basic science and common sense ~ bearing in mind the large differences between monsoonal tropical regions, and colder or hotter "temperate" regions, and differences in vegetation of regions (such as the high-flammability eucalypts of Australia).

All in all, Barry, I would be interested to hear what you made of "your" article, and why you recommended it.

JohnSeers at 19:58 PM on 15 January 2020

There's no empirical evidence

399 ClimateBuddha

Energy comes in from the sun through the atmosphere at high wavelengths. The atmosphere is largely transparent to these wavelengths, including CO2.

This energy heats up the planet. This leads to IR (infra-red) radiation in the low wavelengths being emitted by the planet. CO2 is not transparent to IR radiation.

barryn56 at 18:28 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4874420/">Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world</a>

barryn56 at 18:26 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Trying again with link:

barryn56 at 18:20 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

In answer to wildfire history, this paper:

Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4874420/

Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2016 Jun 5; 371(1696): 20150345.
doi: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0345
PMCID: PMC4874420
PMID: 27216515

Doug Bostrom at 18:13 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Wol, not a quibble on "to" vs. "too." You say the video's explanation of physics passes too quickly to be understood, but it's "genuine."

Forced to put on the semantic hat, the hasty explanation is surely "genuine" in the sense that it exists, but if it's indecipherable as received then one cannot say it's "genuine" in the sense of being true.

ClimateBuddha at 17:54 PM on 15 January 2020

There's no empirical evidence

this article begins with an exam of the moon.

the moon reaches 100 degrees in the day because there are no greenhouse gasses.

if our Co2 is increasing then why is it not blocking the reducing heat in as is claimed.

logically if co2 always stopped the earth heating up like the moon and now stops heat escaping then it why does more co2 not prevent more heat coming in?

please help me understand this.

many thanks in advance.

BaerbelW at 15:32 PM on 15 January 2020

'Cranky Uncle' smart phone game will show you how to disarm climate deniers

@daria_check

Thanks for the offer, Daria! Once the time comes for translations, we'll make sure to ask for help. But it won't happen until later this year as the English version of the app needs to be available first.

barryn56 at 15:22 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

So let's look at absorption spectra - you can find the Sun's online and look at the regions where different chemicals affect the transmissivity versus frequency of the radiation. You will note that CO2 has a strong absorption, though in a relatively short band, while there is something of a big "hole" in the region 10-20 micrometres and, of course, the visible region. Water vapour has the largest impact but, it too, has low absorption in the same band (10-20 micrometres). So, about the people with dogs...

Those of you who walk your dog in the evening after hot days may have noticed that, despite the same daytime temperatures, the evenings might be cool or hot on different days - why was that?

Might it have something to do with nighttime cloud cover, perhaps? So at might, we can exclude the Sun's influence, and all we have is the radiative cooling of the Earth which, assuming the black body model, emits energy as a function of tempertaure to the 4th power (T(degK)^4). So, if there's a big "hole" in the infra red spectrum where water vapour is, then it must be the CO2 holding back the radiation, right? Hmmm...OK, so what are clouds made of? Well, looking it up, it seems they are made of liquid water droplets or ice particles. So, would the next step be to check what the IR absorption spectrum is of ice/liquid water compared to water vapour? Let me now what you find in that 10-20 micrometer region...

Moderator Response:

[DB] As this site is focused on the scientific method and the usage of citations to credible sources to support claims, this is perhaps not the best website for you to participate in. Plenty of electrons exist elsewhere.

Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive or off-topic posts. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.

Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion. If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.

Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

Sloganeering and off-topic snipped.

barryn56 at 15:05 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Eclectic @ 10. No, not toying. As I mentioned, I'm not going to tell you what to think, nor claim that the earth's temperature or climate is not changing. If you are really concerned about these factors, then the effort should be in understanding the problem before trying "solutions", less you make matters worse, not better.

You can first of all consider that scientists are human; they have the same failings as all of us, myself included. Take, for example, the assertion by scientists that aircraft con trails were a source of atmospheric warming - for the very same reasons the claims for greenhouse" effect. During the moratorium on flights over the US for 3 days, the opposite was found, so why were they wrong?

If you research the physics, the Earth is modelled as a Black Body, so all the energy from the Sun is received and re-emitted (otherwise temperature would continue to rise). The temperature expected is calculated based on the source strength, the reflection (albedo) of the body and the orbital radius. A common theme in researchers is that the difference between the exected temperature (251K) and the "average" temperature (288K) is the warming effect of the "greenhouse" effect of the atmosphere (about 30 degrees C). Well, you can check that theory yourself by checking the BB radiation and surface temperature of a celestial body that is essentially the same distance from the Sun as the Earth, but has no greenhouse gases. You will find its daytime temperature is 400K - about 130degC, while the BB temperature is calculated at 272K - about 0 degC. So does the moon have a 130 degC greenhouse effect? So direct measurement - no theory here - shows a body at our distance from the Sun is much hotter than the estimated BB radiation calculation. Anyone who owns a dog probably has a good idea what controls the temperature on Earth... Next, we can delve into the spectrum and absorption, the basis for the "greenhouse" effect.

Moderator Response:

[DB] There was found no significant correlation between air travel restrictions post 9/11 and surface temperatures (here and here).

As for the potential impacts of jet travel, per the IPCC AR5, WG1, Chapter 7.2.7.1 Contrails and Contrail-Induced Cirrus, P. 592

"Estimates of the RF from persistent (linear) contrails often correspond to different years and need to be corrected for the continuous increase in air traffic. More recent estimates tend to indicate somewhat smaller RF than assessed in the AR4...we assess the combined contrail and contrail-induced cirrus ERF for the year 2011 to be +0.05 (+0.02 to +0.15) W m–2 to take into uncertainties on spreading rate, optical depth, ice particle shape and radiative transfer and the ongoing increase in air traffic."

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter07_FINAL-1.pdf

And from the IPCC AR5, WG1, Chapter 8.3.4.5 Contrails and Contrail-Induced Cirrus, P.686

"AR4 assessed the RF of contrails (persistent linear contrails) as +0.01 (–0.007 to +0.02) W m–2 and provided no estimate for contrail induced cirrus. In AR5, Chapter 7 gives a best estimate of RF due to contrails of +0.01 (+0.005 to +0.03) W m–2 and an ERF estimate of the combined contrails and contrail-induced cirrus of +0.05 (+0.02 to +0.15) W m–2. Since AR4, the evidence for contrail-induced cirrus has increased because of observational studies (for further details see Section 7.2.7)."

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/Fig8-20-1-820x1024.jpg

Sloganeering snipped.

Wol at 13:38 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Doug @ 26: No. it doesn't! The "to" is a typo for "too" but the comment refers to the fact that in the video the graphs roll past to quickly for me to follow given that I'm listening to the commentary and in any case they are poor res.

Very good video though!

Doug_C at 13:28 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Great to see the quality of this sites remains, staffed by volunteers or not, there is noting else like it in the online world today.

Eclectic at 13:14 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

TomJanson @24 , certainly the worst of the anti-science nonsense is deleted by moderators. But your own comments, being only 90% nonsense, are mostly permitted. Moderators do (I gather from observation) usually give the benefit of the doubt to general commenters, allowing [such as in your own case] for the possibility that probable bad-faith comments may be simply be ill-informed comments (deriving from ignorance or Dunning-Kruger-like over-confidence . . . or from reading little more than the headlines found in the internet's Denialosphere).

Doug Bostrom at 13:01 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Wol, the sentence

"I can't follow the physics - it passes to quickly - but appears genuine."

doesn't make sense.

nigelj at 12:59 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

TomJanson @24, the point of the thread is Taminos article at the top which points out how these fires are different from the 1970's and how they are being influenced by warming.

Your comments are disgraceful. People have died, the fires a very much in urban areas, billions of animals have died. People wont forget that in a hurry.

Your claims of temperature adjstments are sloganeering. But for the record the key global adjustments, done for proper reasons, adjust global temperatures down as below. So this doesn't look like much of a conspiracy to exaggerate warming now does it.

www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-data-adjustments-affect-global-temperature-records

As you can see from the graph down the page, most adjustments for the global record are in the early part of last century, and relate to problems with ocean measurements. The difference between raw and adjusted data since the 1980s is insignificant.

TomJanson at 12:56 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

How's that for science. Deleting anything that detracts from the narrative and which could "undermine faith". Just like Mann taught you all...

Moderator Response:

[DB] And you're done. Respondents, this user has self-recused himself from further participation here, finding the burden of compliance with the Comments Policy and using credible evidence for claims too onerous.

Eclectic at 12:55 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Doug_C @17 , the comment by TomJanson (as he rightly points out) was not simply referring to an isolated "bad year" of Australian wildfires in the end-1974 summer. There were many & extensive fires in other years of the 20th Century ~ yet they don't support the denialist case he is desperate to make.

But hilariously, TomJanson seems to have failed to take a careful look at a map of Australia. Perhaps he is too busy himself "fighting fires" on multiple SkS threads at once? ;-)

TomJanson @ 16 /18 , you seem to be basing your opinion on just reading a few headines (WUWT? Murdoch Press with its "183 arsonists" and suchlike flagrant disinformation?)

Yes, the state of NSW is one of the "eastern states" of Australia, and the 1974 summer wildfires did include a section of the well-settled Hunter Valley near the coast. But there were vast areas burnt to the west in NSW ~ which is typical inland terrain, being grasslands / arid lands / unpopulated regions (the "Outback").

The frequency of burning of large areas of "Outback" . . . provides an apples & oranges comparison with the currently famous fires in the populous south-east of Australia. And provides a "statistical camouflage" for desperadoes like Dr Spencer, who really don't wish to properly examine the issues. His is a fine exampe of Motivated Reasoning . . . as is all climate-science denialism.

And I did not say "these fires are completely different". But they are different enough, for it to be wise to learn a lesson from them. For irregular/"noisy" events like major wildfires (in Australia), we have to look at exacerbating factors & underlying causations (of which there are many).

Over the long term, one prominent new factor is Global Warming.

How much can we blame AGW for the extent & ferocity of the fires? At an educated guess, perhaps one-third of it can be blamed on climate change.

# The point is, with the ongoing warming over the next 30 years , it could well be that the AGW factor will grow to become two-thirds contributor to the extent & ferocity of wildfires in the "settled south-east of Australia". (Other regions of the world will have their own problems.)

But the modern wildfires of 2019 are becoming a wake-up call to the local population (and a warning to the rest of the world) . . . and as a consequence to that, the science-denialists are very desperate to propagandize against the obvious AGW connection.

Doug_C at 12:28 PM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

What happened to the moderation here, comments directly attacking the scientific validity of climate change used to be removed immediately.

Moderator Response:

[DB] While this is a moderated forum, all work is donated by volunteers. Rest assured, a moderator will always be available for "cleanup on aisle 3", soon enough.

Doug_C at 11:45 AM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

TomJanson @18

From geogrpahically isolated droughts and heat waves, my point is this is global in scale and we are seeing the exact same effects across the planet that is entirely consistent with climate change as forced by the massive use of fossil fuels.

Which is also entirely consistent with the scientific evidence that the Earth is fact warming due to all the carbon dioxide we emit and other large scale human changes to the Earth.

10 key climate indicators all point to the same finding: global warming is unmistakable

We already have a perfectily valid explanation for what is happening including the increase in catastrophic extreme weather events like severe droughts and the wildfires that can follow, why look for something much less likely.

Expecially since the time to actually mitigate this unfolding catastrophe is rapidly running out.... if it hasn't already.

nigelj at 11:42 AM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

TomJanson @16

"There's no scientific basis to the claim that these fires are completely different. The difference is people have climate change on their mind and will see every event thru that lens."

Blatant straw man fallacy. People aren't generally saying they are completely different. They are saying there are some important differences. Tamino discusses one here.

From the Tamino article : "One of the things making wildfire/bushfire worse, contributing to the current conflagration in Australia, is the increase of daily high temperatures. It increases the Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD), the difference between how much water vapor the air can hold and how much it does hold. When VPD is high, it can suck the moisture right out of potential fuels big and small, which increases the frequency and severity of fire dramatically. The data are clear, that for daily high temperature last year (2019) was the hottest on record for Australia:..."

TomJasson @18

"And it wasn't just one wildfire season (the 1974 season was simply the largest one). There were other larger ones than 2019/2020 over the past 100 years. But all that's irrelevant isn't it. Because "global warming". The old ones don't count. Only today's ones do."

We are very early in this fire season, so you cannot compare areas burned now so far, to total areas burned back then for the total fire season. We shall have to wait and see.

You also missed the point. I don't know the data for Australia but studies in other countries here have detected an increase in area burned and longer fire seasons over the modern warming period, and after considering other factors conclude warming is to blame. Australia will follow suit because the physics is the same.

Wol at 11:39 AM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Here's a first class argument "against" CO2 causing climate change.

I can't follow the physics - it passes to quickly - but appears genuine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVc-Y-mJ_uY

TomJanson at 10:31 AM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

"Claiming there was an isolated wildfire season 50 or 70 years in a limited geographical local that was larger in scale"

Those wildfires covered a larger total area and were more widely distributed than the current fires.

And it wasn't just one wildfire season (the 1974 season was simply the largest one). There were other larger ones than 2019/2020 over the past 100 years. But all that's irrelevant isn't it. Because "global warming". The old ones don't count. Only today's ones do.

I look forward to the excuses when we have the next run of calmer fire seasons. No doubt that'll be climate change too. The highly ERRATIC nature of modern climates. Fires one day. Calm the next.

Moderator Response:

[DB] Off-topic, sloganeering and inflammatory rhetoric snipped.

Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

Doug_C at 10:04 AM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

We see the current massive wildfire activity as associated with climate change because it is global in scale not local. And repeated.

Claiming there was an isolated wildfire season 50 or 70 years in a limited geographical local that was larger in scale therefore the current spate of massive wildfires is not an indication of a changing climate is rational white noise.

We don't just have the evidence of a changing Earth due to climate change from this global accelerated wildfire activity, we have all the other empirical evidence and all the theory learned over centuries to back it up. You just have to go through the volumous articles on this one site to totally refute claims that this vastly expanded wildfire activity in EurAsia, both Americas, Australia and other locations isn't linked to the very well support fact of how much heat we've added to the Earth mostly from burning fossil fuels.

Just scroll up and check the heat equivalent meter on this page based on solid science and explain how we can have added 2,828,000,000 and counting Hiroshima bomb heat equivalents to the Earth since 1998 alone and not profoundly altered the way that weather and climate operates on Earth. Especially since most of that heat is going into the oceans which are the weather and climate drivers of the planet as they contain most of the heat in the ocean/atmosphere system and move most of it around the planet with ocean currents.

This is happening, it's us and it's already devastating. Anyone living in Australia with the massive and deadly wildfires and a rapidly dying Great Barrier Reef should know this as well or better than anyone on the planet.

TomJanson at 09:36 AM on 15 January 2020

CO2 lags temperature

MARodger 613,

Yes I am talking about the causal relationship. There is far tighter correlation between temperature changes and subsequent CO2 changes than vice versa. And yet people continue to point to the correlation as proof that CO2 is THE driver of temperature.

No-one has managed to explain the fact that the correlation is primarily back to front in terms of causation.

Moderator Response:

[DB] Sloganeering snipped. Claims require evidence. Please start using actual citations to credible sources in lieu of unsupported assertions and making things up.

daria_check at 09:18 AM on 15 January 2020

'Cranky Uncle' smart phone game will show you how to disarm climate deniers

Hey, do you have anyone already helping with Russian translation? We can help.

TomJanson at 08:32 AM on 15 January 2020

Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy

Hilarious. ignore what they did and focus on the fact that a Board "cleared them".

About as persuasive as when the police review board clears a police officer for shooting people without proper cause.

the hockey stick and climate gate emails are scandalous. they cherry picked the series they wanted, deleted embarrassing data, and sticky taped it all together to produce the most compelling picture they could.

it singlehandedly did more to undermine climate science than anything else.

and we see no acknowledgement. No contrition. Just this whitewalling garbage that "they were cleared".

and you wonder why people have doubts?

Moderator Response:

[DB] Repeated sloganeering snipped.

TomJanson at 08:04 AM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Eclectic,

There have been larger areas burned on the eastern states in previous fires, including the 1974 fires.

There's no scientific basis to the claim that these fires are completely different. The difference is people have climate change on their mind and will see every event thru that lens.

Moderator Response:

[DB] Sloganeering snipped. Evidence for assertions is a mandatory condition of participation here.

Nick Palmer at 07:59 AM on 15 January 2020

The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

OPOF@73 wrote "It is also undeniable that the future of humanity is more important and requires more precautionary leadership than any buildings in any nation"

I actually am not disagreeing with the 'precautionary principle'. Given the potential risks identified by some of the science back, then my feeling is that a thorough risk/benefit analysis would have showed that action was justifed long ago because of what the consequences might be - it's a version of Pascal's wager but some proof existed of God/climate change!

We don't need proof that our house is going to burn down to buy insurance...

nigelj at 06:46 AM on 15 January 2020

The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

Nick Palmer @72 says " Just to clarify - I am a significant fighter of denialist deceit and delusion but I will also always take on extremist alarmists and doomists too, and their 'mirror image' rhetoric."

I'm firmly in the same camp. And make no apologies for it. Although Nick, some advice, be careful you dont start to nit pick over the issues.

The link to Taminos comment was damn frustrating because it didnt even say it was Tamino responding and there was itallic type all over the place. Very hard thread to follow, bad graphics.

Our media said areas burned were unprecedented. That's simply not true and they presented no evidence. However its typical media hype to sell copy.

But the denialists are being stupid saying the 1970s were worse. Its too early this fire season to tell, and apparently the huge areas burned back then included mostly grasslands, judging by a comment made today by eclectic on the "intense conversation" article.

Its so hard unpacking all of the ridiculous claims made.

nigelj at 06:20 AM on 15 January 2020

The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

OPOF @73, I've always been concerned about claims from lobby groups that there is insufficient evidence relating to some emerging problem. I've even made submissions to the powers that be arguing the lobby groups are wrong. Their position is often a delaying tactic, and of course they still use it with the climate issue when we have now got plenty of evidence. However with the climate issue in the 1970s it looks to me like there really was insufficient evidence!

We could argue about the 1970s forever and it would require a lot of time consuming digging. I get your main point. I won't be commenting on the past history further.

One Planet Only Forever at 05:41 AM on 15 January 2020

The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

nigelj @66,

Claiming there was insufficient evidence to limit the activity is the type of harmful correction resistant argument that so effectively and harmfully delayed corrective action regarding tobacco (the fight over tobacco started in the 1950s). And it is used to fight against correction of many harmful popular and profitable activities.

I argue that the collective impact of everyone's action is building the future of humanity. That is undeniable. It is also undeniable that the future of humanity is more important and requires more precautionary leadership than any buildings in any nation. And fossil fuel use was more harmful than tobacco, in many ways that were clear well before more detailed understanding of the climate change impacts were developed.

To protect the future from the harm of popular and profitable activity, leadership has always had to responsibly limit what is done if there are uncertainties until those uncertainties are adequately understood and addressed. Good business and political leaders have always understood that. What needs to be understood is how the less responsible harmful people gain control rather than good responsible people. That problem was happening before more detailed understanding developed. And the ability of those people to win has not been limited by the increased understanding.

One Planet Only Forever at 05:11 AM on 15 January 2020

Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks

Hank @44,

I have worked with many international design codes and am well aware of the basis for wind design and other climate condition design requirements.

I understood what you presented. That is why I replied.

Climate change will result in many regional climate conditions that are more severe than historical records. As a result of the increases of extreme events every item design based on the less extreme history will become less safe than intended. Reread all of my comments with that new awareness and uunderstanding.

wilddouglascounty at 04:54 AM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

#6 Claire

Thanks so much for the updates. I agree that you seem to have gained his trust enough that he is confiding from where he is coming from, which from your perspective is less about helping the community than helping himself. But since you are in conversation, he might learn to look at his community from a more inclusive perspective. And the uncertainty you and he feels is also good to share, because in times of change there is plenty to go around. Uncertainty allows the best solutions to emerge the soonest because when everyone is certain, they stop looking.

Nick Palmer at 03:57 AM on 15 January 2020

The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

To anyone who clicks on the Tamino response link "You seem WAY too eager to accept the one number that will make the bushfires unprecedented, while ignoring the testimony from so many experts (including firefighters and scientists who specifically study bushfire) and from people who lived through both times in Australia""

Firstly, I did NOT ignore 'testimony' - we were arguing about media reports and how they misrepresented things to the crucially important general audience by tending to imply that the 'unprecendented' nature was that of acreage. Tamino seemed to think that I was unaware that inamongst the hype and exaggeration that there were some voices that were legit. He didn't seem to appreciate how the public sees these things.

Secondly, I also was not 'accepting the one number' either which, if Mr Sweet had looked to my next comment responding to Tamino, he would have seen this NP: "The point is that it isn’t just one number. There are multiple examples to see. See my reply to Philippe which includes the paper from which the data came: Appendix D P377 onwards...
https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=scipapers "

I really think that if Mr Sweet sincerely thinks that "Barlow's position is much more reasonable than yours" then he ought to re-evaluate his views. Mr Barlow is one of the sort of waay over the top extremists that are one of the two major motivators behind the denialist propaganda (the other being hard right wingers trying to sabotage hard left wingers piggy backing on the science to spread their ideology).

Just to clarify - I am a significant fighter of denialist deceit and delusion but I will also always take on extremist alarmists and doomists too, and their 'mirror image' rhetoric. I consider both to muddy the waters and cause the public to be more confused about what the science actually says. There is nothing that makes the general public more likely to reject the sensible scientific middle ground between the two extremes than some plausible sounding (at the time) extreme prediction from the past that completely fails to manifest. Continuing public confidence in the science is rather more fragile than many appreciate. Probably the most prominent example of a scientist over-prognosticating was that of Paul R Ehrlich in his book 'The Population Bomb' in 1968 who famously wrote "[i]n the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now". I read it back then and I got misled by it for some considerable time. Perhaps that explains part of why I am now so critical of those who hype things up too much...

I have to say that 'doomists' tend to be harder to deal with, as they seem so convined of their extremism that they often regard anyone who tries to moderate their views and bring them back down to earth as almost some sort of traitor to their extreme cause.

tomasz at 01:09 AM on 15 January 2020

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

Figure 2 is wrong. This was pointed out more than 10 years ago @1 by HumanityRules. The caption for Figure 2 says "Change in spectrum from 1970 to 1996...", but Figure 2 is a copy of the Harries 2001 1c graph, a simulated spectrum, i.e. a purely theoretical graph, something never measured at all, which is why all the values are below zero Kelvin. This article should be using a copy of the Harries 1b graph instead: the actual measured spectrum difference between 1970 (IMG satellite) and 1996 (IRIS satellite). In the the 1b graph there are large portions above the zero line, e.g. between 750 - 1100. This is what @HumanityRules was asking about: why so much positive energy at these frequencies? @2 provides an explanation from the Harries paper itself about "residual small ice crystal effects". However, I believe this explanation is wrong. The real reason for a <b>net positive</b> energy difference between 1996 and 1970 is that the earth was warmer in 1996 than it was in 1970. The Stefan Boltzman law requires that a hotter earth emits more heat. Since CO2 and CH4 and other trace GHGs are blocking parts of the emitted IR spectrum, then other parts of the spectrum must make up for this. The Harries 1b graph simply confirms that earth was warmer in 1996. In contrast, Figure 2 implies that the earth was cooler in 1996 than in 1970.

José M. Sousa at 00:39 AM on 15 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Well done!

MA Rodger at 00:28 AM on 15 January 2020

CO2 lags temperature

TomJanson @612,

I'm not sure what you mean by things being "statistically correlated" so cannot say more than that the usual statistical correlation is a two-way street and that possibly you are considering the idea of 'causality' rather than 'correlation'.

The CO2 feedback has more than a single source, the 'feedback' being the net result of a series of primary feedback, both positive and negative. Consider the rise in temperature out of an ice age which sees a net increase in CO2 - the ice melts adding 3% to ocean volumes which, now melted, will absorb CO2 to gain equilibrium with the existing ocean and atmosphere. The melt-water thus acts as a negative feedback, reducing the atmospheric CO2 levels.

For feedbacks to be strong enough to cause a 'runaway' temperature, they need to be at least as strong as the temperature rise/fall that they result from. If they are, for instance, just half as strong, the feedback temperature rise/fall would be 0.5+0.25+0.125+0.0625...=+1 x the temperature rise/fall that they result from, a long way from 'runaway'.

Simon Crowhurst at 23:49 PM on 14 January 2020

Milankovitch Cycles

Stonefly @ 42, it might help to consider the effect (or lack of it) of precession when eccentricity is zero, ie if the orbit was perfectly circular (which Earth's orbit never is, but it gets fairly close!). With that orbital geometry, the Earth would be equally close to the sun, and travelling at the same speed, at every point in its orbit. So there would be no differential effect on the hemispheres from the way the planet was oriented during the orbit - eg the NH would not be particularly tilted away from the sun during aphelion, because there would be no real aphelion - it would be the same distance all round the orbit. This is the reason why the eccentricity cycle modulates the precessional cycle; as eccentricity varies, so the impact of the precessional cycles vary. Hope this helps.

Eclectic at 23:02 PM on 14 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

TomJanson , like Barryn56 @ post #8 , has failed to understand the essential differences in 1974 and 2019.

In the 1970's (and 60's and other years) there were frequent very extensive areas burnt ~ mostly grasslands / arid lands / unpopulated regions An apples and oranges comparison with the fires of end-2019.

Dr Spencer and other anti-science apologists try to drown the significant differences, with a flood of misleading statistics. (They are desperately trying to prevent the "sleepers" waking to the new realities of AGW.)

Better analysis is found with Nick Stokes at his moyhu.blogspot and his twitter comments. (For those unaware of Stokes, he is one of the few sane scientists to be found in the comments columns of WUWT ~ he is almost universally reviled & loathed by the Wattupians, because he shows them up for what they are.)

TomJanson at 22:25 PM on 14 January 2020

500 scientists refute the consensus

97% say humans are changing the climate, but how many say it's dangerous/catastrophic? And how many agree with the radical economic proposals to fix the problen?

TomJanson at 22:17 PM on 14 January 2020

CO2 lags temperature

If temperature kicks of the CO2-temp feedback look then how come it keeps stopping? How come temp keeps dropping (followed by CO2 drops).. Why doesn't it just runaway?

in reality it seems that CO2 is far more tightly statistically correlated with temp than vice versa.

TomJanson at 22:03 PM on 14 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

2019/2020 Australian wildfires: 10 million hectares.

1974/75 Australian wildfires: 117 million hectares

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