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Comments 8401 to 8450:

  1. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    Nick@15. Thanks for your balanced comments. Personally I don't care about the dramatic "6 billion people will die by ..." arguments, because there are so many factors beyond science that will affect the course of human civilization, and which we cannot guess nor control.

    The point I am trying to express is that I think there is too much optimism being generated by focusing on emissions scenarios. I am all for being optimistic, but not if it causes us to let down our guard. I am trying to hone my arguments for non-technical people, who will not be following the technical discussions at any level, and the message I like to provide to them is to watch the Keeling Curve, because in one curve we have all natural and human effects reflected in one plot. The message is to make your response and preparations on the basis of what the Keeling Curve is doing. To me that is realistic and rational preparation. Getting optimistic about targets set in Paris or elsewhere is not responsible planning. It is more wishful thinking.

    So whether RCP8.5 or RCP6 is more indicative of business-as-usual is somewhat of a moot point. Either one spells big problems. I appreciate ATTP's article and clarifying current thinking and research, because it is good to keep up to date with the latest research and where we're headed.

  2. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    "How many times have you heard reputable climate scientists say "Things are proceeding more rapidly now than we thought 5 years ago?"

    Quite a few. Those remarks get publicised whereas the majority saying  'things are proceeding at about the rate we thought' or even ' some aspects' are proceeding slower than we thought' get less publicity. That's the point. Within the peer reviewed literature one will find all of those - don't cherry pick what you think supports your stance.  Also, bear in mind that apart from the literature, climate sceintist are in constant communication with each other on Twitter etc keeping each other up to date with the latest findings. When such as Ken Caldeira says the 6 billion scaremongering is crap you should listen.

  3. Flaws of Lüdecke & Weiss

    Pbezuk @10 ,

    you raise an interesting question, for us back-of-envelope calculators.

    2 watts per meter squared, over 510 million square kilometers of planet, divided into 5.5 quadrillion tons of atmosphere . . . works out to just under 0,2 watts per ton of air.

    Multiply by 31 million seconds in a year . . . rounds off to 5 watt-seconds per gram of air.  Allowing for specific heat ~ you would expect that the atmosphere would rise in temperature by around 7 (seven) degrees per year.  Horrifying, eh.

    Fortunately, the lion's share of that heat is not going into the air, but is going into the ocean, the ice-melt, and the soil.

    So it is hardly surprising that a fraction of 0,04% can have a vast planetary heating effect over a few decades.  Not so?

    Pbezuk, if you are meaning that you don't really understand the so-called "greenhouse effect", then you can find plenty about it here on this website.

  4. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    Nick@13. I don't want to get into the discussion of whether 6 billion people will or won't die by 2100. Even 1/10th of that would be disasterous.

    Peer-reviewed research is typically 5 years out of date, due to the time delay between research, analysis, submission, review, and publication.

    How many times have you heard reputable climate scientists say "Things are proceeding more rapidly now than we thought 5 years ago."?

    Models still fail to explain why the arctic is warming as fast as it is. I've watched enough videos of reputable scientists to know that they routinely say they don't know how things will unfold and how fast.

    Peer reviewed means the research is well documented and well reviewed by peers. Reputable scientists are having a very difficult time keeping up with the pace of climate change and making projections. This should make all of us skeptical of any arguments we read, whether apocolyptic or arguments meant to put our minds at ease.

    Can we agree on the message that until CO2 concentrations stabilize we are in trouble?

  5. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    michael sweet@12

    You're playing into the hands of those mirror images of denialists, the doomists.

    Reese's spin depends on Earth getting to at least 4°C+ and the article in which he makes the 6 billion speculation is full of the 'usual suspects' - Roger Hallam, Kevin Anderson and the various Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research people.

    These people are the inheritors of the mantle of Paul R Ehrlich, who severely damaged the credibility of 'sustainability' science in the 1970s with his predictions (made in 1968) that in "the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now"

    When assessing the likelihood of things happening ONLY the peer reviewed science should be looked at. Nothing else. If the various risks to society are being assessed, then and only then, should all the rest of the speculative projections be taken into account for likelihood. The two separate things should not be blurred in the minds of the public as they are being done today by various public facing individuals

    Here is what highly credible and well known climate scientists said:

    "UC Davis research scientist Amber Kerr dismisses Hallam outright. The idea that six billion people are doomed to die by 2100 “is simply not correct. No mainstream prediction indicates anywhere near this level of climate-change-induced human mortality, for any reason.”

    Similarly, Ken Caldeira, senior scientist, Carnegie Institution, points out:

    "There is no analysis of likely climate damage that has been published in the quality peer-reviewed literature that would indicate that there is any substantial likelihood that climate change could cause the starvation of six billion people by the end of this century"

  6. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    Nigelj,

    William Reese is an acknowledged expert commenting on the carrying capacity of the Earth.  He quotes at least 6 other experts to support the claim of 6 billion deaths.  Your unsupported word is not a strong argument against multiple experts opinions.

    The point of Reese's essay is that public discussion is completely centered on the best case.  Bad cases are dismissed without evidence.  A worst case of 6 billion deaths is as likely as 10 billion healthy people in 2100.  He is addressing your attitude exactly.

    A large fraction of the best farmland worldwide will be covered with only 2 meters of sea level.  600 million people displaced with no new farmland available.  That is only damage from sea level rise. Possible downsides are very large.  The precautionary principle indicates we must seriously consider these scenarios.

  7. Flaws of Lüdecke & Weiss

    I read in comment of Douglas "The radiative forcing from the changes we have made in atmospheric CO2 alone are almost +2 watts per meter squared". How is this measured or calculated. Also I would like to understand with some calculations how a fraction of 0,04% CO2 could heat up 5.5 quadrillion tons of atmosphere with several degrees. Maybe you could refer me to some books where this is all explained. 

  8. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #52

    Regarding the 'Editor's Pick': The post says that "level of ice to melt in Antarctica in one day [...] on Christmas Eve" was "the highest melt extent in Antarctica in the modern era, since 1979." But beware of the phrase "since 1979". It doesn't mean that the melt was higher in 1979. It means that the data set covers the time since 1979. If you say "highest since 1979" you run a considerable risk that some denialist ( - I didn't say "denier" - ) will pop up and say "Aha! So you admit that it was higher in 1979!" No, I don't admit that.

  9. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    NOAA recently posted this animated data. It’s a good graphic to share because it grabs people’s attention. Even those who are familiar with the data, find it is dramatic and convincing. “History of atmospheric carbon dioxide from 800,000 years ago until January, 2019.”  www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/history.html

  10. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    "Yes, the Climate Crisis May Wipe out Six Billion People"

    There is without doubt compelling evidence the the IPCC are conservative in their conclusions, and climate change could kill huge numbers of people, but this number of 6 billion is off the scale, and looks like it needs a little bit of healthy scepticim. It's just that we can't call ourselves educated people with some healthy proper scepticism, if we just accept any old claims at face value. I'm not an expert and happy to be told if I'm wrong somewhere below.

    This claim of 6 billion people being wiped out appears based mainly on a 4 degree world where huge areas of the world become deserts (from their map). But deserts aren't caused primarily by heat but by low rainfall. My understanding is the subtropical deserts either side of the equator are caused by the equatorial hadley cell, and thus high pressure air forcing down high altitude low pressure air with its low levels of moisture, and this low pressure air also a tendency to heat up the ground more than normal, so the combination that creates deserts. Deserts have other causes like air flow over mountains but again this is a thing not hugely affected by climate change.

    It's hard to see why climate change would push these circulation patterns so far north and south to so hugely expanding the deserts. According to Hadley cells on wikipedia climate scientists think the hadly cell would expand this century by 2 degrees of latitude, so not very much. And overall climate change increases the atmospheres absolute humidity and rainfall.

    That said, there will clearly be more deserts not less, and the tropics are going to get really hot, and heatwaves will become a deadly serious problem for survival and agricultural production will be affected, and temperate zones will have their own problems. Mortality will increase, a lot.

  11. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    John@8. Nice summary of the problem. Thanks.

    I would prefer that we message to people that we must, absolutely must stabilize the Keeling Curve. If people follow the Keeling Curve, rather than emissions curves, they will have a much better idea of what to expect. 

    I'm not for scaring people needlessly, but I assume that anybody reading SkepticalScience.com is already in the elite class of people trying to make a difference and would prefer to know the truth. Stabilizing emissions will not stabilize the Keeling Curve. Not even close.

  12. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    The big picture context of ATTP’s OP and this discussion thread is encapsulated in the following…

    But keep in mind that scientists are reluctant, for professional reasons, to go far beyond the immediate data in formal publication. Moreover, organizations like the United Nations, including even its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are so dominated by economists’ concerns and bent by political considerations that extraneous noise obscures the scientific signal.

    Prominent climate scientist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director emeritus of Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, argues that, in these circumstances “a trend towards ‘erring on the side of least drama’ has emerged” and “when the issue is the survival of civilization is at stake, conventional means of analysis may become useless.”

    Exploring this argument, policy analysts David Spratt and Ian Dunlop conclude, “Climate policymaking for years has been cognitively dissonant, ‘a flagrant violation of reality.’ So it is unsurprising that there is a lack of understanding amongst the public and elites of the full measure of the climate challenge.”

    Yes, the Climate Crisis May Wipe out Six Billion People by William E Reese*, The Tyee, Sep 18, 2019

    *William E. Rees is professor emeritus of human ecology and ecological economics at the University of British Columbia.

  13. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    Human emissions are only one part of the problem: natural emissions and natural sinks are the other important parts. The Keeling curve (plot of monthly CO2 concentrations) is the best indicator of how we're doing, and it's still accelerating upwards (Ralph Keeling himself uses the words "accelerating upwards").

    I will gain hope not when our emissions stabilize, but when the Keeling Curve stabilizes.

  14. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

     It is strange, history has repeated itself. It was reputed to be a little boy who was the only person to say "The King is as naked as the day he was born".

    Now its a little girl, this time most of the world hav'nt noticed that we are in a desperate situation, only the ones who cannot say anything because they do not have the means and are taking the brunt of it.

    Is it too late? have we gone beyond the threshold that everybody is talking about, beyond the tipping point? This is an equally dangerous situation because people are saying," Well there is nothing I can do about it so lets go on as normal".

    All I can say is from what I see the increase in world temperature graphs are generally a hypabola, if it goes on and if the world population goes on doubleing every twenty years, far from having a problem at the end of the century, its going to be in less than 5 years.

    Take a simple thing like boiling a kettle, I first empty a kettle, then as I put water back in with the tap running at fast, count to four for 1 person, eight for two ect. That way I am only boiling as much water as required.

    Simple but if everybody did it we could do away with a number of nuke reactors. Getting people to do it is a different matter, everybody has their reason not to do it. 

    Then there is shear greed and people not wanting to lower what they concider their standards.

    Then there is the industrys telling people to buy 4X4 cars or electric cars, they all want to sell more and more but what they are selling does nothing to save the world.

    I feel there is no hope because nobody is going to listen anyway.

    I think if there is going to be a change it will have  to be a massive revolution of some kind to have any effect.

    Tell me if you think I am wrong.

  15. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #52

    From the above list:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QCBDnJU2sQ&feature=youtu.be&

    Just in case you are considering giving in to the temptation to discard the term "climate denier" (as demanded by...climate deniers!), here is Potholer's excellent take down of Tony Heller's faery tale about the Petermann glacier in far north Greenland, demonstating, once again, that the term "climate denier" is not yet ready for retirement. Not by a long shot.

  16. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    Perhaps it would be worthwhile to challenge the "Monktons" of the world with this thought.  https://mtkass.blogspot.com/2010/10/forget-climate-change.html  They don't have to believe that the climate is changing or that we are  causing it or that it would be  bad.  They would have to support the very measures that would address the problem or reveal their real motivation and real backers.

  17. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    Time is running out and you dare talking that our climate future wouldn’t "look as bad as it once looked". Meanwhile, a decade of ice, ocean and atmospheric studies found systems nearing dangerous tipping points!

    => Climate Science Discoveries of the Decade: New Risks Scientists Warned About in the 2010s

  18. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    Skeptical Science offers a helpful guide to RCP basics and more, in this pdf:

    The Beginner's Guide to Representative Concentration Pathways

  19. One Planet Only Forever at 16:33 PM on 28 December 2019
    The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    nigelj @16,

    I was taking some liberty when using the term Science. There is indeed concern about the application of the science. But there is also the potential to believe that continued Science will be able to solve a problem like the climate change challenges that are being imposed on the future generations.

    That potential faith in science to develop 'the solution' is the problem I was also thinking of. Especially when it is used to claim there is no need to reduce energy or material use - because continued science will discover the ways to Fix Things so that high energy and material consumption can continue.

  20. The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    OPOF @14, nicely balanced summary, thought porovoking, except I wonder about the statement "Harmful faith in Science includes: “Science enables people to do as they wish with dominance and control over nature .." This is probably better applied to the term technology, or applied science, and the misplaced belief it can solve every problem. It's hard to have harmful faith in a scientific theory as such and the scientific way of looking at things.

  21. The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    takamura_senpai @13

    You make some good comments. I agree with some and not others, which probably wont surprse you. Some random thoughts....

    "Use a bicycle, have a good body and health, give positive example .... and laugh from fat car users......This work better, than boring appeal."

    Yes I agree bicycles have many advantages. However our cities are designed around cars, so transitioning to the wide use of bicycles might be a slow process. Where I live we are building cycle lanes but its not easy as you can imagine, given the physical constraints.

    Basically we are going to be stuck with quite a lot of cars for some time, even if people mainly use them for shopping etc, so electrifying cars or using hydrogen fuel cells is the most obvious way forwards.

    "Much easier say: Africa, Asia are full of corruption. And do NOTHING."Africa = corruption, so they have to die" So many talks about population ... and here too. It look like racism."

    Yes some people scapegoat Africa for various problems including climate change by pointing at its population growth and corruption. Its all unjustified, and tinged with racism, because corruption is not unique to Africa (and Asia), and their CO2 emissions are quite low and will probably remain that way even with a growing population, for some time anyway. But eventually Africa too will beome big consumers and emitters, if we continue with business as usual, and dont have a decent plan going forwards. So regardless of people unfairly scapegoating their population growth for problems, they do actually need to reduce their population growth.

    However you reverse scapegoated Europe, by accusing them of being equally corrupt. Which is also factually wrong.

    "Next.Politicians know about useless of agreements and meetings. But....How much noise about them we hear! and here."

    Yes sadly. A lot of hot air and slow progress. However our civilisation is now so complex that making changes can take time.

    "But solar panels, wind turbines, battery the same as 50 yers ago. People use batteries from old cars as a storage. What part of science? On research in solar energy and storage was spent less 0.01% than on entertainment. We try solve problem using a 50 year old technologies. => zero result."

    This is 100% wrong in most places anyway. Battery technology is proceding at a spectacular pace with lithium ion batteries and many others under development here.

    "I live in european country. There is geographical center of Europe lay in my country. And here green rates - corruption.....Ordinary people can't build solar plant without appropriate bribe. So robbers own all big solar plants. I think the same in most of World. And people become true haters of all this climat change, polar bears, nature and other rubbish, as they say."

    You don't name the country or provide any links. You cannot assume all countries are like this. I live in New Zealand, and we dont have bribes and corruption like this. People are free to put solar panels on their roofs and connect into the grid and are paid for surpluses they generate, although not fairly, there are some problems like that. But yes sadly some countries have bribes almost as a way of life.

    "Europe (and USA) politicians spent hundreds of billion dollars on the support of production NON elecric cars. It 100 more than spending on research on solar energy and storage. I see economic or corruption in their behavior/doings. Green rate in Germany 8.44 eurocents. People pay 20-30 or more. Just compare. Economic, not climat. You need dollars for buy oil, coal, natural gas."

    I'm not aware of any governmnet subsidies in America for car manufacture, but they do subsidise fossil fuels, unfortunately. Not sure what you mean by green rates, please clarify if you have time.

    "Asia is full of corruption" all World full of corraption :( As i said: "Because humans are egoists." I think approximately the same. Forms and ways different."

    It depends on how you define corruption. The link I gave you defines it in certain conventional ways and its a fact that overall Europe has lower corruption than Asia or Africa. Of course all countries do have corruption to some extent.

    Europe is not perfect, and they exploit other peoples to some extent, and drive very hard business bargains that are sometimes unethical. This is not corruption as such, but its arguably unethical. I guess the forms of corruption are a bit different from place to place, but we have to avoid false equivalence because some countries are definitely less corrupt than others, in an overall sense even by the widest possible definition of corruption. But its a bit academic, because regardless of the corruption level in another country, and how we define it, it never justifies corruption in our own country.

    "Europe is leading in provision of wind energy and storage" China is leader in wind, solar energy and electromobiles. Produce 10? 20? 30? times more solar panels and electric cars."

    Yes, although its mainly to reduce the pollution in cities and the chronic respiratory problems, more than to combat climate change. I guess the end result is still good and China deserve respect in regard to their efforts with renewable energy. Shame about some of the human rights issues.

  22. One Planet Only Forever at 02:45 AM on 28 December 2019
    The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    nigelj,

    I agree that it is incorrect to be impressed by appearances that things are getting better.

    Only a portion of the problem-population (the higher consuming and higher impacting people), has cared to limit how harmful they are. And only a portion of that portion try to be helpful about reducing climate impacts.

    As long as there is a significant portion of the population wanting to be high impacting people able to 'believe what they want with the power to get away with doing as they please' the problem is not on a pathway to a solution.

    Humanity will only be able to be declared to have started on the pathway to a sustainable future that can be sustainably improved when the number of powerful people caring to be helpful, and rejecting any thoughts that there is a way to justify being harmful to Others, is large enough to govern and limit the behaviour of their uncaring harmful peers. Even then, vigilance will be required to ensure that the harmful uncaring people do not get a resurgence of popularity and profitability.

  23. One Planet Only Forever at 01:57 AM on 28 December 2019
    The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    Responding to swampfoxh's string of comments regarding religion and the poor.

    There is a diversity of ways to be religious. Many of them are very helpful. And some of them are harmful. That awareness leads me to try to correct harmfully incorrect generalizations about religion related to climate science. And, as a thoughtful human, I feel obliged to respond to callous dismissive comments made related to the undeniably Good Human objective of helping the poorest (an essential aspect of almost every spiritual religion).

    Undeniably, people use a diversity of ways to fight against the expanded awareness and improved understanding of the required corrections of what humans have developed, particularly, but not exclusively, the corrections that climate science has exposed are required for humanity to have a long and improving future. Only some of those people claim to be acting as members of a spiritual religious group. And not all religious people act that way or are impressed by those people.

    Everyone can expand their awareness and improve their understanding that helping achieve and improve on things like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is what life needs to be all about. Human activity should be governed and limited by objectives of correcting harmful actions and promoting helpful actions.

    Almost every religion has established beliefs that support the achievement of the SDGs. But many religious groups have been infected by a twisted capitalist, colonialist, status pursuing attitude and related non-spiritual religiously held beliefs. And a scientific approach is not necessarily better.

    That understanding needs to be increased. There is much Good in religious people and their beliefs. People ideologically holding harmful faith beliefs are a serious problem.

    Harmful faith in Science includes: “Science enables people to do as they wish with dominance and control over nature - living artificially apart from the robust diversity of life rather than as a sustainable part of the robust diversity of life - only caring about other life that can be directly useful to a human's developed way of living.” That ideology can be the basis for absurd claims like: “Technological breakthroughs will be the answer to the climate challenge (that was created by desired technological breakthroughs); Have faith that the future generations will brilliantly artificially overcome any challenges and create a sustainable better future that has little need for non-artificial living, or other living things; Glory be to Technology from Science.”

    There is also the potentially far more harmful faith in Economics: “Worshipping the belief that people being freer to believe whatever they want in pursuit of their personal interests will naturally develop Good Results” with the related damaging “Idolizing of the impressions developed by winners of competitions for popularity and profit” and the related false belief that “Everybody is fully deserving of whatever circumstances they are born into and end up with”.

    Some religious people will agree that science will allow humans to thrive in domination and control of everything - As God Intended (at least the portion of humans who end up winning the power to dominate and control everything).

    Religions in pursuit of dominance and control harmfully push their members to 'convert, overpower or eliminate' Others. And example of their harmful tribal actions include fighting against equality for women and a related dislike for the SDGs. And some fight against acknowledging that there are a diversity of ways of recognizing the Northern Hemisphere Winter Solstice because they believe that their celebration of Christmas must be the dominant one, the only legitimate celebration of the NH Winter Solstice.

    Simplistically declaring 'religion' to be a problem regarding climate science is harmfully incorrect. The problems are all of the things people do without being governed or limited by expanded awareness and improved understanding applied to help achieve the SDGs and other Objectives required for humanity to have a better future. The pursuit and application of science without that governing objective can be very harmful. And the pursuit of popularity and profit without that governing objective is undeniably very harmful.

    It would be helpful for people to expand their awareness and improve their understanding of religion, (and science, economics and politics) and apply that knowledge to achieve the SDGs. And it is very unhelpful to express a callous misunderstood generalization about religious people, who generally correctly want to help the less fortunate, in the same string of commenting that includes a repugnant expression of disinterest in helping the least fortunate sustainably improve to better living 'because they missed out - too bad - so sad for them - fake tears flowing if required to look as if caring was involved' (my paraphrased playback of the comment “My point is: since the unfortunates outnumber the fortunate about 5 to 1, how can the climate stand to tolerate the "outlaw species" assault on nature while the rest of us sit around our solar powered homes, etc, and expect to turn around global warming's dangers? I'm sorry the unfortunate missed the boat, but they will just have to do without”).

    Helping the less fortunate sustainably live better will probably have to include allowing them to benefit the most from fossil fuels during the correction of what has developed, during the rapid ending of global fossil fuel use. But the objective still needs to be global total impact limited to the required total limit (1.5C), meaning the more fortunate ones currently enjoying fossil fuels need to be the ones to suffer the loss as “They lead the required rapid correction”. And Religious People are very likely to support that understanding, more than those with a faith in Science to magically solve the future problem of failing to limit the impacts, and undeniably more that those who have faith that the developed economic systems will solve the problem they created and have made worse through the past 30 years of full awareness, but denial, of the problem being created.

  24. Ice age predicted in the 70s

    Hi MA

    Thanks for the links and the post. Very interesting. The thing I find fascinating is that I started tackling the Wattsup post but came from a very different angle- though equally unimpressed by it. I think your approach and mine are complementary. Will try to post later.

     

    My interest was just how using some basic knowledge of science and careful reading of the Wattsup article meant I could identify numerous logical fallacies and inaccuracies. It would be interesting to see what you make of my thoughts. 

  25. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    rayates55 @17, putting it another way, Stern is an economist and he cannot take a climate change trend, and a deteriorating climate trend, and compounding CO2 trends  and turn that into a mitigation cost, obviously. You can only say if things are deteriorating more than anticipated, it may be prudent to aim to get to net zero emissions more quickly. The time frame is a matter for climate science.

    My understanding is he took the recommendation to keep warming under 2 degrees so about 40 years to get to net zero emissions, so arrived at costs of 1 % gdp year. We havent done much the past ten years, so now only have 30 years so its about 1.5% gdp year. If we aim for 1.5 degrees as per the recent IPCC recommendation, that leaves about 15 years, so about 2 - 3% gdp year. This does not suggest case of why it would be more than 5% a year.

  26. The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

    "In other words, current policy suggests that business-as-usual is closer to RCP6, than to RCP8.5 (which has often been regarded as a business-as-usual pathway)."

    Gut reaction. I can't see how you can take policies which have not even been properly implemented yet, and no significant change in global emissions, and start talking about a new business as usual. The terms don't belong in the same sentence, not yet by a long way.

  27. takamura_senpai at 16:45 PM on 27 December 2019
    The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    To Nigel:

    You agree with others my statements..... This is excellent and enough
    CO2 emission rised on 2.5% every year. Positive results of all this meetings and agreements = ZERO.
    Because humans are egoists. Emissions rised, rise and will rise.
    If we look at graph of the CO2 emission ... NOT straight line...Why? ... We see in 2009...because of Kioto protocol or other ? Climate or economic reason?
    Global warming - incredible hard problem. But we want to solve it.
    Do we really want solve problem? Do we? Realy? And how many % authors here use a car?
    Cars need oil, roads, expensive bridges, other infrastracture. Our towns and cities designed for cars, not bicycles or other. On THIS was spent many trillions of dollars. Too much oil, gas, coal.
    Use a bicycle, have a good body and health, give positive example .... and laugh from fat car users......This work better, than boring appeal.
    We have to speak about man's potencia and influence of low active life ... cars .. traffic fumes...fastfood and so on.
    I specialy use such words.... too harsh.
    We must build cities with NO cars, with healthy habitants.
    And laugh from habitants of Los Angelis New York Mexico Tokio Seul Beijing Moscow
    Overhead roads for bicycles and roller skates - transport of the Future
    8 directional overhead roads, not our dull 4 diractional(South-North West-East). And no traffic lights.
    We can and must use metan in cars and others, not petrol. Cheaper and reduce CO2 emission .
    If we burn a economic war between USA and China - it reduce CO2 several billion a year.
    USA produce more CO2 than all Africa, and 80% poor people in Asia and Latin America. Only 1 country! Start from myself/youself.
    Much easier say: Africa, Asia are full of corruption.
    And do NOTHING.
    "Africa = corruption, so they have to die" So many talks about population ... and here too. It look like racism.

    Next.Politicians know about useless of agreements and meetings. But....How much noise about them we hear! and here.
    NOW, i see the only possibility/chance to avoid catastrophic global warming in solar and wind energy, and storage.
    But solar panels, wind turbines, battery the same as 50 yers ago. People use batteries from old cars as a storage. What part of science?
    On research in solar energy and storage was spent less 0.01% than on entertainment. We try solve problem using a 50 year old technologies. => zero result.
    If EU and US would spend 1% of GDP from 2000 to 2020 on research in solar energy and storage, NOW our view on global warming would be optimistic... in general. possible.

    I live in european country. There is geographical center of Europe lay in my country. And here green rates - corruption, only corruption and nothing else. 60 cents -> scandal -> 50 cents -> scandal -> 40 and so on. And 0 in research. People hate all talks about global warming, nature and polar bears. This is the result! People hate and +2.5% rise CO2 emission a year.
    Now green rate for solar 15 eurocents, corruption part aprox 7 eurocents, and pay one time in the beginning - too good for politicians.
    Ordinary people can't build solar plant without appropriate bribe. So robbers own all big solar plants. I think the same in most of World. And people become true haters of all this climat change, polar bears, nature and other rubbish, as they say.

    Europe (and USA) politicians spent hundreds of billion dollars on the support of production NON elecric cars. It 100 more than spending on research on solar energy and storage. I see economic or corruption in their behavior/doings. Green rate in Germany 8.44 eurocents. People pay 20-30 or more. Just compare. Economic, not climat. You need dollars for buy oil, coal, natural gas.
    German chancellor Shredder now in warm place in Moscow Gazprom.
    "Asia is full of corruption" all World full of corraption :( As i said: "Because humans are egoists." I think approximately the same. Forms and ways different.
    For example use central banks.
    Europe buy politicians in East Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania. Moscow buy europe politicians.....
    We have to stop use coal and buy more gas from Moscow.....
    I can give hundreds of examples. But politic is banned here in cite.
    oh. climate change - is a politic problem
    "Europe is leading in provision of wind energy and storage" China is leader in wind, solar energy and electromobiles. Produce 10? 20? 30? times more solar panels and electric cars.

    "Asia is full of corruption" - South Korea?
    "Asia is full of corruption, not every country but many." Exactly the same we can say about Europe, and every other part of the World

    My name is Mihail (in english style). takamura_senpai - just post box to be unique

  28. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    rayates55 @17

    "You did not address many of the facts that I presented and that you had asked for."

    I addressed most of them, and I'm not obliged to respond to all of your comments. Some were good, some were irrelevant.

    "You are correct that I presented no solution to these problems, that is because I know of none. Neither do you."

    There are plenty of obvious solutions. Start changing your lifestyle, there will be things you can do that won't hurt and will probably even leave you financially better off. I'm not going to write lists, these things are easily googled.

    Lobby your local politicians, I've done this on various matters not just the climate issue and if you are skillful it can make a difference. Vote for politicians and political parties that prioritise the environment. Educate your kids. It all adds up. Things eventually reach a critical mass. Policies change and history shows this. Nothing naieve about this.

  29. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    nigelj @16 wrote: "Not once have you said anything optimistic, or how we could overcome these problems. It just leads me to think you are basically deliberately spreading negativity to discourage progress, so a form of concern trolling."

    Ah yes, the retreat to insults in the face of facts. You did not address many of the facts that I presented and that you had asked for. You are correct that I said nothing optimistic. That is because I see no reason for naive optimism such as yours. You are correct that I presented no solution to these problems, that is because I know of none. Neither do you.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Sloganeering snipped.

  30. Ice age predicted in the 70s

    Dave Evans @84,

    The Wattsupian nonsense from Nov 2018 you ask about doesn't appear to have been de-bunked but the major slight-of-hand employed by the denialist-&-nonsense-author Angus MacFarlane has been de-bunked by SkS.

    The Nov 2018 nonsense purports to itself de-bunk Peterson et al (2008) which is the main evidence base for the OP above. [The co-authors seem to have been overlooked by the OP above who call it Peterson 2008.]  In directly challenging Peterson et al, the Wattsupian denier reclasifies 20% of the surveyed papers cited by Peterson et al  (14 of the 66 re-assessed with 5 Peterson et al citations not assessed) and thus attempts to convert the result from 7 'cooling', 20 'neutral' and 44 'warming' into 16 'cooling', 19 'neutral' and 36 'warming'. This is not greating different and certainly does not support the contention that there was a scientific global cooling concensus during the 1970s.

    To provide more fire-power, the Wattsupian denilaist adds extra citations to the survey - two which he found for himself (again not a level of evidence that would change the Peterson et al result) and an additional 117 papers gleaned from an earlier denialist attempt to debunk Peterson et al. It is only with this extra denialist fire-power from 2016 that anything like the number of citations can be obtained to overcome the Peterson et al result. This 2016 nonsense has been debunked in a two-park SkS post here & here.

    The general nonsense in this 2016 denialist blather is possible best summed up by the denialistical use of the 1974 CIA document which considers the global food supply and within this considers climate as potentially a major factor. Global cooling is presented as a potential increase in risk to an adequate global food supply. There is no 'consensus' being waved that global cooling is expected. Instead they cite HH Lamb but ignore Lamb's view at that time in the mid-1970s that "On balance, the effects of increased carbon dioxide on climate is almost certainly in the direction of warming but is probably much smaller than the estimates which have commonly been accepted." As this may sound itself a little 'denialist' to modern ears, I should all that the 1977 book containing this quote had added into its 1984 preface:-

    "It is to be noted here that there is no necessary contradiction between forecast expectations of (a) some renewed (or continuation of) slight cooling of world climate for some years to come, e.g. from volcanic or solar activity variations; (b) an abrupt warming due to the effect of increasing carbon dioxide, lasting some centuries until fossil fuels are exhausted and a while thereafter; and this followed in turn by (c) a glaciation lasting (like the previous ones) for many thousands of years.” [my bold]

    The evidence-base for the CIA document is set out in its Annex II is based on the work of one scientist, Reid Bryson who did continue to find it beyond his abilities to accept the idea of AGW as a problem that needed tackling. So even though the 1974 CIA document runs with global cooling, a worst-case scenario, there is no scientific consensus backing it up.

    The other study cited by the 2016 nonsense is Stewart & Glantz (1985) which talks of an emerging AGW-warming consensus but itself analyses the conclusions of a 1978 study on climate projection to the year 2000. This 1978 study would presumably have been advised by any 'cooling' concensus had such a thing existed in the mid-1970s. So their conclusions will be of interest:-

    "The derived climate scenarios manifest a broad range of perceptions about possible temperature trends to the end of this century, but suggest as most likely a climate resembling the average for the past 30 years.- Collectively, the respondents tended to anticipate a slight global warming rather than a cooling. More specifically, their assessments pointed toward only one chance in five that, changes in average global temperatures will fall outside the range of -0.3°C to +0.6°C, although any temperature change was generally perceived as-being amplified in the higher latitudes of both hemiipheres."

    So here the 1970s view was more towards 'warming' than 'cooling' although I note the 'warming' opinion prevailed as warming 1975-2000 was +0.5°C. 

    And today we see nothing but blather in that Nov 2018 Wattsupian whittering. It is ever thus there on the remote planetoid Wattsupia.

  31. Ice age predicted in the 70s

    By the way... has anyone written a post debunking the Wattsupwiththat article (Nov 2018) on why there was a consensus on global cooling / imminent ice age etc? It is of course riddled with misunderstandings / errors / assumptions. I was going to have a go myself (I am not a scientist) but just in the area of logic and comprehension there are all sorts of problems. 

  32. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    rayates55 @15

    "I think your projection of 1.5% each year in much too optimistic. It is not simply a linear progression, it is more like compounded debt and, in addition, the starting point is now much worse............If we are "ballparking" here I would guess it would take at least 5% GDP per year starting now. For the U.S. that's about a trillion a year. And guess what? We are not going to do that next year, or the year after, or the year after that. By 2022 we will have 28 years left, not 31 and the starting point will be still worse."

    I don't understand why you refer to that 1.5 % of gdp number. I went on to say in my previous comment that "I agree things are worse now than Stern anticipated, so double the 1.5% number if you want. " I mean with respect I have a lot of trouble understanding how you didn't read that. So I did consider that things are worse now, however you are overdoing it a bit. For example I'm sure Stern was fully aware we could be emitting at higher rates now and that population would definitely increase, etcetera, and he would have taken that much into account.

    Now my numbers of 3% of gdp were based on the Paris goal of 2 degrees by 2050, and I think I'm being very realistic. There is talk of targetting 1.5 degrees, then the time frame narrows much more, and 5% of gdp might be realistic. However its still doable if theres a will. America spent far more on the war effort in WW2.

    Not once have you said anything optimistic, or how we could overcome these problems. It just leads me to think you are basically deliberately spreading negativity to discourage progress, so a form of concern trolling. Until your attitude and commentary changes a lot, that will be my conclusion.

  33. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    nigelj @10 says "The Stern Report is about the costs and speed to replace fossil fuel electricity grids with renewable energy grids and so on. From memory it was based on getting to net zero by 2050, and so costs 1% per year to do that based on a period of about 44 years, and this is now shortened to 31 years, so your 1% number becomes something like 1.5% each year."

    I think your projection of 1.5% each year in much too optimistic. It is not simply a linear progression, it is more like compounded debt and, in addition, the starting point is now much worse. Here are some other numbers to factor in: Since the Stern Report, we have added about 500 billion tons of CO2. We are now emitting CO2 at a rate 23% higher than in 2006, so we have to drop it by that much just to get to square one of the Stern Report, and if that took 10 years (a miracle) we would be starting 25 years too late.

    The atmospheric CO2 level was 380 in 2006 and is now 408. The rate of increase is rising. The earth has 15% more people on it. The goal in Stern was 450-550ppm. But that middle value, 500ppm, that is now recognized as a catastrophic level. Feedback loops are better understood now and are expected to accelerate the rates well before 500ppm.

    If we are "ballparking" here I would guess it would take at least 5% GDP per year starting now. For the U.S. that's about a trillion a year. And guess what? We are not going to do that next year, or the year after, or the year after that. By 2022 we will have 28 years left, not 31 and the starting point will be still worse.

  34. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    Meant to say its like comparing apples and oranges.

  35. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    BeeKing @12, "So lets compare expenditure on green lobbying and support over say a 12 year figure where there are figures - Oil lobby @ $200 mill/year, government funding of $79 billion over 30 years = $2.6 billion/year and green lobbying money $80 billion over 12 years = $6.67 billion/year."

    Blatantly misleading maths. There are other words for it as well. Your oil lobby figure of $200 mill per yr is genuine lobbying money, and by no means all of it, while your $6.7 billion per year green money includes a whole lot of other stuff according to the information you provide, so education, tax breaks, research etcetera. This is not lobbying money. This is not comparing apples and oranges.

    Under President Obama, government agencies have poured tens of millions into non-profit groups for anti-hydrocarbon campaigns.
    No link provided to substantiate this.

  36. The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    I see that I wrote here instead of hear and radiacally instead of radically. This is just to correct the errors in my previous post. I don't see that I can edit it now. 

  37. The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    I am at a loss to understand Katherine Hayhoe's concern about fear being a problem with respect to solving the climate crisis. I know that there are people out there who fear more than they should (Guy McPherson is a classic example of this and Extinction Rebellion peddles claims which generate unwarranted fear). However, the people who are not flying and not eating meat are having a major positive impact in the following way. They are getting other people to talk about it. I live in Denmark and out here there is a radio program called monopol where people call in to talk about their social problems and try to get help. I frequently here calls about conflicts with planned weddings, family vacations etc where someone is refusing to fly and it is putting a wrench in people's plans. Often the hosts are recommending respecting the wishes of the person who is refusing to fly, because they point out that research is saying that we need to change our society radiacally if we hope to solve the climate crisis. Their positioning is doubtless having a positive impact in ways I could never have predicting and I have a hard time believing that there will be a net positive gain with respect to the climate if we try to calm this fear and "religion". I respect Katherine Hayhoe greatly, but I just don't see how I can agree with her on this point. I am opening to another perspective if there is someone out there he thinks I am wrong about this. Do I have something to learn here? 

  38. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/03/25/oil-and-gas-giants-spend-millions-lobbying-to-block-climate-change-policies-infographic/#3fb08487c4fb. This article provides no breakdown or facts to support the claim "US$200 million a year on lobbying to control, delay or block binding climate policy" and so its not possible to tell if the money was spent on what it claimed, but lets take that at face value and presume that all that money is spent lobbying to stop climate change policies.
    Lets look at the other side for comparison to see how much is spent on anti hydrocarbon or towards "Green" policies. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/clean-energy-firms-lobby-congess-as-much-as-dirty-firms-do/. So there is as much money spent on lobbying for green businesses as against them, but lets ignore that.
    The US government spend of $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, administration, education campaigns, foreign aid, and tax breaks http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/climate_money.pdf. 
    Michael Bloomberg alone is spending $500 million directly on green lobbying https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/climate/bloomberg-climate-pledge-coal.html.
    The liberal foundations that give targeted grants to Big Green operations have well over $100 billion at their disposal. That figure is confirmed in the Foundation Center database of the Top 100 Foundations. But how much actually gets to environmental groups? The Giving USA Institute’s annual reports show $80,427,810,000 (more than $80 billion) in giving to environmental recipients from 2000 to 2012.
    The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and found $147.3 million in assets while environmental donor Gordon E. and Betty I. Moore Foundation posted $5.2 billion.
    Under President Obama, government agencies have poured tens of millions into non-profit groups for anti-hydrocarbon campaigns.
    So lets compare expenditure on green lobbying and support over say a 12 year figure where there are figures - Oil lobby @ $200 mill/year, government funding of $79 billion over 30 years = $2.6 billion/year and green lobbying money $80 billion over 12 years = $6.67 billion/year. So the green lobbying groups are expending $9.3 billion/year on average vs oil and gas $0.2 billion/year, or over 40 times more. That does not count the non-monetary assistance of mass media in propagating climate crisis claims, and education campaigns to indoctrinate children into green think whose value would be many billions more in influence, but even on a basic expenditure analysis who has more influence? The green policies with government backing have conservatively 40 times more influence.

  39. The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    swampfoxh @6, not sure what you are saying. Could you clarify that a bit?

    Agree about religion @7.

  40. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    The article really does cover the denialist talking points very thoroughly. They are the same points used to try to rubbish other environmental science and mitigation ideas whether related to clean water, vehicle exhaust emissions, industrial waste etc. I see them all daily in our newspapers.

    They reflect an attitide that short term profit must come first. This is a weakness of the capitalist system, and can only be properly mitigated with government regulation  and penlties, or other devices like carbon taxes.

  41. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    rayates55 @8 says "Yes, it (The Stern Report) said that "cutting carbon emissions so that carbon dioxide peaked in the range of 450-550 parts per million would cost 1 percent of the GDP annually". BUT, this report was produced 13 YEARS ago! Things are much, much worse now. Also, 550ppm CO2 is itself a catastrophic level."

    The Stern Report is about the costs and speed to replace fossil fuel electricity grids with renewable energy grids and so on. From memory it was based on getting to net zero by 2050, and so costs 1% per year to do that based on a period of about 44 years, and this is now shortened to 31 years, so your 1% number becomes something like 1.5% each year.

    1.5% per year is still an achievable number. This is only 1.5% of global economic output each year. Its about what a typical family spends on treat foods and luxuries each year, its about what countries spend on their military, its much less than what is spent on education or healthcare. And it would be easy to find 1.5% of gdp without loss of living standards just by making some efficiencies - if we wanted.

    I agree things are worse now than Stern anticipated, so double the 1.5% number if you want. This is realistic and is still doable.

    Check my maths and assumptions etc, maybe its wrong, but no arm waving please. Provide details.

  42. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    No question that the vested interests of Oil, Gas and Coal are spending huge amounts of money lobbying but not only on lobbying.  The also spend huge amounts of money supporting the election campaigns of politicians world wide, often on both sides of the political spectrum just to hedge their bets.  As such there is a simple, effective, hugely necessary measure we must take to address this and a whole raft of other problems that beset us.  It is dead simple.  Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune. https://mtkass.blogspot.com/2018/01/wasted-effort.html

  43. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    The post is a concise description of the areas of climate change denial with some good, hard facts to counter those points. However, the refutation of Economic Denial is exceedingly weak. When will people stop mis-citing the Stern Report? Yes, it said that "cutting carbon emissions so that carbon dioxide peaked in the range of 450-550 parts per million would cost 1 percent of the GDP annually".

    BUT, this report was produced 13 YEARS ago! Things are much, much worse now. Also, 550ppm CO2 is itself a catastrophic level.

    So the cheery pep-talk about it taking only 1% of world GDP is hogwash.

  44. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    I think we spend too much time and effort on "blub" style comments. I suggest responding to such material with the words: "unnecessary to comment". In my climate class, " impact of an outlaw species" , I always have a denier or two. Their question is usually, " what can you say that would change my mind about climate change?" My answer is "nothing", followed by my moving on with the lecture. Most of them get up and leave the room to those who want to know.

  45. The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    Sorry for the mangled words. I hit the submit button by mistake, but my point should be clear enough.

  46. The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    ...the maker of heaven and earth forever and ever"

    This is not helpful.

  47. The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    This discussion devolved to religion is unhelpful as well. If it weren't for religion, substantial progress could be made in climate mitigation because religion results in an attitude reflected, generally, by the following. The exact phraseology will differ but the implications are the same: "I'm not worried because the Lord is in control. Jesus will come on a cloud of glory sweeping us up onto heaven to sitting on the right hand of God Th Father Almighty

  48. The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    Suspect we are sunk already, but allowing the "less fortunate" to continue engaging in the very behaviors that got us here is unacceptable to me. I'm sorry they missed the "boat of profligacy", but they also missed the Titanic, enabling them to continue living while the some of the profligate rich and famous went to the bottom of the Atlantic. My point is: since the unfortunates outnumber the fortunate about 5 to 1, how can the climate stand to tolerate the "outlaw species" assault on nature while the rest of us sit around our solar powered homes, etc, and expect to turn around global warming's dangers? I'm sorry the unfortunate missed the boat, but they will just have to do without

  49. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #51

    OPOF: You may want to peruse this blog article and the ongoing discussion it has generated...

    The never-ending RCP8.5 debate by And Then There's Physics, Dec 24, 2019

  50. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    blub:

    "The models are not robust at all between about 2000-2015"

    Didn't you mean 1998-2012? In any case, you are cherry-picking. Why did you not comment on the entire record? Is it because the entire record  shows that the models are indeed robust. At the very least, because of natural cycles, you have to look at a minimum 30 year intervals in order to see the signal from the noise. By picking 1998-2012, you are looking at the noise, not the signal, which is obvious if you look at the entire record. 

    "but have been recalibrated because of the heating hiatus"

    No, there is no evidence for any recalibration at all between 1998 and 2012. If you disagree please show your evidence and your references.

    "This is far from settled science"

    When we say "settled science" we don't mean every detail is settled, only that certain details are settled. And "settled" means that "the vast majority of climate scientists agree that an assessemnt of all the evidence leads to this conclusion". As examples: CO2 is increasing, global tempertures are increasing, anthropogenic sources are almost entirely responsible for the increase in CO2, adverse overall climate consequences are already happening and will get worse especially if we go above 1.5 degrees C. This is all "settled science". 

    "only a handful of "real" climatologists..even understand climate modeling correctly".

    There are not just a "handful" of "real" climatologists who understand climate modeling correctly, and those who do agree that the models are robust. As in every field there are contrarians, and those with fringe on climate science who disagree. 

    The rest of your comment consists, likewise, of cherry-picked links. This is not how science is done. All the papers and all the evidence must be taken into account. This is what the IPCC does and you should avail yourself of the conclusions contained in their reports or distilled by reputable science communicators. 

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