Recent Comments
Prev 1696 1697 1698 1699 1700 1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708 1709 1710 1711 Next
Comments 85151 to 85200:
-
Stephen Baines at 05:03 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
JMurphy. Don't generalize to broadly about american education from someone posting on a general public blog about climate science! That said, I know people in certain parts of the country who, even at university level, feel pressure to "teach the controversy," despite the fact that there is none on scientific grounds. It's a trend that blurs the lines between "current events" curricula and science curricula. I can see nothing good coming of it, at least in this manifestation. But, people often surprise me. -
Camburn at 04:45 AM on 22 May 2011Antarctica is gaining ice
Because of errors in Grace data extrapolation, it has been determined that the ice mass on Antarcica is neither shrinking nor growing. So, no net change there.Response:[DB] Umm, you seem to be confused. Please read the OP and the comments, with particular attention to Ned's comment at 30 above. If still unsure, try the Intermediate version of this post. The totality of Antarctica (the Antarctic Peninsula, the WAIS and the EAIS) are all losing mass, beyond that of the error bars. And the rate of mass-loss is itself increasing.
-
Ari Jokimäki at 04:30 AM on 22 May 2011Roy Spencer’s Latest Silver Bullet
It should be noted that Spencer's inclusion of OHC down to 2000m doesn't fix the problem. Recent research has shown that there's significant amount of warming in the very deep ocean (below 2000m). -
JMurphy at 04:19 AM on 22 May 2011Scientists tried to 'hide the decline' in global temperature
Indeed, Rosco - as Tom Curtis points out, do you have your graphs mixed up ? Whichever you intended, I can't recall the media "sensation" you mention. Do you have any examples you can link to ? But, some questions : What propaganda or message do you believe the IPCC were supposedly trying to put out "at the time" ? (You can respond here) How can the IPCC have been trying to validate anything "for decades" ("deceptively" or not) when it only began in 1988 ? (You can respond via the above link) What examples can you give, in the real world, of this "huge backlash" ? (You can respond here) When do you believe that the term "global warming" was dropped for the term "climate change" ? (You can respond here) What is the "consistent" 'sceptical' "point of view" ? (You can respond here) Finally, can I tell you what I think is "more corrupt to the public" ? Corruption. -
dana1981 at 04:16 AM on 22 May 2011Roy Spencer’s Latest Silver Bullet
Great post, Barry. Spencer seems to be forming a pattern of making faulty modeling assumptions which happen to give him the answer he's looking for. -
Stephen Baines at 04:00 AM on 22 May 2011Abraham reply to Monckton
KaneWilliams at 88 I coudn't disagree more strongly. You (and others) should listen to the slide in Abraham's talk more carefully. It's a good indication of how wrongheaded Mockton's criticisms of Abaraham are. Abraham said that Monckton modified a graph from Hathaway and, by adding lines to it that emphasize the long term increase in solar radiation after the Maunder Minimum in the 1700s, used it to argue that warming could be caused by long terms variation in solar energy. I think that's a fair assessment of Mockton's intent with that graph. Abraham then contacted Hathaway to get his sense of whether it was appropriate to interpret his data in the way Monckton has. Hathaway said no. Specifically, in his email he said solar variability is not a major driver of climate - el Nino, GHGs and aerosols from volcanoes are more important (slide 94 of Abraham's presentation). That statement cuts right to the core of Monckton's argument since it suggests that long term increases in solar flux are not relevant to climate in the way Monckton suggests. Of course, that is only the first step in Abraham's argument. He then goes on to point out many papers showing that the science is in unform agreement that solar variation have contributed little if anything to the recent warming over the last 40 years. This context is directly pertinent to Mockton's argument, but not provided by Monckton. Monckton certainly has the right to interpret that graph from Hathaway anyway he wants. And Abraham has the right to point out that Monckton has not provided a lot of relevant information that may alter our assessment of his positions. We are then allowed to draw our conclusions. That is what scientific debate is about. As for Abraham's tone, if all reviewers were as civil and fair as Abraham was about this, my life as a scientist and editor would be a lot easier! Most reviewers would be absolutely livid at Mockton's repeated failure to acknowledge large bodies of literature and to twist interpretations of the original work. Scientist are not allowed the privelege of only aknowledging those pieces of evidence that agree with our position. As has been pointed, Monckton has been far less civil in his responses to Abraham as well, not to mention in his suggestions of conspiracy. In my opinion, critizing Abraham for lack of fairness and civility in this case is kind of like criticizing the victim of a mugging for using his/her face to hit the mugger's fist. -
Peter Bellin at 04:00 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
I think this is a good model for a course directed at students generally. The skills learned can be expanded to other 'controversies' such as the value of immunization. I would love to see this course developed for a Moodle (online) environment, publically available, for other educators to copy and model for their own use. Moodle allows easy use of the internet, video, etc. in the course material. I would like to work with faculty interested in teaching the science, not the false controversy, of climate change. Can we develop a course that can be public domain? How about a series of courses that touch on climate change and its impacts? -
JMurphy at 03:57 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
Is apiratelooksat50 showing an example of the type of teaching now going on in American schools (where evolution and creationism, AGW and denialism have to be taught side-by-side in science classes) ? If so, I am aghast. How will American children, being taught in this way, be able to develop any form of scientific method ? It is faith-based thinking gone mad. -
Albatross at 03:54 AM on 22 May 2011Abraham reply to Monckton
When Kane first posted here, their post hinted at concern troll-- and their link to the disinformer blog WUWT did not help. I did not jump in right away, as I wanted to see how things progressed. Sadly my suspicions have been confirmed. -
JMurphy at 03:52 AM on 22 May 2011Abraham reply to Monckton
Come off it, KaneWilliams - you may see nothing wrong with Monckton using that particular graph (and a reference to an IAU conference, alongside clearly denialist views about the sun's impact on our climate) and implying support from that graph (and conference), in order to try to bolster the scientific case for his nonsense. He's very good at implying and creating associations, without actually stating the facts : in fact, he makes up his own 'facts' and tries to use the work of others to fit in with his own agenda, thereby misleading the credulous and the naive, while denying having actually intentionally creating any such implicit associations. The only manipulation going on here is being carried out by Monckton and the way he tries to broadcast his propaganda. Don't be taken in by it - stick to the views of the scientists, not the propagandists. -
les at 03:51 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
ProfMandia - very good. Not on only from the perspectives you describe - but your students are fortunate to be guided through what 'debate' looks like, sometimes, in the public sphere, compared with the world of science etc. e.g. apiratelooksat50 "Personally, evolution is not controversial. Professionally, it is." It may be like the dark ages where public opinion goes bad! So, ProfMandia, I'm very glad you're not confusing your students by bowing to this silly trend of agreeing that evolution, AGW etc. are scientifically controversial! -
Albatross at 03:51 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
apirate@15, You are going to have to do much better than that. Empty rhetoric does not advance argument, whatever that may be. -
apiratelooksat50 at 03:28 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
Skywatcher @ 13 You're right, climate change theory is not controversial. Anthropogenic climate change theory is certainly controversial. -
ProfMandia at 03:28 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
The course outline clearly shows how the content is developed for the course. Natural climate forcing is carefully explained as well as human climate forcing. There is no controversy about evolution and there is no controversy about what is causing most of the modern day global warming. You do not need to take my word on that because there is overwhelming evidence and scientific consensus. Where there is a debate is which solutions and policy choices we need to make and that is clearly where students will make up their own minds after presented with choices. I chose this particular assignment to illustrate the various myths that are prevalent on the web and in books but do not appear much in the peer-reviewed literature. This site does a very good job of carefully explaining why these myths are not accurate and how the scientific method is used to show the holes in these arguments. This is one assignment and not a representative catch-all for the entire course. It is not wise to judge the entire course based on this blog post. :) Their weekly HW assignments were also illuminating. Each week they had to do a Google News search, find a climate change-related article, and explain the content while also relating that content to what was learned in class. Frequently they found very scientifically-weak articles and then proceeded to show why the "science" was wrong. Given that these students are freshman and non-science majors, I was quite impressed. -
skywatcher at 03:24 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
Seeing as the fundamentals of the theory of climate are not controversial, and validated many times over, it would be very hard to grade a student highly that considered one of the main skeptic arguments valid. One of the reasons would be that they would have to come to this conclusion without the support of the peer-reviewed literature, and therefore would not have done their research properly. 'Controversy' in climate theory is limited to such questions as 'will the warming be bad, very bad or horrific for modern civilisation as we know it'?, or 'will the Arctic be September sea ice-free in 2020, 2030, or as late as 2050'?, or 'Will doubled CO2 lead to a 2C, 3C or even a >4C rise in temperature?' The problem with these questions is that although there is room for 'controversy' (really just valid scientific debate), the underpinning basics of climate theory are entirely sound, and there is not room for people with the view that everything will be just fine if we continue BAU... -
apiratelooksat50 at 03:16 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
JMurphy@11 Personally, evolution is not controversial. Professionally, it is. -
JMurphy at 03:09 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
apiratelooksat50, do you really think that evolution is "controversial" and that your students should be able to form their own opinions about it ? -
Camburn at 02:59 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
To look objectively at AGW, one must look at all the science. The little presented on this site is informative, but deffintely not the defintive source of knowledge. There is a lot more to climate than the level of co2 in the atmosphere. I don't know if we will ever be able to quantify all the variables, and their relationships. I would hope that Prof Mandia understands this when he is teaching. I would also hope that the use of this site encourages students to broaden their knowledge of understanding as to the uncertainty that we are at the present time. -
KaneWilliams at 02:53 AM on 22 May 2011Abraham reply to Monckton
Thanks JMurphy I had seen those links, although not read through them in their entirety. I have heard Monckton say that Abraham's 83 page assignation of his talk does indeed make him sound bonkers and that he has misrepresented other's scientific studies, but that is only because Abraham has cleverly twisted and misquoted what he actually said. One example is states Abraham claimed he said in his presentation that David Hathaway concluded that Solar activity is the dominant cause for global warming, when in fact all he did was use a graph produced by David Hathaway and drew his own conclusion from the graph, never once stating that this is the conclusion reached by Hathaway. He did however site the conclusions made by Skaffeta and West regarding solar activity and climate change. This is just one example and it does seem like some manipulation of Monckton's words has taken place? -
Eric (skeptic) at 02:45 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
Send them all to remedial English class. -
Harry Seaward at 01:24 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
Prof. Mandia, Pirate's post begs a question: what if the student decided the skeptic argument was valid? -
apiratelooksat50 at 01:17 AM on 22 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
As a teacher myself, I like the layout of the course description and the term paper grading rubric. As a matter of fact, I'm going to "borrow" both for my own classes. However, it bothers me greatly that the students' weren't presented data and allowed to form their own conclusions. Anytime I teach a controversial subject such as AGW or evolution, I start the unit by plainly stating that my personal views do not matter and I want them to form their own opinion. As long as they follow the scientific methond, think rationally, and adhere to the course guidelines - they can earn an A regardless of their conclusions. I do my best to not allow my viewpoints to influence theirs until after the unit is over when we usually have a roundtable discussion, or the students are divided and prepare materials to present their standings in a debate. This class would be much more effective in creating minds that can think rationally if the students were presented all available scientific information and allowed to formulate their own thoughts. Instead, it is more of a writing class where information was regurgitated in the assigned format. -
Mike G at 00:38 AM on 22 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
@Charlie A. #14 There are lots of guyots in the tropics. Go to the Seamount Catalog and have a look around the Marshall Islands and the Johnston Seamounts areas of the map. -
chris1204 at 23:53 PM on 21 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
Jimbo @ 4: You don't have to be a trained scientist to debunk the claims of the deniers. You at least need some passing familiarity with scientific method as well as some capacity to detect internal consistency and consistency with other data we know about the world at large. Herein lies the difference between science and religion which is held as an article of faith and which admits the possibility that some knowledge, eg, the true essence of God who is infinite and eternal, is utterly beyond our human comprehension. In science, by contrast, knowledge may be too extensive and complex to integrate into a coherent whole by any one individual but at least is notionally understandable given adequate effort and resources insofar as we are dealing with finite quanta of knowledge no matter how vast. All of which makes for fascinating debate. Moreover, we should distinguish between religious faith and humanistic ideologies which pretend to capture truth whilst enslaving it. If you wonder about the difference, consider only Mao Zedong's famous saying, "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a a hundred schools of thought contend," following which he was able to flush out dissidents by encouraging them to show themselves as critical of the regime, before wiping them out.Response:[DB] Fixed link.
-
Ken Lambert at 23:47 PM on 21 May 2011Oceans are cooling
Charlie A #66 Your 9 points are a pretty reasonable summary Charlie A. What is very clear from the 0-700m OHC Charts 1993-2010 is the step jump in the 2001-04 period when the changeover from predominantly XBT to Argo occurred. If you plot a separate XBT trend up to 2001 and an Argo trend after 2004 the step is most apparent and can only be an artifact of the transition, because the deltas from satellites show no such step up in radiative imbalance at that time. Linearizing the spliced XBT to Argo with the step jump in place produces an inflated slope on the combined curve. -
Ken Lambert at 23:14 PM on 21 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
Stephen Baines #124, #125 For those in/out heat fluxes to be balanced, an equilibrium temperature or temperature profile of sorts must have been established in the 0-700m layers. The surface exchange includes direct radiation, evaporation, rainfall, ice freeze and melt etc. The exchange between the 0-700 and 700+ depths would include conduction and what else? Is there any study which describes these heat flux transport rates and shows comparable fluxes at the top and bottom? -
Marcus at 22:49 PM on 21 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
Oh, & here is yet more proof that your whole "international air travel" argument is entirely bogus. A Boeing 747-400 consumes an average of 2.6L of fuel/100km/passenger (assuming at least a half-full plane). A mid-sized vehicle consumes about 10L of fuel/100km/passenger *if* the vehicle contains only the driver (as it frequently does). This can go up to 12L/100km in peak hour traffic, as cars can consume an additional 20% of their fuel simply idling. It is this kind of driving that makes cars such a massive contributor to GHG emissions, *not* the difference in the number of people using them.Moderator Response: (DB) Ok, this has gone far enough; future off-topic comments by all parties will be deleted. -
adelady at 22:47 PM on 21 May 2011Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Nik "... there is a very good chance that recent warming may be a peak that is about to plunge back down..." and "...there's about 40 years of downswing in the works that will also mask CO2 warming..." I know you refer to oscillations - but what would be the physics driving such phenomena? At least the physics of aerosol effects on climate are pretty straightforward conceptually (even if the measurements are as difficult as most others are). And if it wasn't the aerosols, how do you account for the physics of excluding them (or double counting them if there's a 'cycle', 40 years or otherwise, with the same characteristics). -
Marcus at 22:35 PM on 21 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
H Pierce. Why would Science Students have any interest in a Site which is clearly nothing but Denialist Cult propaganda? I took a look at the headline articles, & its nothing but the usual politically motivated & completely unscientific clap-trap that we've come to expect from the Usual Suspects in the Denial Movement (such as yourself....oh, & Cloa513 of course). If this is the "resource" you & your mate Cloa rely on, then its no wonder that your "contributions" here-if such pointless distractions can be given such an august label-are so vacuous & easily shot to pieces. -
Jim Powell at 22:30 PM on 21 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
This post tells me three things, at least. 1. SkS is a useful and easily accessible resource. 2. Professor Mandia is a creative teacher whose students are learning critical thinking. 3. You don't have to be a trained scientist to debunk the claims of the deniers. -
Marcus at 22:29 PM on 21 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
Well yes the difference by 2050 is only about 2cm/year-4cm/year but-as can be seen from where the lines end up, that *small* difference will make the difference in (a) how long we have to evacuate the more low lying atolls or build protective structures to hold the waters at bay, (b) probably protect some of the higher atolls for significantly longer & (c) decrease the amount of time it will take before sea levels actually begin to fall. Yet if we listen to people like you, we should just accept the BAU approach, & simply aim for the worst case scenario by 2100-even though the BAU approach will probably result in an even *worse* sea-level rise than what's currently predicted. Its exactly this kind of Denialist Cult thinking which has preventing action being taken earlier than now-all to protect the profits of your beloved fossil fuel industry. -
NikFromNYC at 22:24 PM on 21 May 2011Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Oh wow, if I now look at my correction of your final chart, now that the modern warming is about twice as much as Easterbrook's, it becomes suggestive that there is a very good chance that recent warming may be a peak that is about to plunge back down, masking greenhouse warming for up to a century or more. That the AMO correlates nearly perfectly with decadal variation in the global average T also suggests there's about 40 years of downswing in the works that will also mask CO2 warming. It looks like it might not have been aerosols after all which caused the last downswing but was due to regular ocean oscillations. -
h pierce at 22:22 PM on 21 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
Hello Scott! Did you make available to your students "Global Warming Science" available at: http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/ Probably not.Response:[DB] Your use of quote marks is very apt, given the disinformation nature of your linked site.
-
Marcus at 22:21 PM on 21 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
"your argument only relies on the fact that air travels are restricted to a very small part of the world population, (the richest one most obviously), whereas cars are used by much more people. If you take the consumption PER CAPITA, considering only those who are actually using them, the use of airplanes is of course much more energy consuming than cars - just because as you notice yourself, the energy used per mile is comparable, but people traveling by air do much longer trips !" Your entire argument is completely & utterly *false*. I already pointed out that cars generate *more* CO2 per person-km than a plane flight, that long-haul flights generate fewer emissions per passenger-km than shorter domestic flights (as much of the fuel is used in take off & landing-not in actual flight) & that the number of km driven-by a single driver-per year is *greater* than the average distance traveled by an air traveler over the same time period. Your claim about air travel being restricted to a rich subset is equally ludicrous. The US alone records as many as 2 million people flying *per day*-& therefore probably around 370 million people flying per year....in America alone. Hardly sounds like a tiny subset of rich people. Again, though, as I said (but clearly you missed), no-one is telling people to simply *cease* driving-so that's just another straw man. They're simply being asked to make more sensible use of their cars-by car-pooling &/or using public transport for instance-or using cars powered with alternative fuels. So going without a car for day-to-day commuting is a much simpler-& probably more cost effective-prospect than asking those hundreds of millions of people, world wide, currently traveling by plane to find some other means of traveling overseas. The upshot being that, in spite of your original, ludicrous claims, attempts to reduce CO2 emissions will *not* necessarily result in a halt to international tourism-& certainly not the very small subset that visits the Pacific Islands. So your entire argument is a *straw-man*, & none of the logical fallacies you've provided in between have made it any less of a straw-man-which is pretty typical of the card-carrying members of the Denialist Cult. -
NikFromNYC at 21:49 PM on 21 May 2011Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
This very misleading graphical debunking of Easterbrook fails to switch to the required anomaly scale instead of an absolute scale to deal with the mismatch between his chosen recent temperature reconstruction and the long ice core. He plots two 1855 temperatures instead of one. If you actually match up the 1855 temperatures, as any sincere effort would require, you get exactly what skeptics claim history is like: a just as hot MWP and a hotter Roman period. Plot "It’s also clear that there is a mismatch between the temperature reconstructions and the ice core record. ... How that might be resolved is an interesting question, but not directly relevant to the point at issue." The way you resolve it is to use anomalies like the pros do. You have left the graphical impression that the present is hotter than ever. At best you've has corrected an error that the ice core ends in 1855 instead of 2000 (or 1950), even though this claim is not in any primary article I can find. I had been posting a GIF animation of the Greenland ice core far and wide and this "debunking" gave me pause as I prepared to yank it from my arsenal based on this post. I may have to edit it a bit now though to increase the instrumental "hockey stick" blade from the animation I have. Hereis another blogger combining two Greenland data sets into a single chart without matching them up properly. -
jarch at 21:45 PM on 21 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
and I have no idea of which Gilles you're referring to , but it is totally irrelevant for the discussion of SLR time scale. -
jarch at 21:35 PM on 21 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
Marcus, your argument only relies on the fact that air travels are restricted to a very small part of the world population, (the richest one most obviously), whereas cars are used by much more people. If you take the consumption PER CAPITA, considering only those who are actually using them, the use of airplanes is of course much more energy consuming than cars - just because as you notice yourself, the energy used per mile is comparable, but people traveling by air do much longer trips ! so what you're really saying is that you would ask modest people to accept the constraints of public transportation, car pooling, and so on, but let a very small subset of rich people spend freely their vacation in very distant islands ? extremely weird, and politically totally unacceptable. concerning the rate of SLR, just have a look on the peer-reviewed literature, such as : http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Nature/rahmstorf_science_2007.pdf and look at figure 4 : what is the difference between the "extremes" B1 (yellow) and A1FI (blue) scenario around 2050 ? what is the difference of the time needed to reach a given level ? some years, not more. That's what I said. The difference is in the uncertainty of the acceleration term, which is a totally natural factor - it is pretty insensitive to the scenario actually. What it really means is that if their is a very long term acceleration factor, we are already much above the equilibrium value needed to limit the SLR before 2050 , and it is much too late to avoid it. -
RickG at 21:29 PM on 21 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
cola513, I'm not sure what you are getting at. From reading the post I thought the assignment was to review and understand the science, not do the science. -
cloa513 at 20:57 PM on 21 May 2011Skeptical Science Educates My Students
Do these students understand the scientific method? The scientific method applied to a problem is the science. A review of other studies only guides the new experiments needed- its not a replacement. Medical scientist understand this. Despite only the massive study of the human body and drugs in isolation, nothing substitutes for testing of drug on humans after testing on the nearest analog species. The human body is still too complicated to be substituted by models or individual studies. The Earth is equally too complex for part-wise studies to tell you the whole stories or even a major part. The IPCC did no science- summarising other papers is something a reviewer could have done. -
Marcus at 20:50 PM on 21 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
"my argument is that it would be very weird to prevent people from using their car for their all day life and allow them to travel over long distances - most people would probably prefer keeping the former and giving up the latter." Which is an incredibly *weak* argument, & will remain so no matter how many times you say it. *All* air travel-both domestic & international-makes up barely 3.5% of *all* CO2 emissions, whereas driving cars contributes about 15% of all CO2 emissions. So you see that giving up the latter will do almost *nothing*, whereas even *reducing* our car use will do so much more. Also, whereas there is no useful substitute for air travel, there are plenty of useful substitutes for individual car travel-car pooling, tele-commuting & public transport-just to name a few. So you see, contrary to your claims, I think that people *will* be more likely to give up their current usage of cars-which will have a much greater impact on climate change-than to give up international plane flights-which would have minimal impact on climate change anyway. Still, Jarch, thanks for reintroducing everyone here to a typical Denialist Argument-totally illogical & poorly constructed....and based on total fallacies. "the issue is that if the 1m SLR is real, it is impossible to slow it significantly before 2050." Well, given the weakness of your other argument, how can *anyone* put even the tiniest amount of trust in this claim. Any slowing of the trajectory of warming & sea-level rise *now* is better than just letting things not only continue at their present rate but, given your preferred scenario, proceed at an ever accelerating rate. Its true we might have to eventually evacuate those on the threatened atolls but, when they are evacuated, I hope they sue people like you who delayed action on climate change for the past 20 years with your incredibly dopey arguments. Still, given your obvious troll-like behaviour, I think its pretty obvious that you're just Gilles under a different name. I suspected it earlier, but now I feel its confirmed-& I'd be quite happy for Moderators to delete comments #15-#22, to prevent this topic being completely hijacked yet again. -
jarch at 19:57 PM on 21 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
Marcus, my argument is that it would be very weird to prevent people from using their car for their all day life and allow them to travel over long distances - most people would probably prefer keeping the former and giving up the latter. "The issue right now is to slow the trajectory of warming" the issue is that if the 1m SLR is real, it is impossible to slow it significantly before 2050. You could only change the date by a couple of years, which is much smaller than the uncertainty on what will really happen, and without changing the final issue - so you would have to prepare the evacuation of the threatened atolls in any case.Do you know what a time scale is ? -
Marcus at 18:26 PM on 21 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
"I said that IF the 1m SLR is real, then mathematics also tell us that it is impossible to stop before 2050, whatever we do, because the phenomena you're describing need several centuries to change." This is, again, a very very weak argument for taking it slow or-worse still-doing nothing at all. The issue right now is to slow the trajectory of warming, & thus slow the rate of acceleration in current sea-level rises. This *will* have the impact of giving us more time before all of these Atolls are permanently drowned, as well as reduce the length of time we need to wait before the Atolls are above sea-level again. Of course it *would* have been better had we acted sooner-you know, when we first had the evidence, but people such as yourself made sure *that* never happened. Still, no doubt you & Gilles would get along well, given that you so clearly think alike. -
Marcus at 18:22 PM on 21 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
Again Jarch, a long haul aircraft generates approximately 230g of CO2 per passenger-km of travel. A single, mid-sized car generates approximately 280g of CO2 per passenger-km. Guess how many cars in the world there are Jarch? Guess how many kilometers they travel every year Jarch? Fact is that you could *quadruple* the number of people currently engaged in international flights & it would still not come close to the total CO2 contributions of car travel-let alone electricity consumption. Also, domestic flights have a *larger* Carbon Footprint than International Flights, which just makes your argument even *weaker*. Like I said, if you're going to try & defend the fossil fuel industry, then you're going to need a far stronger argument than "oh, we have to protect the economy of those poor Atoll dwellers", because your basis for that argument is completely flimsy & bogus. -
Marcus at 18:15 PM on 21 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
Jarch, to put it into some context for you. An average sized car generates slightly more CO2/passenger-Kilometers of travel than a Long Haul international flight (assuming the only travel done is at peak hour). Of course, in the space of a single year, most car commuters will travel more kilometers in their car than they will in either domestic or international travel. I think you need a better argument for inaction on fossil fuel consumption. -
jarch at 18:11 PM on 21 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
Marcus, I doubt that keeping the long distance vacations would be a highest priority if there is a strong pressure to reduce the use of fossil fuels, and that bioalgae (or worse solar powered planes !!) would be able to power all airplane companies, not speaking of allowing a large majority of the world population to access them. Air travel are a minor component only because they are accessible only to a very tiny part of the population - and atoll economy is accordingly a very tiny amount of the world economy. Are you suggesting that the world should do everything to allow a very tiny part of the population to have vacations, to allow an even tinier part of the economy of very small countries to survive ? well if you extend this thought to all kind of activities, I don't see how we would reduce our overall consumption !! obviously you didn't catch the first argument : I didn't say Dickinson's predictions aren't "accurate" (also they publish two hypothesis differing by a factor two, so I don't know which of them is "accurate" ?) : I said that IF the 1m SLR is real, then mathematics also tell us that it is impossible to stop before 2050, whatever we do, because the phenomena you're describing need several centuries to change. -
Marcus at 17:50 PM on 21 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
"Stopping the use of fossil fuels , and hence probably suppressing overseas vacations, would probably impact the economy and the population much more cruelly than a SLR at 3mm/yr." Yes, this is a common Straw-man argument brought up by the Denialist Industry-one which fails on several key facts: 1) No-one is talking about the immediate & complete cessation of fossil fuel use, so why mention it at all? We're talking about a significant reduction in the fossil fuel component of domestic electricity & fuel. 2) Air travel is, currently, one of the *smallest* contributors to total GHG emissions, per capita, so will almost certainly be a lower priority than the GHG emissions from electricity generation & domestic travel. 3) Pilot studies have already shown at least one viable, carbon neutral substitute for aviation gasoline (algae derived bio-fuel). Also, with the first ever successful solar powered flight this year, solar powered planes (of one kind or another) will probably dominate our airways by sometime in the latter half of this century. 4) Another GFC will probably hurt the economy of the Pacific Islands much more heavily than an immediate cessation of all fossil fuel consumption-which merely highlights how we should be doing more to help these economies transition to a more stable source of income-rather than using that instability to justify inaction on climate change. The first part of your argument is equally weak, as you've clearly ignored the fact that (a) melting of fresh-water ice is *accelerating*-not remaining constant & (b) this is coupled with ever increasing thermal expansion of sea-water, which will accelerate the sea-level rise even further. So in fact the predictions by Dickinson are probably very accurate. Would you be prepared to bet your home, & life, on the prediction being wrong Jarch? Then don't be so quick to bet other people's lives & homes so quickly on such weak assumptions. -
jarch at 17:24 PM on 21 May 2011Coral atolls and rising sea levels: That sinking feeling
" Dickinson 2009 has constructed a table of estimated crossover dates for Pacific atolls. These are dates, based on projected rates of sea level rise, where the solid reef foundations are over-topped. Generally these cross-over dates occur mid 21st century at the earliest." The report forgets to say that these dates are based on an extrapolation of the SLR to 1m in 2100. If it were only 50cm, the cross-over dates would only be after 2100 - it it keeps on rising of course. Also a rarely mentioned fact is that the 1 meter SLR predicted by Rahmstorf et al. implies a quadratic acceleration term, which is only possible with a long timescale response where dL/dt is proportional to T (instead of L prop to T). But this implies also that the current SLR is well below the equilibrium value and will continue whatever we do, for centuries. In other words : if the SLR exceed 50 cm, it means that the long timescale term is large, and there is no hope to stop it before 2050. If not , there is no need to do it . Another side remark is that the economy and the population of atolls have exponentially risen because of the tourism industry , which have cause a massive arrival of tourists and the associated employees. Stopping the use of fossil fuels , and hence probably suppressing overseas vacations, would probably impact the economy and the population much more cruelly than a SLR at 3mm/yr. -
angusmac at 16:43 PM on 21 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s
Albatross@104, I totally agree with your quotations, especially John Adams regarding facts.Regarding your statement that I am trying to convince myself that "equilibrium sensitivity in not near +3°C." This is patently untrue. I stated @81 and @103 that Dana's Scenario D with a sensitivity of 2.7°C gives good results.
I fully understand your "ad nauseum" reasoning that two errors may be cancelling each other out to give the correct answers in Scenario C. This is why I suggested Hansen's aerosol strategy to correct Scenario B. I am willing to wait for a few years (but not ad infinitum) to determine if real-world temperatures will start to follow real-world emissions again or if they will continue to bump along the commitment trajectory. The date of 2015 suggested by Hansen (2006) seems as good a time as any to determine which trajectory real-world emissions are following.
You may wish to consider Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
-
adelady at 16:28 PM on 21 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
Sorry, missed the link. -
adelady at 16:27 PM on 21 May 2011Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability
There may be many processes and oceanographic phenomena we don't yet understand. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110518130921.htm I noticed this point as relevant to some of the discussion. "... scientists were able to document similar fluctuations of the "Deep Jets," deep currents down to 3000 m with speeds of 10-20 cm/sec. They flow along the equator, crossing the entire Atlantic, with flow reversals every few hundred meters. "These jets are generated in the deep ocean, and their energy apparently propagates upwards through the water column. Once near the surface, this energy affects currents and temperatures ..." I have no idea how many other such tremendous forces may be moving gigantic volumes of water around in this and other regions, but I'm certain there are some.Response:[DB] Hot-linked URL.
Prev 1696 1697 1698 1699 1700 1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708 1709 1710 1711 Next