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One Planet Only Forever at 09:09 AM on 13 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
Nigel @56,
I do not dispute that the average person in the 1970s was not being made aware of the concern about fossil fuel use. Actually, that is the point of my comments.
Global Leadership (primarily in politics and business) failed to responsibly expand awareness and improve understanding and apply that learning to limit the harm being done to the future of humanity and help develop lasting improvements for humanity. In particular there has been a failure to cautiously responsibly limit the pursuit of fossil fuel profiteering while better understanding of the magnitude of the harm was developed. The worst among the wealthy and powerful took the damaging approach of fighting against limits on the risky harmful activity, claiming the need for more certainty and trying to mislead the public. That harmful flawed behaviour has occurred regarding almost every popular and profitable harmful unsustainable activity that humanity has ever developed.
The Stockholm Conference and the coordinated global development of better understanding since then are evidence that in the 1970s global leadership was aware and understood of many issues that had the potential for serious risk of future harm, including climate change due to fossil fuel use.
The wealthy and powerful knew about the potential problems in the 1970s. How they behaved is my point, and is a valid criticism by anyone regarding any of the many unsustainable and harmful developments that have occurred since the 1970s. Being aware of the potential for harm, the collective global leadership (all of the wealthy and powerful) should have tried to keep the already more fortunate people from trying to become even more fortunate through the increased use of fossil fuels until more was understod about the consequences. If that had happened the future for humanity would be less harmed than it is today and there would be less resistance today to any corrections that are still required.
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nigelj at 05:49 AM on 13 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
One Planet Only Forever @55, I just disagree that back in the 1970s and 1980s humanity was aware of the climate problem with some degree of certainty sufficient to do something. This is from a related article on the Stockholm conference in the 1970's:
unchronicle.un.org/article/stockholm-kyoto-brief-history-climate-change"In a section on the identification and control of pollutants of broad international significance, the Declaration raised the issue of climate change for the first time, warning Governments to be mindful of activities that could lead to climate change and evaluate the likelihood and magnitude of climatic effects.The UN Scientific Conference also proposed the establishment of stations to monitor long-term trends in the atmospheric constituents and properties, which might cause meteorological properties, including climatic changes. Those programmes were to be coordinated by WMO to help the world community to better understand the atmosphere and the causes of climatic changes, whether natural or the result of man's activities."
This is clearly saying there might be a problem, but more work is needed to figure it out.
In addition I did physical geography at university in the 1980s and the textbooks definitely did not say there was a serious climate problem being caused by industrial emissions that is known to cause a lot of warming etc. They accepted its likely that industrial emissions would have an effect, but the world was in a cooling period and this created some uncertainty. The majority of the science at the time did predict warming, but we were stuck having to see if this actually happened. We needed that real world certainty to confirm the predictions.
But by the early 1990s we were much more sure.
Agree about the rest of your comments.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:47 AM on 13 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Hank @41,
That change of the way the US code works that you mention will result in the same reduction of safety as the climate conditions get worse that I have mentioned.
The reality remains, everything already built is less safe as the climate conditions become more severe. Even things designed to the updated requirements will become less safe as the climate conditions become more severe. Admittedly, there is potentially an over-statement of the design requirements that will make new designs even safer under current conditions. But how significant the over-statement is and how much climate change impact continues to be created will determine if and when the over-statement is no longer an over-statement, after which time the design level of safety becomes less than the desired minimum as climate changes continue to be increased.
Does the code identify how much it is over-stating the design requirement and indicate the related amount of global warming that the over-statement is expected to be valid for? Is it good for 1.5C, 2.0C, 3.0C warming? And if it claims to be good for anything beyond 1.5C warming I would really be interested to see the basis for being so certain about that. Everything I have seen appears to indicate that significant uncertainties exist if there is more than 1.5C warming.
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nigelj at 05:18 AM on 13 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Hank @40, yes I might have unintentionally done that. For the record I don't see any evidence engineers have been derelict in their duty protecting the public from climate change, and other threats. Theres something a bit weird going on where I live, but I suspect it reflects entirely on other parties not engineers. I have worked with dozens of engineers, enough to get a general view and ok its anecdotal, but In New Zealand they push for high standards and treat the codes with respect. I wont bring up the issue again either.
That said we have to be able to "talk about stuff" even if its contentious, and not get too defensive. It just needs us all to be clear on exactly what we mean and have the evidence.
Yes I comment on RC and I recognise your name.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:18 AM on 13 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
nigelj @54 (and others),
Discussions regarding what global leadership was aware of and understood in the 1970s should be based on a comprehensive understanding, particularly regarding what is required to develop sustainable improvements for humanity.
It is not correct to believe that “The state of the science in the 1970's and 1980's was definitely too uncertain for us to conclude we were warming the climate and should do something.”
In the 1960s global leadership understood that increasing atmospheric CO2 due to fossil fuel use was a concern. The 1972 Stockholm Conference compiled what was understood to be going wrong and what required expanded understanding of the directions of development and corrections required to sustainably improve the future of humanity. The report included the concern about increasing atmospheric CO2.
Perceptions of success that rely on harmful and unsustainable activity, like fossil fuel use, are undeniably unsustainable. Fossil fuel use is making the future worse. That has been understood for a long time. The fact that such a fundamental undeniable understanding is still not generally understood in the powerful and supposedly more advanced populations today indicates that the developed socioeconomic-political systems over-developed in the wrong direction. They require significant correction, not a continuation of Kumbaya-style compromising in an attempt to have 'everyone get along with everyone allowed to believe what they want and behave as they wish'.
The identified concern about fossil fuel use in 1972 should have been sufficient to result in global leaders cautiously restricting the pursuit of increased benefit from fossil fuel use, especially by already more fortunate people, until more was understood about the consequences. There was plenty of discussion by global leaders about it in the 1970s, even though more focus was put on concerns that more immediate threats to humanity like the ozone layer impacts, tobacco use, and vehicle safety.
Increased pursuits of benefit from fossil fuels since the 1970s by people who were already living better than basic decent lives has tragically strengthened the resistance to correction. Powerful people who unjustifiably benefited more from continued and increased global use of fossil fuels almost certainly hoped would that increased resistance to correction would develop.
Efforts by undeserving powerful wealthy people to raise doubts about 'climate science and the required corrections' and to discredit climate scientists (and the related scientists in fields affected by climate change), increased when global leadership was starting to responsibly restrict the continuation of that harmful behaviour by undeserving powerful people. The undeserving powerful people collectively mobilized their resistance. Their actions included:
- getting political-minders involved in writing IPCC reports to push the wording as far away from supporting the need for corrective action as they could get away with. And they mobilized misleading marketing to popularize misunderstanding and unjustified doubt.
- A coordination of actions to create the Climategate Scandal (theft of emails, the effort to comb through them for nuggets to abuse in misinformation programs, and the development and distribution of the misleading marketing).
- Fighting to have national leadership restrict the science being publicly developed and presented. The Harper-led Conservatives in Canada selectively muzzled scientists and redirected federal research funding away from improving understanding of the negative impacts of climate change when they had the power to do so. The Bush and Trump led USA acted in similar ways, as have similar groups in other places around the planet (including Putin's Russian group).
There is an identifiable global political faction that is a significant part of the problem, being deliberately correction resistant, being as harmful as they can possibly get away with. And it is correct to identify the 1970s as a point in time when that collective started to 'globally coordinate their efforts against the expansion of awareness and improvement of understanding of the corrections that climate science (and other sciences) had identified are urgently required to stop making the future worse'. There is little doubt that what has developed today is more harmful to the future than what had been developed by the 1970s, in spite of it appearing that RCP8.5 is no longer the likely rate of making the future worse.
What is now required, and will be required at all future 'Nows' and was required in previous 'Nows', is leadership responsibly limiting how much worse the future will be, and actually acting to help sustainably improve the future. And that limiting of the harm done to the future, and helping improve the future, now includes justifiably 'reducing' the perceptions of superiority of those who unjustifiably significantly increased their benefit from the use of fossil fuels since the 1970s. The more recently the benefits have been obtained, and the wealthier the beneficiary is, the more the perception of superiority deserves to be lost.
That may be unpopular. And it may anger many people. But it is undeniably the correct understanding.
Compromising awareness and understanding to 'get along with people who are harmfully unaware or have developed a harmfully incorrect belief/opinion' is not helpful. There are many issues where diversity is to be embraced. Awareness and understanding regarding climate science is not one of them.
The use of fossil fuels makes things worse. A possible exception would be fossil fuel use as a temporary transition measure to raise a desperately poor population up to a starting level for sustainable development.
An improving future requires an end to the harmful climate change impacts of fossil fuels use, the sooner the better. And the most fortunate need to be leading the correction, including wealth from fossil fuel use being exclusively used to assist the desperately poor sustainably improve their life circumstances. And any more fortunate person that can be shown to be resisting that effort deserves a serious loss of status.
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nigelj at 05:08 AM on 13 January 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
Just want to make a general comment related to Mathiew #1. The way the climate denialists work is they try to goad warmists into making exaggerated claims and mistakes, then they can say "look you got that wrong", and by implication you are wrong about everything. Dont fall for it. For example some people have claimed none of these fires are caused by arson, when commonsense should tell them a few probably are.
Better to concede a few are caused by arson, but it remains unconfirmed, and mention accidents, and lightening strikes as well in more isolated areas, and that global warming leads to a longer fire season and larger areas being burned.
Ask the denilaists a simple question. How would a hotter climate not make bushfires worse?
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william5331 at 04:34 AM on 13 January 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
Some time ago I read an article on Australian weather history as determined by examining the yearly rings of Calcium carbonate in stalictites and stalicmites. They suggested that Australia experiences a 200 year cycle between 'wet' and dry periods and said that Aus is now going into a dry period. Perhaps this exacerbating the overall effects of climate change. If the last two hundred years was a wet period, what must a dry period be like. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190708122343.htm
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John Hartz at 02:18 AM on 13 January 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
Also see:
Australia's indigenous people have a solution for the country's bushfires. And it's been around for 50,000 years by Leah Asmelash, CNN, Jan 12, 2020
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Tom Dayton at 02:08 AM on 13 January 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
See also Hotwhopper about Australian arson.
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Tom Dayton at 02:06 AM on 13 January 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
Nick Stokes posted data and sources about Australian arson.
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Joel_Huberman at 00:53 AM on 13 January 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
One can explain to skeptics that, even if every single one of the fires was caused by arson, the years of drought and current record-high air temperatures have created conditions where the arsonists' fires generate far more damage than would have been the case with normal rainfall and normal temperatures.
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Mathieu18981 at 00:39 AM on 13 January 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2
Sadly this attempt to close the lid on this arson lunacy is more in itself a denial than an argument. I have no material to confront my skeptics friends with numbers and proofs of bushfires policies and actions.
A link with australian official number about firebreaks and bushfires preventive activities would be sufficient to prove skeptics wrong. The case is simple, if there is no reduction or an increase in preventive activities the debate is won.
If there is a decrease there is a case for more discussion on the causes. The article i read and its links simply push aside any skeptic's claim instead of attempting to debunk. Like always it will increase even more theirs feeling of confidence that we live in a bubble.
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Hank11198 at 22:40 PM on 12 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
OPOF @38
“The same applies to structure performance. The design codes establish a minimum factor of safety against performance failure. The factor of safety is a combination of increasing the expected forces on the structure (factors greater than 1.0 are applied to that loads) combined with reducing the structure resistance values (factors less than 1.0 are applied to material resistance properties).”
In the US the factors of safety you mentioned (we call them load factors) have been reduced to 1.0 for wind. The wind speed maps were then increased to compensate for the load factor reduction. This now produces a procedure where the design wind speed is the actual wind speed the structure is designed for without yielding instead of a lower wind speed with a safety factor. I like this change as it seem more transparent to our customers. In other word what you are told is what you get.
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Hank11198 at 22:32 PM on 12 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Nigelj @ 39
Nigelj I have seen you post at different climate blogs and agree with you almost 100% of the time. I do not think you would intentionally disparage engineers. However I do think in this case you un-intentionally created an impression that engineers have been derelict in their duty to protect the public by not addressing climate change. It appears some of the differences in our understandings is due to living in different countries with apparently different systems of producing design codes. It may also due to my frustration in trying to defend scientists against climate change deniers who continuously accuse climate scientists of fraud and deception. Regardless this is the last I will comment on this subject.
BTW I have seen you post on realclimate (I assume you are the same person). I sometimes post there under the name of TPaine.
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nigelj at 12:51 PM on 12 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Hank @36,
"The study I link too stated a 1 to 10% increase in intensity for a 2C warming with the probability that the strongest storms will be less frequent."
Ok that changes the complexion a bit. My understanding is research is suggesting a higher frequency of the strongest storms. For example its interesting that numbers of category 5 hurricanes seem to have increased as below. Some people are suggesting we need category 6 hurricanes. And this is why I was concerned about the whole wind speed thing.
www.wunderground.com/education/webster.asp
Anyway I agree it all needs further investigation, and that current code standards in America look good, and theres no point in a panic over design reaction.
“It looks like our codes are weighted a long way towards lowest cost. However I doubt that has anything to do with the engineers on the committees that develop codes”. What? How can the codes be weighted towards lowest cost without the engineers who write the codes being responsible? "
My understanding is our structural building codes in New Zealand are designed to some extent by a committee process that includes not just structural engineers, but builders, representitives from building research organisations etc and the code has to be approved by politicians at the end of the day. It just sounds quite different from your system. Engineers do the detail work, but it appears other parties have some input. We are also not as litigous as you guys. Not saying our system is better than yours, the opposite could well be true. Anyway you can see there are several input factors that could be aiming for minimising costs and standards rather than the engineers.
"If I have taking things the wrong way then I apologize. "
Apology accepted.
"And saying our building codes are weighted towards lowest cost without evidence is doing exactly that. "
I was talking about New Zealand! I thought that was reasonably clear. Sorry for any confusion.
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One Planet Only Forever at 11:05 AM on 12 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
michael sweet @35,
The 'flood concern' is a valid one. And it allows a clarification to be made regarding structural performance.
In addition to structure design which need to account for rain ponding on roofs, I have designed surface run-off systems. These systems get designed for events that are based on historical weather data for a region. And there is a level of safety against that design failing to perform so that the design will withstand events that exceed the maximum expected design condition. What that means is that if climate change increases the severity of rain events there is an increased likelihood of the system failing to perform adequately. The system becomes less safe than the desired safety level of the design.
Updated design requirements will result in 'new designs' meeting desired safety standards. But anything designed base on the previous requirements will become 'less safe'. There is no way of arguing around that. It is the reality. Existing surface run-off systems all become less safe if the weather conditions they may experience become more severe.
The same applies to structure performance. The design codes establish a minimum factor of safety against performance failure. The factor of safety is a combination of increasing the expected forces on the structure (factors greater than 1.0 are applied to that loads) combined with reducing the structure resistance values (factors less than 1.0 are applied to material resistance properties). Updated design requirements establishing higher design loads will result in new designs having the desired safety. But structures designed to the previous requirements will be less safe, they will have an increased chance of a failure of performance.
And as I have stated in other comments, there is no real value in discussing exactly how much less safe things are going to become. Many structures are still standing many years beyond a '50 year design basis'. The fact that human caused climate change is making almost all existing structures and surface run-off systems 'less safe' should be sufficient to motivate responsible leaders of society to rapidly correct the incorrect activities that are making things 'less safe'.
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Hank11198 at 09:38 AM on 12 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Michael @ 35
Michael that is a very good observation. Engineers are definitely concerned about how flooding is affecting structures. The three most recent code revisions have increased the attention and detail in every revision regarding how to design for flooding in the US. This is a case where the increased flooding has been documented by research. And as flooding is becoming more intense engineers who write the codes have more detailed loading requirements. Also insurance companies are becoming more involved in specific requirements for design as they often employ engineers or consult with engineers on the subject.
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Hank11198 at 09:27 AM on 12 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Nigelj @ 34
I am educated in the science of structural design. I am no expert in determining what loading should be applied to a structure in order to balance risk to economy. As you said structures are designed on the basis of a 50 year life. Although some are used longer we have to put some limit on a design time. The study I link too stated a 1 to 10% increase in intensity for a 2C warming with the probability that the strongest storms will be less frequent. That will probably be 2100 if we don’t change our direction which is 80 years from now, long past the design life of a structure. Taking the largest estimate way past the life of a structure with a decreased probability of frequency for structures we know the failure limit is way past the design limit just seems to need further study, which I’m not qualified to do. You can say you are just tossing around ideas but I can promise you ideas like this tend to be spread around the internet by those saying engineers are derelict for not preparing for the future by their disregard for climate change. Just like the opposite side says climate scientists are irresponsible for being alarmists.
I wasn’t putting words in your mouth. I was using my words to say it ‘appears’ you are saying the professionals aren’t doing their job.
“It looks like our codes are weighted a long way towards lowest cost. However I doubt that has anything to do with the engineers on the committees that develop codes”. What? How can the codes be weighted towards lowest cost without the engineers who write the codes being responsible? As I have said before I can only speak for the US codes. But in the US the politicians and bureaucrats have zero input in the development and revisions to the structural design codes. In the US the government has legislated the material design codes to be the law which they didn’t have to do. Although I doubt any engineer would design any differently even if they weren’t the law. But there have been so many lawsuits regarding damages when a structure fails I would imagine the politicians are afraid not to legislate those laws. In addition no insurance company would insure a structure not certified by a Professional Engineer.
If I have taking things the wrong way then I apologize. But it still seems to me that it would be better if the experts are not second guessed in social media at least until there is evidence they are not doing their job. And saying our building codes are weighted towards lowest cost without evidence is doing exactly that. It’s certainly your right to do that, at least in America, but that’s what is being done to climate scientists and I’m opposed to that also.
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nigelj at 07:35 AM on 12 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
Nick Palmer @53, yes we see at least some issues the same way, and I respect your views as well.
I looked at the video, and read Barlows comment and your comment, and your debate between yourselves.
Overall I find your views the most credible. Thats the short answer.
I don't see that you were being overly insulting. You called him a fanatic just to get his attention, perhaps borderline insulting. Having got his attention, you could have been clever and then said sorry didn't mean to be too abrasive :)
But Barlow made some good points as well. Like a lot of issues the truth looks like it maybe somewhere in the middle between you guys, on some of this at least.
The thing is Barlow is an ecologist and I've noticed these sorts of people catastrophise about climate change a lot, probably to be expected as they fall in love with nature a bit. I actually respect that, but the risk is they loose objectivity and Barlow has.
Barlow is confused about the state of the science way back then. The state of the science in the 1970's and 1980's was definitely too uncertain for us to conclude we were warming the climate and should do something. The AGW signal was only confirmed in the early 1990's and even then it was not clear what the hell we should do. We had to have some real world evidence of some actual warming like this, plus detection of AGW, to confirm the theories.
But by the mid 1990s it was very clear we had a problem, and that it was serious enough to justify robust mitigation, and that we had some good mitigation options.
It's absurd of Barlow to say models in the 1970s were accurate, so action should have been taken back then. We only know they were accurate with the passing of time since then.
Regarding Barlow claiming the risks were downplayed for decades and hes claiming virtually a cover up. This is a thorny issue. I dont really think they have been on the whole. We just didn't know enough back then. It's not like the link between smoking and cancer which was quite compelling at even an early stage, so using scare tactics did make some sense.
However I do think the IPCC reports "lowball" some things a bit in recent years as I've mentioned. Whether this is political pressure or scientists being conservative is an interesting question.
Maybe I sit a little bit between you and Barlow on the whole thing. But my bottom line is if scientists put scary scenarios in front of the public, and they should, these scenarios need some pretty good evidential basis. They cannot just be speculation full of endless "what ifs".
Regarding the Australian bushfires. I dont think Climate Adam was hyping things. They definitely look very concerning. Yes more area was burned in the past but this latest fire seaon has just started. Its not unreasonable to suspect we are heading towards an absolute record setter, and climate change is a factor in it (which you did mention).
Of course your area calcs look robust to me and it was useful to mention those.
This is a tough one for me. I've sometimes done the same sort of thing as you. The hyper alarmists have sometimes made wild, exaggerated hand waving claims on various things and I have criticised their views and been labelled a luke warmer as a result which is so frustrating.
However in these posts I always mention that I think climate change is deadly serious and why, to try and get across that I'm not minimising the problem, but that we just need accuracy. I also make a point of posting alarmist science where I think it does actually have a robust basis.
Sorry for a rather nuanced reply but I'm just being honest. Hope it helps a bit.
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BaerbelW at 06:43 AM on 12 January 2020Seal of approval - How marine mammals provide important climate data
A recent article published by Esprit Smith on NASA's website on December 4, 2019 provides another example where data collected by seals around Antarctica provides new insights:
Seal Takes Ocean Heat Transport Data to New Depths
The article includes a link to a related post written by Carol Rasmussen and published on May 2, 2019:
Data with Flippers? Studying the Ocean from a Seal's Point of View
H/t to David Kirtley, who made me aware of the article.
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nigelj at 06:14 AM on 12 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
Cooper @13, yes I see it now at comment 10, and your 2x looks feasible. Its just you jumped around a bit comparing different things.
This looks like something that should be in the general media. Most people would assume that statements of warming made in the media apply to land. Its a seriously misleading thing. Must mention it to our local science writer in our main newspaper.
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michael sweet at 06:00 AM on 12 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
The discussions of how buildings are designed are interesting.
Flood damage is expected to be worse in the future because AGW causes harder rainfall. It has been recently reported that most nuclear power plants are not designed to withstand the most severe anticipated floods. While there are not many nuclear power plants it occured to me that much infrastructure like drinking water plants, sewage plants, airports, chemcal facilities and other heavy industry are located near rivers or the ocean (where sea level rise is also a problem). There were reports of many facilities being flooded by Harvey in Texas.
I am not an engineer but it occured to me that if nuclear plants are not designed to withstand expected flooding many other industrial facilities will also not be designed to withstand high floods.
Do the engineers here have any comments on how major infrastructure will be affected by increased flooding?
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nigelj at 05:56 AM on 12 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Hank @33
"In effect you have decided that you know enough about the statistical analysis of wind speeds .....etc... and many other things that makes you an expert in how the structural codes should be changed. "
I never claimed that. I was simply tossing some ideas around sparking some discussion.
You are the expert, so roughly how much cost would upgrading the code to cope with an increase of 17% of wind pressure add to 1) a typical timber framed house and 2) typical highrise building?
Maybe its too high to be feasible. Like I said I believe in tough codes, but its always a balancing act between toughness and what the public can reasonably afford. I dont see where we differ - you tell me.
"And it appears you assume that the professionals that produce these codes are either not aware of environmental changes and how they affect the design of structures or they are deliberately ignoring those changes because of political pressure or greed. Pretty much exactly what climate change deniers are saying and using against climate scientists. "
Please stop putting words in my mouth. I have already said the exact opposite above "It looks like our codes are weighted a long way towards lowest cost. However I doubt that has anything to do with the engineers on the committees that develop codes....( I explained my reasons)"
The codes in NZ do appear to set lower standards than some other countries. This is not my opinion, the issues has been raised by various experts after the Canterbury earthquake. The question is why. I think its probably political in origin but I doubt it reflects badly on engineers.
Politicians or bureaucrats sometimes have the last say on approving building codes. This is not the venue to pontificate in detail on all this, other than to say this is a very different thing to denialists claiming politicians write or approve climate science (which they dont). You are comparing apples and oranges.
However bureaucrats do sign off the IPCC report summary for policy makers, so that is something to bear in mind. Evidence suggests the language in this report got watered down a bit in one of the reports. Very likely became likely etcetera.
You are taking things personally as an attack on structural engineers. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have lots of respect for engineers. You have taken things completely the wrong way.
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Hank11198 at 00:56 AM on 12 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
I will admit that I may be defensive about my profession after practicing and experiencing it for 50 years but I hope I can still be objective. I think we are all on the same team of trying to prevent climate change deniers from spreading their false and damaging message. However....
One of the things I have consistently found is that climate change deniers use bits and pieces of scientific research and twist it into the opposite of what the research found. If they can convince the public that they know as much about climate change as the scientists because the data is just simple to understand, then they have accomplished their mission. One of the things I have learned in my limited research into climate change is that what can appear simple on the surface is very complicated when digging down into the details, something that deniers take advantage of every day. In my experience the same is true of all technical professions so in the end I ask and defer to the opinions of peer reviewed published material as explained by the authors. So I think that ironically the same thing is happening in this debate.
Nigelj has stated this:
“However let's take an increase in wind pressure of 17% as you mentioned. This doesn't sound too horrendously severe. I agree much of the global warming threat comes more from flooding etc. Anyway upgrading the code for a 17% increase in pressure sounds like a bit of extra wall and roof bracing and more fixings, so not a huge increase in cost.”
In effect you have decided that you know enough about the statistical analysis of wind speeds, the application of that analysis to structures, the development of risk factors the economics of risk and the risk to the public among many other things that makes you an expert in how the structural codes should be changed. Yet you have pretty much admitted you have no expertise in any of these areas. And it appears you assume that the professionals that produce these codes are either not aware of environmental changes and how they affect the design of structures or they are deliberately ignoring those changes because of political pressure or greed. Pretty much exactly what climate change deniers are saying and using against climate scientists.
From what all of you have said it seems you have some if not a fair amount of structural training. If so you should know that the design of structures are limited by the yield strength of the material for wind design in most cases. This is far from the “failure” of a structure unless you consider the “failure” of a structure to be some limited permanent deflections of the structure. This is evidenced by the success of seismic designed structures to prevent the total collapse of structures which exceed the wind forces by a large amount. In other words there is almost always a large amount of redundancy in structures due to many factors that are not considered in design. So rarely is this a matter of risk to public safety, but to economic risk.
I am by all means in favor of requiring structures to consider human safety first and economy risk second. However there is no way codes can be written to cover all possible risks. My company and some of the companies I have worked for have multiple standard products they sale. The costs of upgrading all those products by a 17% increase in wind pressure would include a massive amount of redesign (I’m not sure everyone realizes the amount of time and work that goes into designing a large structure), the replacement and/or modification of millions of dollars of tooling required for the existing structures and the amount of published marketing material that would need to be replaced. This is not just adding some bracing. Existing structures would be grandfathered in with a new code but sales of new structures have to meet the new codes. If the experts decide an increase is necessary I will be leading the cause to get it implemented. But I’m not in favor of unnecessary feel good changes that can have unintended consequences.
I am all in favor of public pressure to create changes in public policy when it is obvious the government is ignoring public safety. I think that is pretty evident with climate change when you look at heat waves, drought, floods, rising seas, the consensus of climate scientists, etc. Of course structures do fail for many reasons. But I have not seen, nor has anyone here presented any evidence of an increase in structural failures due to increased wind pressures.
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Cooper13 at 00:51 AM on 12 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
@nigelj
Subsequent posts linked to data for the past 5-6 decades indicate the Land:Global ratio for warming is indeed approximately 2.
1.6 is the lower end of the estimate - if you look at longer time-scales back to the beginning of the 20th century. But where most of the warming has occurred (past 5+ decades), it is a ~2x ratio; that is based upon the linear trendlines, not 'ballparking' off graphs.
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Nick Palmer at 21:57 PM on 11 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
nigelj@51
I think I've expressed before that I respect your views. Although we differ slightly I think both of our points are view are reasonable enough, as are we, that I think both of us could change or modify each other's position with suitable new credible evidence - at least I hope so.
Having said that, may I ask a favour? I would appreciate you (or any other SKS'er) doing a 'reality check' on this short 7 comment thread on one of 'Climate Adam's' Youtube videos. I would like your opinion on whether I or Steven Barlow (or both of us) went too far, and whether our assessments about each other, and our views, were reasonable.. Thanks in advance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kJvKgOqWrc&lc=UgywrnJct_lMB_vKWXx4AaABAg -
nigelj at 15:41 PM on 11 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
Nick Palmer @51, definitely commenters. The website articles remain a beacon of sanity.
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Nick Palmer at 09:52 AM on 11 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
nigelj@50
"Alarmists who exaggerate the science are very frustrating, and do more harm than good, like the mirror image of the hard core denialists. There are a couple over at realclimate.org"
At realclimate?! That's disappointing. I hope you mean commenters rather than contributors! -
One Planet Only Forever at 07:39 AM on 11 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
A better way to make the point of my comment @20 may be to state that the objective of the current day population should be for the accumulated result of everyone's actions to be an improvement that lasts into the future, making the future better for humanity. And the supposedly more advanced or more fortunate a person is the more helpful they should be required to be in order to maintain their status.
While debating how much worse the future is being made, the important thing to remember is that the discussion is all about things being Worse. Fossil fuels cannot be burned forever, so any perceived benefit from fossil fuel use has no future. The only exception is the temporary transitional use of fossil fuels to kick-start sustainable development in the few remaining regions that are still in extreme poverty.
Looking reasonably holistically at any future that is the result of GHG emissions continuing to accumulate beyond today's levels exposes that the future, on the whole, is being made Worse. How much worse the future becomes is a direct function of how high the accumulated total impacts become. And less corrections of the harm creation today makes things worse. And a continuation of the attitude that there is some way to justify making the future worse will undeniably create a much worse future, potentially worse than the worst that has been conceived so far (and that is not an extremist claim).
A serious correction is required to end the cycle of making-up excuses for continuing to act harmfully. One of the worst excuses is believing that history proves that industrial materialistic consumerism always makes things better. An even worse excuse is believing that any challenges created can be overcome by the brilliance of innovative developments.
Things could become much worse than the conditions potentially created by RCP8.5 by 2100. The future of humanity should continue well beyond 2100. And hopefully those future people will not have to deal with an even worse future after 2100.
As shocking as some of the potential futures for humanity may appear to be, they are still potential futures, especially if less correction happens today, or the next day, or the next day ....
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nigelj at 06:03 AM on 11 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Ignorant Guy @30, oops I didn't read your link for some reason. Sorry. No it doesn't mention 10X but "if" Hansen said 10X that article may be what he had in mind. I recall mention of these super storms pushing quite huge boulders up beaches, which suggests high wind speeds affecting the oceans.
I find it a bit hard to see how 'slightly' higher wind speeds and 'slightly' more precipitation being ten times worse. Granted the two effects combine, but 10X seems intuitively seems like its stretching things.
The problem seems to me more that that the IPCC reports might be underestimating how bad storms will get. Thats a whole other subject and space doesn't allow, but theres numerous discussions on the IPCC low balling some things. But without a correct estimate its hard to develop codes.
And for the record I believe its wise to have quite high building code standards, so not done on the cheap. But there are limits to this, because eliminating all damage would make building costs astronomical. Its a balancing act.
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nigelj at 05:45 AM on 11 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
Cooper13
You said at the start @ 6 that "It is well established from observations, and from projections/models, that land temperatures (where most of us live, and where we grow our crops and livestock) increase at roughly 2x the rate that global temperatures rise."
I think this is wrong but it is maybe a sort of "typo" on your part. Global temperatures are the average of the land and ocean temperatures arent they? The data suggests land temperatures are increasing maybe 1.5% faster than the average global temperatures (eyeballing your graphs)
Dont get me wrong. Your basic point is really important namely that land temperatures are increasing significantly faster than both ocean temperatures as you mention elsewhere, and the "average temperatures" we typically use in discussion that combine land and ocean. By using this average of land and oceans we miss the fact that land is heating significantly faster.
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Ignorant Guy at 01:03 AM on 11 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
nigelj @29
You link to the exact same paper as I did.
I never said that Hansen specifically mentioned "10X worse wind speeds". Did you find "10X worse wind speeds" in that text?
"Worse storms" are not necessarily storms with higher wind speeds. Storms with more precipitation are also "worse".
If we anticipate a certain worst case level for a bad storm and build our infrastructure to withstand such storms with only small damages then a storm with only slightly higher wind speeds and only slightly more precipitation could cause significantly more damage. And so it could be "10X worse".
I repeat again: My point was _not_ that Hansen ever said we would see storms with 10X wind speeds. My point was that if anyone says that we may encounter storms that are "10X worse" that claim is too vague to be immediately rejected as unreasonable.
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Cooper13 at 01:01 AM on 11 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
@anticorncob6
Here's the whole article, with sourcing and a snippet:
In the past six decades, land temperatures have risen about 2.3°F, a warming rate of nearly 0.4°F a decade, as the top chart shows. That’s nearly double the temperature rise of the ocean, which is 1.25°F per decade. Moreover, in the past 30 years, the rate of warming appears to have sped up even more, with land temperatures rising more than 0.6°F a decade. That’s now a bit more than double the ocean warming.
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nigelj at 15:50 PM on 10 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Ignorant Guy @28, J Hansen talking about 10X worse wind speeds may have been referring to 'superstorms' in earths past. Theres some paleo evidence for these huge storms. Research paper here.
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Cooper13 at 15:27 PM on 10 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
@MA Rodger and @anticorncob6:
Rodger- you are correct; looking at 1975 to 2018, where the increases have become fairly linear (likely because of the continually increasing forcing with higher GhG concentrations), the trend is absolutely 2x.
We do need to be careful with cherry-picking a particular starting point, as that does alter the slopes somewhat. Choosing more like 50 years, 1968-2018 we get slopes of:
+0.17°C/decade (+0.31°F/decade) for Land AND Ocean (global)
+0.29°C/decade (+0.52°F/decade) for Land ONLY
So, 2x isn't all that bad a guess, really. Certainly the land-amplification (which is just an average - it's not the same everywhere) is somewhere between 1.5x and 2x of the global number. If you're a conservative farmer, concerned about your livelihood, I'd be going with the 2x assumption and acting accordingly (e.g. making your legislative representatives aware that you CARE about this and want action taken to minimize it)
Here are direct links to the page with those calculations, 1968-2019, as the pages will load with those selections saved:
So, my 'back of the napkin' guess in the first post may not be all that 'alarmist', the numbers indeed support it. Pass that along to people you encounter on this topic - perhaps SS will run a short post on this, as it's more about communicating the understanding than some magical revelation here. They will likely be able to cite sources which better clarify the background science, as well.
-Cheers
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nigelj at 15:22 PM on 10 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
Nick Palmer @49
I strongly agree its important to bring the denialists politics and ideologies out in the open, and I use every trick in the book to try to do that, including being quite blunt with them at times. I'm very polite here because this website is strictly moderated, but I'm blunter elsewhere.
However I mostly try to stop short of ad hominems where possible, because I feel we loose the moral high ground and sympathy of fence sitters in the middle of the debate. Plus I'm not really the name calling type.However whats appropriate does depend on the context, and I'm not saying you are wrong especially if it works for you. Just mentioning my approach.
Its frustrating, as a lot of these politically motivated denialists work for lobby groups, and rule number one with lobby groups is to not discuss personal information and political leanings. I find sometimes you have to prod them quite hard! But their politics usually comes out in the end with a stream of slogans and buzzwords.
While I struggle with certain political ideologies, I tend to avoid attacking them head on and vilifying them, because it alienates people, and just doesnt work. But I'm very critical of specific political policy and data claims and I'm happy to tell people they are spreading ignorance!
Alarmists who exaggerate the science are very frustrating, and do more harm than good, like the mirror image of the hard core denialists. There are a couple over at realclimate.org and I've battled with them, politely. They get real nasty and call me names and label me a denialist or luke warmer. Some of these guys look like they have personality issues, dunning kruger, etcetera. They mean well, but that's about the best I can say.
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Ignorant Guy at 15:00 PM on 10 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Hank @ 23
The 10-20% increase in wind speeds was mentioned in the paper by Hansen et al that I referenced. (And I see now that I got the year wrong. 2016, not 2015.) Hansen et al themselves referenced this to Emanuel, 1987, 2005, which I haven't read. I got the link to the Hansen piece from a net search. This:
https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/3761/2016/acp-16-3761-2016.pdf
The "10X worse" was first mentioned here by dkeierleber @ #9, and dkeierleber attributed that to Hansen.
What Hansen really meant I don't know. I didn't find the right reference.
My real point was that "10X worse" is so vague that we can't really say anything about how reasonable it is without more details. 10X worse what? Wind speed? Wind pressure? Wind power? Number of buildings damaged? Cost of damages? Number of people injured?
I can imagine this (speculation - I don't build houses): If a collection of buildings are designed to stand for a certain wind pressure and they are exposed to a storm with a lower wind pressure then none are damaged. If they are exposed to a storm with a higher wind pressure lots are damaged. So there will be a threshold effect. As soon as a building has been damaged the amount of damage will depend on the total energy dissipated into the damaged building. That will be about proportional to the wind power X the duration of the wind. Thinking about it like that "10X worse" is not too far-fetched.
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nigelj at 14:55 PM on 10 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Hank @24, buildings in New Zealand also have to withstand something like 1000 year storms from memory. We don't get hurricanes, the worst tends to be tropical cyclones occasionally with very severe gales, so category 2 wind speeds typically. Data on regional zones and maximum limit state wind speeds here.
www.level.org.nz/site-analysis/wind/
Making housing resistant to every conceivable threat with near zero damage would probably lead to houses being built like concrete bunkers. The public would never put up with that, and neither would I.
However let's take an increase in wind pressure of 17% as you mentioned. This doesn't sound too horrendously severe. I agree much of the global warming threat comes more from flooding etc. Anyway upgrading the code for a 17% increase in pressure sounds like a bit of extra wall and roof bracing and more fixings, so not a huge increase in cost. Our public look like they would be ok with that from discussion I have seen on this sort of thing especially if it was phased in. They are quite safety conscious types in the main, except for the libertarian fringe. But they wouldn't wear big changes to the code and huge cost burdens.
Yes its reasonable to treat agricultural structures differently from fire stations. It's just commonsense. I'm 99% sure we do that. To be honest as an Architect I leave most structural stuff to the engineers, although I do know how to do basic beam calcs etcetera. The only structural stuff I do is light timber frame prescriptive code stuff, so I'm a bit hazy on some of the wind design load criteria details.
You get an insight on what the public will bear from the earthquake issue. The Christchurch earthquake was a wake up call, especially as a lot of old brick masonry buildings failed (no surprise there). As a result there were proposals to change the code so that older buildings have to be upgraded to improved earthquake resistance, although not as much as new buildings. People have generally gone along with this as a whole quite well, but there were complaints about costs so the original scheme was downgraded a bit, and owners have been given more generous time frames to upgrade. Some information below on the final proposals. Makes sense to me.
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11446301
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:54 PM on 10 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Hank @22,
In my comment @25 I should have included that when Canada had a Conservative Party as Leaders it also acted "...in a protectionist manner with actions resisting the corrections required to limit the future climate change consequences". And Canada's Provincial leadership, like USA State leadership, also is heavily skewed to Right-Wing Conservative leadership acting in protectionist ways to resist the corrections required to limit climate change impacts on future generations (and resisting other corrections required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals).
And a similar observation can be made of what is happening in Australia.
The correlation of New Right-wing Conservatives (not the same as the environment protecting and helpful to Others Conservatives of years ago), and resistance to expanded awareness and improved understanding and the application of that learning to develop sustainable improvements for the future of humanity is a tragic global phenomenon.
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:43 PM on 10 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Hank @22,
We substantially agree. And one of my links was to a structural problem in Canada. And there are indeed many other cases of structure failures in Canada.
The root cause of many of the structural problems around the world (poorer quality of design, materials, construction, or maintenance) is economic systems developing desires to get things that are cheaper and quicker (more profitable). Professional Engineers have to stand firm against those pressures, not allowing the 'protection of the public and the environment from harm' to be compromised by any 'economic considerations', or they are unprofessional (an engineer cannot responsibly evaluate 'potential for profit' against a reduction of level of safety against harmful consequences - just as it is inappropriate for economists to compare the lost opportunity of people today with the harm their pursuit of opportunity will do to future generations, especially inappropriate when they discount those future costs).
A side consequence of pursuit of profit is 'protectionist actions' attempting to protect a pursuit of profit from challenges or corrections. And the current USA leadership, and other national leadership like it, is acting in a protectionist manner with actions resisting the corrections required to limit the future climate change consequences.
An early example of USA protectionism is the designation of a unique rail spacing that kept British rail equipment from being imported. The resistance to the use of metric units is a more recent example. And it is likely that protectionism was a major factor in the USA still using A36 steel specifications long after most of the rest of the world had updated to better 44 ksi material specification for general structural steel.
And the change of steel production to 'recycling of steel', with the potential for different material compositions than steel made from pig-iron, happened long before the tragedy that exposed that the A36 standard written for pig-iron production of steel was dangerously out-dated compared to other long-established structural steel production specifications.
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MA Rodger at 11:13 AM on 10 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
Coopee13 @6,
You say 2x may be an exaggeration, but NOAA data for Global Land 1975-2018 yields a linear trend of +0.30ºC/decade while Global Ocean yields +0.13ºC/decade.
anticorncob6 @5,
You ask why the differential between land & ocean. This is because the ocean depths are still warming up and so cooling the ocean surface temperatures.
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Nick Palmer at 11:07 AM on 10 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
nigelj@48 wrote "and violently attacking their world view won't do that. Discussion needs to be subtle and more upbeat"
I said I found my methods very effective because what I aim to do is draw out and lay bare in front of any watching audience 'what lies beneath' the apparently sincere 'sceptical' views. Most of the audience/readers don't know that these denialist memes have been debunked a thousand times, so all they see is one 'sciency sounding' argument versus another nand most are not sophiscated or knowledgable enough to make a value judgement as to whose views are more credible. That is why, IMHO, the SKS method of countering pseudoscience with science is not the bese way of getting through to the great mass of the ordinary public.
By all means 'innoculate' the public with 'stickier' facts but if one can publicly rip off the mask of a right or left wing propagandist (or evangelical) and show that they are spreading misleading partial truths and constructed deceit to sway the minds of the public towards their chosen ideology, I believe it has a more fundamental positive effect. People don't like it when they are being lied to by fanatics. So yes, I use what some might call ad hominems to achieve this. I particulary use them when arguing on Tony Heller's videos!
BTW, I hate to say it, but I've found in my mission to 'tell it straight' that because I sometimes take on alarmists who exaggerate the science or dangers as well as denialists, that those who argue using the 'worst that could happen' (on steroids) possibilities are actually more resistant to rational argument and correction than out and out climate science deniers. -
Cooper13 at 10:46 AM on 10 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
Forgot that link:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/global/time-series/globe/land/ann/7/1880-2019?trend=true&trend_base=10&begtrendyear=1880&endtrendyear=2019
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Cooper13 at 10:45 AM on 10 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
Mods - can you eliminate that oversized graph, or shrink it in my post above?
Also, @anticorncob6: here is a link to the NASA climate data, and you can look at trends for global land+ocean vs. just global over land.
Add in the trendline function, and the trend per decade for global is +0.7C/decade; for global land only it is 0.11C/decade, or a factor of 1.6
That is close to my guesses in the above post; yes, it isn't exactly 2. So if that's too much of an exaggeration, then use 'greater than 1.5x', which are still concerning numbers.
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Cooper13 at 10:33 AM on 10 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
@anticorncob6:
https://thinkprogress.org/global-warming-now-twice-as-fast-over-land-than-the-ocean-nasa-chart-shows-52b4afe01345/Also, WoodForTrees has a site you can plot data from GISTEMP and CRUTEM yourself (GIS is global temps, CRUTEM is land-only). Plotting those from 1880 on, you can see the land temperature increase is larger (not exactly 2x, but perhaps 1.7x, as overal rise is 1 to 1.1C, land only is closer to 1.7-1.8C). So, 2x may exaggerate the issue somewhat, but the effect is larger than 1.5x.
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anticorncob6 at 09:32 AM on 10 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
@Cooper13 Where is the evidence that land warms twice as much as the global average? And why would land temperatures increase twice as fast as ocean temperatures?
I've heard that the Arctic is warming unusually fast, but not all land.
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Hank11198 at 09:16 AM on 10 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Nigelu @ 21
Right now in the US the design wind for risk category II buildings along the coast is based on a 1200 year storm and for the interior a 700 year storm. The design wind for risk category III and IV buildings along the coast is based on a 3000 year storm and for the interior a 1500 year storm. If you were in charge of the design codes, what wind rating would you have engineers design structures?
Also do you think it is reasonable to have agricultural structures such as diary barns designed to different standards than say fire stations?
I’m not trying to be argumentative I’m just trying to get a feel for how much decreased risk the general public might be willing to pay for.
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Hank11198 at 09:06 AM on 10 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Ignorant Guy @ 19
I don’t know where you found a 10-20% increase in wind speeds but I would be interested to see a link. Here is a link to a study on global warming and hurricanes. (I may not have inserted the link so it can be one-clicked so I included the text)
https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
That study showed a 4% increase in wind speed per degree Celsius increase. For a 2C increase that would be an increase in wind speed of 108%. Wind power dissipation may well be as you say proportional to the cube of wind speed but structures are based on wind pressures which are a function of the wind speed squared. That would be an increase in pressure of 17%. The 10x comment was made by dkeierleber during a discussion of designing safe buildings. I don’t think I was being unreasonable in assuming he was referring to wind pressures in that discussion since wind pressures are how buildings are loaded. Right now the design code requires in southern Flordia a building to be designed for 180 MPH for risk category II and 200 MPH for risk categories III and IV. A 10x increase in pressure would change that to 570 MPH for risk category II and 630 MPH for risk categories III and IV. I do think that is harmful to the cause of those that think there is a climate crisis. Right now the Glacial National Park is taking down signs that state the Glacial will be gone in 2020. I don’t know what was behind them putting those signs up to begin with but as you can imagine the deniers are having a field day with it.
As for 10x the cost of damages you may be right although that still seems to me a very high bar. For everything I’ve read the damages are usually due mostly to flooding, not so much wind. My understanding is that rising sea levels, flooding, and heat & drought will be more costly than increased winds.
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Hank11198 at 08:15 AM on 10 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
OPOF @ 18
As I’ve said I can’t speak for codes in other countries. In the US the IBC has been legislated in all 50 states and anyone demanding those laws be broken are subject to prosecution. Clients I have dealt with did not even know the code enough to know what the design requirements were.
My argument has mainly been with dkeierleber’s comments that building built previously were structurally better than today and that today’s codes are written by people with high school education. That is simply not true.
As for structural failures because of a lack of proper maintenance you are absolutely correct. In the US, ASCE has been warning for years that our infrastructure is being poorly maintained. They give a grade every year and for the last several years it has been a D-.
It certainly appears the pedestrian bridge you referenced had design problems. That doesn’t mean the design codes are responsible for engineers that don’t follow the code. And quicker and cheaper does not mean the structure is not safe. We have been lowering the cost and time to build structures for years with better materials and manufacturing technology. It is an engineer’s job to design the most efficient structure that meets all safety requirements.
Maybe you don’t have an answer to why the US failed to investigate the potential risk of the A36 specification is because it’s very difficult to predict potential risk. As they say 20/20 hindsight is always correct. But being able to predict the future is difficult. I just did a search for structural failures and they happen all over the world including Canada.
Resistance to change is not limited to the US. All countries and most individuals struggle with change. I have no idea why railway rail spacing has anything to do with this. Railway rail spacings are different in multiple countries around the world. And profit-motivated resistance to correction is present in all countries, not just the US.
I completely agree with you about the dangers of 1.5C increase. We are on the same side about the need to rapidly end fossil fuel use. I don’t know what you have done but I’ve put in solar panels and changed out my A/C units to more efficient units which dropped my average electrical bill from $350/month to $136/month. But that’s a different subject from saying the structural codes are written by high school graduates.
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nigelj at 05:34 AM on 10 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Some scientists and commentators are talking about a need for category 6 hurricanes here and here.
We have millions of buildings designed to resist certain wind strengths. With more frequent winds above what the buildings are designed to withstand, you get more damage overall, and this is where we are heading. Given the lifespan of buildings is typically 50 years minimum and often considerably more, a lot of buildings will be at risk, particularly housing. Strengthening these structures will be an expensive pain in the proverbial.
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