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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 8701 to 8750:

  1. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

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

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

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

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

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

    This is not helpful.

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

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

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

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

  6. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #51

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

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

  7. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    blub:

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

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

    "but have been recalibrated because of the heating hiatus"

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

    "This is far from settled science"

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

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

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

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

  8. One Planet Only Forever at 08:52 AM on 25 December 2019
    The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    Excellent presentation of the current state of affairs.

    In "5. Crisis Denial" I would add an additional point regarding the denier claim that "We will be much richer in the future and better able to fix climate change."

    The global economy will only be able to be better (richer) in the future if it becomes substantially comprised of Sustainable Activity, the sooner the better. Any perceptions of wealth, or poverty reduction, that rely on fossil fuels will fail to continue into the future.

  9. Philippe Chantreau at 08:39 AM on 25 December 2019
    The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    The graph in the OP clearly shows that temps in the 2000-2015 periods were well within the range of the models. They are now exactly falling on the ensemble mean. As noted by Nigel, blub does not provide details or substantiation of the alleged "recalibration." The link in the OP figure, however, is very informative as to the refinement of the models over time, well worth reading:

    https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-how-do-climate-models-work

  10. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    blub @1

    "The models are not robust at all between about 2000-2015, but have been recalibrated because of the heating hiatus during this time. This is far from settled science, but only a handful of "real" climatologists not self proclaimed climate scientists even understand climate modeling correctly."

    Adding a few things. Climate models can never be 100% robust over short time frames of about 15 years, because these timeframes are modulated by ocean variability, and this does not follow a completely regular cycle. For blubs information, you cant ever accurately predict something that is partly random. Climate models are intended to model long terms trends of 30 years and more, and do this well.  Scientists are aware of natural variability and the very first IPCC reports stated there would be flat periods within a longer term warming trend. The slowdown after 1998 was such a flat period.

    Blub claims models have been recalibrated, but provides no evidence of this.

    Blubs claims about a handful of so called real climate scientists are totally unsubstantiated arm waving.

    Regarding the rest of his screed on natural variability. Cherrypicking a couple of scientific papers does not demonstrate anything. Nothing is provided to show there has been wide acceptance of these specific papers, and they do not falsify any of the models.

    Models do reproduce ocean cycles, although not perfectly. However models have proven to have good accuracy at predicting multiple trends including temperatures here and here. Clearly although ocean cycles are not perfectly understood, their affects are overwhelmed by CO2.

  11. One Planet Only Forever at 04:58 AM on 25 December 2019
    Temp record is unreliable

    jeffk,

    You may find what you are looking for on this NASA/GISS webpage.

  12. One Planet Only Forever at 04:52 AM on 25 December 2019
    The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    I sort of share nigelj's view about Katharine Hayhoe's dislike of the promotion of corrections of how people live being like a religion. But I also sort of share Katharine Hayhoe's dislike of people claiming that being helpful is like a religion, as if being religious about something is a bad thing.

    Being Religious can and should be understood to mean: behaviour that is strictly adhered to similar to what is required by a religion. An example would be an Engineer's 'religious' pursuit of a comprehensive consideration of all that is knowable regarding what they are doing and applying that knowledge to limit the potential for harmful consequences.

    The collective who share the pursuit of 'religious behaviour based on expanded awareness and understanding applied to minimize harm done to others and to help develop a sustainable and improving future for humanity (achieving the Sustainable Development Goals)' can and should be understood to constitute the collective of all moral people - the Highest Level of 'Religious' Understanding and Actions - the common sense basis for Moral Understanding.

    Many sub-groups can sustainably co-exist within that Collective of Moral Understanding including: atheists, agnostics, pagans and polytheists.

    That moral collective understanding (and, given good reason, will improve their understanding) includes the following:

    • To avoid imposing significant harmful climate change impacts on future generations the total global warming impact needs to be limited to 1.5C. Any impacts beyond 1.5C will be worse for the future generations. And even the 1.5C impact will produce climate changes that are very costly and challenging to deal with, including some irreversible negative consequences for future generations like the release of an Antarctic ice field into the oceans thousands of years earlier than it would have otherwise occurred.
    • use of fossil fuels must be ended sooner than 'everyone would freely choose to stop trying to benefit from it'. A portion of the population will have to be externally governed and limited to reduce how harmful they are.
    • the least fortunate need to be helped to sustainably improve their lives. And they should be the only ones benefiting most from the limited fossil fuel use allowed as the global use is brought to an end. And those who are less fortunate will need to be helped to adapt to the already created climate changes and to rapidly transition through the harmful temporary development phase of benefiting from fossil fuel use.
    • the lack of reduction of benefiting from fossil fuel use by the more fortunate through the past 30 years has developed the current tragic reality where a diversity of helpful actions that are unrelated to fossil fuel use are now required to minimize the harm done to the future generations while continuing to sustainably improve the lives of the least fortunate.

    Those points of understanding have all been attacked with misleading marketing because they 'morally' require many more fortunate people to give up developed beliefs and enjoyed ways of living (or be correctly deemed to be immoral). The understandings also result in the less fortunate people not admiring and not aspiring to be like the harmful unhelpful correction resistant among the more fortunate, seeing those people as immoral people who are undeserving of their higher status.

    And that last point is the reason for the diversity of helpful actions like reduced impacts of food consumption which include: revised agricultural practices and reduced meat consumption, particularly reduced beef consumption. These actions have become necessary because of the lack of correction by the immoral correction resistant, those who are not part of the Highest Level of Religious understanding and actions. And adherents to the Moral Religion would aspire to help overcome the harm being done by the immoral correction resistant portion of the population by changing their consumption to help sustainably improve the lives of the least fortunate and future generations which would include 'ending their eating of meat, particularly beef'.

    It is the correction resistant who are making a misleading fuss about the improved moral understanding. They try to denigrate the helpful moral collective understandings by calling it all a Religion as if being religious is bad. They incorrectly claim that encouraging people to be more helpful by eating less meat is a demand that everybody must stop eating meat, particularly beef. Only harmful activities, like the use of fossil fuels and many pesticides and fertilizers, have to be ended. Activity to be aspire to by all who want to be helpful includes: supporting regenerative sustainable agriculture, reducing meat in a meal to 4 ounces, not eating meat in every meal, and reducing how often beef is the meat.

    It is undeniably unacceptable to claim that increasing awareness and understanding that it is helpful to limit unnecessary consumption is a demand to end an activity.

    Sustainability requires more than the climate impacts of the use of fossil fuels to be ended. It also requires the amount of energy and material consumed per-capita by the most fortunate to be reduced. Though fossil fuel use must be ended, other helpful actions need to be aspired to in order to help limit the harm done by the correction resistant who resist reducing their 'unnecessary but strongly desired' efforts to benefit from the use of non-renewable resources, particularly fossil fuels.

    Members of groups like Extinction Rebellion are correct to raise awareness regarding all of the corrections needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, not just the climate action goal. And they are also correct to raise awareness regarding changes people can make to try to help counteract the increased harm done by those who will not willingly help limit the harm being done to the future generations. And they are correct to point out that anyone who tries to be dismissive regarding those helpful reductions of harm, including calling the promoters of that improved awareness and understanding a Religion as if it was a bad thing, is being Immoral.

  13. SkS Analogy 21 - Snow on a Hot Tin Roof

    Fred@5 Good points. A quick Google search turns up the following papers on this subject that might be of interest (here and here). So yes, it appears that trees have an initial warming effect until they soak up enough carbon to offset the warming they cause by reducing albedo with respect to an open field. I think it safe to say that burning down rainforests has a warming effect, because the release of carbon has a much higher warming effect that the increased albedo caused by replacing mature trees with open fields.

  14. Using fallacy cartoons in a quiz

    @agno - #4

    Thanks for your feedback and sorry that I didn't see your comment earlier. The taxonomy used is actually John's and he has been working on it for quite a while and with some critical thinking experts from the University of Queensland. They published a paper in 2018 about how denialist arguments can be taken apart with critical thinking techniques and their supplementary material has definitions for the logical fallacies they found, including most of the ones you list. Does that help?

    Cheers
    Baerbel

  15. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

     

    The models are not robust at all between about 2000-2015, but have been recalibrated because of the heating hiatus during this time.

     

    Climate is measured over a minimum of 30 years. This ddefinition was arrived at in 1934 by the IMO.

    This is due to the internal variables - the natural cycles - t hat were already known of back then.

    Just because we do not know everything, does not mean we know nothing.

    Science advances incrementally, and the recalibration of the models so they can project shorter poeriods both globally and locally is an example of progress, not uncertainty.

     

    All the best.

  16. SkS Analogy 21 - Snow on a Hot Tin Roof

    speaking of the albedo effect then, all other things being equal, would a tan and dust-covered planet be warmer or cooler than a dark blue and green colored planet of the same size at the same distance from the sun?  My point is that I think a planet covered with trees will actually get warmer than a bare planet, at least until those trees can soak up a lot of the CO2 and change the atmosphere's ability to trap heat.  My point is that planting trees will actually make it worse...at least in the short run.

  17. The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

    "All these arguments are false and there is a clear consensus among scientists about the causes of climate change. The climate models that predict global temperature rises have remained very similar over the last 30 years despite the huge increase in complexity, showing it is a robust outcome of the science."

    The models are not robust at all between about 2000-2015, but have been recalibrated because of the heating hiatus during this time. This is far from settled science, but only a handful of "real" climatologists not self proclaimed climate scientists even understand climate modeling correctly.

    The fast majority of scientists and I would assume public knows that is warming and CO2 has some influence, but it’s the warming cause is not understood entirely and therefore model predictions may be erroneous.
    The following links took me 30min of researching:
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00704-018-2387-7
    Quantifying the importance of interannual, interdecadal and multidecadal climate natural variabilities in the modulation of global warming rates.
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-019-04955-2?shared-article-renderer#ref-CR12

    Author: Essentially, this work emphasizes the vital role of natural variability in changing the local linear trends which represent the warming rates of corresponding periods. Our results imply that to rightly attribute the climate change and accurately forecast future climate, more attention should be paid to various quasi-periodic natural variabilities, particularly ones at interannual, interdecadal and multidecadal scales. Of upmost importance, the key points to improve the simulation and prediction skills of climate models lie in correctly distinguishing the true anthropogenic warming from natural variability and accurately simulating the phase, period and amplitude of important natural variability, in which the phase is particularly important. Unfortunately, even the state-of-the-art CMIP5 models still confuse the natural climate variability and the anthropogenic warming trend and show low skills for natural variability simulations, which is the primary cause that they fail to simulate the recent global warming hiatus (Wei and Qiao 2017).

    Models are not missing something or are they?:
    Evidence that global evapotranspiration makes a substantial contribution to the global atmospheric temperature slowdown
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00704-018-2387-7

    A greening world enhances the surface-air temperature difference
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969718350733?via%3Dihub

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

    Nigel:

    "Unfortunately sensible climate rules have been highjacked to an extent by vegetarians, population control fanatics, extremists, simple living groups, and anti technology zealots. This is distracting from the core climate goals".

    As it happens, my son is a leader of a local Extinction Rebellion group and, according to him, it is a continual battle to keep everyone focussed on the central issue of climate change and avoid diluting the message, and even derailing it, with all these extraneous issues which no one can agree on anyway. He had to eventually threaten to abandon the group if they continued squabbling over these issues.

  19. Models are unreliable

    By logic, any model has the potential to be short a certain number of variables.  Yet, without them, it is difficult to grasp functionality of a field of science.

    One of the often missed factors in any scientific study is that we can only assume that what we observe over a long period of time has a consistant variable.  For example, in the early 1970's we observed that polar north migrates at a rate of 7 miles per year towards Russia.  Today, we find that it now is further moving at a rate of 34mpy  (Source:  https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2019/02/05/earths-magnetic-north-pole-has-officially-moved/#f15dce368625).

    It the source provided above, it also provides a model.  Can anyone find something that it's not accounting for?

  20. Temp record is unreliable

    is there a url to all of the raw data used by NASA to come up with the 0.8C global warming figure?

  21. Climate models have accurately predicted global heating, study finds

    hi people, sorry that it took me so long to reply to this article, which was apparently designated to my comments. I feel a little bit honored ;) to be honest, but I was enjoying the warm weather and life of course for a while. You seem to have not studied confirmation bias since I was gone citing a newspaper article from the guardian, which is a highly politicized pro climate hysteria newspaper (I hope somebody told you that newspapers make money selling you biased hysteria stories? if not I will be glad to give you as much information as you need on this subject.) well, happy xmas to everybody, please enjoy, it might be your last one before climate change really kicks in and as always don’t forget to wory instead of living!
    well here is a fairly recent scientific paper showing some minor MAJOR problems with IPCC models published in non other than NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE:
    Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years
    https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1972

    Moderator Response:

    [DB]  The point of Fyfe was that it found that volcanic emissions could have cooled the earth by 0.07°C compared to projections.  Further, Fyfe used data to 2012.  The world is far warmer now than it was in 2012 with the 5 warmest years being the 5 most-recent (with 2019 on track to being the 2nd-warmest, the 6 most recent years will all be the 6 warmest years).

    For actual perspective on Fyfe and the science of the "pause", read this.

    Sloganeering and inflammatory snipped.

  22. One Planet Only Forever at 06:13 AM on 24 December 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #51

    John Hartz, Thanks for pointing me to that article (and thanks for not pointing out that I failed to note that I started my comment on this string with a reference to the Editor's Choice article in the Weekly News Round Up #51)

    As an engineer with an MBA I understand that there has been some limiting of human impacts in spite of the competitive disadvantages that are almost certain to be experienced by the people who lead the corrections (it costs more and is more effort to live and financially benefit more sustainably). But it is important to keep the focus on the harmful resistance to correction, not the optimism that something good is happening in a limited way. A significant portion of the global population being able to resist behaving better will not achieve the required result.

    Current day humans are Engineering (application of improved awareness and understanding) the future for humanity with their Business pursuits (maximizing personal benefit and perception of status). In Engineering, harmful resistance to correction cannot be tolerated. In Business (including the business of politics), being harmful gets to be gotten away with for as long as possible. And that harmful personally beneficial attitude can infect Engineering with damaging results.

    I do not share the optimistic view of the self-declared alarmist David Wallace-Wells. It is not re-assuring that the worst possible climate change future is less likely. And he actually closes with an example of the callous attitude of more fortunate people that is related to the unacceptability of discussing the 'reduction of the likelihood of the worst case climate future'.

    The required limit of total impact to avoid imposing serious climate change consequences on future generations (1.5C maximum) is being Optimistically, and unnecessarily, missed. It is tragically easy to get people who have the ability to behave better to believe it is OK for a higher amount of warming to be imposed on future generations.

    Some degree of responsible correction by the most fortunate people is occurring. But the failure of correction by many other more fortunate people is the tragic unacceptable development that attention needs to remain focused on.

    On a technical point, I appreciate the purpose of comparing 'expected warming by 2100' for the different RCPs that are evaluated by climate models. However, the maximum warming of the RCP is what really should be compared, not the amount by 2100.

    A climate tragedy in the future is not better just because it was created a little further into the future. The more important comparison of the acceptability of the RCPs is their peak level of surface warming and resulting climate change.

    Claims that a slower rate of increase would be 'easier to adapt to' also incorrectly Optimistically miss the fact that any adaptation to human induced climate change is a distraction of effort from 'sustainably improving living conditions for humanity'.

    As the likes of Greta correctly point out, the future generations will correctly detest the optimism their harm causing predecessors had for the future generation's ability to be collectively wealthier and brilliantly creative in adapting to and solving the harmful changes and challenges imposed on them, changes they have to try to deal with in a future world that is limited by the elimination of resources that used to be available and could have still been available to them in the future.

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

    takamura_senpai @1, you are engaging in the exact unjustified unhelpful sort of finger pointing dicussed in the article. What's more your accusations about Europe are ridiculous, unjustified, and totally unproven. Europe is leading in provision of wind energy and storage, eg Scandinavia and Germany and the UK.

    Asia is full of corruption, not every country but many. Refer this list which is organised from the least corrupt to most corrupt countries.

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

    “Climate fear is turning into a new religion (because what is religion other than a set of behavioral rules we obey because we believe they will make us right in our own eyes, and perhaps those of others and/or a god?) with a brand-new set of 10 commandments: Thou shalt not eat meat or animal products, thou shalt not fly, thou shalt not use any mechanized transportation, thou shalt not have a child – that we then use to persecute any we perceive to be heretics with the zeal of the Spanish Inquisition."

    Whew! Katherine Hayhoe has blown a bit of a fuse here. Religion is actually a belief in god, while behavioural rules are just a way of bringing order to society. These are not the same thing at all. All we need to do is get the rules right. And we do need to remind each other of the rules,  as long as its not over zealous and guilt inducing, I agree with her about that.

    Unfortunately sensible climate rules have been highjacked to an extent by vegetarians, population control fanatics, extremists, simple living groups, and anti technology zealots. This is distracting from the core climate goals.

  25. takamura_senpai at 16:44 PM on 23 December 2019
    The high and low points for climate change in 2019

    " points for climate change in 2019" - CO2 emission rised on 2.5%

    Positive results of all this meetings and agreements = ZERO.
    Because humans are egoists.
    Kioto agreement ended CO2 emission rise. Paris - the same, emissions rised, rise and will rise.
    Europe can reduce CO2 emission as they want, but USA, China, other Asia, India, Africa burn commodities, which not used Europe. And, Europe diminish CO2 emition ONLY for economic reasons and corruption! You need dollars for buy. And Moscow want sell more natural gas, so just buy european politicians, for coal => natural gas. NO climat reasons at all!
    Main fighter with global warming is OPEC.
    NOW, i see the only possibility/chance to avoid catastrophic global warming in solar and wind energy, and storage.

  26. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #51

    OPOF: You will also want to read:

    We’re Getting a Clearer Picture of the Climate Future — and It’s Not as Bad as It Once Looked by David Wallace-Wells, Intelligencer, New York Magazine, Dec 20, 2019

  27. One Planet Only Forever at 12:16 PM on 23 December 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #51

    I appreciate Pete Ogden's optimism. The future of humanity benefits from, and requires, speedier corrections of harmful unsustainable developments. It will also benefit from speedier development of new and improved sustainable ways of living.

    I also understand his concerns. Undeserving powerful people have proven that they can drum up support to resist the expansion of awareness and improvement of understanding required to increase support for achieving the required changes.

    I hope that expanding awareness and improved understanding of climate science and the required corrections of what has developed will more rapidly overcome the efforts to discredit climate science, efforts to deny that the required corrections are required.

    Competitions for impressions of status clearly require governing. Increased freedom for people to believe whatever they want as the basis for doing whatever they develop a liking for has failed to produce the required sustainable developments in a timely manner. Even a focus on popularity and profit has failed to help. In fact, focusing on popularity and profit as measures of acceptability and success is undeniably a major part of the problem.

    Through the past decades many powerful people succeeded at profiting more than their competitors by getting away with more harmful and less sustainable ways of doing things. They resisted limiting the use of fossil fuels. They even tried to benefit by resisting the rate of transition to less harmful fossil fuels. And they still compete to win more by being the last wealthy people to be corrected. Many developing 'powerful people' have been learning that lesson.

    Getting the harmful reality of that lesson learned is clearly required. Achieving essential objectives like the Sustainable Development Goals will require governing and limiting of the competition. Regrettably, many people cannot be expected to responsibly and helpfully self-govern. It is hard to image that there is still any doubt about that. But misleading marketing by undeserving winners of status is undeniably powerful.

    Hopefully the motivated youth will grow in numbers and remain dedicated to pushing for the required corrections. It would be tragic to see the expanded awareness and improved understanding among the youth be over-powered by correction resistant temptations to become more selfish as they age (the Liberal when younger who becomes that type of Conservative as they age).

  28. Getting involved with Climate Science via crowdfunding and crowdsourcing

    Updatd the post to include David Borlace's "Have a Think" Patreon project.

  29. Holistic Management can reverse Climate Change

    Preliminary results from Dr David Johnson

    Development of soil microbial communities for promoting
    sustainability in agriculture and a global carbon fix

    and a better video lecture explaining a holistic mitigation strategy that includes this ecosystem service.

    Managing Soils for Soil Carbon Sequestration: Dr David Johnson on Engineering Microbiology

  30. Scientists plan year locked in ice to unlock Arctic climate change data

    The article Dr. Seismo mentions failed peer review so it's instead published  in Medium

    Peer review: "evaluation of scientific, academic, or professional work by others working in the same field."

    In other words, the paper is not sufficiently useful as an advancement of our understanding of global warming to merit publication, as assessed by people with expertise and ability to discern that.

    Please don't waste our time. 

  31. Scientists plan year locked in ice to unlock Arctic climate change data

    One isolated analysis does not define a trend. Global analyses show no threat of out-of-control global warming. 

    LINK

    Moderator Response:

    [TD] Off topic for this post. Find an appropriate post through the Search field at the top left of this page, or the View All Arguments link below that. And read this thorough debunking of the article you linked.

  32. There is no consensus

    PatrickSS - WRT those three you mentioned:

    Dyson is a brilliant physicist - but not a climate scientist. Lindzen, who has worked at the CATO Institute, is well known in the field for a series of papers claiming a strong negative feedback; he has never actually addressed actual (and numerous) criticisms of the first 'Iris effect' paper, simply repeating his claims over and over. In the last version I'm aware of he directly invoked 'cloud forcing', when clouds are, rather, a short lived (hours) feedback to temperature and humidity. And as for Happer (also not a climate scientist), he has been documented as writing climate science for pay, with fossil fuel money routed through nonprofit organizations for anonymity. Happer is more properly a lobbyist, not a researcher.

    You might want to look for better references.

  33. One Planet Only Forever at 02:13 AM on 21 December 2019
    It's the sun

    scaddenp,

    I share your skepticism regarding the motivations of PatrickSS.

    They do not appear to be interested in expanded awareness and improved understanding.

    Instead of starting with a detailed understanding of the subject, they appear to be seeking excuses to not expand their awareness or improve their understanding (though they sound interested by 'asking questions').

    As an example, in previous comments they present their summary understanding of presentations of understanding by "“consensus” climate scientists" (their term of reference) as "...sunlight comes in, heats the Earth, and the heat escapes from the Earth via IR. Increased CO2 absorbs and blocks more IR, so the Earth gets warmer." They then compare that with what they consider to be more believable presentations by Lindzen, Allen and Curry (they are more impressed by these people than they are by the "consensus" climate scientists that they present an extremely poor level of understanding of).

    In addition they appear to have summarized my previous comments to them regarding pursuit of expanded awareness and understanding of climate science matters as "... assertions that there is "masses of evidence" out there that shows that the Connollys are completely wrong and that I should go and look for it":

    "There is a massive diversity of evidence supporting the climate science consensus understanding that human activities, particularly fossil fuel use, are significantly impacting the global climate in ways that are detrimental to the future generations."

    "Seek out detailed explanations of the incorrect aspects of the claims made by Lindzen, Alley and Curry. There are many sources for the corrected expanded understanding (and a vast amount is available right here on the SkS site)."

    I believe you are correct to suspect that PatrickSS has not read, and is unlikely to read, any IPCC document. I would add that I suspect that PatrickSS filters information for its 'ability to impress them, suit their preferred beliefs'. My comments were an attempt to make them aware of that.

  34. SkS Analogy 21 - Snow on a Hot Tin Roof

    Darinscoop@2 The ice-Albedo feedback describes a spontaneous change in Albedo with time, whereas the heat-island effect describes a contrast of Albedo (i.e. cities have lower Albedo than surroundings areas), which does not spontaneously change with time, unless we deliberately cause a change through development or other urban planning.

  35. There is no consensus

    PatrickSS @868,

    My appologies for not spotting @856 your referencing of Question 12 in the Climate Science Survey which sets out the data used within Verheggen et al (2014). Your complain was that this Q12 was not featured within Verheggen et al (2014). Were the responses to Q12 as you set out up-thread @856 it may perhaps be considered an omission. You wrote:-

    Now we discover that only 33% of climate scientists are more than "somewhat concerned", and 8.5% are "not very concerned" or "not concerned at all".

    This is completely incorrect. The more than "somewhat concerned" figure (so "very concerned") is not 33% but 67%. More exactly, if the data for the "respondents with more than 10 climate-related peer-reviewed publications" reported by Verheggen et al is gleaned from Figure 12.2, it is 71% who are 'very concerned', 22% 'somewhat concerned' and just 7% who are less concerned than this. To me, here is a 93% concensus.

    Those who may be inclined to peel off the 22% 'somewhat concerned' from this concensus should consider how the question would be answered in 2012. "How concerned are you about climate change as a long-term global problem?" For a climatologist in 2012, a 'somewhat concerned' response could result from a belief that mitigation measures will arrive to to prevent AGW becoming a serious crisis for humanity, or that in the "long term" AGW is not a serious crisis because, whatever the damage through the next century, in the "long term" humanity will survive, the natural world will survive. We are not taking about a humanless or lifeless planet by the end of the millennium.

    The additional comment @868 that various swivel-eyed denialists would have been included in the headline 91% result of Verheggen et al (2014) is firstly incorrect as three of them are not qualified as authors and secondly, while Dickie Lindzen & Judy Curry sometimes try to argue that they would be part of such a consensus gathered from such surveys, their position is not entirely sincere and they surely could not honestly feature in the Q12 result.

  36. SkS Analogy 21 - Snow on a Hot Tin Roof

    Darin, the basically understood idea by the world Government departments is that, yes, the big ice block of the antipodes acts as the worlds airconditioner... and when it's hot we all know that we would prefer to be as close as possible- give or take a few hundred thousand miles lol! Merry Christmas Everyone.... 

  37. SkS Analogy 21 - Snow on a Hot Tin Roof

    Evan,  I enjoyed your use of a hot tin roof imagery to explain your thoughts about the urban heat-island effect.

    Anyhow, what answers can we speculate on as far as how the northern hemisphere, having a larger amount of heat absorbing land-mass, having faster melting occur today than the Antartic region?   Does the albeto feedback seem to hold its integrity by the presence of the giant continent of ice - to where the North Pole is nothing but ocean water?

  38. It's the sun

    This particular paper is execrable. You can look at takedown here but also note that Soon simply ignores any dataset that doesnt fit what his fossil fuel funding masters want. eg marine data (no urban heat sources there). Hard to believe this is still circulating in denier land.

    It seems you are frantically on a search for anything that might indicate a problem in the science, no matter what the cesspool. Good luck. Have you actually looked at IPCC WG1 summary of climate science instead?

  39. It's the sun

    Hi All

    I have some questions that I'm sure people here can help me with.

    I read a paper by Ronan Connoly and colleagues:

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825215300349

    Preprint:

    LINK

    They say that the temperature graph on this page above is wrong because it does not take urban heat islands into account.  They seem to show on graphs that rural temperatures are more or less flat since the 1950s.  They seem to have looked very carefully at the data, starting with Valencia in Ireland.  Are they wrong?

    Secondly, I heard a talk by Richard Alley on youtube.  He says that the ice ages were driven by 100,000, 41,000, 23,000 and 19,000-year Milankovitch cycles.  He shows a convincing Fourier transform.  If the sun can drive ice ages (approx 10C change), it should certainly be powerful enough to drive a temperature change of around 1C.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujkcTZZlikg

    There seem to be many different models for solar irradiation - see the Connolly article above.  Which one should we pick?  They pick one that almost exactly matches the temperature fluctuations that they report.  Are they wrong?

    Thx to all and I'd be very interested in comments and explanations (but not so interested in assertions that there is "masses of evidence" out there that shows that the Connollys are completely wrong and that I should go and look for it).

    Moderator Response:

    [DB]  Just because the climate changed naturally in the past does not mean that human activities are unable to change the climate today.  Logical fallacy snipped.

    Urban heat islands are dealt with here.  Put all questions and responses to them there, not here.

  40. There is no consensus

    Estoma I will check out the Iris Effect

    Rodger, did you read the summary of the raw data that I pointed you to?  Here's the link again:

    https://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/climate-science-survey-questions-and-responses

    What do you think of the responses to Q12?

    Isn't it very odd that Bart V and colleagues didn't mention Q12 in their paper?

    And do you realize that the "91%" quoted on this page includes Lindzen, Happer, Dyson, Curry and Ridley?

    Thx for all your responses.  I'm going to the "It's the sun" page.

  41. There is no consensus

    I don't make many posts but as far as my knowledge of Lindzen, he's always been a luke warmer who believes the doubling of CO2 will only produce a temperature rise of 1 degree celcius, ignoring any type of feedbacks. We've already risen 1 degree and we've increased CO2 less than 50% of a doubling.

    In addition, his Iris effect theory, that as temperature increases they'll be less moisture and fewer clouds that will cause more infrared radition to escape has been shown by several studies since then, to not be the case.

  42. There is no consensus

    PatrickSS @862,

    You present three names in response to my request @858 for the scientists you tell us "think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 1C," a position you appear to set as equal in importance to "those who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 3C." It's not much of a list. Do note that two of these are not climatologists and further, I do not see that any of them present substantive reasons to support their bold claims. This is evidently not two sets of scientists arguing. It is sadly science under attack from a handful of swivel-eyed lunatics.

    In support of my own rather bold statement, I would share with you my view of the one climatologist you name - the veteran climate denier Richard Lindzen. He has been at this game so long that he has lost entirely his grasp on the science he is supposed to be practising and now resorts to bare-faced-lies/deluded-foolishness [delete as applicable]. He has certainly ventured far beyond the science of climatology with his nonsense. See his 2017 version here and tick off the numerous examples of untruth he presents. (And to keep us on-topic, note his first attempt to refute AGW is "The 97 Percent Meme".)

    I note you cite Dickie Lindzen when you say "Increasing CO2 causes the IR to be emitted at slightly greater altitude. This warms the surface because the temperature at which the emission takes place is the same, so when the lower atmosphere is chaotically mixed the air reaching the surface is hotter (because it gets compressed as it comes down)." I am not sure where Lindzen explaining this mechanism but the way you phrase it is subject to vast misinterpretation.

    You add that Judy Curry has had difficulty getting published yet if she has anything worth publishing she only has to post it on her website to get it into the scientific/public domain. Yet there is complete absence of any substantive comtribution from Curry, an absence that speaks volumes.

    @862 you say you do not feel your "main argument" has not be "really engaged." You appear to be arguing that the scientific view of AGW is not truly reflected in the 97% consensus and specifically that Verheggen et al (2014) is 'obviously not' fairly summarised by the 91% value. I find this difficult to accept. Perhaps we are reading a different paper.

  43. COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid

    I do sympathise with the intent of Johnb, but even if climate change was renamed something like the "the  greenhouse effect" or "the increasing greenhouse effect" the denialists would just attack the greenhouse effect anyway. Plenty of junk science already does this. The list of most used climate myths has a couple of relevant items. 

  44. Underground temperatures control climate

    I just encountered a new one: 'cosmic rays are increasing due to decreased solar activity, and this is increasing tectonic activity and warming the earth from below

  45. One Planet Only Forever at 09:51 AM on 19 December 2019
    There is no consensus

    PartickSS @864,

    Expanded awareness and improved understanding are based on all available evidence, not bits of it.

    A person who makes a solid sounding science statement but then also makes an unscientific claim that is contrary to aspects of 'all of the available evidence (makes an illogical leap that is happily followed by someone who was impressed by the earlier Sciency Show and likes where the leap takes them thought-wise), is not helping to expand awareness and understanding. They are potentially corrupting efforts to expand awareness and improve understanding by the use of misleading marketing.

    Seek out detailed explanations of the incorrect aspects of the claims made by Lindzen, Alley and Curry. There are many sources for the corrected expanded understanding (and a vast amount is available right here on the SkS site).

    You should find many explanations that are 'even more compelling than the claim made that you liked', unless you choose not to become more aware (don't seek out the expanded awareness and improved understanding), or not want to develop improved understanding (do not wish to accept that fossil fuel burning has to be rapidly ended).

    That understanding should clarify my comment regarding Curry.

  46. There is no consensus

    DB, can't I say that it's incredibly unfortunate that climate science has become political?

    One Planet, when I listen to “consensus” climate scientists, they say that sunlight comes in, heats the Earth, and the heat escapes from the Earth via IR. Increased CO2 absorbs and blocks more IR, so the Earth gets warmer.

    When I listen to Richard Lindzen he says that CO2 and H2O already absorb all the IR emitted at the Earth's surface, and that the IR that escapes is actually emitted high in the atmosphere. Increasing CO2 causes the IR to be emitted at slightly greater altitude. This warms the surface because the temperature at which the emission takes place is the same, so when the lower atmosphere is chaotically mixed the air reaching the surface is hotter (because it gets compressed as it comes down).

    That seems to me to be "expanding awareness and improving understanding". He seems to be a good communicator and a good scientist. It seems unlikely that he invented the whole thing.

    Then I watched Richard Alley on youtube. He is a very good communicator, and at first I found his argument very convincing. He said that the ice ages were driven by cycles of the sun at 100,000, 41,000, 23,000 and (I think it was) 19,000 years. Then he said that the sun cycles (periodically) released CO2, and the CO2 drove temperature. So we have sun -> CO2 -> temp. But the sun can only act through temperature. So we have sun -> temp -> CO2 -> temp. Suddenly it seems much less plausible. What's wrong with sun drives temperature?

    One Planet, I don't get your point about Curry's reviewer. Surely we can agree that his or her comment was extraordinary, and showed dishonest thinking? Curry's other reviewers may have been good and rational, but one at least was not. Of course she could have made that comment up – but I have no reason to believe that. It seems more likely that she is sincere because she has put her career on the line.


    None of this means that the “consensus view” is wrong. But it makes it very difficult to know who we should listen to.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Moderation complaints snipped.

  47. Philippe Chantreau at 03:25 AM on 19 December 2019
    COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid

    Johnb,

    "different things" does not necessarily mean "independent." See above.

  48. One Planet Only Forever at 02:44 AM on 19 December 2019
    COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid

    A clarification of my comment @5,

    Talking about 'Human impacts on The Greenhouse Effect' is actually impossible because the Greenhouse Effect is an aspect of physical reality that humans cannot alter.

    All that humans can do regarding the Greenhouse Effect is try to determine a fair comparison of the way to count the climate change impacts of a unit of one ghg vs. another.

    An example is the scientific efforts to establish the proper understanding for the political arguments about how much global warming and climate change impacts a tonne of methane released due to human activity (including farming and livestock activity, and including feedbacks of human caused warming like melting permafrost) should be assigned compared to a tonne of CO2 released due to human activity.

  49. COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid

    From SkS's handy-dandy Climate Glossary:

    Climate change

    Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. Note that the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, defines climate change as: ‘a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods’. The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability attributable to natural causes. See also Climate variability; Detection and Attribution.

    Definition courtesy of IPCC AR4.

  50. COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid

    From SkS's handy-dandy Climate Glossary:  

    Greenhouse Effect

    Greenhouse gases effectively absorb thermal infrared radiation, emitted by the Earth’s surface, by the atmosphere itself due to the same gases, and by clouds. Atmospheric radiation is emitted to all sides, including downward to the Earth’s surface. Thus, greenhouse gases trap heat within the surface-troposphere system. This is called the greenhouse effect. Thermal infrared radiation in the troposphere is strongly coupled to the temperature of the atmosphere at the altitude at which it is emitted. In the troposphere, the temperature generally decreases with height. Effectively, infrared radiation emitted to space originates from an altitude with a temperature of, on average, –19°C, in balance with the net incoming solar radiation, whereas the Earth’s surface is kept at a much higher temperature of, on average, +14°C. An increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases leads to an increased infrared opacity of the atmosphere, and therefore to an effective radiation into space from a higher altitude at a lower temperature. This causes a radiative forcing that leads to an enhancement of the greenhouse effect, the so-called enhanced greenhouse effect.

    Definition courtesy of IPCC AR4.

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