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Doug Bostrom at 06:45 AM on 20 October 2019Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?
I'll just offer that watching Fawlty Towers was not only squeamishly amusing but also informative for me in terms of identifying my own Basil characteristics. Indirection is sometimes quite helpful.
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Doug Bostrom at 06:41 AM on 20 October 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019
I'm not sure I understand how publishing regional model projections is "to move into the social sciences," Mark.
More it's the case that these projections most immediately affect decisions to be made around civil engineering and agronomy, as is visible in other papers we list. Social sciences come in as a knock-on effect of that. So, it seems climate scientists (those in the domain of physics) are a few steps removed from the sausage factory driven by their findings.
As to whether projections are off the mark, I'm not remotely qualified to say. Few of us are, with those few suited for a productive role in critique found in the role of reviewing papers for publications.
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nigelj at 06:14 AM on 20 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
One Planet Only Forever @11, the problem with penalties and fines for C02 emissions is it would presumably require penalising various corporations who produce emissions and this will be a very hard sell politically because there will be huge corporate push back against parties trying to do this. Likewise for consistency I think you would have to penalise or fine ordinary people for their high carbon footprints, which would probably get huge political resistance.
I promise you any Party suggesting the idea of penalties or fines idea would plummet to near zero in the political polls, so such policies dont have much chance of being enacted into legislation or would just be cancelled by the next party elected. People have a huge psychological aversion to the ideas of fines or penalties.
I'm not saying the idea is philosophically wrong, just that its doesn't appear to be remotely viable in the real world. Carbon tax schemes or cap and trade look more poltically viable, and several countries have these. They help modify behaviour. Economics 101. They also have an element of pernalty in them, but its not so "in your face".
Of course we can penalise bad behaviour in other ways that are indirect. Shaming people and corporations, not voting for them, ostracising them, not using their products and services, etcetera.
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markpittsusa at 05:34 AM on 20 October 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019
The problem that I see is that when climate scientists move into the social sciences (economics, public health, etc.) their analysis is often very weak. So when they say "these things [actual effects on human beings] will happen" in your city/county/state, they are frequently going to be way off the mark. And of course those errors become valuable ammunition for deniers.
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markpittsusa at 03:39 AM on 20 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
nigelj & Wol - The problem in my opinion is that there is plenty of "willful ignorance" on both sides: On the one hand there is denial. On the other hand, extreme (i.e., scientically refuted) exaggeration.
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markpittsusa at 02:53 AM on 20 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
One Planet - Who gets to decide what is "misleading information?" (Give me that job, and I can rule the world.)
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:11 AM on 20 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
nigelj and mike,
The first step in efforts to correct activity that is discovered to create negative impacts or risk of negative impacts is improved awareness and understanding that it needs to be changed or stopped.
If that fails to achieve the required correction, the next step is making it harder to get away with the unsustainable harmful behaviour (even if people claim that good things are being done because of the unsustainable harmful activity, none of that Good is sustainable)
If that step fails then penalties or fines are required.
And what really needs to be penalized is people who continue to try to spread and popularize misleading information that compromises the efforts to achieve the results through the 'First Step'.
We reached the stage of requiring penalties for bad climate action behaviour a couple of decades ago.
It appears that the winners and leaders will need to be penalized to get the required corrections, and maybe penalized for past actions). The longer that people can excuse bad behaviour by complaining that penalties are not helpful or are not justified the worse things will become.
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nigelj at 10:47 AM on 19 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
WOL, some of the answer might be found here: wilful ignorance.
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Wol at 09:02 AM on 19 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
Can anyone explain to me how denialists can, without apparent irony, state that no-one can know weather and climate data prior to around the late 1800s yet state with utter certainty how the MWP, various ices ages and the like were, hundreds to millions of years ago.
All of which data came from the same institutions and scientists!
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nigelj at 08:53 AM on 19 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
markpittsusa @6, your fossil fuels versus car accidents analogy is menaingless because it compares oranges and apples Cars are not a problem, provided they are driven correctly and if not that is the drivers fault. Fossil fuel production is a problem because it is causing climate change, reflecting on both producers and consumers. But the way out is things like carbon taxes, or possibly cap and trade, or a "GND" those sorts of initiatives.
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nigelj at 08:46 AM on 19 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
markpittsusa @6
Before we talk about solutions we have to identify who is doing the wrong thing, in order to figure out what the best solution is. In the climate issue this includes both corporations and individuals so its messy. I agree to the extent that an accusatory stance is not helpful eg: "You climate villain need to be cast into the eternal fire". But its hard to escape the fact that corporations and people are to "blame".
"If a handful of corporations are responsible for most global warming, then a handful of auto makers are responsible for tens of thousands of highway deaths. (So lets make the auto makers should pay.)"
I have never suggested corporations should pay some form of damages for climate negligence. This is obviously not the right way to approach things, although I wont be standing in the way of anyone who tries it out.
But corporations all have a responsibility to reduce their carbon footprint. A carbon tax would help push them and consumers to reduce emissions according to the IMF. The IMF seem to think its very practical. Did you read the link?
And you still haven't answered my question. What would you suggest be done?
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markpittsusa at 07:23 AM on 19 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
nigelj. I appreciate your perspective, but I can't see how your comments negate my point. Aren't we are looking for solutions rather than looking for whom to blame?
Besides the practical problem of trying to make corporations pay, there is a logical problem as well: If a handful of corporations are responsible for most global warming, then a handful of auto makers are responsible for tens of thousands of highway deaths. (So lets make the auto makers should pay.)
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nigelj at 07:13 AM on 19 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
markpittsusa @4 , heavens above, we should never blame either corporations or ordinary people for this climate mess. Instead we should tell them what they are doing is fine. Give everybody a green light to continue the same behaviour. (sarc)
What is your solution? Hold hands and sing Kumbya? Is it "more research is needed?" Statements that technology is the answer, ie stating the obvious? Begging corporations to do better? Just what is it?
This problem clearly can't be solved purely by individual initiative, because that clearly isn't working. The solutions might be uncomfortable for some, but will require something like a carbon tax and dividend scheme. Even the IMF is on board with that.
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markpittsusa at 05:53 AM on 19 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
As a practical matter, bashing and blaming the corporations will never work. That's because corporations are overwhelmingly owned by ordinary people. Roughly speaking, 50% of the US stock market is in pension funds and retirement accounts. Roughly another 25% in individual accounts. And the remainder is in "other accounts," a very large part of which is "sovereign wealth funds," i.e., government owned funds that belong to all the citizens of the country.
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markpittsusa at 05:44 AM on 19 October 2019Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?
Scaddenp. Thanks. Exactly what I was looking for.
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Joe Wiseman at 23:21 PM on 18 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
Now we need our elected "leaders" to start using the portal instead of catering to the corporate agendas of greed and influence.
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nigelj at 18:03 PM on 18 October 2019Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?
I find the video a bit short of detail and long on promoting Climate Adam. Perhaps it's because in getting old and grumpy. Perhaps the video targets young people quite well. But it's probably not going to be a hit with conservative leaning denialists.
But one way or the other, whats really needed is a more in depth discussion on tipping points because most people will want a couple of examples and an explanation. Scaddenps references look good and are valuable, but are the other extreme and very technical.
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scaddenp at 12:13 PM on 18 October 2019Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?
Matt, try this reference for a starting point (2636 citations) and the follow up reference. I am not that fond of the term "tipping point". This article points to what I think are problematic issues with its use.
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nigelj at 12:04 PM on 18 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
"Are Blacklock's Reporter et al. honestly confused about the difference between weather and climate, and the complexities of climate computer modelling, or are they just trying to use that complexity to confuse their readers?"
Probably the later. These people obviously aren't morons, in the main. We are talking about deliberate ignorance. When your income or ideology depends on not knowing, you will sometimes not want to know. The trouble is the deliberate ignorance mindset eventually becomes real ignorance, and maybe kills brain cells!
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markpittsusa at 08:37 AM on 18 October 2019Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?
Doug - Thanks that makes a lot of sense. By the way, my own opinion is that tipping points are the "real" issue. Could you (or other readers), provide any references on this topic?
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Wol at 08:33 AM on 18 October 2019Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?
Sorry, but I couldn't watch beyond the 50 second point
This infantile approach turns me off in a big way - just as does the disruption to peoples' lives that E. Rebellion is causing.
Small children might be briefly entertained by this video, but treating adults who might be persuaded of the cause like infants is counterproductive.
Those "funny" preflight videos do the same thing - they MIGHT (not, actually, in my case) have people watch them but the message is lost in the flimflam.
The stark message "If you inflate your lifejacket BEFORE exiting the aircraft, you will not be able to get to the exit and you WILL drown" may not make for pleasant listening, but has a better chance of being understood than just sitting there wondering how much the airline paid for the actors and bands.
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Doug Bostrom at 07:43 AM on 18 October 2019Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?
OK that's an arguably fair point, Mark.
Adam mentions permafrost loss and hence CH4 emissions, loss of albedo from reduced ice cover, and loss of forest productivity and the CO2 capture associated with that.
Those are three positive feedbacks which (we're told by experts) may plausibly end up being self-driving and self-cementing.
Now, it's not Adam's intention or style to inform readers by reciting facts and figures; those are available elsewhere. His intention and style is to build audience engagement, clearly with the objective of conveying a very broad-brush sense of the topics he's covering and presumably igniting some curiosity and concern about the overall problem of climate change.
But Adam might well include a list of references for the concepts he treats, as part of the content at the end of his pieces.
Why not write him and suggest that?
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markpittsusa at 07:28 AM on 18 October 2019Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?
Excuse me, comment was meant for bozzz.
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markpittsusa at 07:27 AM on 18 October 2019Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?
Doug - Thanks for your reply, but I don't understand your comment.
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bozzza at 07:23 AM on 18 October 2019Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?
Mark, a system always wins. Now, what were you saying about science again?
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markpittsusa at 07:15 AM on 18 October 2019Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?
Doug - Sorry but I didn't notice any "facts being conveyed."
Facts include discussions about probabilities, discontinuities, historical precedents, and generally, what scientists have to say about tipping points.
Endless discussions about what "could" happen are useless. We "could" all die from a meteor collision and not have to worry about climate change.
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bozzza at 07:15 AM on 18 October 2019Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake
Fake news isn't new: capitalism essentially runs on it yet the higher ideal still seems to triumph!
The laws we live our lives by allow fake news by making public companies prioritise the shareholder.... It has been said that the first line of defence is a moral law: so, after all that being said, "Houston, do we or do we not have a problem?"
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markpittsusa at 07:08 AM on 18 October 2019Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?
Is this what skepticalscience.com calls “science?” (No wonder there are so many science deniers - in fact, sign me up.)
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Doug Bostrom at 07:07 AM on 18 October 2019Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?
Strip away the humor and it's a training film, Mark. We need training to deal with an emerging situation. And without that humor we find no problem with the facts being conveyed, right?
Search Youtube for "humorous training film" and you'll find scads. Humor captures and maintains attention for many folks, making things that are dull or too scary palatable.
For an excellent and fun example, see this article about Southwest Airlines and how they use humor to make cabin briefings into engaging entertaiment while conveying important information— hence being more effective. :-)
Southwest’s plan to conquer the airline industry, one joke at a time
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bozzza at 06:59 AM on 18 October 2019Video: Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2019
Snoopy, have you got a reference for your allegation?
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bozzza at 06:58 AM on 18 October 2019Video: Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2019
According to Danas latest article the ice loss in Antarctica has trebled over the last decade...
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bozzza at 06:21 AM on 18 October 2019Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Vacnol: volcanoes are like pimples: irrelevant...and that is exactly how the scientists in this field view the matter !
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nigelj at 05:57 AM on 18 October 2019Brief overview of new IPCC report on oceans and ice risks
The Resplandy paper was found to have some statistical errors and was retracted, to be revised and republished in another journal (I'm not sure if that's happened). The authors talk about it all here. However the errors don't invalidate the warming found, just that the level of uncertainty is higher than they first thought. A storm in a tea cup by the denialists.
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Eclectic at 05:35 AM on 18 October 2019Brief overview of new IPCC report on oceans and ice risks
Robincollins @5 ,
as far as I can make out, there's no real controversy.
There was a "Resplandy" scientific paper [Resplandy L.] published 11 months ago, about overall ocean warming. The paper showed a novel & clever method of assessing ocean changes via oxygen/CO2 alterations. Almost immediately, it was heavily criticized mathematically by statistician Nic Lewis ~ who pointed out that the warming conclusions were based on statistical figures which were much too fuzzy to be acceptably useful. The paper's authors acknowledged that criticism . . . and in the slow passage of time, the paper eventually got retracted officially . . . just now in late 2019.
Possibly, Resplandy & co-authors might be able to re-do their study using more data ~ but it may be that their new "alternative approach" (which I applaud as novel & clever) is unlikely to be as accurate as the conventional buoy-based thermometers. Thermometers which demonstrate the ongoing warming of the ocean.
As usual, the propaganda from GWPF, WUWT, etcetera, is trying to give the impression (by blaring headlines) that there is a new problem. But if you look deeper than the headlines of contrarian blogs, then you find that the mountain shrivels to a molehill.
A second minor point, was that a recent IPCC assessment had used (or at least cited) the discredited Resplandy paper as a source (alongside a hundred separate papers used). AFAIK at first glance, this was a typo by the IPCC ~ and referred to the wrong Resplandy paper (it should have been a different Resplandy paper). Either way, the IPCC's assessment still stands.
Again, that seems to be a giant beat-up by the "denialists". Who keep trying to turn a blind eye to the overall evidence.
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robincollins at 02:00 AM on 18 October 2019Brief overview of new IPCC report on oceans and ice risks
Hi, I wonder if someone can comment on the controversy over the retracted report and the "Cheng Perspective" on oceans warming. See, for instance: https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2019/10/14/retracted-ocean-warming-paper-the-ipcc/
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hedron at 03:32 AM on 17 October 2019Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
I wouldn't call it ambiguous. I'd call it lying. It's still not explained why a self-descibed scientific publication would knowingly publish a falsehood. It seems to me, given the deflection tactics used to rebut my observation, that it was intended to deceive, which is the literal definition of a lie.
Moderator Response:[DB] You are welcome to your opinions. When those opinions extend to personal attacks/ad hominems, they are unwelcome here (review the Comments Policy for details). If you are of the opinion that a particular article or point within an article is erroneous, the burden of proof is incumbent on you to cite credible sources as to why the particular points are wrong and what a more accurate text would look like.
Sloganeering/personal attacks snipped.
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Eclectic at 21:29 PM on 16 October 2019Video: Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2019
Sorry ~ my apologies to Snoopy, but I misquoted Rignot et al.
The Antarctic ice loss is more than ten times bigger than I said.
( 2009--2017 ice loss is about 250 cubic kilometers per year. )
I was looking at the Antarctic ice loss acceleration rate !
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MA Rodger at 21:27 PM on 16 October 2019How the Greenland ice sheet fared in 2019
Sequoia512 @8,
I think your numbers are a little out.
Over the last couple of decades, Greenland has been indeed losing somewhere in the order of a billion tonnes of ice a day but that is a net figure. The gross figure for ice loss (ie ignoring the gain from snowfall) is about five-times higher.
Your 100,000 years to melt half of the Greenland ice sheet at a rate of 1Gt/day would put the size of the ice sheet at 73,000,000 Gt. The ice sheet is considerably smaller at 2,850,000 Gt.
You ask why the Eemian was so hot? There is an SkS post addrssing that very subject here. The peak of the Eemian is reckoned to have had a "global mean annual surface temperatures ... warmer than pre-industrial by about 1° to 2°C." So today's global temperatures are not greatly different, and of course we are still warming. The last ice age did follow from the Eemian interglacial but that did require high-latitude Northern temperatures to drop from the peak Eemian, while we are going the other way so not any chance of an ice age arriving wiht AGW running as it does.
The thorium reactors are an interesting concept. Yet, while there are many projects around the world investigating the technology (including the Norwegian Thor project you mention), it has severe technological hurdles to clear. Note the link on that Thor webpage that says:-
Put simply, thorium-based reactors are still not economically viable for the most part. ... The result is, that at least for now, thorium reactors are unlikely to gain the upper hand over uranium oxide reactors. It’s possible that thorium reactors could become more dominant in the future, but a lot of work will have to be done to get to that point.
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Eclectic at 20:52 PM on 16 October 2019Video: Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2019
Snoopy @2 ,
Antarctic ice loss has averaged about 13 cubic kilometers per year since 2001 , but has accelerated in the past 10 years. (Still quite small ~ under 10% of the ice loss from Greenland.)
Source: Rignot et al., 2019 (Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences)
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Snoopy at 20:03 PM on 16 October 2019Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
I am not a scientist but would somebody explain to me how a gas that consists of 400 parts per million is going to heat the other 9600 parts per million in any significant way and why would one of the other green house gases water vapor not have a much greater effect.
Moderator Response:[TD] See "How substances in trace amounts an cause large effects."
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Snoopy at 19:59 PM on 16 October 2019Video: Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2019
And why dont you tell us what is happening in the Antarctic where the Ice is increasing
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Sequoia512 at 15:48 PM on 16 October 2019How the Greenland ice sheet fared in 2019
Nobody denies that the temperatures have increased since the Little Ice Age, thank god. However I feel you are a little overboard. Even if the Greenland ice sheet lost 1 billion tons a day everyday. Then never got snow again it would take over 100000 years to melt half the sheet. we will be back in full glaciation long before then. It was much warmer in the Emian interglacial and glaciation returned. Which brings up a point why was the Emian so hot?
Want to get climate change under control look to Thor. It is a Thorium test reactor in Norway. It uses thorium. Mox pellet rods in a conventional light water reactor. They are working on using depleted uranium as the neutron source to make Thorium fizz. This would use up most of our nuclear waste within 100 years. Quit killing birds with windmills. Also solar panels are highly toxic to decommission.
Moderator Response:[TD] See "What does past climate change tell us about global warming?"
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nigelj at 11:27 AM on 16 October 2019Brief overview of new IPCC report on oceans and ice risks
"Misleading title, there is nothing skeptical here with all that about carbon dioxide levels causing climate change."
Read the full title.
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Daniel Bailey at 09:26 AM on 16 October 2019Brief overview of new IPCC report on oceans and ice risks
"there is nothing skeptical here with all that about carbon dioxide levels causing climate change"
That the climate changed naturally before the impacts of humans became the dominant forcing of climate is uncontentious.
That the impacts of human activities are now the dominant forcing of climate is equally uncontentious, from a scientific basis.
Scientists (the actual skeptics) have evaluated all natural forcings and factors capable of driving the Earth's climate to change, including the slow, long-term changes in the Earth’s movement around the Sun (Milankovitch cycles or orbital forcings), and it is only when the anthropogenic forcing is included that the observed and ongoing warming since 1750 can be explained.
Natural vs Anthropogenic Climate Forcings, per the NCA4, Volume 2, in 2018:
Scientists have also quantified the warming caused by human activities since preindustrial times and compared that to natural temperature forcings.
Changes in the sun's output falling on the Earth from 1750-2011 are about 0.05 Watts/meter squared.
By comparison, human activities from 1750-2011 warm the Earth by about 2.83 Watts/meter squared (AR5, WG1, Chapter 8, section 8.3.2, p. 676).
What this means is that the warming driven by the GHGs coming from the human burning of fossil fuels since 1750 is over 50 times greater than the slight extra warming coming from the Sun itself over that same time interval.
In the early 20th century human activities caused about one-third of the observed warming and most of the rest was due to low volcanic activity. Since about 1950 it's all humans and their activities.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0555.1
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.522Further, the detection of the human fingerprint in the observed tropospheric warming caused by the increase in atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases like CO2 has reached 6-sigma levels of accuracy.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0424-x
There have been many, many scientific studies over the past 175 years examining the properties of greenhouse gases, the radiative physics of carbon dioxide and the role it plays in the Earth’s atmosphere. One of the most comprehensive, recent and openly-accessible is the US 4th National Climate Assessment (Volume 1, released in 2017 and Volume 2, released in 2018). You can download the whole thing or by chapter:
https://science2017.globalchange.gov/
https://science2017.globalchange.gov/downloads/https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/downloads/FAQ’s:
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/appendix-5/#section-1In short, human activities (primarily via the human burning of fossil fuels) have warmed the globe, which in turn are impacting the Earth’s climate.
Please demonstrate actual skepticism by reading the furnished sources before replying. -
cobrwst12 at 08:47 AM on 16 October 2019Brief overview of new IPCC report on oceans and ice risks
As this is your first post, Skeptical Science respectfully reminds you to please follow our comments policy. Thank You!
Misleading title, there is nothing skeptical here with all that about carbon dioxide levels causing climate change.
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william5331 at 05:16 AM on 16 October 2019Brief overview of new IPCC report on oceans and ice risks
Although a little harder to understand, perhaps we should be reporting the decreased alkalinity in sea water rather than the change of pH.
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ilfark2 at 01:47 AM on 16 October 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #40, 2019
At this point we don't know how much time we have before the climate disrupts the weather system to the point of crop then societal then general collapse. Some of this year’s weather suggests it could happen sooner than later.
The fastest way to re-organize societies would likely be WWII fashion mobilizations... hopefully done in a democratic (certainly more democratic than WWII were done) way.
Likely the most important part of such an effort would be to identify what is materially needed (I'd argue food, shelter, healthcare, education, community), and how to ensure everyone gets this using the least number of joules possible.
Yes this implies, especially in the USA, ceasing useless activities like moving millions of 2 — 6 ton pieces of steel on particle producing synthetic rubber in a circle everyday. If people insist on continuing their materially needless Financisphere activities, at least do them via computer and convert all those offices to housing.
Even keeping a market system, we could arrange for walking cities, more efficient buildings, cradle to grave products (make planned obsolescence illegal)… of course this would likely require banning corporations (as other societies have done in the past) and/or making a very strong referee.Easier, convert to a rational society whose goal (Graeber’s idea) is to make good people. i.e., the sort of people you’d like you and yours to be. That leads to a society that produces food, shelter, healthcare, education and community. Considering our current production capabilities, we’d end up with lots of people staying in school, doing research and having a very short occupation week. Real life examples are Mondragon, Catalonia of the 1930s, Zapatistas, Rojava (not for much longer though) and many worker owned and operated production communities throughout the world.
Either way, keeping a market system or transitioning to a rational society, discount rates wouldn’t come into it.
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Why the 97% climate consensus is important
Jay1988 - One of the major delaying tactic of the tobacco industry, copied by lobbyists for fossil fuel interests (in many cases the very same people and lobbying groups moving to the next customer) is manufactured dissent, claiming that because of varying scientific opinions (usually by quoting a very small number of dubious papers) that 'sound science' requires yet more study, and yet more study, not action.
The studies on the scientific consensus are simply an answer to that false claim and delaying tactic - showing that the vast majority of scientists who can be expected to know the subject conclude that AGW is happening, and has impacts. And since one of the most successful strategies for the non-specialist is to look at the conclusions of the experts, that has a significant impact on public opinion and policy.
For that very reason the climate denialists get very very upset by proven consensus. And spin all kinds of bovine excrement in attempts to cloud and confuse the issue...
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RedBaron at 21:57 PM on 15 October 2019Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Hedron,
I wouldn't call it false. I would call it ambiguous.
We are adding to the short carbon cycle with fossil fuels and habitat biomass losses. We have also reduced the capacity for natural biological systems to mitigate CO2 levels by those same habitat losses with their resulting loss of ecosystem function.
Yes there are some humans striving to do the opposite, but as noted above, in most countries that % is a very tiny decidedly inconsequential minority.
We could change that. I am an advocate that we change that. Humans are just as capable of habitat restoration as they are for habitat degradation. Farming in particular does indeed have methods for every crop and food type that can sequester massive carbon in the soils of the world.[1]
But the approximately <3% doing that sort of farming right now isn't enough to matter. It's like the exception that proves the rule right now.
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Cedders at 18:28 PM on 15 October 2019Antarctica is gaining ice
Comment 475 and its references are very helpful. Comment 452 is undoubtedly spam!
Zwally (2015) is still doing the rounds on social media, although there seems to have been much research reconciling it since. I also found the Scambos & Shuman comment, Martin‐Español et al (2017) (press release here), IMBIE (2018) highlighting the possible range of East Antarctica loss or gain, and then a couple for 2019 not directly linked in these comments so far:
- Shepherd, Gilbert, Muir, Konrad, McMillan, Slater, Briggs, Sundal, Hogg, Engdahl: Trends in Antarctic Ice Sheet Elevation and Mass, Geophysical Research Letters, 2019, DOI: 10.1029/2019GL082182
- data and animation here
- Eurekalert press
- Rignot, Mouginot, Scheuchl, van den Broeke, van Wessem, Morlighem: Four decades of Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance from 1979–2017, PNAS 2019 116 (4) 1095-1103. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1812883116
The Scientific American article "What to Believe in Antarctica’s Great Ice Debate" by Shannon Hall says 'Most scientists agree that East Antarctica—unlike its western counterpart—is gaining mass in the form of snowfall or ice'. I notice that Shepherd et al agrees with that (East Antarctica subtracting 1.1 ± 0.4mm sea level rise since 1992), but Rignot at al says E Antarctica has contributed 4.4 ± 0.9 mm in the same period. All the above agree that Antarctica as a whole is losing mass (mostly from glacier flow into the sea), but one study says three times more than the other.
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