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One Planet Only Forever at 08:04 AM on 11 September 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36
prove we are smart@4,
A good explanation of a significant part of the problem of the 'stories that get told and incorrectly become popularly believed' is provided by Edward S. Herman's Propaganda Model presented in the 1987 book "Manufacturing Consent" (written with input from Noam Chomsky), and reviewed and updated in the 2019 book "Propaganda in the Information Age" by Alan MacLeod.
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JWRebel at 06:59 AM on 11 September 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #36, 2019
We cannot quantify the effects of climate change and all possible feedback loops and tipping points to unstable chaotic systems. The correct analogy (as the author points out) is not a discount rate that quantifies the damage, but an insurance policy, like fire insurance. You don't invest in insurance to discount the damage, you do it to mitigate and hedge the risk. That's why with airplanes and nuclear plants, you go for 100% safety — you don't discount the likely damages. Think Boeing 737.
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Jesse Baker at 04:10 AM on 11 September 2019SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth
SkS’s ditty on Milankovitch cycles is better than most at explaining the mechanics involved given the difficult subject, yet I did notice a possible rough spot there: the Earth’s orbital plane, or ecliptic (Fig. 5 on that page). Shouldn’t this remain nearly fixed in space over as short a time as 41000 years, so that changes in its orientation can be ignored when discussing changes in the obliquity of Earth’s axis? The Earth possesses much more angular momentum about the sun in its orbit than it does about its axis in rotating daily, and any out-of-plane component of Jupiter’s torques on Earth (measured with sun at pivot point) should be quite small because Jupiter’s always close to the ecliptic and pulling on us from a direction nearly in-plane.
My suspicion is reinforced by Figs. 4 and 5 in Souami & Souchay below, who show that the inclination and North node of the solar system’s invariable plane, with respect to the International Celestial Reference Frame (based on the stars), vary by a mere ~0.01 arcsecond over 6000 years, a time lapse comparable to that of the nodding obliquity cycle, yet an amplitude quite tiny compared to 2½˚, the arc through which the axial obliquity swings. Therefore, it shouldn’t matter in Fig. 5 of SkS’s Milankovitch page, and if so, then SkS can omit the diagram altogether. (The other orbital oscillations discussed on the page, advance of apsides and change of eccentricity, remain the same as before since they’re confined to the ecliptic itself.)
As I lack a degree in this stuff, you may wish to run it by someone in the field who contributes to your site.
Souami & Souchay (2012), “The solar system’s invariable plane,” Astronomy & Astrophysics 543
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201219011 -
MA Rodger at 21:40 PM on 10 September 2019They changed the name from 'global warming' to 'climate change'
Yaeger @36,
If it is the Google Books Ngram Viewer graphs (as per the 3rd grahic in the OP), the link here (also linked within #34) takes you there. Enter the variables you desire and voilà.
If it is the Google Scholar data (as per the 4th graphic in the OP), it isn't clear to me how exactly that graphic was created but if you search Google Scholar for a particular term and a particular period, it does return how many 'results' it found, although I wouldn't be sure how accurate or reliable that 'returns' value is. (I see GWPF blogs listed which are not scientific documents and are dated as 1912 instead of 2012.) Yet it does support 'Global Warming' being a less used phrase than 'Climate Change' in scientific articles although the "the term 'climate change' was in use before the term 'global warming'" assertion in the OP isn't as strongly evident as that graph suggests.
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prove we are smart at 20:02 PM on 10 September 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36
One Planet Only Forever , @3
It seems to me there are many issues that are being falsely misrepresented. At least two are the looming debt crises in America ( and worldwide ? ) , and the much more worrisome climate change. We all can be a role model for thoughtful discussion. " Ordinary people" believing their biased media reports, need to become aware of other sources of information , i'm sometimes worried, under some phoney excuse our govts may even control the internet news..afterall , our thoughts on issues are controlled by what we have read/seen. When the powerful control most media, education is the best defence to stop it /getting worse..Maybe its really our flawed and lazy human faults ?, because with just a little effort, you can find most viewpoints on many subjects.
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Doug Bostrom at 12:33 PM on 10 September 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2019
Wili: yeah, I get it. :-)
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Yaeger at 12:09 PM on 10 September 2019They changed the name from 'global warming' to 'climate change'
Hi,
How did you obtain the graphic comparing climate change and global warming in Google Scholar? I could not replicate it and it has no source so I can't really use it in arguments I have been having on this specific point.
Thanks.
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Key facts about the new EPA plan to reverse the Obama-era methane leaks rule
Thanks for the article, Dana. I would like to add that scientists have never put much stake into the EPA emissions inventory. EPA's methodology uses input data from the 80s and early 90s, which are hardly representative any more. I think the EDF tried to get the EPA to update this, but that went nowhere in the new admin since 2017.
A classic paper from 2003 in PNAS carefully summarized:
"This result [of high methane emisisons] suggests that total U.S. natural gas emissions may have been underestimated."
In addition to the two papers you cited, there are several others making this point; e.g. this paper using ethane and propane data, or this paper estimating national methane emissions (2.3x EPA estimates), or this paper demonstrating global ethane on the rise downwind of North America.
So for Administrator Wheeler to say that methane emissions are dropping, citing the EPA database as evidence, is boldly ignorant in the face of the science, the thing that is supposed to inform decision making at EPA.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:48 AM on 10 September 2019Sea level rise is exaggerated
Very nice Daniel, thanks for doing that research legwork.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:46 AM on 10 September 2019Skeptical Science takes the Pro-Truth-Pledge
IdPnSD,
I am not quite convinced by your argument. Some of it is confusing: "Somebody killed somebody – is always a fact, because somebody observed it." Does that allude to the act being witnessed by another party than the 2 participants? If yes, it is false, the act does not require a witness to be real, and the participants are witnesses themselves. Furthermore, it implies that events that do not have witnesses are not real, which is nonsense.
You may not always see a demonstration of every truth. It took the immense power of the LHC to "see" the Higgs Boson, there may never be any experimental setup able to show superstrings.
Who cares what Ayn Rand said?
The internet does not have all the truths because no source is entirely exhaustive and even if it was, that could be the case only for a fleeting moment in time.
That being said, there is indeed a lot of information to be had on the internet, some of it useless, much of it valuable. The problem is a severe lack of critical thinking in the general population and an emotional attachement to ideology that effectively disables judgment. Seeking truth carefully implies that one must be ready to accept being wrong, or seeing their prefered ideology whoefully inadequate. It also requires to accept that certainty is nowhere to be had, only varying levels of probability, and constant revision as knowledge is refined.
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Daniel Bailey at 00:43 AM on 10 September 2019Sea level rise is exaggerated
As MA sagely notes, Chen 2014 is dated and newer studies with later data show an acceleration in SLR and with the mass component also increasing.
Per Yi et al 2017 - Acceleration in the Global Mean Sea Level Rise: 2005–2015:
"Global mean sea level rise has been accelerating for more than 100 years, and the acceleration in the last two decades seems to further increase"
And
"Our results show that the acceleration during the last decade (0.27 ± 0.17 mm/yr2 ) is about 3 times faster than its value during 1993–2014. The acceleration comes from three factors, that is, 0.04 ± 0.01 mm/yr2 (~15%) by land ice melting, 0.12 ± 0.06 mm/yr2 (~44%) by thermal expansion of the seawater, and 0.11 ± 0.02 mm/yr2 (~41%) by declining land water storage."
And
"we demonstrate that current advances in satellite gravimetry, and marine in situ measurements enable us to detect the acceleration in global sea level rise from 2005 to 2015, 11 years in total"
Other studies:
Cazenave et al 2018 - Global Sea Level Budget 1993–Present
"Ocean thermal expansion, glaciers, Greenland and Antarctica contribute by 42%, 21%, 15% and 8% to the global mean sea level over the 1993-present. We also study the sea level budget over 2005-present, using GRACE-based ocean mass estimates instead of sum of individual mass components. Results show closure of the sea level budget within 0.3 mm/yr. Substantial uncertainty remains for the land water storage component, as shown in examining individual mass contributions to sea level."
"Most recent studies (e.g., Dieng et al., 2017a, Ablain and Jugier, 2017b, Chen et al., 2017a, Chen et al., 2017b, Nerem et al., 2018b, WCRP, 2018) show that the GMSL is accelerating, and that this acceleration mostly arises from accelerated Greenland and Antarctica ice mass loss."
SLR Components, p. 1645, Figure 3:
Other salient studies:
- Dieng et al 2017 - New estimate of the current rate of sea level rise from a sea level budget approach
- Ablain and Jugier 2017
- Chen et al 2017a - The increasing rate of global mean sea-level rise during 1993–2014
- Chen et al 2017b - Groundwater Storage Changes: Present Status from GRACE Observations
On 2018 sea level rise acceleration:
"Global sea level rise is not cruising along at a steady 3 mm per year, it's accelerating a little every year, like a driver merging onto a highway, according to a powerful new assessment led by CIRES Fellow Steve Nerem. He and his colleagues harnessed 25 years of satellite data to calculate that the rate is increasing by about 0.08 mm/year every year—which could mean an annual rate of sea level rise of 10 mm/year, or even more, by 2100.
"This acceleration, driven mainly by accelerated melting in Greenland and Antarctica, has the potential to double the total sea level rise by 2100 as compared to projections that assume a constant rate—to more than 60 cm instead of about 30." said Nerem, who is also a professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. "And this is almost certainly a conservative estimate," he added. "Our extrapolation assumes that sea level continues to change in the future as it has over the last 25 years. Given the large changes we are seeing in the ice sheets today, that's not likely."
Also per Nerem et al 2018:
"the observed acceleration will more than double the amount of sea-level rise by 2100 compared with the current rate of sea-level rise continuing unchanged. This projection of future sea-level rise is based only on the satellite-observed changes over the last 25 y, assuming that sea level changes similarly in the future. If sea level begins changing more rapidly, for example due to rapid changes in ice sheet dynamics, then this simple extrapolation will likely represent a conservative lower bound on future sea-level change."
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MA Rodger at 20:10 PM on 9 September 2019Sea level rise is exaggerated
Ossyrial @305,
You appear to have spotted some of the reasons Chen et al (20140 'Global sea level trend during 1993–2012' have given for their 'deceleration 2004-12' result. They do also see a significant level of uncertainty in their result although this is not so well handled when presenting their result.
In a broader context, Visser et al (2015) reviews various methods being used to derive acceleration/deceleration in SLR, methods which do yield contradictory results.
And the lead author X Chen has published since with Chen et al (2017) 'The increasing rate of global mean sea-level riseduring 1993–2014' which provides a result that supersedes the contradictory result of Chen et al (2014) in that it corrects satellite data and better accounts for other variable factors.
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Ossyrial at 18:02 PM on 9 September 2019Sea level rise is exaggerated
Hey, I recently came across a paper from 2014, "Global sea level trend during 1993–2012", by Chen (2014). (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818113002397)
It finds that since 2004, the sea level rise has been decelerating. I have a couple of questions about it since I am not very knowledgeable in this field.
I think this is the main conclusion of the paper: "GMSL started decelerated rising since 2004 with rising rate 1.8 ± 0.9 mm/yr in 2012."
However, it does make say the following things in the discussion:
"Comparison between the GMSL, the global mean steric sea level, and the global mean ocean mass indicates that the decreasing of the rising trend is mainly due to the stalled ocean heat content which started in the early 2000s, when the PDO switched from the warm polarity to cold polarity."
"Although the stalled upper ocean heat content during the last decade has reduced the rising trend of the GMSL, the global sea level kept rising because of the contribution of the accelerated melting of land ice in the warming climate. This means that if the land ice keeps melting at the same or faster pace due to anthropogenic warming, the world ocean will experience a significant accelerated total sea level rise when the steric sea level transitions to a stage similar to the period during 1993–2003."
In short, I am not sure what to think of this study. Is the increase in global sea level decelerating? Or is this part of a trend (perhaps the PDO? I don't understand that fully either), and irrelevant if one would look at long-term?
Thanks
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IdPnSD at 13:45 PM on 9 September 2019Skeptical Science takes the Pro-Truth-Pledge
“… has been established in order to reclaim the fuzzy concept of "truth," which different people may interpret differently.” It is very unfortunate that our society does not have a definition of truth. Most people like to think that the following is the correct definition – You have your own truth and I have my own truth. But this cannot be correct. If this were correct then Galileo would still be in jail today. Truth must be unique, universal, and eternal.
The following definition of truth can be found embedded in many books of all religions, like in Bible and Vedas. (1) The laws of nature are the only truths. (2) The objects of nature and their characteristics create these laws. (3) The nature always demonstrates its all truths.
Item (3) is the most important part of the definition. If you search carefully, like Galileo did, you will always be able to see a demonstration of every truth, given by nature. Thus a fact can be defined as something that can be observed in nature. Somebody killed somebody – is always a fact, because somebody observed it. Ayn Rand said, “Truth is not for all men, it is only for those who seek it.” The internet has all the truths, but you must seek it carefully.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:07 AM on 9 September 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36
The following articles show the type of response to improved awareness and understanding that the likes of Boris and Trump encourage with their misleading appeals for support of Their powerfully passionately desired harmful beliefs and actions.
"Threats, abuse move from online to real world, McKenna now requires security, CBC News"
"Why is billionaire George Soros a bogeyman for the hard right?, BBC News"
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:32 AM on 9 September 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36
Improving awareness and understanding of climate science has exposed the requirement for corrections of activities that have developed power, popularity and profitability.
And the other Sustainable Development Goals threaten developed power, popularity and profitability.
The pursuit of increased awareness and understanding of requirements for sustainability, and sustainable improvement, of humanity started before the 1972 Stockholm Conference. That meeting of global leadership (power) formally established a consensus understanding among global leadership that many corrections of what had developed are required. And it established an awareness and understanding that revised ways of governing what was developing would be required to block harmful actions before they became popular or profitable, and encourage helpful actions.
Since then it has been clear that a portion of powerful people have been fighting to maintain their undeserved status by any means they can get away with. They have had success with appeals for people to be 'freer to believe whatever They want' to justify pursuing harmful and unsustainable actions that 'They perceive they personally benefit from'.
Their leaders appear to claim that 'If Their Type of People (their portion of the population) were freer to believe and do as they please, they would behave less harmfully, more helpfully, more beneficially to others'. Their leaders appear to claim that efforts to force them to increase their awareness and understanding of how harmful their actions are to Others,(including the future of humanity), and related efforts to limit how much harm They can do, makes them be harmful rather than helpful.
I will agree that efforts to improve awareness and understanding can make them react more harmfully. However, it is unlikely that attempting to please them will get them to agree to the corrections required for Them to behave less harmfully. And it appears even less likely that They will agree to the larger corrections required for them to become helpful to Others, especially to the future of humanity.
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Evan at 23:51 PM on 8 September 2019SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth
swampfoxh@7, pull on a branch and it bends a certain amount. Now pull on it 40 times as hard. Will it bend 40 times the distance, or will it simply break?
Fast cars can acclerate from 0 to 60 in about 2 seconds. Some people might feel a little sick under those high acceleration. Acclerate 40 times that fast an you may die.
Natural systems have limits of how much they can absorb before they no longer react, but simply break. I know you know this, so just making a point about the dangers of extrapolating by a factor of 40.
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MA Rodger at 21:01 PM on 8 September 2019There are genuine climate alarmists, but they're not in the same league as deniers
sailrick @43/44,
Those quotes get a bit strong. The source of the quotes is this blog by McPherson which may help put them in context, but what is also required is the science lying behind these strong assertions.
The link to the OP provided by Postkey @46 is part of this, but the underlying paper is Rosenfeld et al (2019) 'Aerosol-driven droplet concentrations dominate coverage and water of oceanic low level clouds'. Also cited in your quote @43 is Levy et al (2013) 'The Collection 6 MODIS aerosol products over land and ocean'.
The basis for the strong message presented @43/44 is that coal-use emits both CO2 and SO2. The CO2 is raising climate forcing at a rate of ~0.02Wm^-2/yr. SO2 acts as a seed for aerosols and thus more shiny clouds which cool the planet. SO2 is very short-lived but provides a negative forcing which is not well defined (IPCC AR5 put it at -0.9Wm^-2(+0.8,-1.0) although note the recent work cited by Postkey @45 derives from Haustein et al (2019) 'A Limited Role for Unforced Internal Variability in Twentieth-Century Warming' (described in the CarbonBrief article & the RealClimate article). Haustein reconstruct the global temperature record using known forcings and conclude that the SO2 effect would be roughly -0.4Wm^/2.
So simplistically, we have what is seen by some as a dilemma facing humanity. If we cut coal-use we will be faced by a net increase in climate forcing boosting AGW. But if we maintain coal-use to prevent such a boost, the CO2 would provide the exact same boost over coming decades (perhaps as few as 20 years) and the dilemma would still be in place.
Yet it isn't quite as difficult as that. The coal-use will not cease overnight and there is a reduction in CO2 forcing (and also more quickly CH4 forcing which totals so-far 0.5Wm^-2 and of which a significant proportion is down to coal) once we stop CO2 emissions (or the reduction in a past contribution of a particular source once it is shut down).
As for the strong message, a quick peek at the blog by McPherson shows some serious misrepresentation of cited material, serious enough to suggest the blog is entirely without merit. So I would be surprised if there is any actual support for the bold claim that there will be 2-3 degrees C warming over the period 2019-30.
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Postkey at 17:47 PM on 8 September 2019There are genuine climate alarmists, but they're not in the same league as deniers
An alternative scenario?
'However, new research published in Science by Hebrew University of Jerusalem Professor Daniel Rosenfeld shows that the degree to which aerosols cool the earth has been grossly underestimated, necessitating a recalculation of climate change models to more accurately predict the pace of global warming.
And, they discovered that aerosols' cooling effect is nearly twice higher than previously thought.
However, if this is true then how come the earth is getting warmer, not cooler? For all of the global attention on climate warming, aerosol pollution rates from vehicles, agriculture and power plants is still very high. For Rosenfeld, this discrepancy might point to an ever deeper and more troubling reality. "If the aerosols indeed cause a greater cooling effect than previously estimated, then the warming effect of the greenhouse gases has also been larger than we thought, enabling greenhouse gas emissions to overcome the cooling effect of aerosols and points to a greater amount of global warming than we previously thought," he shared.' -
Postkey at 17:43 PM on 8 September 2019There are genuine climate alarmists, but they're not in the same league as deniers
” . . . Actually, we show that aerosol-induced cooling is currently only ~0.4°C (see 3rd figure in the CarbonBrief article). Higher aerosol sensitivity would be incompatible with the observed mid-century hiatus. Plus, current warming would be overestimated if transient sensitivity was higher than we report. The neat thing is that the temporal evolution of (warming) anthropogenic greenhouse gases and (cooling) aerosols is not a mirror image. Hence they can both be constrained fairly robustly now.”www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2019/06/unforced-variations-vs-forced-responses/#comments
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sailrick at 16:46 PM on 8 September 2019There are genuine climate alarmists, but they're not in the same league as deniers
Here is the rest of what McPherson said in his comment
"This Catch-22 of abrupt climate change, termed the McPherson Paradox by Bill R. Eddy, takes us down the wrong path regardless of the direction of industrial activity, assuming we are interested in maintaining habitat for vertebrates and mammals on Earth. A decline in the aerosol masking effect means loss of habitat for human animals, with human extinction soon to follow. Yet the liars at Deep Green Resistance, Extinction Rebellion, and other organizations are still promoting the dismantling of industrial civilization while claiming to be committed to the continuation of life on Earth." -
sailrick at 16:42 PM on 8 September 2019There are genuine climate alarmists, but they're not in the same league as deniers
I was recently reading comments at a Facebook post, where McPherson's was cited. His claim is that by reducing fossill fuels emissions, the resulting decrease of sulfur aerosols will cause worse warming.
McPherson himself posted a comment. Here is an excerpt
"Civilization is a heat engine, but slowing or stopping civilization heats Earth even faster than the ongoing warming resulting from this set of living arrangements. The impact of the aerosol masking effect has been greatly underestimated, as pointed out in an 8 February 2019 article in Science. As indicated by the lead author of this paper on 25 January 2019: “Global efforts to improve air quality by developing cleaner fuels and burning less coal could end up harming our planet by reducing the number of aerosols in the atmosphere, and by doing so, diminishing aerosols’ cooling ability to offset global warming.” The cooling effect is “nearly twice what scientists previously thought.” That this February 2019 paper cites the conclusion by Levy et al. (2013) indicating as little as 35% reduction in industrial activity drives a 1 C global-average rise in temperature suggests that as little as a 20% reduction in industrial activity is sufficient to warm the planet 1 C within a few days or weeks."
Could someone comment on his claim about aerosols? -
swampfoxh at 15:53 PM on 8 September 2019SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth
Evan...agreed. It was a sloppy estimate not really intended to say much except to point to the possibility that the Sixth is going to take "awhile" to become a global catastrophe regarding species extinction. And to William...yes, Bill Ruddiman is a "neighbor" of mine here in Virginia. I know his work well and consider it of great value in the literature. I thought that some dialog on predicting the GGE trends might be interesting in the Big Picture of the Big Five.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:50 PM on 8 September 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36
It is obviously too easy to promote popular support for harmful and incorrect beliefs and actions in supposedly more advanced nations.
Improving awareness and understanding applied in pursuit of the Ethical Objectives of 'Do No Harm' and 'Help Others, particularly those who are less fortunate, less aware or lacking in understanding' is a major thing that humanity potentially has 'going for it'.
However, improving awareness and understanding can be a threat when a group, such as these 400, improve their awareness and understanding of how they can abuse the flaws in the developed socioeconomic-political systems to interfere with, and potentially set-back, the development of a sustainable improvable future for humanity.
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wili at 09:07 AM on 8 September 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2019
From top quoted article: "...rational cost–benefit analyses..."
wtf??
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Human 2932847 at 21:13 PM on 7 September 2019The North Atlantic ocean current, which warms northern Europe, may be slowing
No I agree, there's some controversy there. I would call it disagreement, which has different social connotations, but you could use controversy too.
So, would it be fair to say that we've moved on from the simplistic idea of the Gulf Stream alone keeping Europe warm - which I believed until reading Seager's debunk - and air currents have a larger role to play, whether as much as Seager says or not ?Because the picture I'm getting here is that a Gulf Stream slow down or stop would not be as catastrophic as once thought, but still problematic.
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william5331 at 18:07 PM on 7 September 2019SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth
There is a very believable theory that the highly unusual stability of our present interglacial, up to recently, was due to our output of Greenhouse gasses from the use of the plow, forest clearing and Rice cultivation. Previous interglacials have begun to slide back into a glacial period almost as soon as the interglacial begins. See the book Plows Plagues and Petroleum by Ruddiman.
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Eclectic at 14:09 PM on 7 September 2019CO2 is plant food
Wowzee , you are being an alarmist about "dangerously low CO2 levels".
Without the recent human intervention, it would still have taken millions of years for CO2 to have fallen to a level dangerous to the "C3 metabolism" types of plants (which are so important for our food production).
And taken even longer to be dangerous to the "C4 metabolism" plants [maizes , grasses , etcetera] . . . assuming that they did not make further evolutionary adaptation to low CO2.
As for the very distant future (as atmospheric CO2 gets gradually absorbed into rock-carbonate form) . . . then sure, the humans of that time will know the lessons of the distant past [= 20th Century AD] and will know that all they need do is dig up and burn a few gigatons of coal/oil every 100,000 years or so.
Makes sense for us to stop burning coal/oil . . . and leave it in the ground in case our ultra-distant descendants should ever need it as an easy way to raise CO2 and warm the climate ! That's the sensible and responsible thing for us to do at present.
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wowzeewuwu at 13:33 PM on 7 September 2019CO2 is plant food
During the Carboniferous period the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was three times that of 1750, and double that of 2019. The Carboniferous period had lush forests, and a great deal of the coal, methane, and crude oil that was trapped in the Earth came from that period. Plants seem to thrive in high CO2 concentrations.
It can be projected that had humans not come along and extracted and burned fossil fuels, CO2 levels would in the future go so low for this critical plant nutrient that plants would be unable to grow. In the long-term, I believe humans' greatest contribution to life on Earth is our re-introduction of CO2 into the atmosphere.
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Eclectic at 13:26 PM on 7 September 2019Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Wowzee , if you are talking about the "GreenHouse" Effect keeping the Earth's surface warmer than freezing point . . . then certainly the effective strength of H2O's GHEffect is larger than CO2's GHEffect. This has been known for a very long time. Yes, a very long time.
It may be best if you stop thinking in terms of H2O being the "dominant" GHE gas. It is not. Or rather, in using dominant , you make a misleading & poor choice of words — if you are trying to mean that it is H2O which dominates or controls the situation.
A horse is far stronger / heavier / more powerful than its human rider. But it is the lightweight rider that dominates/controls what the horse does.
So too, the CO2 controls the climate (along with control by changes in solar output & levels of reflective aerosols, of course).
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wowzeewuwu at 12:33 PM on 7 September 2019Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Water vapor absorbs more solar energy than CO2 per molecule. There are many more molecules of H2O in the atmosphere than CO2. If the amount of absorbed solar energy exceeds the amount of thermal infrared energy that escapes into space, temperatures will rise.
Burning one molecule of methane produces one molecule of CO2 and two molecules of H2O. Similar chemical product ratios for burning gasoline, coal, and deisel.
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wowzeewuwu at 12:24 PM on 7 September 2019Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/EnergyBalance/page7.php
Please see the graph from the NASA graph, both H2O and CO2 absorb in the infrared (12 - 14 micrometer) range. The water vapor window is only slightly affected. Also keep in mind that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is only a fraction of H2O.
This is why water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas.
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wowzeewuwu at 12:12 PM on 7 September 2019Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas, not CO2. The reasons include 1.) water absorbs infrared light much better and across a broader spectrum than CO2 which prevent the Earth from cooling off and 2.) the density (i.e. percentage) of water vapor in the atmosphere is much greater than CO2. Physics says that the higher the density a chemical in a medium the higher percentage of light it will absorb.
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Evan at 04:59 AM on 7 September 2019SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth
swampfoxh @3 and 4. My only caution would be that you are using linear logic. That is, you are dividing 120,000 by 43 to estimate how long the 6th mass extinction will take. I would expect that extinction-level processes are highly non-linear. I would also expect that proceeding 43 times faster than a "well-understood" event means that it will likely happen much, much faster than 120,000/43 years. I am not an expert in this area, so I will stop here and hope that an expert will chime in.
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swampfoxh at 04:10 AM on 7 September 2019SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth
Of course, we made a number of assumptions about how long it took for Earth to proceed from general "goldilocks" conditions to the climate hell of the End Permian, selected 120,000 years, then applied the current rate of GGEs and fudged to get our Sixth Extinction to mature to a 90/97% die off by the year 4880.
How far off are we???
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swampfoxh at 03:57 AM on 7 September 2019SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth
Thanks for bringing up Milankovitch Cycles. We talk about this in my climate class: Climate Change: Impact of an Outlaw Species. I'll just throw in the calculations we did to compare the current Sixth Extinction with the end Permian along with the effects of the M-cycles. Our best guess was that the Sixth is motoring along some 43 times faster than the End Permian. Anyone out there have a better number?
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MA Rodger at 20:18 PM on 6 September 2019It's cosmic rays
unknownwallet @111,
(I should point out that you do not address the bogus cosmic ray theory which is the actual subject of this comment thread.)
You say "i'd really to ask someone to prove me wrong" so let's kick off with your statement number one (which is also illustrated top left in the collection of graphics in your third URL).
By volume, the percentage of water vapour in the atmosphere is 0.4% (and roughly half that by weight), thus much lower than the 2% value you present. In a dry atmopshere, today's CO2 levels top 400ppm(v) or 0.04% (0.06% by weight). Again this is greatly different to your value of (0.02 x 0.0362 =) 0.072%.
Today's CO2 levels are (1 - 280/400 =) 30% anthropogenic thus 0.012% of the total atmosphere by volume (0.018% by weight) where as you say 3.4% of CO2 is due to human activity and thus 0.0025% of the atmosphere.
(I should also mention the graphic below top left on your third URL which gives different values again 1% for all GHGs, of which 4% CO2, of which 4% is anthropogenic.)
The raw volumes/weights of GHGs in the atmosphere is not in a very good gauge of their impact on the climate. Water vapour, for instance, is only present at the levels we see because the long-lived GHGs (which are predominantly CO2) It is long-lived GHGs that raise global temperatures and it is only this increased temperature that to allow the atmosphere to hold such levels of water vapour. And despite there being ten-times-more water vapour (by volume) than CO2 in today's atmosphere, its contribution in boosting the GH-effect is far less than 10x (even when cloud is factored in).
The one value you provide that is entirely a mystery but also fundamental to your argument is the percent of CO2 - "only 3.4% of CO2 is due to human activity." Where does that 3.4% value come from?
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unknownwallet at 15:53 PM on 6 September 2019It's cosmic rays
i respectfully disagree.
1. Only 2% of the atmosphere is greenhouse gases, only 3.62% of that is CO2 and only 3.4% of CO2 is due to human activity
2. CO2 lags temperature changes by 800 years
3. Sea levels have already been rising for the past 8000 years
4. Climate change model's predictions have all been overestimates
5. There has been no global warming for 18 years
6. There has been no increase in the frequency of storms since 1954
7. There has been no increase in the frequency or severity of droughts in the US
8. Warming in the past (before human history) has been far more drastic in the past indicating that current warming is not human causedcheck these infographics to understand more,
#https://anonfile.com/N28bb553n0/1561633804542_gif
#https://anonfile.com/P88eb85dnb/1561631378053_png
#https://anonfile.com/Rc83b055n2/1561629956134_png
i'd really to ask someone to prove me wrong.
human made global warming isn't a huge deal, and there are bigger threats than this.
Moderator Response:[DB] Pretty much every point you make is disproven on other threads here. Use the Search function to find a more appropriate thread. After you read them and the comment threads attached, if you still have concerns, place those concerns there, not here.
Please stay on-topic.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:11 PM on 6 September 2019Consensus on consensus hits half a million downloads
markpitsusa@1,
In addition to the points made by nigelj in the comment @2, I have replied to your related recent comment on the SkS OP "The true cost of fossil fuels (Response to the Climate Myth "Renewables are too expensive" (a comment that also referred to Nordhaus). My comment there is regarding the ethical considerations that the likes of Nordhaus seem to not consider, or not be aware of.Improving awareness and understanding of climate science is an essential part of the required ethical actions. The book "A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics and the Problem of Moral Corruption.", by Stephen M. Gardener, provides a comprehensive explanation/evaluation of the ethical issues related to climate science, including providing reasons why improving awareness and understanding of climate science is challenged (some people have developed powerful motivations to not want to improve their awareness and understanding, and have developed powerful motivations to not want others to improve their awareness and understanding). -
One Planet Only Forever at 12:35 PM on 6 September 2019Renewable energy is too expensive
Markpittsusa@20,
Do some research into "Discount Rates" applied to evaluating how much harm it is OK for the current generation to cause because portions of the current generation do not want to give up on enjoying current-day (status quo) ways of living (that they have a perceived high status in), that are undeniably harmful to future generations.
Discounting the future with a 'Discount Rate' basically declares the harm done to future generations to become irrelevant as long as it happens far enough in the future.
Ethically (essentials of Ethics are Do No Harm to Others; Help the less fortunate), there is no acceptable amount of harm that can be done to Others, and future generations are Others (a massive pool of Others, almost infinite, unless their future numbers are discounted).
So, ethically it is questionable to include a discount rate in evaluations of how much harm it is acceptable to do to future generations compared to the benefits the current generation would have to give up to not harm the future generations. And given the lack of knowledge (uncertainty regarding anticiated harm, or missed due to ignorance of a potential harm) regarding how much harm is actually going to be done to the future, an amplification of the expected future harms would be more appropriate in an evaluation of acceptability than a discount rate.
With that understanding in mind, understand that Nordhaus and Stern both applied 'discount rates' in their evaluations. Stern uses a lower discount rate and determines that rapid reduction of fossil fuel use is the correct economic action (and that is still using a discount rate).
Of course if the ethical unacceptability of harming Others was admitted then there would be no way to justify anything other than the immediate ending of the increase of harm being done to the future generations.
The incorrectly developed economy of today puts current day humanity in an ethical bind. And the lack of responsible actions by the more fortunate through the past 30 years has made the ethical challenge worse.
Ethically, the required action is immediate ending of the pursuit of benefit from fossil fuels by current day humans. Except that ethically it is also necessary to 'help the less fortunate'. So the ethical refinement of the required action would be that the most fortunate must lead the effort to end the use of fossil fuels and assist the less fortunate adapt to the harm already being done, and help the less fortunate develop in ways that minimize their use of fossil fuels (essentially the fundamental basis for the Kyoto Accord - read the Kyoto Accord and the understandings that were established as the basis for developing the Kyoto Accord).
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scaddenp at 10:29 AM on 6 September 2019Medieval Warm Period was warmer
Just noticed this paper which looks at global coherence of warm and cold periods over last 2000 years. Not only was MWP not globally coherent but also the LIA had similarly mixed global distribution. Unlike the current warming period...
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Evan at 10:27 AM on 6 September 2019SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth
ubrew12, the complete statement that you partially quoted is
"On 100,000-year cycles the global average temperature varies by 5°C, which causes variation in sea level of 120 m (400 ft). That is a lot!"
"That is a lot" refers to a change of sea level of 120 m, not to the temperature change alone. I think many people are unaware that the Earth, through regular, normal, recent cycles, experiences sea level changes of 120 m.
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nigelj at 07:26 AM on 6 September 2019Consensus on consensus hits half a million downloads
markpittsusa @1
As to your question on "what we should do now" to mitigate the climate problem I suggest read the IPCC reports here. Broadly speaking mitigating climate change comes down to adopting renewable energy solutions, which will resolve the majority of the problem, but not all of the problem.
The remainder of the problem is solved with supporting strategies of adopting negative emissions technologies through both enhanced natural sinks and systems of carbon capture and storage, and a moderate reduction in per capita use of energy and carbon intensive products.
Of course some warming is locked in, so adaptation to climate change is necessary.
Moderator Response:[PS] This discussion is showing signs of heading offtopic rapidly. Discussions of political solutions belong elsewhere.
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nigelj at 07:14 AM on 6 September 2019Consensus on consensus hits half a million downloads
markpittsusa @1
"All these articles on concensus are a waste of time. Even most Republicans who oppose legislation believe there is global warming. "
No the consensus articles are not a waste of time. While most republicans do indeed believe climate is changing, as you say, the more important issue is whether they think humans are causing it, because this will influence what responses they think are appropriate. It's very possible that only a minority of republicans think humans are causing climate change discussed here so its still important to better communicate the consensus studies to the public.
"The real question is what should we do now, which in turn depends upon the target for warming. Should the target be 1C, i.e., the current level? 1.5C which is the political solution reached with island nations? Maybe 2C, the original UN target? Or higher as Nordhaus argues, more like 3.5C?
Limiting warming to 1 degree is impossible because we have already passed this number (refer to the NASA Giss temperature record or Hadcrut). Getting warming back down to 1 degree would be possible but would take time and would require amongst other things negative emissions technology on a vast scale at huge cost.
Can you provide a link to some evidence that 1.5% is a political solution. According to the IPCC here the reasons are "Furthermore, the report finds that "limiting global warming to 1.5 °C compared with 2 °C would reduce challenging impacts on ecosystems, human health and well-being" and that a 2 °C temperature increase would exacerbate extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, coral bleaching, and loss of ecosystems, among other impacts."
In any event 1.5 degrees is what the IPCC are suggesting, and they are the expert panel appointed to review these things.
Nordhaus number of 3.5 degrees has come in for a lot of compelling criticism for example here. He fails to consider a whole range of climate impacts and makes some overly optimistic economic assumptions.
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ubrew12 at 05:34 AM on 6 September 2019SkS Analogy 20 - The Tides of Earth
"On 100,000-year cycles the global average temperature varies by 5°C... That is a lot!" Is it 'a lot'? 5C in 50,000 years is 0.01C per century. The temperature change over the last century is seventy times higher, i.e. 0.7C per century. I got tired of hearing the phrase 'climate changes naturally' (implying the current change is also natural) so I did some digging. Looking at the global average temperature over the last 22,000 years, I calculated the temperature change per century for each of the last 220 centuries (further back in time these were estimates). The plot of those 220 centuries is a normal distribution with an average change of 0.014C per century, and a standard deviation of 0.077C per century. By ordinary 3-sigma statistics, the claim that last centuries 0.7C change is 'natural' is easily disproven (3-sigma is 0.24C per century). Since 1993 the atmosphere has warmed at a rate of 2.24C per century, approximately ten times the rate at which it no longer could be considered 'natural', using that 220-century bell curve as a guide. Climate indeed changes naturally. Ordinary statistics proves the current change is not even remotely natural.
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markpittsusa at 03:36 AM on 6 September 2019Consensus on consensus hits half a million downloads
All these articles on concensus are a waste of time. Even most Republicans who oppose legislation believe there is global warming.
The real question is what should we do now, which in turn depends upon the target for warming. Should the target be 1C, i.e., the current level? 1.5C which is the political solution reached with island nations? Maybe 2C, the original UN target? Or higher as Nordhaus argues, more like 3.5C?
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markpittsusa at 03:10 AM on 6 September 2019Renewable energy is too expensive
This expose does not reflect careful analysis. Whether renewable energy is cheap or expensive depends upon the time table and extend to which it is to be employed.
According to Nordhaus, who as you know just won the Noble Prize for his work in this area, 3.5C is the optimal target in terms of mitigation. He includes all the costs (and more) that are mentioned in this article.
I will not try to repeat his arguments since there are readily accessible in his own words. The best place to start is, for most readers, will be his book “The Climate Casino.”
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MA Rodger at 20:20 PM on 5 September 2019The North Atlantic ocean current, which warms northern Europe, may be slowing
Human 2932847 @23-25,
The article you cite appears a bit odd. Riser & Lozier (2013) 'Rethinking the Gulf Sream' describes itself presenting "Three new climate studies [that] indicate that our long-held belief about the Gulf Stream’s role in tempering Europe’s winters may not be correct. Yet the studies themselves do not agree." Yet these three are hardily "new" dating from 2002, 2009 & 2011. (the 2002 paper being our old friend Seager et al).
And such a finding wouldn't show "much sign of controversy"?
Riser & Losier (2013) does set out the two sides of the Seager controversy before pointing to that recent detailed modelling suggests it unlikely that meltwaters will "shut down" the AMOC.
I have tried to stress that the research is more interested in the fate of the AMOC and measuring the trends so far, rather than the effects of slowdown on Europe (such effects bring the issue we discuss here). There is detailed modelling (more recent that Riser & Lozier 2013) desribed in this RealClimate OP by Rahmstorf. This work is all about identifiying a fingerprint of AMOC strength in SST data. It does demonstrate the AMOC fingerprint caused by slowing. And regarding the cooling of Europe, note the cooling ocean temperatures up-wind of Europe.
And "where these questions are more settled"? This is an area of active research. To keep up with it, the "questions" of interest need some defining.
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Capistan at 12:29 PM on 5 September 2019More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
If we can successfully reduce CO2 we should be back to get back to the ice age. It can be done with regressive taxes on fuel food and the basics, might get the population down as a boonus.
Moderator Response:[PS] Sloganeering, offtopic, and strawman arguments. You might like to learn difference between pigovian and regressive taxes.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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David Kirtley at 09:31 AM on 5 September 2019Understanding adjustments to temperature data
frankprice @63: I located Zeke's 2nd installment: Understanding Time of Observation Bias, but I'm not sure what/where the 3rd installment is. That post was supposed to be about "automated pairwise homogenization".
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