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Comments 9501 to 9550:

9501. MA Rodger at 18:31 PM on 24 September 2019
      Climate's changed before
      

      TVC15 @776,

      The denialist asks about the features of two different times and asks what is different today.

      20,000 years ago was the maximum glaciation of the last ice age, this the result of reduced solar radiation for the high-latitude Northern summers which 100,000 years ago triggered an increase in the amount of ice-covered land/ocean in high Northern latitudes. The level of ice was amplified by the increased albedo of the ice reflecting away greater levels of solar radiation and by the reduced GHGs (CO2 & methane) caused by the cooling global climate having a net draw-down of such gases. Thus we find the Laurentide & Cordilleran ice sheets covering mainly Canada and beyond, extending to cover the sites of today's Great Lakes. (The map below ignores changing coast lines.) It thus requires the Laurentide Ice Sheet to melt considerably before the Great Lakes can exist, their formation reportedly beginning 14,000 years ago.

      

      We now leap forward to a time when the Cordilleran ice sheet has long gone. Over recent times the dynamics of glaciers is not always determined by local temperature. A sea-terminating glacier will likely spend most of its days slowing advancing and then, becoming unstable, undergo a short period of rapid retreat. And reduced/increased snowfall can cause a glacier to shrink/expand.

      So is there evidence that "Alaskan Glaciers started receding big time around 1750 to 1900"? Solomina et al (2016) who, in an analysis of global glaciers over the last two millenia, examine land-terminated glaciers in Alaska and see no sign of it. Their Fig 2 shows a GEI index indicating a fluctuation in local glacier size which peaked at about 1880AD. This would explain a "receding big time around ... 1900" but not the earlier 1750 date. Other research may give differing timings but it seems unlikely that there is any proper support for a 1750 to 1900 date. Can the denialist provide support for this bold assertion of his?

      And "why is now any different"? The unprecidented global rise in temperatures will impact glaciers globally, including Alaska.

      Moderator Response:

      [DB] Fixed image display issue

9502. Eclectic at 16:46 PM on 24 September 2019
      Medieval Warm Period was warmer
      

      JP1980 @265 , 

      as Scaddenp (@266) indicates, there is much that is wrong with KalteSonne's blog article.

      In the first paragraph, the blog asserts that the MWP was hotter (or "similar") in temperature to today.  Which is false.  Various types of proxy temperature measurements show that the Medieval Warm Period was cooler than today's global climate.  In addition, the land ice-shelves and glaciers were larger than today's, and the mean sea level was lower than today's.  All these three types of evidence demonstrate the warmth of today and the relative coolness of the MWP.

      KalteSonne is indulging in wishful thinking — not scientific thinking.  Having made such a blunder to start with, it is not surprising to find that there are subsequent errors.

      In the second paragraph, he [presumably he] goes on to present a misleading picture by taking quotes out of context.  He misrepresents the message of the IPCC.  And he fails to understand that the MWP was such a slight deviation of average world temperature, that one would of course not expect it to show up in a "hindcast" of computational models based on 20th/21st Century climate.  (Hence his attack on climatologists' models — an attack which seems to be his underlying purpose in discussing the MWP.)

      A further failure of KalteSonne, is his failure to acknowledge (to himself and to his readers) that the current warming event is not only larger and definitely worldwide . . . and that it is greatly faster & has a continuing steep upward trajectory ~ all of which is distinctly different from the MWP.

      Clearly, he fails to understand the mechanisms causing climate change.

      In short: KalteSonne's ideas are nonsense.

9503. scaddenp at 14:49 PM on 24 September 2019
      Medieval Warm Period was warmer
      

      Where to start. Firstly as MA Rodger was pointing out, it is misrepresenting what the science says by selective quoting. Secondly, it is playing with a strawman fallacy in the title - CO2 is not the only driver of warming and model reconstructions can reproduce the pattern of warming.

      An important contrast with today's warming is the lack of synchronicity globally. The CO2 science project hides that by going for very long time period and some very dubious baselining. There are numerous peer-reviewed papers which recontruct both NH and global temperatures which take a rigorous approach to handling the proxies (See the AR4 and AR5 for the list and plots) but of course these dont get the "right answer" for denialists.

9504. JP1980 at 14:11 PM on 24 September 2019
      Medieval Warm Period was warmer
      

      MA Rodger @264

      Other than your comment about the truncation of the last paragraph of IPCC AR5 Section 5.3.5, do you have an actual complaint with the article's arguments? 

9505. TVC15 at 11:32 AM on 24 September 2019
      2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells
      

      Thank you both @19 scaddenp and @20 MA Rodger!

      I found this graph as well that shows temps only rising in NY.

      Climate Data Grapher

      What I've learned in debating climate change deniers is that science deniers won't be convinced by evidence because their views are not based on a rational way of responding to evidence in the first place.

9506. TVC15 at 10:10 AM on 24 September 2019
      Climate's changed before
      

      A question from a denier.

       

      The Northern Part of the US was covered in Ice 20,000 years ago and the Great lakes were only formed 10-14,000 years ago.

      Alaskan Glaciers started receding big time around 1750 to 1900.

      What caused all of that and why is now any different ?
      
      

      All insights are welcome. :)

9507. michael sweet at 02:12 AM on 24 September 2019
      CO2 effect is saturated
      

      GwsB,

      It may be the problem with your model is that the number of photons emitted from one layer is not related to the number of photons it receives from other layers.  The number of photons emitted is determined solely by the temperature of the layer. 

      Esentially all of the photonic energy received is immediately turned into heat.  Then photons are emitted according to the Boseman relationship (t to the fourth power).  Higher layers emit less photons per m2 than lower layers because they are colder.  Your model ignores the temperature differences.  A single photon does not random walk to outer space.  A modeled walk at light speed does not account for the time spent as heat. 

      When higher layers absorb more photons coming up (because the CO2 concentration is higher due to man made CO2) the escape altitude increases.  The temperature is lower at the new escape altitude because the atmosphere cools as you go higher (at the lapse rate).  This causes an energy imbalance because less energy is emitted at the cooler altitude according to the Bozeman relationship.  The new altitude has to warm to return to energy balance.  This warming is transmitted down according to the lapse rate and results in surface heating.

      At the escape altitude the CO2 absorbtion bands are not saturated so increasing CO2 increases absorbtion.  Water is essentially not present so overlap of bands with water does not count either.  The escape altitude increasing is the key to understanding the greenhouse effect.  The lapse rate is 6C per kilometer.  The escape altitude is about 10,000 meters.  If the escape altitude increases 100 meters the surface temperature increases 0.6C.

9508. One Planet Only Forever at 00:32 AM on 24 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      nigelj,

      I appreciate the feedback. It helps me increase my awareness and understanding of the fundamental problems that are challenging the achievement and improvement of the Sustainable Development Goals - what is reducing the rate of progress of humanity toward, or setting it back from, all of that understanding (not just the climate action goal).

      I think the following may be a better way of talking about the innate human drivers identified by Haidt.

      Organizations of humans take many forms. And those organizations are held together by what is driving them to be together. All of the 6 identified drivers can play a part.

      Religious/nationalist groups, military groups, political groups and Business groups can be seen to be able to hold together through a combination of all of the characteristics. Without Caring being the governing characteristic, the groups can still hold together through a combination of the other 5 drivers being powerful enough. But they are then challenged by people who make Caring about Others the most important driver.

      Caring challenges harmful United:

      • religious and nationalist groups (desired superiority of Their group and intolerance of people who are different)
      • military groups (willing to inflict harm on others, especially if they think they will be less harmed than those others they attack, worse if they think they will benefit from harming Others)
      • political groups (using passion-triggering misleading marketing that focuses on the drivers Other than Caring)
      • Business groups (the worst examples being blatantly criminal economic organizations)

      I think most people would see the connections from that presentation.

      And the way that the harmfully United can influence the telling of Stories through the mechanisms of the Propaganda Model should also be able to be seen.

      And though Parfit's critique of Self Interest can be difficult to get through, it is very hard to argue against.

      Self Interest, ungoverned by Caring for Others, can be a very bad thing.

      The hardest thing for the Caring is the way they can end up divided into sub-groups of narrow focus, caring more about their special concern, claiming that Other Caring concerns are not as important. As the SDGs prove, all of the caring concerns are important and should be United in their collective achievement.

      That is what concepts like the Green New Deal do, they try to Unite a diversity of Caring concerns in the hopes of collectively over-powering the undeniably powerful Unity of the diversity of groups opposed to being governed by Caring.

      The likes of Gore and Greta (Soros, and Hansen and so many others) have become the faces of the challenge to the United Harmful, and the targets of their wrathful fight to be freer to be Harmful, freedom from the limitations of Caring about Others and the future of humanity.

9509. michael sweet at 23:08 PM on 23 September 2019
      CO2 effect is saturated
      

      GwsB,

      In post 542 you describe 20 atmospheric layers.  If the atmosphere had 20 layers with the same amount of CO2, they would not all be the same thickness.  The top layer would be many times thicker because the atmosphere is thinner higher up.  Molarity is much lower higher up. There is much less water because it is very cold.  The CO2 path length is many times longer due to the lower CO2 concentration (400 ppm means lower Molarity at lower pressure.  You appear to think the same Molarity of water and CO2 exist throughout the atmosphere.  Ppm is not concentration, it is a fraction of concentration)

      It appears to me that you have not considered the concentration differences at altitude so your model is incorrect.  In general it is a waste of time to compare your own model to peer reviewed data.

      The key to saturation is the lower CO2 and water concentration at height.  Essentially no water exists at the escape altitude.  Your model ignores these facts.  At the escape altitude there is no saturation and adding more CO2 increases the absorption.  That increases the escape altitude and causes surface warming.

9510. MA Rodger at 21:31 PM on 23 September 2019
      CO2 effect is saturated
      

      GwsB @543,

      Figure 6 from Zhong & Haig (2013) is below with caption added beneath.

      

      Caption (a) Instantaneous Radiative Forcing of CO2 (relative to the present‐day concentration) as a function of volume mixing ratio. The red curve is for the whole infrared region, 0–3000cm−1. The blue curve covers only the spectral region 550–800cm−1 (i.e. the 15μm band). (b) As (a) but extending to higher CO2 mixing ratios and presented against the logarithm of volume mixing ratio. (c) Radiative Forcing against CO2 mixing ratio for the six spectral intervals.

      I'm not sure if fig6c is as easy to understand as Fig 5 of that same paper which I paste below, again with caption. (Plus it does provide both wavelength and wavenumber which is helpful, and being less wide, it can be displayed a bit biggerer than Fig6.)

      

      Caption (a) The top of atmosphere infrared spectrum calculated with CO2 mixing ratio (ppmv) of 0 (light blue curve), 1.5ppmv (green), 389ppmv (black), 2 × 389ppmv (purple) and 32 × 389ppmv (red). The vertical dashed lines mark the sub‐intervals discussed in the text: the CO2 15μm band core (650–680cm−1), the band central regions (590–650cm−1 and 680–750cm−1), the band wings (450–590cm−1and 750–850cm−1), and the CO2 10μm bands (850–1100cm−1) which overlap the O3 9.6μm band. (b) The differences between each CO2 spectrum in Figure 5(a) from that with the current CO2 concentration (389ppmv).

9511. GwsB at 20:29 PM on 23 September 2019
      CO2 effect is saturated
      

      The two figures in post 542 were not copied. They seem to be in the wrong format. I refer the reader to Figure 6(c) in Zhong & Haigh (2013) "The greenhouse effect and carbon dioxide" for the first figure, see https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wea.2072

      The second figure is less important. It shows an approximation to the first figure in terms of exponential curves. The reader can make these approximations himself if she is interested. I am unfortunately not able to insert the pdf file into this window.

9512. Postkey at 20:07 PM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

      'Twenty five years before Greta, there was Severn, and we ignored her.
      “Coming up here today, I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future. Losing my future is not like losing an election, or a few points on the stock market. I am here to speak for all generations to come . . . We hear of animals and plants going extinct every day, vanishing forever . . . Did you have to worry of these things when you were my age? All this is happening before our eyes and yet we act as if we have all the time we want and all the solutions. I’m only a child and I don’t have all the solutions, but I want you to realise, neither do you. If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it.”
      Reading this you could think it was from any one of the youth climate strikers. Greta Thunberg, or Saoi O’Connor from Cork. Instead, these words were spoken more than 27 years ago, by then 12-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki at the plenary session of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.'

      www.irishtimes.com/opinion/twenty-five-years-before-greta-there-was-severn-and-we-ignored-her-1.4022656

9513. GwsB at 19:49 PM on 23 September 2019
      CO2 effect is saturated
      

      Bob Loblaw's curves in 529 exhibit exponential decrease. The decrease actually is a power law, more precisely the fraction exiting at the top is inversely proportional to the length of the column (or the density). If photons only travel upwards there would be exponential decrease. However photons are emitted by the CO2 molecules in all directions.

      Here is the argument for (the discrete version of) 20 layers, which I number by 0 ... 19 from bottom to top. Bottom is the surface of the earth, top is outer space. Each layer contains the same amount of CO2. The argument is schematic. At the end of the post I come back to the topic of saturation.

      Assume at level k there are 20-k photons for k=0, ..., 19. Half the photons jump downwards (to k-1) half upwards (to k+1). So level k loses all 20-k photons, but receives (21-k)/2 photons from its neighbour below and (19-k)/2 from its neighbour above. Thus it ends up with 20-k photons. This is the steady state. The bottom level, k=0, and the top level, k=19, need special consideration. These two levels form the boundary of the system.

      1) At level k=0 half the photons go down into the earth and leave the atmosphere, and half go up to level 1. On the other hand level 0 receives 19/2 photons from level 1. In order to have a steady state we must assume an influx of 21/2 photons from the earth (due to heat radiation of the earth).

      2) At level 19 there is one photon. Half this photon goes up into outer space, half down to level 18. Level 19 receives 2/2 photons from level 18 and none from outer space. So it ends up with one photon. Steady state.

      The full picture is: At each step there is an influx of 21/2 photons from earth (due to the heat of the earth) to level zero and an outflow of 10=20/2 photons from level zero to the earth and an outflow of 1/2 photon from level 19 to outer space. That results in a steady state.

      This description agrees with observations. Doubling the length of the cylinder (or the density of CO2) will reduce the amount of radiation into outer space by 50%.

      The actual situation is more complicated. At each level there are millions of photons. Each photon flips a coin to decide whether it takes a step upwards (if the coin shows heads) or a step downwards (if the coin shows tails).

      The actual situation is more complicated. The photon will travel a random distance in a random direction (uniformly distributed over the unit sphere) before being absorbed. The distance is in the order of ten meters, the time between being absorbed and re-emitted is of the order of 100 femtoseconds. Since the photon moves at the speed of light the whole random walk from leaving the heat bath of the surface of the earth until returning to the earth or flying off into outer space occurs in a twinkle of the eye. On my imac I can simulate a hundred thousand such random walks in a matter of minutes using a program of twenty lines of code in R.

      Actually it might be better to speak of reflection. CO2 reflects some of the photons back to earth and others manage to pass to outer space. We speak of saturation if 99% or more of the photons are reflected back to earth, equivalently if 1% or less of the photons manage to escape to outer space.

      The figure below gives a good picture of the effect of an increase of the amount of CO2 for different wave numbers. The proportion which manages to escape depends on the density of CO2 and on the wavelength of the photon. At wavelength 15 μm (650-680 cm-1) there is saturation. In the shoulders we are close to saturation. Doubling the density of CO2 will halve the number of photons which manage to escape. In the far wings the majority of the photons manage to escape and only a small proportion is reflected back to earth. Doubling the intensity will double the number of photons reflected back to earth. This also holds for the 10 μm wavelength (the red curve for wave number 850-1100).

      If one makes plots for these different wavelengths with the amount of CO2 on the horizontal axis and the number of photons reflected back to earth on the vertical axis, and if one uses a logarithmic scale on the horizontal axis and a linear scale on the vertical axis, one obtains the plot below:

      The curves are exponential curves because of the logarithmic scale on the horizontal axis. The black, sky blue and green curves have the form y=a-exp(-c(x-b)) where $x$ varies from 1 to 6. The constant a, b and c depends on the colour: a=0 (black), a=8.5 (sky blue) and a=9 (green). The red blue and pink curve have the form y=a+exp(c(x-b)). In the plot below the coefficients a, b and c have been chosen so as to get a reasonable fit.

      The plot at the top is Figure 6(c) in Zhong & Haigh (2013) "The greenhouse effect and carbon dioxide". The plot at the bottom is a free hand fit by exponential curves. At present the contribution for the six wave number intervals is approximately the same. Saturation holds at the central interval, but not yet at the shoulders. The contribution of the wings will become predominant if the amount of CO2 passes the level 40 000 ppmv, when CO2 makes up more than 4% of the atmosphere. At that moment saturation holds at the shoulders. The instantaneous radiative forcing is approximately 9 for all five curves which adds up to 45 (see Figure 5(b) in Zhong & Haigh) which corresponds to an increase in temperature of 11K. That increase is without feed back effects.

9514. MA Rodger at 17:58 PM on 23 September 2019
      2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells
      

      TVC15 @18,

      Firsty note that the denialist is talking of "New York City" which is even more 'single point' than "a single state". And of course such a localised temperature record, be it state or city, provides no evidence on its own to prove or disprove the existence of temperature rises resulting from AGW. I would assume the use of 30-year rolling averages is a nod to the data being climate rather than weather although still local climate.

      That said, has the 30-year rolling average temperature of NYC "barely budged since the 1960's"?

      I am no expert of US temperature records, but a quick trawl of the GISTEMP site yields GHCN data for New York Centrl Pk Twr. I haven't checked the Long/Lat but will assume this is as it appears - a record from the heart of NYC. Bar four years, the record is complete back to 1880 and when presented as 30-year rolling averages it shows a rise since the early 1970s of +0.026ºC/year which is well above the global (land+ocean) average of +0.018ºC/year but perhaps about right for land temperatures and perhaps a bit on the high side of US land. (This NASA web-page says "Since the year 2000, land temperature changes are 50 percent greater in the United States than ocean temperature changes.") Relative to 1960, the latest 30-year average (data to 2018) stands +0.65ºC higher. So I struggle to see a temperature that has "barely budged since the 1960's"

      And another source of temperature data for NYC is BEST which provides data (but only to 2013) showing the 30-year rolling average rising at +0.025ºC/year since the early 1970s and a rise of +0.51ºC (data to 2013) which is thus showing the same as the GHCN data.

      So a question to your denialist is to ask where they gets their data from. Is it actually from NYC, NY, USA?

9515. nigelj at 17:11 PM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      Mal Adapted @17 .

      I agree except I wouldn't even call it cowardice. It's just being  pragmatic about the issues, and not shooting ourselves in our own feet.

9516. nigelj at 17:07 PM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      Al Gores movie An Inconvenient Truth was the main thing that really got me interested in climate change. It communicates brilliantly and is correct on the key issues. My point is Gore is a liberal politician expounding on the science, so its easy for denialists in America to rubbish his liberalism and so the science as well by association.

9517. nigelj at 17:01 PM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      OPOF @18, regarding selfishness. I suspect Ayn Rands dreadful book "The Virtue of Selfishness" has underpinned neoliberal economic thinking since the 1980's. Imo it's one sided, superficial and unscientific,  but you and others might be interested. I found a free copy here:

      archive.org/stream/AynRandTheVirtueOfSelfishness/Ayn_Rand-The_Virtue_of_Selfishness_djvu.txt

9518. One Planet Only Forever at 15:26 PM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      nigelj@11,

      The list of Haidt's set of drivers in my comment @7 were the Heading Names. I introduced the list with the following "And Jonathan Haidt has identified a set of innate (fundamental) human characteristics. Those characteristics can amplify a person's tendency to allow personal or Tribal self interest to overpower their ability or interest in improving their awareness and understanding to pursue sustainable improvements. The innate human concern for Caring/Helping (not harming), can be compromised by innate concern for:"

      What was included in (brackets after each name) was a simple presentation of each driver to show its potential for Harm. They each also can be seen to fit the Libertarian mono-driver (each person chooses their Tribe, but their choice can be understood to be Not Helpful - meaning it is an unethical choice). Choosing to care about a Tribe without caring about the Tribe's impact on others is not ethical. Universal Care has to govern, especially for leaders.

      As I am learning from reading more, particularly Noam Chomsky, the more I appreciate that "Telling a story that supports the status quo is easy to do". More time, and a lot more words, is needed to provide a detailed context for any story that challenges the status quo. Without that added presentation of a robust context, the story can easily get misinterpreted through the status quo filters.

      Defence of Self-interest (selfishness from the individual level through to any Tribal sub-set of humanity level) is a powerful part of the status quo because it can be a powerful driver of human behaviour - it takes constant effort, and a willingness to sacrifice potential personal benefit, to not be governed by it. This continues to be the case in spite of robust arguments proving the fatal flaws of being governed by self-interest presented by Derek Parfit in the 1980s (and less robust presentations of that understanding that were made far before Parfit's very detailed arguments).

9519. Mal Adapted at 12:49 PM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      I personally don't have any beef with Gore whatsoever, and I dismiss appeals to purity. I agree with Daniel's assessment of him. OTOH, like nigelj I'm uneasy about his already having been made, through no fault of his own, into a green boogeyman by the aforementioned disinformation strategy of fossil-carbon capitalists. My hope is to elect a Democratic POTUS and senate majority, and I'm worried Gore is too big a target for skilled mercenary culture warriors. Am I a coward? Maybe, but in the present circumstances I'd rather be a live jackal than a dead lion.

      Al Gore will say whatever he wants through this election cycle, regardless of what I think, and the NYT will give him a moderately left-leaning platform. I'm just nervous, on account of the stakes.

9520. nigelj at 11:38 AM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      Daniel Bailey @15

      “It seems like you're holding his (Gores) background against him, which is an Appeal to Purity. Deniers do this, surely. “

      Sometimes background counts. It depends on the circumstances. This website talks about how scepetics use "fake experts" for example. However having certain qualifications neither makes someone's argument right or wrong.

      But a political background is something else, because it makes Gore an especially easy target for the denialists as I stated. You have not told me why you think I'm wrong about that aspect of things. His advocacy has probably been very effective outside of America, but he has probably split opinion within America. Given this is he the right person for the Democrats to champion any more as a climate expert? Wouldn't it be better if he kept a low profile?

      “The difference is that Gore has gotten more right about the science than any randomly-selected 100 deniers. Unusual, for a politician."

      Agreed.

      “Yes, Gore is not a scientist. So what? He never claimed to be one.”

      Your argument is a strawman. I never claimed Gore was not a scientist and therefore lacked the right or credibility to speak out or was less believable. I simply said his politics is so huge it has made him an easy target. Why ask for trouble?

      “Allowing deniers to dismiss Gore is ceding the field to them by allowing them to control the narrative surrounding the science. While not a Gore fan myself (I never voted for him, despite having the chance), I repect his temerity, backbone and his standing up for the science. Also unusual for a politican.”

      Strawman. I never suggested we allow denialists to dismiss him. In fact I specifically said we should defend him, just that it would be advantageous if he kept a low profile.

      I respect him as well, and he's mostly right about the science, maybe 95% right. But that was never the point of my comment.

9521. scaddenp at 11:10 AM on 23 September 2019
      2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells
      

      TVC15 - cherry-picking. Always suspect cherry picking or strawman fallacy when talking to deniers. Have a look at global distribution of temperature change and see why they may have picked NY. eg here.

9522. Daniel Bailey at 10:16 AM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      "the difference is Mann and Hansen keep their politics to themselves, while Al Gore has a huge political profile, and was in a position of political power"

      It seems like you're holding his background against him, which is an Appeal to Purity.  Deniers do this, surely. 

      The difference is that Gore has gotten more right about the science than any randomly-selected 100 deniers. Unusual, for a politician.  Yes, Gore is not a scientist.  So what?  He never claimed to be one.

      Allowing deniers to dismiss Gore is ceding the field to them by allowing them to control the narrative surrounding the science.  While not a Gore fan myself (I never voted for him, despite having the chance), I repect his temerity, backbone and his standing up for the science.  Also unusual for a politican.

9523. nigelj at 09:53 AM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      michael sweet @13, surely the difference is Mann and Hansen keep their politics to themselves, while Al Gore has a huge political profile, and was in a position of political power. The denialists (falsely) accuse Gore of inventing climate science and given hes a liberal by conflating these things it almost certainly discredits cimate science with the Republican base. This has to be a key reason the climate issue is so polarised in America.

      So I just think Gore needs to keep a low profile. That's not to say we shouldn't defend Gore if he does speak, out or if he  is discussed. I certainly do.

9524. michael sweet at 09:27 AM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      Nigelj,

      Do you really think the deniers should choose scientists representatives? Al Gore has educated himself and sticks to the science.  The deniers also demonize Hansen ad Mann.  They are going after Greta Thernburg.  

      We should strongly back everyone who supports science.

9525. nigelj at 07:05 AM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      Mal Adapted, I've read and ejoyed several of Al Gores books, but I agree about him.  Republicans use him to try to discredit the science by linking it to liberals and it wont stop until he keeps quiet. He would do us all a favour if he withdrew from the climate debate completely. I hate this, but its the only way.

9526. nigelj at 06:48 AM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      OPOF @9, Haidts list as typed in your comment at 7 was a bit odd for the reasons I stated, but Haidt's list in your comment at 9 makes much more sense. I read up on moral foundations theory some time ago, and found it quite compelling.

      I suspect Libertarians brains are wired up a bit differently. They reject rules or constraints on principle, where most people have a more normal level of scepticism. I would  say that if libertarians don't like a  rules based society, they should go and live alone in the bush somewhere. We don't have to be dictated to by this crowd of ideological fanatics.

9527. Estoma at 06:00 AM on 23 September 2019
      CO2 is plant food
      

      Philippe Chantreau, thanks for your reply.  It's one of those topics that get a lot of work by skeptics. 

      I'm Indiana farmer.  I read recently that here in the south central part of our state we have increased our yearly rainfall amount by nearly 6" since  the 1950's, as I remember.  They reported that the lion's share of that 6" occurs in the spring.  They said that would be followed by dry conditions and that's what's occured. 

      Over the past couple decades I've had more than a few springs where the opportuniy to plant was low.  You didn't wait.  This year we are having what the models predicted back in the 90's.  

      I'm not sure how the harvest is going to shake out this year.  I don't do corn or soybeans.  If they do have decent crops the one good thing is they won't spending a lot drying their grain.

9528. Mal Adapted at 03:02 AM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      Excellent historical summary, Dana. I'm a boomer, who went through the 1970s and '80s as a conservationist without being aware of anthropogenic global warming. In 1988 I happened to be newly employed in the Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, when GISS's James Hansen made his historic appearance before Congress. I remember the Earth scientists in LTP discussing Hansen's claim, and quickly (within weeks, IIRC) reaching a consensus that it was well-supported by the evidence. Again if memory serves, three basic items clinched it for me personally: the known radiative properties of CO2, the steady annual increase in atmospheric CO2 recorded by C.D. Keeling, and estimates of the rate of the anthropogenic transfer of fossil carbon to the atmosphere (e.g. Marland et al. 1985). The 1989 EPA Report to Congress was further persuasive. The costs of ensuing climate change were still mostly hypothetical at that time, however.

      In the early 1990s, with a Democratic POTUS in place after three terms of Reagan-Bush, the 'Wise Use' movement was gaining momentum in the US, with the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress an early payoff for its backers. I was thus aware but still shocked at the success of efforts to conflate concern about climate change with political environmentalism and therefore liberalism, and the subsequent public backlash against climate science. Having since learned damning details of the long-term strategy, by fossil fuel producers and investors, to build an AGW-denial industry that could forestall collective action to decarbonize the US economy as long as possible, I'm over being shocked. Now, as the public's attention is caught by ever greater weather extremes, dare I be optimistic about Greta Thunberg's global youth movement? Al Gore says in the NYTimes that I can be. With due respect to the former VPOTUS through the political debacles and missed opportunities of the '90s, I'm not sure his is the voice America needs to hear now. OTOH, the US contingent of all those protesting youths will start voting soon. More power to 'em.

9529. TVC15 at 02:35 AM on 23 September 2019
      2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells
      

      Hi,

      I've recently encountered a denier who made these statements:

      I see that the thirty-year moving temperature averages for New York City have barely budged since the 1960's. The 1950's and before were measured elsewhere so those do differ; lower summer temperatures, higher winter temperatures.

      What do 30 year moving temperature averages for New York have to do with human caused climate change?  I'm thinking this is a bit of a straw man since you don't use a single state to show evidnce that global warming is not occuring.

9530. Ebel at 02:30 AM on 23 September 2019
      Two Centuries of Climate Science: part one - Fourier to Arrhenius, 1820-1930
      

      To #21

      "the emission layer is inside the troposphere."

      Es gibt weder eine Emissionsschicht, noch eine Absorptionsschicht. In der ganzen Atmosphäre wird sowohl emittiert als auch absorbiert.

      There is neither an emission layer nor an absorption layer. In the whole atmosphere there is both emission and absorption.

9531. Ebel at 02:04 AM on 23 September 2019
      Two Centuries of Climate Science: part one - Fourier to Arrhenius, 1820-1930
      

      To #26

      In "Two Centuries of Climate History: Part One - from Fourier to Arrhenius, 1820-1930", Angström's measurement only reprimands the length ("However, one would have had to use a 250 cm long tube to better represent the atmosphere instead of the 30 cm long one that was used.") - but it was forgotten that the greenhouse gases also emit. Furthermore, the mention of convection is missing - without convection the average surface temperature would be about 340 K. Only with convection the approx. 288 K result - see Pierrehumbert.

9532. Ebel at 02:02 AM on 23 September 2019
      Two Centuries of Climate Science: part one - Fourier to Arrhenius, 1820-1930
      

      To 1:

      "Nicht nur das, die totale Sättigung in der unteren Atmosphäre ist für den Treibhauseffekt kein Problem: Wenn die oberen Schichten der Atmosphäre ungesättigt bleiben, verhindern sie dennoch, dass Wärme in den Raum gelangt."

      Es gibt in der ganzen Atmosphäre keine Sättigung, weil dort, wo stark absorbiert wird auch stark emittiert wird. Sättigung gibt es nur mit Hochleistungs-Lasern.

      "Not only that, but total saturation in the lower atmosphere is no problem for the greenhouse effect: if the upper layers of the atmosphere remain unsaturated, they still prevent heat from entering the room."

      There is no saturation in the whole atmosphere, because where there is strong absorption there is also strong emission. Saturation only exists with high-power lasers.

9533. Ebel at 01:43 AM on 23 September 2019
      Two Centuries of Climate Science: part one - Fourier to Arrhenius, 1820-1930
      

      In "Zwei Jahrhunderte Klimageschichte: Teil Eins - von Fourier bis Arrhenius, 1820-1930" wird bei Angströms Messung nur die Länge gerügt ("Allerdings hätte man eine 250 cm lange Röhre verwenden müssen, um die Atmosphäre besser zu repräsentieren anstatt der 30cm langen, die verwendet wurde.") - aber es wurde vergessen, daß die Treibhausgase auch emittieren. Außerdem fehlt die Nennung der Konvektion - ohne Konvektion wäre die durchschnittliche Oberflächentemperatur bei ca. 340 K. Nur mit Konvektion entstehen die ca. 288 K - siehe Pierrehumbert.

9534. One Planet Only Forever at 01:28 AM on 23 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      nigelj@7,

      The innate characteristics identified by Jonathan Haidt in his fairly robustly developed (based on research) Moral Foundations Theory are (as presented in Wikipedia - an accurate presentation confirmed by my having read Haidt's book more than once):

      • Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm
      • Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating
      • Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal
      • Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion
      • Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation

      Haidt's continued research added an innate desire for Liberty (I paraphrase it as 'freedom to believe and do as one pleases').

      My point is to expose that it is important for the Care (Help Other/Do No Harm) innate characteristic of humans to govern all the other innate characteristics. That aligns with your comment. In every case the innate characteristic is OK as long as it is governed and limited by the Care principle.

      A serious fundamental problem is people developing into adults who allow the non-care innate drivers to be important enough 'to them and their thoughts and actions' that those Other Drivers of thoughts and resulting behaviour over-power the Care considerations. And a socioeconomic-political system that motivates rather than discourages that type of personal development needs to be fundamentally corrected to be sustainable.

      What I take particular issue with is Haidt, and others, naming these innate characteristics "Moral" which implies "Ethical". For an innate driver to be Moral or Ethical the result of it governing all thoughts and actions would have to be sustainable improving humanity. Only the Care driver does that. Only the Care innate characteristic is Ethical or Moral.

      As the Wikipedia presentation states in the discussion of the addition of Loyalty to the set, Libertarians almost exclusively allow themselves to be driven by ungoverned Liberty (primal selfishness - Barbarism).

      And Haidt's research has indicated that Conservatives generally have equal consideration of all drivers. They could easily allow other drivers to over-power the Care driver.

      In Haidt's research it is the more pro-social(ism) groups, commonly slightly incorrectly referred to as Liberals in the USA, that have the Care principle significantly dominate their considerations, with a reasonable helping of Fairness, and some Liberty.

9535. Ebel at 19:04 PM on 22 September 2019
      The Consensus Handbook: download and translations
      

      Darstellung

      Die Mainstreamwissenschaft muß eine populaire kurze Darstellung des Treibhauseffektes bringen. Der Verweis auf Großrechner ist zu wenig.

      Ich habe es versucht mit http://www.ing-buero-ebel.de/Treib/Klima.pdf

9536. MA Rodger at 16:52 PM on 22 September 2019
      Medieval Warm Period was warmer
      

      tmillion @263,

      The 'work' you link to is actually a piece of denialist 'research' saying it is trying to answer such questions as "How could it have been so warm one thousand years ago when CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere were on a low pre-industrial level?" Note the links provide are to WUWT and CO2Science, two well-known denialist websites.

      The quote provided at the link @263 is extracted from within the final paragraph of IPCC AR5 Section 5.3.5. Perhaps "quotes" would be a better description as the first half of the quote concerns NH while the final parts of the quote concerns the tropics. As provided at the link, these "quotes" don't make a lot of sense.

9537. tmilliron at 12:45 PM on 22 September 2019
      Medieval Warm Period was warmer
      

      This is fascinating work disputing MWP as localized instead of global https://kaltesonne.de/mapping-the-medieval-warm-period/

9538. nigelj at 06:50 AM on 22 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      OPOF @7

      Jonathan Haidt's list doesn't seem quite right right, or at least it is not very well developed or worded. Please dont take this criticism personally.

      Demanding fairness to the self is not a bad thing, and does not crowd out fairness to others because such things are not mutually exclusive. Haidt's simple definition will likely be dismissed by the target audience as absurd. There is not a quantity of fairness to be rationed. One is fair to others as much as is feasible and one has the right to demand equal fairness in return. However demanding fairness to the self can only exist if one is fair to others, because an agreed principle of good behaviour has to apply equally, or its pointless and defeats the purpose of having the principle.

      Ditto loyalty to the tribe is not always bad thing, and is intended to form a unified defence against threats. It becomes a bad thing if the threats are imagined threats, ie they are not real threats but are based on blind panic and assumptions not careful consideration, evidence and caution.

      Respect for authority within the tribe is not a bad thing, because authority starts at a local level. It is only a bad thing if it excludes the recognition of higher or wider levels of authority.

      Purity of beliefs within the tribe is not always a bad thing as beliefs start at a local level. What is bad is if this leads to minds being closed to beliefs outside the tribe, which might be better beliefs. But the tribe is not compelled to accept beliefs coming from outside the tribe, in a democracy.

      Liberty is not a bad thing and does not crowd out the well being of others unless it compromises their well being in measurable, physical, and significant ways  that are agreed to by the tribe as a whole and which people cannot reasonably escape from.

      It would have been better to simply say that virtues such as wanting to be treated fairly must also extend to others in order to make sense, and tribal loyalty must be based on reason and evidence and not fear mongering about others, and obedience to authority must have conditions attached, because or blind obedience to authority in every circumstance can lead to people suffering needlessly.

9539. One Planet Only Forever at 01:11 AM on 22 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      prove we are smart,

      Here is further understand of how/why harmful and incorrect beliefs and actions become popular and resist being corrected.

      As a person allows their pursuit of status or benefit for themselves, or a sub-set of current day humans they identify with, to become more powerful, that desire can overpower their ability or interest in improving their awareness and understanding to pursue sustainable improvements for the benefit of all of humanity, current day and into the distant future.

      A robust presentation showing the reasons why self-interest is fundamentally unhelpful and unethical was made by Derek Parfit in his 1984 book "Reasons and Persons". You can read it to have a solid basis for that understanding, but simplistically it is common sense that self interest can get in the way of Helping Others, and can even result in popularity of excuses for acting in ways that are personally beneficial but are undeniably unnecessarily risking harm done to others or are actually harmful to others.

      And Jonathan Haidt has identified a set of innate (fundamental) human characteristics. Those characteristsics can amplify a person's tendency to allow personal or Tribal self interest to overpower their ability or interest in improving their awareness and understanding to pursue sustainable improvements. The innate human concern for Caring/Helping (not harming), can be compromised by innate concern for:

      • Fairness (from a selfish perspective - fair to me),
      • Loyalty (to the tribe a person chooses to identify)
      • Respect for Authority (in the Tribe identified with)
      • Purity (beliefs of what is Best held by the Tribe identified with).
      • Liberty (freedom to believe and do whatever is desired).

      Related understanding is that people are not fundamentally unchangeably selfish or altruistic. They can start life with a higher level of selfishness or altruism than others. But the experiences of people can change them from their starting point. And telling stories based on the belief that it is Fundamentally Best for 'everyone to be freer to believe and do whatever they want', having that be the preeminent consideration, can be understood to be an unsustainable and potentially toxic environment for humans to develop in.

9540. prove we are smart at 08:37 AM on 21 September 2019
      The Consensus Handbook: download and translations
      

      Good explanation and easy to understand...I should of read this before writing up my placard from yesterdays climate strike march, easily understood visual exemplars. Very funny the satire mentioned in the Climate Change Debate: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver skit..Here's a link...

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

9541. gws at 08:25 AM on 21 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      Nailed it Dana! Congrats. Hope it gets spread/replicated.

9542. nigelj at 06:54 AM on 21 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      prove we are smart 

      "I am appalled by some of our " redneck-denier" media".

      So am I, however these politically motivated clowns are like puffer fish trying to make the sceptical community look bigger than they really are. For example I've just read this article polling climate opinion among local government politicians in New Zealand, and the vast majority think humans are warming the climate, and that local government should play a part in solving the problem, and our local government includes a range of politicians from left to to right.

      Of course actually getting meaningful action is the hard part, but its revealing about their views. The main scepticism about the science is in the farming communities, and we have a lot of dairy farming, so no surprise there,

9543. Philippe Chantreau at 02:28 AM on 21 September 2019
      CO2 is plant food
      

      Estoma,

      I read this recently: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-and-india-dominates-the-greening-of-earth-nasa-study-shows

      The SciAm article you linked refers to this recent study, which I believe I had also referenced recently after seeing in a French newspaper:

      https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/8/eaax1396

      However, as the SciAm article rightfully reminds us, the greening is largely a red herring.

      Whatever benefit may be had from increased CO2 for plant life, it is dwarfed by the most important factor that always has been and always will be water availability. That is water in sufficient but not excessive quantity and at a the appropriate time. Go ask the midwest farmers if the extra CO2 in the atmosphere helped their flooded fields last spring.

9544. One Planet Only Forever at 02:12 AM on 21 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      prove we are smart,

      The "Propaganda Model" developed by Edward S. Herman and presented in the book and movie "Manufacturing Consent", and recently reviewed and updated by Alan MacLeod in "Propaganda in the Information Age" continues to be one of the best explanations of what is going on.

      Summarized and paraphrased: The undeserving powerful people in the status quo who desire more ability to personally benefit from defending and excusing increased freedom for people to believe what they want and do as they please (that Libertarian Free-Market fantasy they benefited from to the detriment of Others), have many ways to get stories told the way they prefer them to be told (and silence any story presentation that they dislike). Note that even science reports are Stories.

      And the stories that get told often enough tend to get believed more. And the stories that connect with a passionate developed desire, including desires to resist being corrected, are powerfully believed even if the harmful incorrectness and ultimate unsustainability of the belief is glaringly obvious.

9545. prove we are smart at 21:53 PM on 20 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      I am appalled by some of our " redneck-denier" media. I was just looking at youtube stuff about the Aussie climate strike day. I wont even link to Sky News Australia, nearly all the comments from their biased reporting/interviews were so similar to Trumpists/ conservative Rep viewpoints, i thought i was reading an American webpage!. So sad to realize some/many? in Australia believe this right wing propaganda..

9546. Estoma at 21:48 PM on 20 September 2019
      CO2 is plant food
      

      In the moderation, the following statement, "That planet is greening is not disputed - you dont seem to be following the detail of the problem." has me a little unsure of how to view this.

      I've followed the claim that the Earth has been greening due to the increase of CO2 for at least the last decade.  The NASA article I read last spring, as I remember, said that it was mostly due to the planting of trees in China and India.  In addition the greening of the Arctic was also in play.  It went on to say, as I remember, that it had become greener in the areas that were the greenest due to the increase of moisture.  But it said that the browner areas were growing.

      Then  I recently ran upon this article in Scientific American in which they conclude that the greening stopped 20 years ago.  They site two other sources, one of which is 9 years old.  I blog quite a bit and feel unsure about engaging on this subject.  I've been considering asking you guys about this for a couple of weeks.

      https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-stopped-getting-greener-20-years-ago/

9547. One Planet Only Forever at 12:07 PM on 20 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      Excellent summary of the history.

      Some minor additional points about the behaviour of the climate science deniers.

      • Micheal Crichton was 'invited to testify' to Congress in 2005. This is not fiction. Part of his made-up rant was to question the validity of any science that has a range of possible results of 400%. He was probably referring to the possible range of warming due to a doubling of CO2 from 1.5 C to 6.0 C. He never mentions those details, just claims the 400% thingy.
      • When President Bush Jr. publicly announced that the USA would withdraw from Kyoto he decalred that Americans did not need to change how they lived. Popular then. Maybe more popular now.

      Other supporting global developments of understanding worth mentioning are the 1972 Stockholm Conference and all of the improved awareness and understanding that has followed it, and continues to be improved.

9548. nigelj at 07:30 AM on 20 September 2019
      Greta Thunberg is a painful reminder of decades of climate failures
      

      Well said, particularly the very last sentence. This climate war is unfortunately far from over: Trump strips California of power to set auto emission standards.

9549. LFC at 03:11 AM on 20 September 2019
      Skeptical Science New Research for Week #37, 2019
      

      The recently published paper that discusses the increased population of lobster without also discussing the now increased population of black sea bass that eat lobsters is clearly not only badly skewed on a large scale but even when it comes to the very species that the paper claims to be concerned with. This isn't "local and ephemeral effects", it's a case of the increased lobster numbers being a blip until their predators increase as well.

      LINK

      Moderator Response:

      [DB] Hotlinked and shortened the source link.

9550. MA Rodger at 23:20 PM on 19 September 2019
      There are genuine climate alarmists, but they're not in the same league as deniers
      

      An update to #47, concerning the effect of reducing negative forcing when FF-use & its resulting aerosol-causing pollution is cut, CarbonBrief have an item with coverage of recently-published Shindell & Smith (2019) 'Climate and air-quality benefits of a realistic phase-out of fossil fuels' [Abstract]

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