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Comments 10351 to 10400:

  1. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #27, 2019

    Gunnar Littmarck, yeah well a warmer greenland would be nice for growing some forests and crops there, but what about sea level rise as it melts, and what about a warmer tropical zone? Of course looking at the big picture does require a certain level of thinking.

  2. France’s record-breaking heatwave made ‘at least five times’ more likely by climate change

    Wffrantz, sometimes assumptions are made but they are not the core of the modelling, and they are not guesses, they are based on a lot of evaluation. You would need to provide a copy and paste from research where you think a specific assumption is not justified. Otherwise if you can't do this you are spreading cynical propoganda, and I think your comment should be deleted.

    Your example of a spurious correlation has no relevance to climate models, because climate modelling insn't based on correlations alone, they consider causation.

  3. Terminus Est at 04:05 AM on 10 July 2019
    Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?

    http://ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/MSR-Molten-salt-reactor.pdf

    Generation 4 Molten Salt Reactors.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Activated hyperlink

  4. Terminus Est at 03:26 AM on 10 July 2019
    Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?

     DPiedpgrass Thanks.  People are ignoring Gen 4 nuclear. We at least need to build some prototype reactors before we give up.  China is leading in Gen 4 Fission reactors. They have just started a Gen 4 Gas Cooled, Pebble Bed Reactor prototype.  If the US does not want this technology the Chinese will. Gas cooled reactors are extremely safe. They use silcon, carbon and ceramic fuel spheres rather than having melting steel fuel rods currently in use.  China is going to build over 50 nuclear reactors.  We should help them make the safest possible reactors. Trump has just stopped the US/Chinese TWR reactor project by Terrapower.

    This is a serious option.  And we need more options. Just saying we need to build prototypes to check they work.  Or China will.

  5. France’s record-breaking heatwave made ‘at least five times’ more likely by climate change

    Maybe so. Maybe not. But certainly not via the method they used.  Let's summarize what they did.

    B is assumed to affect A in some proportion. Build a model around that. When A is seen in real time, go back to the model to see if B was the cause ... and pretent that the original proportion was a fact, not an assumption.

    Really? This is Attribution Science? Can we just call it what it is so as not to discredit science?  "Stott, a leading attribution scientist" should be changed to "Scott, a leading attributionist". By his method ...

    "Worldwide non-commercial space launches was 5x more likely because of the number of Sociology doctorates awarded (US)". [see https://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=805]

  6. Gunnar Littmarck at 02:13 AM on 10 July 2019
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #27, 2019


    Why do you call your self skeptical science when you are not skeptical att all, just trying to find argument to support your opinion?

    Every educated in all relevant disciplines know that the CO2-threat is scientific rejected, in this 2,6 million long ice age.

    The interglacial before was 2,5 C warmer globally and 8 C for 6000 years on Greenland with just positive effects on life.

    Desert are cooling, that´s why it was 2 C warmer global early in this interglacial with 6 C warmer climate on Svalbard.

    If there was an increased greenhouse effect as result of higher level CO2 than 300 ppm it would give a signal in 15 µm where no other greenhouse gases act and the level of CO2 shift between region and seasons.

    Skeptical science, my ass.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Welcome to Skeptical Science.  Unlike most other venues that you might be familiar with, this venue uses the scientific method and places the burden upon participants to support their claims with citations to credible sources, preferably those appearing in peer-reviewed journals of note or from primary producer organizations.

    That places the Burden of Proof upon you to support your claims you've made, not for others to disprove them.

    Please familiarize yourself with this site's Comments Policy and construct future comments to comply with it.

    Cursing snipped.

    [PS] SkpSci is interested in real skeptism of the scientific kind. ie critical thinking, peer review etc as opposed to motivated reasoning. Pseudo-skeptics are only skeptical about what conflicts with pre-determined positions and swallow nonsense that suits their narrative without a thought (ie you might like to check your positions). If you cant imagine any data backing the science changing your mind, then this is not the site for you.

  7. Where to find big ideas for addressing climate change

    @1 bjchip,

    Yes, Savory has a big idea with even more potential than the other "Big Ideas" mentioned in this article. It is also included in a more limited way as part of project drawdown as well. So there is that as well.

    In my opinion there is no solution to AGW that doesn't include this at least in part, because it is the only current technology both scale-able enough and also fiscally sound that humans have available in their tool kit at the moment.

    Otherwise the evidence suggests even 100% elimination of fossil fuels won't be enough and the legacy carbon will continue to heat the surface for decades at minimum and maybe even 100's of years. We have about .5c thermal inertia of the oceans: climate inertia; and we also have 1.5c loss of albedo from melting ice as a feed back: 
    Hansen and Sato Estimate Climate Sensitivity from Earth's History, and likely another 1c from various other reinforcing feedbacks like methane releases from melting permafrost and vegetative die off of areas due to climate zones moving faster than biomes can adjust.

    So somewhere around 1.5-3.0 c additional warming if emissions went to zero today.

    The only technology capable of reversing this is in fact what Savory proposed, and is indeed beginning to do on 10's of millions of acreas already through his worldwide network he set up.  

    THE GLOBAL SAVORY NETWORK

  8. michael sweet at 07:28 AM on 9 July 2019
    Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 1

    Ritchieb1234

    Googleing again I found out that the MDPI journal Climate is considered a predatory journal.  It is common for skeptic articles to be in Journals that will publish anything for a fee.  

  9. michael sweet at 07:13 AM on 9 July 2019
    Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 1

    Ritchieb1234,

    Answering your query from here, I do not read a lot about very old temperatures.  Searching online I found most of the skeptic blogs had coments on your paper but no real science blogs talked about it.  I thought I had read a review of it but it must have been a comment somewhere.

    The abstract states that Davis performed a correlation study of CO2 and temperature over the past 450 million years.  He does not mention any other forcings that he considered.  

    Only skeptics think that CO2 is the only factor that affects climate.  450 million years ago the sun was much weaker than it is today.  You must consider that in your analysis which Davis apparently neglected to do.  In addition, volcanic activity was higher 450 million years ago, since there was more radioactivity in the Earth, and that must also be consdered.  Other forcings like dust and albeido affect temperature and must be considered in a real analysis.

    Since Davis neglected to consider all the known forcings in addition to the CO2 forcings his results have little meaning.  I note that he confirms that high CO2 time periods coincide with mass extinctions.  How could that happen?  If you search you can find a paper by real scientists who consider all the forcings and show that past temperatures are predicted by current science.

    If you waste time readig skeptic bogs you will never be able to understand AGW.

    Re recent skeptic publications: Every year more skeptics give up.  The quality of skeptic papers like Davis's are very low and real scientists do not read them.  A few fossil fuel companies pay people like Davis to publish their stuff.  Nic Lewis pushes very low climate sensitivity.  Recent record temperatures show that Lewis is wrong but he persists.

    Realclimate occasionally posts on skeptic papers if you read their old stuff.  Tamino also comments on stuff posted on skeptic blogs.

  10. HitchhikingResearch at 05:21 AM on 9 July 2019
    Where to find big ideas for addressing climate change

    Wow! Thank you for this post! I had never heard of Rocky Mountain Institute before and am loving their, "Solutions Journal." Love this quote from the Spring 2019 issue, "“In the face of today’s climate challenge, both despair and complacency are equally unwarranted.” Truth. I'm glad to see some Gen Z recognition whenever I can . . . "Young social activists
    and student and nonprofit leaders are helping to accelerate the energy transition from the ground up." However, my all time favorite quote from the Spring 2019 issue is this: “We may be avocado-toast eating,
    big-box-retail destroying, collegeindebted millennials, but we also are
    the most connected and globally conscious generation in history.” 

     

    B R I L L I A N T 

     

    "The wizarding world needs you, Hailey!" Bahahahaha. <3 <3 <3

  11. Philippe Chantreau at 02:59 AM on 9 July 2019
    Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 1

    richieb1234, I don't know exactly what you mean by "the skeptic community." The scientific community has produced a lot of work since 2011. The weight of the evidence points in one direction. 

  12. Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 1

    This is a very useful compilation of articles, and I was able to find some interesting analyses.  But has the list been updated since 2011?  It seems that the general level of available information on global warming has matured a lot since then; has the skeptic community kept up?

  13. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    Thanks for clarifying this for me it is good to get a more critical view as I just don't have the knowledge, I suppose Hansen distracted me without spending the time to look into things more deeply

  14. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    Michael Sweet @4, a very interesting article thanks. Long but worth a scan.

    The final chapter looks a lot like managed retreat to me. Costs of sea walls to protect communities against 1 metre of sea level rise per century will be prohibitive . Its been difficult enough managing storm surges and 300 mm sea level rise last century, so the future looks bleak. Of course it will vary place to place based on land area, population size and geography, and incomes, but this would be the general rule.

    In NZ both central and local government at city scale are signalling they will warn homeowners about sea level rise risks in formal written documents, and it will be some form of managed retreat. This is all unresolved at this stage and one suspects people might demand sea walls as an instinctive response, once they wake up to what governmnet is proposing.

    With managed retreat coastal property owners will see the value of their properties destroyed by having to abandon or move properties. Even building sea walls could have the same outcome of reduced property values. Its a question of how we deal with these people as it becomes a very visible problem and plunges people into poverty. There are two  obvious options:

    1) A local government and community initiative to financially compensate people, but this looks like it will be messy and impractical and well outside normal functions of local city scale government. Local government finances will be hard pressed just relocating roads etc without bailing out home owners.

    2) It will all more likely fall back on central or state governments to help people with financial assistance, either by specifically targetted assistance for destrroyed properties, or through normal poverty alleviation and social welfare systems. Governments are normaly the provider of assistance of last resort when all else fails, and private sector insurance doesnt cover things. This will probbaly flow over into climate related issues. The increased pressure on governmnet spending  will be a significant burden,  right at the same time the population is aging and people who resent their taxes going towards poor people and people with problems will be very vocal.

    Either way I suspect the can will probably be kicked down the road.

  15. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    Re: Carbon Tax

    I call your attention to the Citizens Climate Lobby (https://citizensclimatelobby.org/). This group recently held a 'lobby in' where they met with members of Congress to lobby for a carbon tax. They report Congress is becoming more receptive. (On a side note, they noted many in the GOP have gone to their think tanks on how to address Climate Change.)

  16. michael sweet at 22:05 PM on 7 July 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    I thought this was an interestig article about dealig with sea level rise in California.  Some want more sea walls and others say we need to move back.

    The artice is long.  My summary: people realize they are hosed and must move.  They do not want to give up in the face of slow distruction.  What will the final chpater look like?

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Thank you for flagging the LA Times article — it's well worth reading. .

  17. The HadSST4 Sea Surface Temperature dataset

    Wffrantz @1,

    Without mention of the GloSAT project in the OP, your scenario is probably entirely off-topic. That aside, as I understand your "scenario", it isn't well thought through.

    You set out a three-part climate with the deep ocean, the surface ocean (perhaps the mixed layer) and the atmosphere. Your U values you borrow from building insulation but the principle of an average factor of heat transfer for the interfaces within a three-part climate is fine. And whether the relative size of these factors fits with your assumptions would need a bit of work.

    Where the real problems begin to appear is in the idea that a cold period of climate lasting almost half a millenia (the period ascribed to Little Ice Age in IPCC AR5 is 1450-1850) will still be cooling the climate at its conclusion and the onset of a warming. The idea of 'inertia' caused by the thermal capacity of the oceans is widely understood. This would slow the warming process. But it would not result in a situation where "ocean surface temperatures still drop."

    To achieve such a "drop", the deep oceans would have to be out-of-equilibrium with the rest of the climate before the warming begins, itself not inconceivable abet the 400-year period of cold. But the "drop" requires the deep ocean to have somehow cooled below equilibrium of the preceding colder climate. Such a situation requires more than 'inertia' to achieve. So without some additional mechanism the 'scenario' you present cannot occur.

  18. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    nigelj - some of the proposals are at least in the direction of carbon fee and dividend. Perhaps not yet fully fleshed-out, but we (as in CCL Germany and and a European Citizens Initiative) are working towards that.

  19. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    The link to the Jeff Masters (wunderground: "Protective Wind Shear Barrier Against Hurricanes... Likely to Weaken...") article is broken.  I found it here.

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Thank you for bringing this glitch to our attention. It has been fixed. 

  20. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    "Insisting such a (carbon) tax would not unduly burden the poor, she said, "those who decide to live a more climate-friendly life could actually get money back."

    Apparently this is to be through some sort of rewards scheme for the middle classes if they do the right thing, and  the poor are given rebates to compensate them. This sounds nice in 'theory', but would create considerable bureaucratic complexity. The more complicated the proposal, the longer it will take to actually pass legislation, and time is a luxury we no longer have, given the lack of progress thus far, the speed at which climate change is progressing and the rate at which emissions are still rising.

    Carbon fee and dividend would be a whole lot simpler.  Given that wind and solar power is becoming cost competitive, you don't need to use a carbon tax to subsidise this any more, so it could all be given back as a dividend. 

  21. The HadSST4 Sea Surface Temperature dataset

    Quite interesting. 

    Unfortunate that the data doesn't go back to the end of the little ice age (1870).  If we had that, then we could make assessments about the ocean heat sink.  As an object is being cooled (ocean), heat transfer is from its surface between water-air and water-earth.  But, unlike a solid object, oceans can mix deep water with surface water faster than heat transfer allows through vertical currents.

    Scenario. The ocean cools during the little ice age (1300 - 1870), creating a huge heat sink after 570 years. Afterwards, surface air heats up. If surface air to water has a U value of say 5 to 30, then it will have litte effect on ocean surface temperature relative to water core to water surface because of the large difference between surface and core temperatures (the core being about 17 C cooler than the surface) and the much higher U value of heat transfer between water and water that is 30+ or so times greater. This would allow air surface temperatures to rise while ocean surface temperatures still drop.  If we saw a lag in ocean temps after the little ice age, that might confirm the above scenario.

  22. michael sweet at 22:48 PM on 6 July 2019
    Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    Letchim,

    The video you link would be deleted as a post at SkS because they make many unsupported claims that are transparently false.  They dismiss the peer reviewed literature in favor of their unsupported personal opinions.

    Schillenberger states at the end that nuclear waste is not a problem because no-one is killed by it.  He does not mention the widespread problems of nuclear waste like the Hanford site in Washington state and dismisses the concern that the waste must be stored for longer than civilization has existed.

    Hansen and Schillenberger suggest that new designs manufactured in factories will make nuclear "cheaper than coal".  Big deal.  They answer none of Abbotts questions.  If their new designs work out as planned, a first for the nuclear industry, the manufactured units will not be available until 2040.  That is too late to help.

    Hansen damages his credibility with obviously false claims about nuclear.

  23. Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    Penguin @370,
    Adding more detail to michael sweet @372, you are asking about a 6,000 word article from 2018 entitled "CO2 is Not Driving Global Warming" written by...

    Well we do not learn the name of the "NARTE certified electromagnetic compliance engineer with more than 30 years practical experience" who is also "a systems engineer with plenty of experience in software design and development" with the "lifetime fascination with astronomy and cosmology." That is never a good sign - to flaunt your qualifications without naming yourself.
    Whoever he is, it took him from 2006 (the Al Gore flim) until 2018 to decide to present this grand revelation to the world, even though he had "alarm bells ringing" in 2006. A second bad sign.
    And he asserts that the theory underpinning AGW is no more that a CO2/GlobalTemperature correlation which is nonsense. A third bad sign.


    The entirety is un-referenced which is fine when it is discussing widely understood subjects but when it begins to dip into fantasy, the lack of referencing becomes entirely unscientific and fatal for the presented thesis. Thus CO2 contributes roughly 16% to the greenhouse effect and would unassisted provide 25% of the greenhouse effect. I can say that un-referenced without much controversy.  But within an un-referencing article, the assertion that CO2 is "responsible for more than 2.8% of greenhouse gas warming" is the beginning of the end for this grand thesis.


    A few paragraphs later he asserts that CO2 absorbtion is IR is multiply-counted (a bit like double-counted but many more times) thus "cumulatively contributing to atmospheric warming." Such an idea is nonsensical. And nobody has spotted this alleged eggregious error? That would require some very good explanation. (The assertion "CO2 will not radiate more infrared energy than it absorbs if it’s at the same temperature as its surroundings" appears fundamental to the poor understanding of the author. It is precisely because it is the gas temperture that defines the CO2 IR emissions (and thus not the levels of absorbed-IR as he asserts) which creates the power of the CO2 greenhouse effect. Thus the comment "Increasing CO2 concentrations ... would mean that the greenhouse effect of CO2 will be concentrated at lower altitudes" is back-to-front.)

    The guts of his unsupported assertions run:-

    "[CO2] is plainly saturated. Adding more CO2 to the system will not result in any less energy being radiated into space at those frequencies"
    "The other misstatement in this [AGW] argument is that, “... it is the layers from which radiation does escape that determine the planet’s heat balance.” This is incorrect. The temperature of the upper layers of the atmosphere has no effect on the IR radiation if that atmosphere is transparent to the IR radiation. If the transmissivity of the atmosphere is at or near one, the IR radiation will simply pass through it with no interaction. If it were otherwise, then IR radiation simply wouldn’t propagate through the atmosphere at all. Since there is little to no water vapor at high altitudes where the atmospheric temperature are claimed to be a factor, the atmosphere is completely transparent to IR radiation across most of the spectrum." [My bold]


    He is effectively saying 'Once the IR has a clear shot at space, the temperature of the atmosphere it is passing through doesn't matter.' The fool (and he is surely that) misinterprets "the layers from which" for "the layers through which". It is the temperature of gas from where the IR is shot into space that is crutial to the amount of IR energy cooling the planet.

     

  24. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    I don't have peer-reviewed articles but this video has some food for thought

    James Hansen & Michael Shellenberger: Nuclear Power? Are Renewables Enough?

  25. michael sweet at 10:43 AM on 6 July 2019
    Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    Penguin,

    Your article claims that the concern about AGW started with Al Gore's movie An Inconvienent Truth in 2006.  He apparently missed James Hansen's Senate testimony in 1989 that AGW was an incoming disaster.  Lindon Johnson asked the National Academy of Science if AGW was a problem in 1965 and they replied that it would be a problem in 40 years or so.  The first IPCC report was written in 1990!

    The article claims that the CO2 absorbtion band is saturated.  The probem here is the writer does not understand how the greenhouse effect works.  At the surface the absorbtion band is saturated, everyone knows that.  That does not matter.  About 10 km up in the sky (30,000 feet) is the important area.  At this height there is no water, only CO2.  This is the escape altitude.  Increased CO2 increases the escape altitude which warms the Earth.  Read the OP for more information.

    This dribble has been debunked many times.  The author admits his ignorance when he claims no-one cared about AGW before 2006.  The first IPCC report was written in 1990!!

  26. Penguin17935 at 07:54 AM on 6 July 2019
    Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    Sorry - first post :-) didn't insert as link.. https://towerofreason.blogspot.com/2018/04/co2-is-not-driving-global-warming.html#comment-form

    Thanks!

  27. Penguin17935 at 07:51 AM on 6 July 2019
    Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    What is the response to this article[ https://towerofreason.blogspot.com/2018/04/co2-is-not-driving-global-warming.html#comment-form ] reasoning that climate models do not correctly recognise the effects of increasing CO2 conentrations and that CO2 is not the main driver of climate changes?

  28. Models are unreliable

    How reliable are IPCC 5th Assessment Predictions?  Were they smarter than a 5th grader?

    First the IPCC--Predictions are based on the assumption that CO2 is a primary driver of earth surface air temperatures. Because it has been extremely easy to to predict CO2 levels going forward from 2006, the baseline year for the IPCC 5th, the predictions would not have significantly changed if 12 years later, the actual CO2 levels were inserted (no assumptions) and the predictions recast.  Given that, the average IPCC error from 2007 through 2018 was .14 degrees C.  

    5th Grader: Let's pick a panel of 5th grader that is smart enough to know that they have no clue as to what next years global earth temperature is going to be.  So they decide to guess the prior years temperature. Given that, the average 5th Grader error from 2007 through 2018 was .07 degrees C--twice as accurate as the IPCC Model.

    Here is the data.

    IPCC 5th Model Errors Avg Abs Errors


                                 Avg Err   0.072       0.145
                                     Temperature Model Errors
    Yr        NASA   IPCC          No Idea      Model
    1970   (0.13)

    2006     0.48   0.57

    2007     0.44   0.58             0.04         0.14
    2008     0.38   0.59             0.06         0.21
    2009     0.47   0.62             0.08         0.15
    2010     0.53   0.64             0.06         0.11
    2011     0.45   0.65             0.08         0.20
    2012     0.48   0.68             0.03         0.20
    2013     0.50   0.74             0.02         0.23
    2014     0.59   0.76             0.09         0.16
    2015     0.71   0.75             0.12         0.05
    2016     0.82   0.79             0.12         0.04
    2017     0.72   0.80             0.11         0.09
    2018     0.65   0.81             0.07         0.16
    2019     0.83

    CO2 Levels Mauna Loa Observatory

    Can it be argued that the 5th graders cheated by reassessing every year. Sure. But two facts do not change.

    1) IPCC could have used actual CO2 data and not improved accuracy.

    2) If physics is at all understood, any model based on sound physics should be able to beat the static forecast (e.g., a ball being thrown with elevation above ground being predicted).

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] "Predictions are based on the assumption that CO2 is a primary driver of earth surface air temperatures"

    You clearly didn't read the post.  Models are built using physics and observations; predictions coming from them are an outgrowth of that.  While imperfect, they are demonstrably reliable.  The radiative physics of greenhouse gases like CO2 are well-researched, well-established and accepted by every international science body of note and by the petroleum extraction companies themselves.

    Simply making things, as you do, up is unhelpful.  Please cite sources for claims, per the Comments Policy.

    Inflammatory snipped.

    Please limit image widths to 450.

  29. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26

    John Hartz.  Well then, I take it all back.  I did think it odd when you snipped my comment about AOC saying nothing new that hasn't been said by people with more gray hair.  Since I don't have a party affiliation...the best that might be said is that I am a radical environmentalist, but I do find it odd that people fawn over this person who clearly offers northing new "under the sun".  If that means to you I am trying to score political points, I would wonder whether you see that as points in favor of the Republicans or in the favor of the Democrats.  Neither party appeals to me and I probably should add that I teach a class entitled "Origins of the American System of Government" at a colloge here in Central Virginia, and do so alongside the climate lecture titled: Climate Change: Impact of an Outlaw Species...one can quickly imagine whom is the outlaw species.  Also, your management of this site has never been an issue for me, I was only growing tired of lengthly tomes of rhetoric that often seem not to tie the science with the solutions.  My use of the term, Liberal Arts, to enclose non-science materials should not be viewed as pejorative, it might be that at my age, 75, I'm reflecting how we used to view much college curricula.  Finally, the New Climate Research weekly listing are the best around and I thank you for those.  You can imagine the flack I receive for my Climate Lecture...but those listings are "fingertip" rebuttals for some of the Denier materials I see every day.  Thank You.

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] For the record, DB snipped your comment about AOC saying nothing new that hasn't been said by people with more gray hair. He may snip it again. FWIW, I will celebrate my 76th birthday next week.

  30. Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019

    Thanks for pointing out my mistake.  I thought two of the authors were of a more reliable sort for quality work.

  31. Where to find big ideas for addressing climate change

    As this is your first post, Skeptical Science respectfully reminds you to please follow our comments policy. Thank You!

  32. Where to find big ideas for addressing climate change

    I found this TED talk rather interesting in that context. 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI

    Alan Savory has a notion about stopping desertification.  Looks useful.

    Needs work to get it to happen though.

  33. Philippe Chantreau at 11:52 AM on 5 July 2019
    Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019

    Agree with KR.

  34. Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019

    campcarl - According to the abstract of that paper, they:

    ...investigate how introducing a potential iris feedback, the cloud-climate feedback introduced by parameterizing Cp to increase with surface temperature, affects future climate simulations within a slab-ocean configuration of the Community Earth System Model...

    So they are running simulations with a postulated but unsupported iris feedback, a mechanism postulated by Lindzen many years ago in a series of debunked papers, and seeing how that affects a simplistic climate model. 

    I really don't see how that's particularly newsworthy. 

  35. Philippe Chantreau at 10:04 AM on 5 July 2019
    Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019

    According to the abstract, new modeling suggests that the precipitation efficiency in a higher temperature regime may be higher than has been assessed so far, and that a corresponding decrease in cirrus (high altitude, ice clouds) shielding of downwelling SW radiation could be a consequence of that, providing a positive feedback that could be significant, but it is a very tentative finding. The abstract concludes:

    "These results suggest a potentially strong but highly uncertain connection between convective precipitation, detrained anvil cirrus, and the high cloud feedback in a climate forced by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations."

  36. Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019

    "A Positive Iris Feedback: Insights from Climate Simulations with Temperature Sensitive Cloud-Rain Conversion"

    This paper---which has topnotch authors---appears to have real importance to the public understanding of our climate future, and is thus newsworthy.  Who is going to write a good review, that gives the full story and what it means?

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] What is your basis for "top-notch" authors? The involvement of YS Choi would ring some alarm bells given previous shoddy papers (LC09, LC11).

  37. Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019

    Thanks again to the SkS team to continue the research list!!
    I also like bringing the "opener" to the main SkS theme:
    Getting skeptical about global warming skepticism ..
    The categories bring interesting new aspects of viewing ..

    I highly value this hard work of viewing, filtering, prioritizing, 
    categorizing, doing .. this list is unique in the internet, afaik.
    Deep bowing (will continue to donate/advertise as much
    as possible/useful .. finite money/attention of people ..).

    Virtual hug to the whole team.

  38. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26

    Swampfox: If you are indeed looking for the latest information about the scientific research findings about climate science to to keep your lectures current, the SkS New Climate Research weekly listings are made to order. Given the content of your posts, I suspect that you are more interested in scoring politicl points than in learning about new scientific research. 

  39. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26

    Swampfox: As clearly stated in the green box of the OP, the Weekly News Roundup is "a chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week."  Because the SkS FB page is a social media platform, I select of a variety of articles from around the world to post links to. Some articles focus on climate science and other articles focus on climate policy. I personally chose the articles to be linked to without oversight by the SkS volunteer team. Likewise, I personally select the article to be fetured as the "Editor's Pick." 

  40. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26

    Recommended supplemental reading:

    Meet generation Greta: young climate activists around the world by Anna Turns, Environment, Guardian, June 28, 2019

  41. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26

    swampfoxh @19 and 21, I always like reading your comments, but I get annoyed when people imply I'm making "liberal arts comments". I made some political comments at post 1 because the article covered political issues! Doh! How else can one respond if not politically? I based my comments on facts and what polls are telling us.

    My main interest is the science and the technology of mitigation, but politics is embedded in the climate issue whether we like it or not. It seems artificial to put such issues off limits. This website was set up to expose denialist trickery, its not atmospheric physics 101, so I think there is room for rational political articles and discussion on occasion.

  42. Philippe Chantreau at 06:38 AM on 3 July 2019
    Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019

    Solved, thanks.

  43. Philippe Chantreau at 03:13 AM on 3 July 2019
    Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019

    Has the site's certificate expired? I'm getting an alert message to that effect. Hope it's not an attempt at hacking again.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] You may need to flush your browser's cache.

  44. Why my fears about climate change made me cross the line that separates academia from activism

    Ah ha! Perhaps "this nation" is one not mentioned in your post.

    But even so, taking a path through solving war to get to the solution of our CO2 issues seems like an even bigger challenge.

  45. Why my fears about climate change made me cross the line that separates academia from activism

    @Saliance #2: You state

    "The Pentagon ...generates more than 70 percent of this nation's total greenhouse gas emissions."

    According to the World Bank, US defence spending in recent years has been about 3 to 4% of GDP. The claim of 70% is not believeable without more supporting info, and frankly undermines the credbility of the rest of your post.  Please explain.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Thank you for noting that.  The claimant has been challenged to support that claim.

  46. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26

    At this point (unless someone on this site can fully dis-prove the catastrophists (tm), which they sort of addressed but didn't really disprove... yes, I know the research is scanty but Sharkova and some others point to real possibility of us being in abrupt climate change) it's very possible we have several years to change society if we want to avoid an ag-system induced collapse.

    The IPCC has been way behind the science (understandably so), and if they say 11 years and note a bio-diversity collapse, that points to the real possibility things are going very bad very quickly.

    So it's time for scientists and engineers to read some history, sociology, anthropology, and, ok poli-sci, to understand how this problem must be approached.

    This also means they need to start understanding what is going on in the body politic, if they are going to talk about solutions.

    A very large part of the skepticism has now been morphed into, "oh, we can't do that" or "we can't do that that quickly"...

    This is where historical data comes in.

    I.e., WWII mobilization in for the market oriented, centrally planned model and Free Catalonia of the 1930s for the non-market model.

    Not saying we have to copy those (sure there are other examples) but if scientists want to be a part of the solution, they have to understand how to implement solutions in society.

    E.g., the shortcomings of carbon taxes should alert scientitst and others this is dead end. Yet many of them seem to think "ah, if we implement it correctly..." point is, with oligopolies in power, policies will always be subverted, sooner or later. And we very likely don't have time for that nonsense.

    Another one is divestment. Some scientists seem to think it toppled the Aparteid regime. It likely helped, but it was the people there that did it along with many other factors.

    Even the WWII mobilization in the US was very messy and non-linear, though it was likely the most effective one on the planet. But there were many factors unique to that time an place as well as factors still here today.

    It seems likely we'll have to do the WWII version, which means people need to understand how it was done.

    First and foremost, money is no object when you own the printing press. You just have to ensure you let it chase the wrong stuff (WWII war mobilization involved 30-40% created money and inflation was kept at 7-10%)... see Stephani Kelton and the MMTers for a full break down.

    But anyone that understands Keynsianism or even resever banking understands you can create money from thin air. The MMTers went so far as to outline how the Romans created money then markets (see Graeber's "Debt: First 5k...."

    Given that and current tech we could change the whole economy in 3 - 5 yrs... as long as society is willing (as for WWII mobilization) to do it.

    But we need politicians like the Great Savior of Capitalism FDR who said things like "I want 5000 destroyers by May 15...", "But sir, we don't have the capacity..." "well build the capacity..." and many of the "pie in the sky impossible" targets were met.

    And most of that was accomplished by governemnt owned and operated shipyards who were more productive and efficient than the private ones.

    So, yes, we can get to 0 emissions in a matter of a decade or less, but we have to understand market systems left alone or anything other than commandeered (as in the US WWII production) fully or by coercion ain't going to get us there in any reasonable time scale.

    Unless we have 50 to 100 years to mess around with, in which case I'm just a silly alarmist. And it's not clear whether or not we do have that time (unless I missed a post on it), so it would seem better to get to negative emissions ASAP (which is likely materially possible in a few years but politically impossible).

  47. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26

    I've been attached to Skep/Sci for about the last 5 years, maybe six. I've noticed an increasing presence of contributors who talk a lot and take up a lot of space doing what I'm going to call, Liberal Arts "stuff". I'm beginning to think the people who run this site, perhaps, ought to screen out this material, somehow. I need to keep up with the plight of phytoplankton in the ocean, or the methane emissions from the Arctic permafrost...Liberal Arts stuff really gets in the way.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Feel free to submit a relevant science- and evidence-based article of your own for consideration.

  48. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26

    Wow. Think I opened a big cam of worms on this thread. AOC says nothing new that hasn't been said a hundred times before, and by people with the gray hair to elaborate on it. I too, wanted to have a site like this one in order to keep up with my climate lectures...I can get politics stuff anywhere. Political opinions are as numerous as anal openings, everybody's got one and they aren't all exactly the same. Science is conspicuously different and you actually learn something useful, so how about we all refrain from introducing political rhetoric into this place so there remains room left for peer-reviewed science to help us save the future? Eh?

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Political rhetoric snipped.

  49. They changed the name from 'global warming' to 'climate change'

    HelloThere @34,

    The difference between your plot & the plot in the OP is the "corpus" searched. You use 'Corpus15' = "English" while the OP uses 'Corpus5' = "American English 2009" although there is little difference using 'Corpus17' = "American English". (The OP also uses a smooting of 3 while you use 5, but that is of no significance.)

  50. They changed the name from 'global warming' to 'climate change'

    Hi,

    Thank you for your work. Could you give the details of your Google plot please ? I failed to replicate it, I obtained this graphic. which sadly, though it does not show a decrease in the use of Global Warming, still could be interpreted by some (probably including the person I am trying to convince) as a decoupling of the two. This can probably be justified as Global Warming is only one of the aspects of Climate Change and maybe the news focused more on the other consequences after 1995, but I think to avoid accusations of bad faith maybe it would be better to have access to the steps to replicate this.

    Cheers

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] The graphic linked to exceeded page width limit of 350 pixels. I embedded it into the word "graphic". 

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