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nigelj at 16:52 PM on 20 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20
Regarding the idea climate change could cause human extinction.
Of course climate change is very likely to be disastrous for humanity, rendering some regions uninhabitable and increased human mortality and extinction of many animal species. Much science attests to this. But would it cause human extinction? I found this material through a google search (when you want something done do it yourself)
1) Arctic News has an informal study that argues rapid methane releases from arctic permafrost and the sea floor could cause 10 degrees above normal within about 10 years! And thus human extinction.
However as far as I know(if Dan permits me to have an opinion) this is pure speculation and the vast weight of published science says this is impossible. Realclimate.org has reviewed this issue recentlyit should be easy to find the article.
The last IPCC report has a worst case scenario of 10 degrees above normal by 2300, which is more solidly evidence based and very worrying. But even if warming was 10 degrees this would be a extinction level event for equitorial regions, but its hard for me to see how this would apply to a place like Russia. (However they will have plenty of problems due to climate change). So telling the public we face extinction might be hard to substantiate and could make us look stupid.
2) This published study argues extinction of animal and plant species from climate change could cause a domino effect causing human extinction, but it assumes a runaway global warming effect which is not upheld by the IPCC and mainstream science.
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nigelj at 13:53 PM on 20 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20
jef @3
There is nothing wrong with saying what we think, because its perfectly normal conversation, and of course it matters, and ironically you do it yourself. When you say "We should insist that this be the #1 issue that human society discusses and yes TOTAL EXTENCTION needs to be a part of that discussion." You are really saying "I think we should insist...".
What studies show climate change could cause human extinction? Are they peer reviewed or just articles on websites? Moderation policy requires we back up our assertions with specific references and / or details, which I mostly do. You never do.
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scaddenp at 13:46 PM on 20 May 2019CO2 is just a trace gas
"The amount of heat added to the atmosphere by energy absorbed by greenhouse gases is equal to 110% of the total solar radiation reaching the Earth?" The diagram is not saying heat is added to the atmosphere. It is showing the flows of radiative energy. The re-radiation induced by the GHGs is creating the extra flow. Remember that the radiation is directly measured. Radiation hitting surface is higher than that at TOA. It would have been be a head-scratch if we hadnt discovered the GHE. The key give-away is the spectrum of the incoming radiation.
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:10 PM on 20 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20
The “12 excuses for climate inaction and how to refute them” is a great presentation of what is going wrong within human socioeconomic-political development.
Pursuing improvement of awareness and understanding to develop sustainable new activities and correction of unsustainable and harmful activity is essential for the future of humanity and its advancement.
The 12 Excuses and their responses are Good examples of what is going wrong. And they are not 12 substantially different problems. The 12 Excuses have a lot in common. They fit within a common understanding that human actions must be Governed by the requirement to Do No Harm (and the related aspiration of being Helpful to Others). The future generations of humanity are undeniably the largest pool of Other people. Therefore they deserve the greatest amount of consideration when evaluating the Help and Harm, the merit or acceptability, of actions in any current moment.Observations of what has developed in the current-moments (reality) of the World we all, as individual agents of action, share and act in response to in our series of moments (every person is an agent and the collective of the actions of all agents produces the future results), makes it pretty clear that in order for Humanity to have a better future, human actions need to be Governed as much as possible by the Encouragement of Helpfulness and the Discouragement of Harmfulness (related to the moral/ethical concept that many people, including myself, do not commonly encounter - Beneficence - which is well described in the following Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry “The Principle of Beneficence in Applied Ethics”).
That understanding has a lot in common with other understandings of moral requirements. Where it differs is that it makes one moral principle, the principle of Beneficence (which I present as Help and Harm), the governing consideration for any other principle that is 'thought to be moral'. Other Moral considerations presented by Jonathan Haidt (and others) include thoughts of Fairness, Loyalty, Subservience in Hierarchy, Liberty, or Perceptions of Tribal Sanctity/Purity. But it can be understood that in order to be 'Good for the Future of Humanity' those Other Principles need to be Governed by the Help/Harm principle. And the term Governing needs to understood to be Over-Ruling and Limiting.
That Governing Help/Harm Principle can even be understood to be required to govern the making and enforcement of rules (including rules in Sports). The Rule of Law can be understood to only be Good if it is Governed, based on improving awareness and understanding, to be Helpful to the future of a diversity of Humanity sustainably fitting into a robust diversity of life on this, or any other, amazing planet. And developed Law that contradicts that objective needs to be corrected.
Helpful actions need to be encouraged, desired and rewarded. Unsustainable actions need to be discouraged (limited). And Harmful actions need to be quickly identified and rapidly shut down before they can become powerful, especially before they become popular or profitable (Over-ruled and penalized as required).
The Sustainable Development Goals are a very good presentation of the understanding of Helpful required developments and the requirements for correction of Harmful unsustainable things that have already regrettably developed.
That understanding needs to be at the core of understanding of anyone who wants to be Helpful or Good. Powerful interests that develop due to a lack of awareness and understanding of how harmful their desires and pursuits were/are could choose, and are likely to choose, to powerfully resist correction rather than improve their awareness and understanding and increase their helpfulness and reduce their harmfulness.
The pressures to excuse doing harm to future generations, and the related lack of interest in helping the future generations, are well described by Stephen M. Gardiner in "A Perfect Moral Storm-The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change" published in 2011 (it is referred to in this SkS post “Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London”). His earlier 2006 paper is referred to in this SkS post “The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen”.
Gardiner's 2016 article in the Washington Post "Why climate change is an ethical problem", is a partial presentation of his ethical argument about the moral corruption that can be observed to be occurring in matters related to climate change.
That perfect moral storm can be understood to be part of the reason for people wanting to believe each of the 12 misleading claims addressed in the Vox article, and many other claimed excused for harmful unsustainable behaviour. That moral storm has developed powers that fight against correction of the Biodiversity threat, Climate Change threat, and many other threats to the future of humanity.
The powerful ability of harmful Status Seekers to abuse misleading marketing makes things worse (except for the Status Seekers who benefit). Particularly harmful are those misleading political marketers who understand how to directly appeal to moral principles in ways that by-pass the need for Helpfulness to Govern (and who abuse the Rules of Law).
Similarly extremely harmful are the people who tempt people to believe that the benefit of 'some people today' can be claimed to excuse (justify) causing harm to others (including the largest group of others, the future generations, an unacceptable harm that even benefits for all of current day humans cannot justify/excuse).
Discounting likely, or even potential, future harm then comparing it to perceptions of lost current day opportunity to justify continuing the harmful actions is morally reprehensible, if Do No Harm (aspire to be helpful to future generations) is the governing (over-ruling, limiting) moral principle.
What is the One Easy Thing Everyone can do? Start pursuing improvement of awareness and understanding to develop sustainable new activities and correction of unsustainable and harmful activity. That starts with accepting the need to achieve and improve on the Sustainable Development Goals. All of them, not just a Favourite one to the detriment of achieving the other ones. And don't Hope for some new development to solve the problem. Be particularly skeptical of new artificial (technological) developments that are claimed to be 'solutions', especially the ones that are potentially popular and profitable. Pursuits of Status based on popularity and profit created the problem and the resistance to correction.
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KR at 11:30 AM on 20 May 2019CO2 is just a trace gas
Rovinpiper - Some time ago I ran through the numbers on this. CO2 takes about 10^-6 seconds to emit excess energy as infrared radiation. At sea level each air molecule collides with another 10^9 times. This means than an excited GHG molecule will undergo 1000 collisions before it's statistially likely to emit, meaning that yes, the atmosphere as a whole is warmed by GHG absorption, and the emissions are due to the statistical emissions of the air mass as a whole.
And now a (very) brief explanation of how this works:
The rest of the equation is tied to the lapse rate, the rate of which the air is cooler with rising altitude, and the statistical likelyhood of an IR emission escaping to the space. The absorption and emission of energy repeats throughout the atmosphere until GHGs decrease with pressure to the point that 50% or more of the IR escapes to space, which is where convection stops. This is the tropopause, the separation between the convective troposphere and the static stratosphere.
The emission rate is determined by temperature, and the lapse rate (about 6.5C/km, varies widely with humidity, temps, etc) means that the emitting gases at the tropopause are cooler than the earths surface. Very importantly, changing the GHG concentrations changes that altitude. And that change in altitude means that there is an imbalance between incoming and outgoing energies until the entire atmospheric column to the tropopause has warmed or cooled to match incoming energy.
Global Warming Linked To Increase In Tropopause Height
So the surface is hotter than the tropopause, linearly by altitude, the tropopause emissions have to match incoming solar energy to stabilize, and our emissions have raised the tropopause. We're therefore warming.
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jef12506 at 11:15 AM on 20 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20
nig - please stop talking unless you have real info. No more "I think..." or "I believe..." because none of that matters a lick.
There is absolutely a strong possibility of total extenction, not only of humans (as if thats all that matters) but of all life, and there an increasing number of studies that support that conclusion. And yes that is rather important and worth repeating loud and clear from the highest point.
None of this is a belief system or something you get to choose to think about or not...it is real and it is now.
We should insist that this be the #1 issue that human society discusses and yes TOTAL EXTENCTION needs to be a part of that discussion.
Moderator Response:[PS] Can you please cite the studies that support your conclusion? At the moment, you are making assertions without supporting evidence. (ie sloganeering).
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Rovinpiper at 11:10 AM on 20 May 2019CO2 is just a trace gas
I see. It is always a bit more complicated than I realize.
You are right, of course. You didn't say that O2, N2, and Ar are transparent to visible light. That was the understanding that I brought to this discussion.
I don't entirely follow what you are saying about the components of the heating of the atmosphere.
Conduction, I think, would just be heat transfer by contact between surface and atmosphere. That makes sense.
Heating by evaporation, I guess, water from the surface gets heated, vaporizes, and moves into the atmosphere carrying heat with it. Simple enough.
We already discussed how GHGs absorb and reemit radiation of certain wavelengths, but you've cited a confusing figure for this component. The amount of heat added to the atmosphere by energy absorbed by greenhouse gases is equal to 110% of the total solar radiation reaching the Earth?
How is that possible? Is it because energy can be absorbed and reemitted several times before finally escaping into space?
Would that total solar radiation figure that we are comparing things to include the 30% that is reflected or not?
Thanks for all of the answers. This is really interesting.
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william5331 at 06:04 AM on 20 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20
And if none of your arguments stike a chord with your favorite climate change denier, tell him or her to "forget Climate Change" https://mtkass.blogspot.com/2010/10/forget-climate-change.html
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nigelj at 07:37 AM on 19 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20
I think Greta Thunberg has had impact because 1) she is telling the truth here and with clarity and 2) nobody is prepared to be too critical of a child, especially such a capable child. If it was an adult they would be flooded with excuses and strawman arguments and personally attacked.
The 12 points seem really good on the whole except talking about human extinction seems like over playing the hand to me. Its easily refuted because even in horrendous conditions pockets of humans would almost certainly survive.
The collapse of civilisation is a better position with robust evidence. Almost every climate impact puts considerable pressure on our socio economic systems and infrastructure and our system has fragility due to its complexity. We are already seeing problems for example in low lying pacific islands, with forest fires, and refugees from Syria that had a huge drought that has been linked to climate change.
When societies have dire problems, money is always found. WW2 is the obvious example. The climate issue is challenging because the threats seem distant and we aren't hardwired to deal with those very well, and many business leaders want business as usual to contine so they can profit and put on status displays of wealth in a way they are used to. Don't reward such people when you vote and don't think you have to emulate them, there are many ways of living.
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BaerbelW at 04:44 AM on 19 May 2019Discussing climate change on the net
The Promet issue #101, in which the article was published, has now been made available for download. The PDF (25MB) can be downloaded here and the article (in German) starts on page 41.
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Postkey at 01:55 AM on 19 May 2019Climate's changed before
"Unless mankind changes immediately Man will be extinct before 2400"
Probably earlier?
“The IPCC report that the Paris agreement based its projections on considered over 1,000 possible scenarios. Of those, only 116 (about 10%) limited warming below 2C. Of those, only 6 kept global warming below 2C without using negative emissions. So roughly 1% of the IPCC’s projected scenarios kept warming below 2C without using negative emissions technology like BECCS. And Kevin Anderson, former head of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, has pointed out that those 6 lone scenarios showed global carbon emissions peaking in 2010. Which obviously hasn’t happened.
So from the IPCC’s own report in 2014, we basically have a 1% chance of staying below 2C global warming if we now invent time travel and go back to 2010 to peak our global emissions. And again, you have to stop all growth and go into decline to do that. And long term feedbacks the IPCC largely blows off were ongoing back then too.”
https://www.facebook.com/wxclimonews/posts/455366638536345“ The level of fossil fuel consumption globally is now roughly five times higher than in the 1950s, and one-and-half times higher than in the 1980s, when the science of global warming was confirmed and governments accepted the need to act on it. This is a central feature of the “great acceleration” of human impacts on the natural world. . . .
CO2 emissions are 55% higher today than in 1990. Despite 20 international conferences on fossil fuel use reduction and an international treaty that entered into force in 1994, man made greenhouse gases have risen inexorably.”piraniarchive.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/pirani-helsinki-wern2018-paper.pdf
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Peterbyrnie at 00:36 AM on 19 May 2019Climate's changed before
All these arguments are irrelevant as mankind is destroying the wildlife and environments of earth.
Unless mankind changes immediately Man will be extinct before 2400
The earth does not need mankind!
Stop polluting the land and seas, stop cutting down the trees, and stop and feed the poor!
Educate the population so that the population falls.
You don't have a choice!
PB
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MA Rodger at 18:16 PM on 18 May 2019CO2 is just a trace gas
Rovinpiper @26,
Just to be clear, @25 I was considering the transparency of the vast majority of the atmospheric content with respect solely to radiation from the Earth's surface. II made no mention of visible light or solar radiation.
Through the 'visible spectrum', the major components of the atmosphere are not entirely transparent. N2 & O2 will cause Raleigh Scattering (which is why the sky is blue) and O2 does have absorption bands within red light (as does water vapour).
If we consider 'solar radiation' rather than just the 'visible spectrum', the various Energy Balance diagrams show that 30% of 'solar radiation' is reflected back into space, 23% absorbed by the atmosphere and the remaining 47% absorbed by the surface. For comparison (so here measured as a percentage of total 'solar radiation'), the heating of the atmosphere by conduction is 5%, by evaporation 23% and by the absorption by GHGs 110% with just 6% of the Earth's radiation making it into space without spending time heating the atmosphere.
In the absence of any GHGs or water, conduction from the surface would remain although an atmosphere that cannot absorb radiation also cannot emit it so the surface air temperature will not necessarily be colder relative to the surface (which will be colder). Also considering the continued Raleigh Scattering and O2 absorption (but not the O3 absorption) suggests the majority (perhaps three-quarters) of the 23% sunlight absorption in the atmosphere would also remain.
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Eclectic at 07:27 AM on 18 May 2019CO2 is just a trace gas
Rovinpiper @26 , yes the atmosphere would still gain heat from physical contact with the planet's surface.
The catch is, when you calculate out the effects of it all, you find you have an Earth surface which is well below freezing point of water. Earth would be a complete iceball. And that leads to the question: So what is the Goldilocks level for CO2 ? ( CO2 being the critically important Greenhouse gas, in the long run. )
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Rovinpiper at 04:32 AM on 18 May 2019CO2 is just a trace gas
Interesting.
So the major gases that make up our atmosphere are transparent to visible light. That means that light will not increase the temperature of those gases directly, doesn't it?If visible light passes through a transparent atmosphere and reaches an opaque surface below, it can increase the temperature of that surface. In the absence of greenhouse gases, though, any energy reradiated out from the surface as infrared wouldn't do anything to raise the atmosphere's temperature either, right?
The atmosphere would still be heated when its particles collided with the surface, though, wouldn't they?
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MA Rodger at 18:56 PM on 17 May 2019CO2 was higher in the past
Warend @81,
You state that published solar luminosities show "the solar intensity was 11% less during the start of the glaciation event." That seems very high. Are we talking about the same "glaciation event"? Perhaps you could point to the publications you cite. A simple Wikithing reference gives Fig 1 from Ribas (2009) below which suggests a reduction of slightly under 4% in solar intensity for the Late Ordovician.
I also fail to follow your assessment of that 11% reduction of solar forcing. Perhaps you could set out a more detailed assessment.
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Warend at 17:15 PM on 17 May 2019CO2 was higher in the past
I am not challanging the theory or formulations that compose stellar evolution models. But what are the degrees of uncertainty or variance between calculated model results and actual stellar luminosities over time. Because of the time scales this cannot be done directly with observations over time. Looking at published solar luminosities the solar intensity was 11% less during the start of the glaciation event...assuming a 25% forcing contribution due to solar radiation this yields a nominal forcing effect of ~3%. But again what's the uncertainty...I so far have not found a published value. This is understandable given the time frames and the current impossibility to conduct validating experiments. There was some mention of errors in the range of 10 to 15%. If that is the degree of uncertainty in the stellar model results, that would say that there is too much uncertainty relative to the nominal effect. Perhaps there are similar uncertainties, and effect level magnitudes, with the other coincidental conditions/effects?
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Sokrates Wonders at 15:05 PM on 17 May 2019CO2 lags temperature
You can look in Raymond Bradley's Paleoclimatology third edition about dating of ice cores. I think you cannot just compare time scales for different dating methods with one another without having some clear evidence for some time event like an volcanic eruption or similar which enables you to link the time scales together.
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Eclectic at 13:56 PM on 17 May 2019Climate's changed before
Warend @711 ,
over less than one hour, you have made 4 comments in 4 separate threads here at SkS. Each comment was distinctly fatuous. So the readers can only draw the conclusion you are not a bot. ;-)
Warend, you are posting on the wrong website. This website here is for rational skeptics. Your comments would have a much better fit at WhatsUpWithThat ~ a website where misery loves company. ;-)
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scaddenp at 13:53 PM on 17 May 2019There is no consensus
As been stated many time here, the point of consensus studies is to counter myth that consensus doesnt exist.
The Scientific consensus might be wrong but it is the only basis for rational policy especially when it is strong.
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nigelj at 13:36 PM on 17 May 2019Fox News made the US a hotbed of climate denial. Kids are the cure.
Warend @10
Thank's for the comments, they include some fair questions. I post comments on this website sometimes and I'm interested in climate change.
"I thought this site was centered around scepticism."
And it is. Read the mission statement at the top of the page: "This website gets skeptical about global warming skepticism." !
This website is not dedicated quite so much to scepticism about climate science because there are plenty of other forums for that. Having said that, none of the regulars here take the science at face value, we always look for flaws in it and this is sometimes discussed here when new papers come out. But we look for real flaws in the maths and physics, we do not make sweeping claims that climate scientists are dishonest or part of some imagined conspiracy or the data is faked, as many sceptics do, and we know when to move on. For example its been well and truly demonstrated that urban heat islands are not distorting the temperature record, so we don't understand why people remain sceptical about this.
There is such a thing as rational scepticism, and just scepticism for the sake of it or to promote political agendas and vested interests. Not all sceptics do this but many do.
"The notion that climate is changing at a rate that is creating an emergency, and that human activity is the primary cause of the changes can easily be doubted. Just look at the record of atmospheric temp verse CO2 concentrations. "
A correlation doesn't have to be perfect to be statistically significant. Look at the 20th century and calculate a correlation coefficient and its still high even with the flat period of temperatures in the middle which are explained by industrial aerosols after the war. So there is no reason to doubt the relationship between CO2 and warming on the basis of this period of time, or any other period of time, because there is a decent correlation for the whole period and explanations for why the correlation breaks down in the middle: Particluate emissions masked but did not stop the greenhouse effect.
"Also looking at previous predictions illustrates that scientific understanding around climate change is still poor. "
What predictions? Predictions of warming and sea level rise have been pretty good. Look up model data comparisons over at realclimate.org. Here is an amazing list of other good predictions and a few bad predictions from the sceptical "community". Of course there have been some failed predictions, but not many when you look at them honestly and objectively.
"Similar to our understanding of the human genome we can see all the components but our understanding of how it completely works is still beyond us. "
But climate scientists are the first to admit our understanding isn't perfect. We dont fully understand how cancer works but we certainly know what causes it and whats most likely to happen. We have a good but not perfect understanding of the climate.
"But let's give up on reason, and blame Fox news, and use our kids instead of our own adult voices - very mature.
Where specifically have we given up on reason? I dont think we have. This website seems very well reasoned.
I certainly blame Fox news for induging in poor quality, misleading forms of scepticism. They should be called out over this.
Adults didn't 'use' these kids. The 'kids' organised these protests largely on their own volition. It all came as a surprise to me.
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Warend at 13:03 PM on 17 May 2019CO2 was higher in the past
How do you know for certain the sun was "weak" at this period of time? What level of uncertainty has been determined for these studies conclusions. I can assert that - we do not know for certain what happened so long ago, and we do not know what level of uncertainty we are working with. How do you suggest calculating the mathematical level of uncertainty for occurances so far in the past?
Moderator Response:[PS] bombing multiple comment threads with weak comments is verging on sloganeering. Stick to where you have the problem, engage with other commentators and move on when resolved please.
The sun early output is from basic physics of its state as a main-line star. I am unaware of any serious doubt on the physics of stellar evolution that would challenge that conclusion.
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Warend at 12:32 PM on 17 May 2019Climate's changed before
The assertion of the author can be countered with many examples. The subject of longterm climate patterns is so complex and beyond current human understanding that any assertions are highly suspect.
Moderator Response:[PS] Argument from personal incredularity. I suggest you take time to inform yourself of the science and respond with research to back your assertion.
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Warend at 12:21 PM on 17 May 2019There is no consensus
The truth is not found thru a vote, just ask Ptolemy ;-)
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Warend at 12:13 PM on 17 May 2019Fox News made the US a hotbed of climate denial. Kids are the cure.
I thought this site was centered around scepticism. The notion that climate is changing at a rate that is creating an emergency, and that human activity is the primary cause of the changes can easily be doubted. Just look at the record of atmospheric temp verse CO2 concentrations. Also looking at previous predictions illustrates that scientific understanding around climate change is still poor. Similar to our understanding of the human genome we can see all the components but our understanding of how it completely works is still beyond us. But let's give up on reason, and blame Fox news, and use our kids instead of our own adult voices - very mature.
Moderator Response:[PS] Pure sloganeering. This site is based around the results of peer-reviewed research. If you want to challenge science, then do so providing evidence to back your assertion. Also, strawman arguments and cherry-picking are norm for denial. If you want to claim science is wrong, then first quote the source of science you believe at fault (eg an IPCC report), then the evidence that refutes it. Claiming science says something that it does not (eg direct relationaship between temperatgure and CO2) is just denier ploy.
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scaddenp at 10:24 AM on 17 May 2019CO2 lags temperature
For more about problems with contamination of greenland CO2 by organic molecule reactions, see here. Antarctic cores have fewer issues.
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David Kirtley at 09:44 AM on 17 May 2019CO2 lags temperature
Oops forgot to add link to previous post:
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David Kirtley at 09:43 AM on 17 May 2019CO2 lags temperature
It's interesting that the CO2 readings from the Greenland cores don't match the readings from the Antarctic cores. One of the studies pointed to by scaddenp @595 says this in the abstract:
Both Greenland cores show high CO2 values for rather mild climatic periods during the last glaciation, whereas CO2 records from Antarctica do not show such high CO2 variations during the glaciation and, furthermore, the CO2 values in the early Holocene are about 20-30 ppmv higher in the GRIP record than in Antarctic records. There is some evidence that the difference could be due to chemical reactions between impurities in the ice leading to an increase of the CO2 concentration under certain conditions. If in situ processes can change the CO2 concentration in the air bubbles, the question arises about how reliably do CO2 records from ice cores reflect the atmospheric composition at the time of ice formation. The discrepancies between the CO2 profiles from Greenland and Antarctica can be explained by in situ production of excess CO2 due to interactions between carbonate and acidic species. Since the carbonate concentration in Antarctic ice is much lower than in Greenland ice, CO2 records from Antarctica are much less affected by such in situ-produced CO2.
Just shows how carefully the scientists look at these things. They really do try to think of everything.
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scaddenp at 07:41 AM on 17 May 2019CO2 lags temperature
A quick look at the paleoclimate archives shows CO2 data for GRIP and GISP2 though the records are nowhere near as long as those in Antarctica. I am not really sure that I understand the question about the end of the ice-age. The Milankovich forcings that control the broad timing ice ages are not synchronous between hemisphere. Furthermore the events mentioned are regional discursions thought to be driven by combinations of icesheet melting dynamics and oceanic processes. The processes are local not global. That said, the causes of D-O and Heinrich events is not settled science.
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knaugle at 06:27 AM on 17 May 2019Fox News made the US a hotbed of climate denial. Kids are the cure.
#1
Nigelj, your link also tells me that what was 40 years in the making will take more than the 2020 elections to fix. This is a long haul decades task we face. ... and yes, you may not know much about Fox News, but you certainly know something about Rupert Murdoch and his media presence in Great Britain and Australia.
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MA Rodger at 06:11 AM on 17 May 2019CO2 is just a trace gas
Rovinpiper @24,
Answering your two questions, (1) yes non-GHG gases are transparent to the Earth's infrared and (2) O2, N2 & Ar which comprise 99.95% of the dry/clean atmosphere are non-GHG gases, so yes, presumably to infinity and beyond! But note that O3 (ozone) absorbs IR of 9.6micron wavelength and so oxygen in the form of O3 is a GHG.
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Rovinpiper at 05:40 AM on 17 May 2019CO2 is just a trace gas
So are the non-greenhouse gases completely transparent to infrared?
Would an infrared photon go through an infinite amount of an oxygen, nitrogen, and argon atmosphere?
If so, I guess adding GHGs would definitely have an effect, regardless of the size of the atmosphere in question. If not, then the non-GHGs present would have an effect, and the GHGs could prove redundant. -
John Mason at 21:20 PM on 16 May 2019Rebellious Times
Annoyingly, Youtube have taken down the Attenborough documentary, linked to in post 3, upthread. BBC have complained about copyright. Normally I'd see their point, but on a subject as important as this, it seems like bad form to me.
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MA Rodger at 19:32 PM on 16 May 2019CO2 was higher in the past
Warend @78,
Ancient evidence can obviously come with uncertainties that can be very large. However you are wrong to suggest that the argument that CO2 levels dipped in the Late Ordovician rests solely on "large uncertainties" or in other words "we don't know that it didn't dip."
There is evidence cited (Young et al 2008) in the Intermediate version of the OP above showing that, prior to the Late Ordovician, CO2 was high due to high levels of volcanism but not very high due to high levels of rock weathering. And the evidence shows the high levels of volcanism stopped before the rock weathering ended causing CO2 levels to drop to below 3000ppm, a level which would allow glaciation with the weaker sun. This is the "coincidence of conditions" mentioned in the OP summary.
And the scientific work has continued through the years allowing a more detailed understanding of the events that created the Late Ordovician glaciation. See for instance Ghienne et al (2014) or Pohl et al (2016). Past uncertainty is today reduced to the point of no-longer being uncertainty.
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Warend at 15:33 PM on 16 May 2019CO2 was higher in the past
I am skeptical of the authors conclusions: the argument is that "coincidence of conditions" counteracted the CO2's warning effect at such high levels, at the period in question. But the levels of CO2 are being doubted due to large uncertainties in the extremely ancient evidence, yet the same, if not more, uncertainties exist for the "coincidence of conditions" due to the extremely old evidence. There's lots of evidence to make one skeptical about climate science assertions, not the least of which is all the hysteria around the subject.
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One Planet Only Forever at 11:46 AM on 16 May 2019Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’
ilfark2 and nigelj,
My understanding is that the global awareness and understanding of what should be valued (encouraged and rewarded) and what should be devalued (discouraged and penalized) has to become what ilfark2 has stated. And the portion of humanity that understands that has to become large enough to over-power the correction resistant powers that have been developed.
Without rigorous and effective external referees, the competitions for appearances of status based on pursuits of popularity, power, and profit will likely only develop more damaging results (that is what the climate science challenge has proven - resistance to correction resulting in increasing harm done).
The resistance to correction of popular and profitable activity is undeniable. The result is harmful consequences developing until slick misleading marketing appeals encouraging people to be more selfish and greedier fail to mask the damage being done and who is responsible (everyone resisting correction, or being a bystander, is responsible).
That developed reality is Unacceptable for the future of humanity. It has turned the climate challenge of the 1980s into the current Climate Emergency that the developed socioeconomic-political systems are continuing to develop into a More Damaging Climate Disaster (and the same can be said of the Biodiversity Disaster that has developed and resists correction).
Clearly, the theory that 'competition in the marketplace will effectively self-correct and self-police' has been proven to be fatally flawed. Correction is required.
Concerned caring people outside of the damaging whirlwind of competition for profit and popularity appear to be the only ones really trying to correct the undeniably harmful results developing in the fatally flawed socioeconomic-political systems. Everyone inside the whirlwind plays a game that includes claiming they will behave better if someone else develops a way for them to behave better that is cheaper and easier than what they can currently get away with (but don't restrict or increase the cost of fossil fuels, or subsidize the alternatives, to make the alternatives more appealing - because the 'supposedly concerned caring people inside the whirlwind' will get angry and vote against who ever does that).
Without a powerful correction of the system, things are likely to get worse, not better. There is no reason to believe that 'the next winners in the energy delivery market will be sustainable and not harmful'. Without considerate people refereeing what develops the result is likely to just be popular and profitable activity that is as unsustainable harmful as can be gotten away with.
The systems are undeniably fatally flawed, including democracy and capitalism. They are almost certain to not self-correct in a way hta minimizes the harm done. And as SkS, and many other climate science communication groups have identified, misleading marketing is a key aspect of the developed problem.
Less consumption and less impact is what is required, particularly by the supposed leaders of society (the wealthiest and most influential setting the examples for everyone else). It is almost certain that will 'not' become popular and profitable 'in' the current developed systems. The current systems have developed powerful resistance to correction that would alter developed perceptions of what deserves to be valued, primarily because misleading marketing can be gotten away with.
Effectively penalizing misleading political marketing appeals that are contrary to the achievement and improvement of the Sustainable Development Goals will likely be required. That will likely require an international institution that will be able to step on National Sovereignty when required, because people within a nation may not be effective at self-correcting (international intervention happens in other areas of concern - though harmful 'claimed to be required extra-national corrective actions' are still unacceptably popular and profitable)
Developing International monitoring of climate impacts and effective penalty systems is the direction that things are headed. And the correction resistant have been fighting against that improvement because they understand how much they deserve to lose.
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nigelj at 08:53 AM on 16 May 2019Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’
ilfark2
"The odds of a profit driven system remaining just and sustainable for any length of time requires very strong referees. As we've seen repeatedly, the referees are always bought, sooner or later."
I agree, but it may be our only realistic hope to try and make it work. The alternative communities you mention sound great, and deserve some respect, but most of these communities fail for all sorts of reasons, and they don't attract many people. So are they any more likely to be viable than capitalism in some form? I realise a few seem to work to a point but thats a long way form a viable global model.
Likely the only sustainable system would be democratically planned, owned operated with "always in my back yard" strictly adhered to.
Would it be strictly adhered to? Human nature might decide otherwise.
I agree with your other points.
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ilfark2 at 04:13 AM on 15 May 2019Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’
The odds of a profit driven system remaining just and sustainable for any length of time requires very strong referees. As we've seen repeatedly, the referees are always bought, sooner or later.
Likely the only sustainable system would be democratically planned, owned operated with "always in my back yard" strictly adhered to.
With current tech, there's not reason we couldn't provide food, shelter, healthcare, education to all while spending very little time providing for these things (consider the large swaths of current society that do nothing material except drive in large carbon emitting circles).
As far as population goes, as many studies have shown, education works very well.
For ways we might go about this, give it a think as well as look places like zcomm.org, Murray Bookchin, Paris Commune, Free Catalonia, Rojova the Zapatistas (not to mention the large communerian movement in Venezuela) among others.
But yes, it has to be democratic and peaceful to be societally sustainable as well as ecologically sustainable.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:38 AM on 15 May 2019Inspiring, not depressing, film fest messages
I agree that the "problem" is the making of excuses because the problem being created will be "some other generation's problem".
A similarly unacceptable making-up of excuses is the 'ever popular' Tragedy of the Commons or Prisoner's Dilemma type of problem developed by beliefs that "someone else should fix the problem", or "My maximization of my immediate benefit, the benefit that I can most likely be sure to benefit from (future benefits are so uncertain especially if they depend upon what Others will do), justifies (is the reason for excusing) what I want to do, even though it is understandably harmful to everyone including me - as long as I pursue maximizing my benefit All Is As Good As Possible".
Until that gross misunderstanding is reduced in popularity to the point of having no significant influence, there will be no meaningful reduction of harm done to the future of humanity. That reduction of harm is the important First Step towards Helpful effective corrections and redirection required to achieve and improve on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Effective application of penalties for misleading political marketing that promotes such harmful gross misunderstandings may be necessary in order to achieve the required corrections.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:28 AM on 15 May 2019IPCC Updates Methodology for Greenhouse Gas Inventories
Hopefully the likes of the 'Correction Resistant Conservatives' will not have significant influence on how the New Rules are established, monitored or enforced.
The methods for reporting GHG impacts by nations will always be improving. Hopefully, in the near future satellite data will be able to be reliably used to verify what nations 'report'.
The following articles refer to a Canadian study that used data from air plane flyovers of the Alberta Oil Sands operations as a 'top-down' test of the reported values of impacts that were 'bottom-up' calculated following the existing 'Rules'.
CBC News: "Oilsands CO2 emissions may be far higher than companies report, scientists say"
Digital Journal: "New study: Canada's oil sands emissions are higher than reported"
Many people, particularly Conservatives, are inclined to be 'Rule Followers' as long as the Rules work in their favour. When rules are not in their favour, the worst among us resist correction. They will try to make-up the rules as much in their favour as possible. If they can't get the Rules to be in their favour they will try to win the ability to limit the chances they will be caught or penalized for breaking the Rules.
The United Right Conservative leaders in Canada are continuing to do anything they can get away with to oppose the reduction of climate change impacts. Their history of actions included promotion of efforts to discredit climate science and earlier denial of Climate Science (they now say climate is changing, but try to discredt climate science understanding of why it is changing). Today, their actions include abuse of misleading marketing power to popularize the dislike of Carbon Fee and Rebate programs (calling them a Carbon Tax that will Do Nothing, and claiming they will hurt the Poor when the reality is that the poorer peopl get more rebate than their carbon fees).
The 'correction resistant', can be expected to oppose any correction of GHG impact reporting that reduces their chances of getting away with their developed desires to benefit from understandably harmful and unsustainable activity.
Hopefully, the Harmful New Correction Resistant Leaders of the United Right, who incorrectly get supported by people who mistake them for being deserving Conservative leaders, will not have significant influence on the latest improvements of the rules and their enforcement.
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Daniel Bailey at 23:28 PM on 14 May 2019CO2 lags temperature
In what published scientific research did you read that?
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Evan at 22:55 PM on 14 May 2019Inspiring, not depressing, film fest messages
We've had wild fires and extreme weather for a while now, and I hear the same old tired denier arguments from people who have not been personally affected.
If we all have to be personally affected by these extreme events before we take action there won't be anybody to help us out.
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Sokrates Wonders at 21:19 PM on 14 May 2019CO2 lags temperature
Is there an ice core record from the Greenland glaciers showing the CO2 concentrations and temperatur?
I haven’t found any so far. Anyone who has seen some comparison?
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Sokrates Wonders at 20:52 PM on 14 May 2019CO2 lags temperature
Why would there be a time lag of thousand years between the end of the ice age in Antarctica compared to on the northern hemisphere?
There is obviously an Oldest Dryas, an Allerød-Bølling, a Younger Dryas and a Holocene in the world temperature records and in the ice core record from Vostok Antarctica but they are shifted by about thousand years which is a really long time period. Why would there be such a slow response to the increased CO2 levels on the northern hemisphere? It looks rather as if the dating of the Antarctica ice core temperature and CO2 records not are in agreement with the other global temperature records. I have been reading that the stratigraphic dating of the ice cores can differ from other dating methods by a millennium. -
nigelj at 07:15 AM on 14 May 2019Inspiring, not depressing, film fest messages
I suspect it will be wild fires and more extreme weather that really starts to motivate climate action. These things are very serious and life threatening, and happening more frequntly right now so are more likely to get peoples attention than sea level rise. Hopefully the climate influence in these things gets highlighted more in the media.
Sea level rise is obviously serious, but a little bit longer term and easier to dismiss as gradual and some other generations problem. Humans Wired to Respond to Short-Term Problems
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Daniel Bailey at 08:49 AM on 13 May 2019Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
Global sea levels are indeed rising, raising concerns about human safety. Some excerpts from the 2018 National Climate Assessment, Volume 2, validated and approved by the Trump Administration:
"Global average sea level has risen by about 7–8 inches (about 16–21 cm) since 1900, with almost half this rise occurring since 1993 as oceans have warmed and land-based ice has melted. Relative to the year 2000, sea level is very likely to rise 1 to 4 feet (0.3 to 1.3 m) by the end of the century.
Emerging science regarding Antarctic ice sheet stability suggests that, for higher scenarios, a rise exceeding 8 feet (2.4 m) by 2100 is physically possible, although the probability of such an extreme outcome cannot currently be assessed."
"Over the first half of this century, the future scenario the world follows has little effect on projected sea level rise due to the inertia in the climate system.
However, the magnitude of human-caused emissions this century significantly affects projections for the second half of the century and beyond.
Relative to the year 2000, global average sea level is very likely to rise by 0.3–0.6 feet (9–18 cm) by 2030, 0.5–1.2 feet (15–38 cm) by 2050, and 1–4 feet (30–130 cm) by 2100.
These estimates are generally consistent with the assumption—possibly flawed—that the relationship between global temperature and global average sea level in the coming century will be similar to that observed over the last two millennia.
These ranges do not, however, capture the full range of physically plausible global average sea level rise over the 21st century.
Several avenues of research, including emerging science on physical feedbacks in the Antarctic ice sheet suggest that global average sea level rise exceeding 8 feet (2.5 m) by 2100 is physically plausible, although its probability cannot currently be assessed."
"Regardless of future scenario, it is extremely likely that global average sea level will continue to rise beyond 2100.
Paleo sea level records suggest that 1.8°F (1°C) of warming may already represent a long-term commitment to more than 20 feet (6 meters) of global average sea level rise; a 3.6°F (2°C) warming represents a 10,000-year commitment to about 80 feet (25 m), and 21st-century emissions consistent with the higher scenario (RCP8.5) represent a 10,000-year commitment to about 125 feet (38 m) of global average sea level rise.
Under 3.6°F (2°C), about one-third of the Antarctic ice sheet and three-fifths of the Greenland ice sheet would ultimately be lost, while under the RCP8.5 scenario, a complete loss of the Greenland ice sheet is projected over about 6,000 years."
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/2/
Figure 12-4a is the salient figure, for expected SLR to come (click for bigger image):
(a) Global mean sea level (GMSL) rise from 1800 to 2100, based on Figure 12.2b from 1800 to 2015, the six Interagency GMSL scenarios (navy blue, royal blue, cyan, green, orange, and red curves), the very likely ranges in 2100 for different RCPs (colored boxes), and lines augmenting the very likely ranges by the difference between the median Antarctic contribution of Kopp et al. and the various median Antarctic projections of DeConto and Pollard
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michael sweet at 08:30 AM on 13 May 2019Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
MathiasEgholm,
I looked at both graphs and they seem to read as you describe. One is from 1990 first IPCC assessment and the other is from the 2007 fourth IPCC assessment. It appears that the estimates of sea level rise have changed over time. As more knowledge is gained estimates of some things change.
Current estimates are higher than those in this article because much more understanding of the Antarctic Ice sheet has been obtained in the past 5 years.
It is not clear from your post what question you are trying to answer. If you say what you are interested in we may be able to provide a recent assessment that addresses your concerns. I suggest using the most recent estimates of sea level rise because more is understood every year.
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MathiasEgholm at 07:26 AM on 13 May 2019Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
Hi there. I am a new user, but hope you can help me. I am trying to confirm the "figure 1" in this article, but ran into unexpected problems...
When I look up in the 1990 IPCC report (https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/ipcc_far_wg_I_full_report.pdf) I find the graph of best estimates of sea level projections on page 277. If I try to read from the graph, I get model predictions between approximately 4 to 12 cm's of sea level rise in 2010.
Doing the same on figure 1 in this article gives IPCC model predictions aprox 1,5-6,5cm sea level rise, - or about half the sea level rise that I can find in the original 1990 IPCC report...
I know reading graphs is not very precise, but still... - I must have misunderstood something...???
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bjchip at 04:07 AM on 13 May 2019The Libertarian Climate Conundrum
Broken Link to Adler.
New link at
https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context=faculty_publications -
nigelj at 06:48 AM on 12 May 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #19
Spending 25% of the EU budget on climate change mitigation sounds a lot but the EU budget is only 2% of total public spending, so if anything 25% is miniscule, and the EU budget could perhaps do with a total increase given the climate problem.
I can't get this number out of my head. We could hit 8 degrees or more above pre industrial baselines by 2200 - 2300 according to research. This is unthinkably serious and cannot be allowed to happen. We cannot count on sucking this CO2 out of the atmosphere, because the impediments to such ideas are huge.
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