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Roger A. Wehage at 23:45 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
doug: "as long as we're able to maintain the enormous, globe-spanning industrialized infrastructure secondary batteries perch on top of." Electricity is the way of the future. Wind and sunlight are fairly uniformly distributed throughout the world. The cost of producing electricity locally is steadily coming down as volume increases. The biggest detriment to progress is oil companies who think they have the most to lose. Technology will follow in the wake of demand. See Hot, Flat, and Crowded for more elightenment. -
Ken Lambert at 23:38 PM on 30 September 2010New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
kdkd #54 Its a wonder that Moderator John Cook has not moderated your language kdkd. Your accusations about my 'peddling misinformation' and 'repetive rubbish', I usually ignore because it has no place in this blog. Put up a scientific argument supported by numbers or shut up. -
Nick Palmer at 23:32 PM on 30 September 2010New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
@Nick Palmer #71 the forcing from the extra CO2 we have dug up and put back into the atmosphere Gaah. I didn't mean we dug it up in the form of CO2! (greater than the Roman period Forgot to close the bracket too... -
Roger A. Wehage at 23:26 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
adelady@35, much has been done to demonstrate that abundant crops can be had without FF fertilizers. For more information see this excellent library located in Steve Solomon's home in Tasmaina, Australia. Specifically see Chapters 8 and 9 in his Organic Gardener's Composting book. -
Doug Bostrom at 23:14 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
Roger: Why not use this research to produce small walk-behind or ride electric-powered tractors with detachable instruments and drop-in battery packs charged by banks of solar cells or the grid? Sure, as long as we're able to maintain the enormous, globe-spanning industrialized infrastructure secondary batteries perch on top of. Same with the semiconductors used in any modern, efficient electric motor power control system, the motors themselves, PV panels, etc. These things can't be made by the folks staying at home in the village while the fields are tilled. I believe you're thinking more of Taiwan, not Cuba. -
Doug Bostrom at 23:08 PM on 30 September 2010The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
TOP, if you have a specific problem with methods or philosophy of Freudenberg's paper, say it. Resume-diving isn't a useful contribution, is a conspicuous flag of vacuity. -
Anne-Marie Blackburn at 23:04 PM on 30 September 2010Newcomers, Start Here
Vinny, it was only a quick list of the threats faced by polar bears rather than a close look at factors behind overall population decline. According to the Polar Bear Specialist Group:Studies have shown that polar bears exposed to oil will absorb large quantities of oil in their fur. Following oil exposure, polar bears groom themselves and can digest sufficient oil to result in kidney failure, digestive system disorder, and brain damage that ultimately result in death. Other effects include loss of insulation from fur, hair loss, and skin and eye irritations.
I was simply trying to highlight the fact that it's a complex issue and that many factors can increase polar bear mortality. CBDunkerson, I'm working on the intermediate rebuttal which will include some number crunching. I just wanted to show that subpopulations are declining, and that the number of declining populations appears to be increasing. I know it doesn't tell us anything about absolute numbers, but it does show that the picture is not as simple as the claim that polar bear numbers are increasing. Well I know what I mean ;) -
adelady at 22:57 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
Ned "I know that "skeptics" like to claim that the only choices are burning fossil fuels or de-industrializing. I absolutely refuse to accept that claim." This is my number one pet hate. Why on earth would we "de-industrialise" when we're faced with so many opportunities to make clever, advanced technological things and make bulk money doing so? I resign myself to silly statements about properties of CO2 and the like, but this is the number one anger maker. Especially since the argument is supposed to be about 'successful' economic activity. Good business people should be able to take opportunities that present themselves and find the best way to make money from them. Where are the 'brave new world' kind of self promotions that used to dominate in the 50s and 60s? I often picture JFK making his speech about the adventure to take people to the moon. He set a date for completion. He wasn't around to see it completed within the timeframe he set, but it was done in the timeframe he set. And that needed rocket scientists and specialised engineers to get the job done. The technological changes we're looking at are not so demanding. We just need lots of businesses as well as governments to get going on the task. -
New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
Nick Palmer writes: Thoughts? Yes, that's a really good point. Loehle is the skeptics' own reconstruction, and there's certainly reason to believe that it exaggerates the MWP-LIA difference. But even if you ignore that, the range itself is still small compared to current and projected future warming. If you're a skeptic who believes that past natural climate changes had a significant impact on human societies (Greenland, the Anasazi, ...) then you should be really concerned about the future. -
We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
cruzn246 writes: I meant 1365. The graph is mostly under 1365, on average from about 800 AD to almost 1900 AD. from During the LIA it was averaging about 1364.75. OK, so we're talking about an 0.25 W/m2 forcing in a plane perpendicular to the Earth-Sun axis. That's an 0.0625 W/m2 forcing when distributed over the spherical top of the atmosphere, and about 0.044 W/m2 after taking into account the Earth's albedo. In comparison, the IPCC TAR gives the total current forcing from greenhouse gas emissions (relative to 1750) as 2.10 W/m2. (And of course this is increasing every year). So, you think that a (natural) 0.044 W/m2 forcing might just have happened to push us over some kind of tipping point, but you're completely unconcerned about a (anthropogenic) forcing that's 48 times larger and growing? This kind of thing makes it very hard to take "skeptics" seriously. It's like the old joke about lawyers straining at gnats and swallowing camels. -
adelady at 22:46 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
Roger, the electrical vehicles are terrific. But without FF based fertilisers, we're going to have to find other fertilisers. We could finish up with animals being valued more for their dung than for their meat or milk. And we'd be mad to waste any kind of fuel on removing or disposing of crop residues when animals can convert it back into nutritious, water retaining soil. Home gardeners will be a lot better off with a few chooks fertilising their veg patch when they don't even have the option of getting a bag of stuff from the garden centre. Even a couple of guinea pigs in one of those rolling cages can mow a smallish lawn and keep it going with their little contributions. And home gardeners or other smallholdings will need lawns or other sources of green stuff to feed chooks or bulk up compost heaps. -
Nick Palmer at 22:46 PM on 30 September 2010New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
Loehle's piece shows, with a quick eyeball, that (using his figures) the difference between the absolute hottest peak of the MWP (greater than the Roman period and the coldest trough of the "Little Ice Age" is about 1.15 deg C tops. The difference between grapes growing all over the place, such as Singer would say, and iron hard frozen English rivers is not that much. Small changes make a dramatic difference. Few or no credible sceptic scientists (that minority who believe sensitivity is low) dispute that the forcing from the extra CO2 we have dug up and put back into the atmosphere will increase the average global temperature by less than 1 deg C. Unless I'm mistaken, this looks like all credible scientists, sceptical or "IPCC", should be united that what's already in the pipeline will cause dramatic differences that will last a very long time even if the sensitivity is low. If the sensitivity is as the IPCC say it'll be worse. If there are "unknown unknowns" about sensitivity to catch us out, then "Hell and High Water" could be optimistic. Thoughts? -
Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
Roger A. Wehage, I strongly disagree with the notion that reversion to some kind of romanticized agricultural utopia is the way forward. Worse yet, the more traction that argument gets, the less likely it is that we'll actually do anything to address the risks of climate change. Insofar as people pay attention to them, your comments about Cuba here are a gift to the "skeptics" and a setback for those who are trying to do something constructive in the way of preventing or limiting climate change. Given a choice between (a) destroying the quality of life offered by our modern industrial civilization, or (b) burning all the oil, gas, coal, and tar sands on the planet to sustain that quality of life, people will opt for the latter. Our only hope is to offer a third option: evolution of our technological and social infrastructure in a direction that offers a high quality of life (and not just to that fraction of the human race that is fortunate enough to live in "developed" countries) but at a much lower level of GHG emissions. I know that "skeptics" like to claim that the only choices are burning fossil fuels or de-industrializing. I absolutely refuse to accept that claim. -
The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
Here is the full report Assymetry.... Oops, I misspelled some names: Violetta Muselli -
Mike_H at 22:12 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
This is a great graph. Is there a link to it, other than on this site? The primary paper requires registration. Also, when presenting to skeptics the first thing they would say if I linked to this site is--"well of course, what do you expect from this site" -
The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
The link to the abstract doesn't work so I googled the authors. Violeta Mueselli has this in her resume: Congressional Intern – Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Washington D.C Sept – Dec 2008 • Assisted Speaker’s staff with the planning, preparation, and implementation of major Capitol events • Researched policy issues for Legislative Aides on topics ranging from health care to immigration • Drafted concise and professional responses to constituent mail She is more of an activist and PR person than a scholar. Most of her accomplishments are in PR. See Violleta Freudenberg is an environmental scientist. I was expecting a paper by people who's primary occupation was in analysis of media bias. -
CBDunkerson at 21:45 PM on 30 September 2010Newcomers, Start Here
The pie charts of changing sub-population status are useful, but could also be somewhat misleading in that the sub-populations vary wildly in size. So where the 2009 pie chart shows 'one sub-group' increasing it might seem like 1/19th of the total population is growing... when in fact that sub-population has fewer than 300 bears. Which is about 1% of the total population. About 17% (in 3 groups) have stable populations. Meanwhile the 8 declining sub-groups account for about half of the total world polar bear population... and the remaining ~30% (in 7 groups) have unknown population status. -
Roger A. Wehage at 21:27 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
Roger@33: bad link. The corrected link is Batteries for Electrical Energy Storage in Transportation (BEEST). -
Vinny Burgoo at 21:25 PM on 30 September 2010Newcomers, Start Here
'Polar bears are affected by several factors, including hunting, pollution and oil extraction.' There is no evidence that polar bear numbers are affected by oil extraction. There is a lot of speculation that they might be affected by an increase in Arctic oilfield development (including some effects that would fall under 'pollution') if it is not done right and that bears would be harmed if there was a big Arctic oilspill ('pollution' again) but no actual evidence that populations have declined because of oil exploration. -
Roger A. Wehage at 21:21 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
adelady@29 "rethink the whole industrial farming approach" Peak oil and gas will eventually do that for us, but it will be countries like Cuba who leap ahead of us, because of their experience. Food production must go more local, because the costs of processing and transportation will become prohibitive. I've been thinking that the power of the sun should be harnessed to till the land. A lot of, but clearly not enough, research has gone into Batteries for Electrical Energy Storage in Transportation (BEEST). Why not use this research to produce small walk-behind or ride electric-powered tractors with detachable instruments and drop-in battery packs charged by banks of solar cells or the grid? There could be smaller units for individual gardens and larger units for community gardens. The advantage of BEES (Batteries for Electrical Energy Storage) is that they don't eat much compared to animals of labor, saving more of Earth's scarce resources for the burgeoning human population. -
JMurphy at 21:09 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
OT, but the BLOG REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC COHERENCE thread seems to have disappeared.Response: Steve asked me to take it down once the blog-review process had done its job. The URL still exists but won't load for most users. The final transcript of the podcast will be posted here next Wednesday - with luck, an audio podcast will also be available to listen to. -
JMurphy at 21:05 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
chriscanaris wrote : "It does matter then whether the LIA and MWP were not as hot as today - if they really proved as warm or warmer than today, then our debate around climate sensisivity changes significantly." Sticking to the MWP, it being globally warmer would in itself not contradict AGW but the so-called skeptics think it would - most of them seem comfortable with the sort of thinking that reckons that natural forest fires in the past disprove present man-made forest fires. If it was proved to be globally warmer (albeit at different locations over a period of hundreds of years), the so-called skeptics would declare the final (final) nail in the coffin of AGW and would then be able to internally rationalise-away any inconvenient facts in the real world (extreme weather, etc.), while looking for other science to 'audit' and misunderstand. Meanwhile, as you mention, the debate around climate sensitivity would increase in the real world (as would the effects from that sensitivity) and the science would carry on developing, hopefully without interference - the self-declared 'auditors' having declared victory and moved on. -
Roger A. Wehage at 20:46 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
chriscanaris@27, "Any takers?" The The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil video produced by Community Solutions may be a good start. They're already into Plan C. -
adelady at 20:33 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
Bother. My comment disappeared (my own fault) Oxen? I think it's more productive to look at a better mix of animals suited to purpose. Chooks and pigs do a fantastic job of weeding, ploughing and fertilising all in one hit. I've only seen people talk about using this technique on horticultural sized enterprises. For agricultural purposes, perhaps chook and pig farmers could work a little like beekeepers, moving their charges from one area to another as needed. Goats are brilliant at clearing weed infested land, but finding enclosures that are both movable and secure enough would be an issue. Cows and sheep are good at turning crop residues into fertiliser, not very wonderful at clearing weeds or turning over the soil. Cuban farmers are in the unusual position of not being able to get boots, irrigation or any other useful items because of the collapse of the USSR taking away their sources while the trade embargo still continues. (Their position is not directly relevant to us, or even to farmers in other countries whose access to equipment is restricted for other reasons.) That has led to a great system of fruit and veg raising within Havana itself. Smallish plots using compost rather than the unobtainable chemical fertilisers are doing a fair job - and a lot healthier too. Oxen should have a medium role - I don't see chooks being an asset to seeding or sprouting crops, more of a menace. But we really do have to start thinking along the lines of how we farm grain crops or raise veg and fruit without FF based fertiliser. The old-fashioned mixed farm had some advantages. All we need to do is to see how these advantages can be modified for broadacre grain crops. Or even to rethink the whole industrial farming approach. -
chris1204 at 19:20 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
A cost benefit analysis incorporating the carbon footprint of oxen versus tractors in the context of parameters such as productivity of land and the quality of life of the farmer would be an interesting exercise. Any takers? -
MichaelM at 18:55 PM on 30 September 2010Blog review of scientific coherence
Argus #44 The sun is at the centre of the visible universe i.e the Earth would at the centre of the visible universe if we were stationary but since we orbit the Sun it is that which is the centre of the virtual bubble that is our existence. Personally I'm fairly certain, if the Universe can be said to have a 'centre', that it all rotates around me. -
Argus at 18:46 PM on 30 September 2010Blog review of scientific coherence
@kdkd #43, "The "sceptic" arguments on the other hand, are not consistent with each other" Like I said, they do not have to be consistent. Whoever makes such an assumption, is fighting an adversary that does not exist. -
Argus at 18:36 PM on 30 September 2010Blog review of scientific coherence
@Ned, #26, Thank you for commenting on my analogy, but you seem to forget (when likening the successful heliocentric theory to the AGW theory) that science has moved on even further after Galilei. The sun is no longer in the centre of the universe. -
kdkd at 18:31 PM on 30 September 2010Blog review of scientific coherence
Argus #42: On the contrary I feel your argument is a straw man. The scientific argument is consistent, the broad conclusions are clear, and the relatively minor inconsistencies are areas of ongoing research. The "sceptic" arguments on the other hand, are not consistent with each other, the conclusions are not clear, and for the most part there is not a compelling case to continue to research the areas that they claim are most contentious because the evidence does not support their conclusions. -
Argus at 18:28 PM on 30 September 2010Blog review of scientific coherence
@Ann, #37, "This is not an article about the correctness of AGW, it is an article about how skeptic theories can be proved to be wrong, if they are internally incoherent." What the article, and you, is/are missing, is that even if a lot of different skeptics may have theories that are partly contradicting, this is not a proof that one or more skeptics cannot be right. The skeptics do not have a club where everybody is required to have the same theory. It is also possible that not a single skeptic scientist is right, of course, but you cannot say that Mr A is wrong just because his theory contradicts Mr B's. I think this whole article is based on the straw man argument - it tries to combine 239 different views into one "skeptic" unified theory, which is then proven to be wrong. But nobody ever claimed that there was a unified theory. -
Berényi Péter at 17:36 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
#20 Roger A. Wehage at 11:47 AM on 30 September, 2010 Cubans make intelligent choices; they use Oxen. Americans don't make intelligent choices; Very true. In Cuba, the ox is mightier than the tractor.
"Each tractor can do the work of five teams of oxen," Andalio said. "Work with tractors hasn't stopped, but it will only go as far as the economy allows," he added.
"We use tractors when there are tractors, but there almost never are," said Alvarez, 59.
"I am thankful for the revolution," the 52-year-old [Zenaida Leon] said. "But we don't get boots, tools, irrigation that works."
High time for Americans to get rid of their boots; tools have already gone to China anyway. It's much healthier to walk barefoot, also makes your footprint look prettier, smaller and more natural.
See the merits of going barefoot.
-
RSVP at 17:32 PM on 30 September 2010Blog review of scientific coherence
"One of the great things philosophers of science have discovered is that scientific knowledge is never incoherent." What you really mean is that incoherence is the test for good or bad science. For instance, science tells us that genetic evolution takes millions and millions of years, and that ice ages have cycles of around ten thousand years. Both are large numbers, but ten thousand is only 1/1000 of ten million (for instance). Regardless of the fact that animals have adapted to these "rapid" changes in climate, they somehow could not bare a 2 or 3 degree change in the Earth's overall temperature over the next century. I have a hard time with that, nor see this as a huge threat to my children. -
Eric L at 17:11 PM on 30 September 2010Blog review of scientific coherence
Albatross @36, HR @19 is not OT at all. His post claiming that temperatures have leveled off and also that the acceleration in warming is due to natural causes is a wonderful illustration of Stephan's point. -
RSVP at 17:01 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
ptbrown31 #3 "This should really read something like: "In other words, what would happen if humanity suddenly started emitting just enough CO2 to balance natural sinks and thus keep atmospheric concentrations at 2000 levels"." We are in the year 2010, (and 2011 is right around the corner). And an even smaller point... Posters (including myself) tend to use the word "humanity" quite a lot when in actuality they are referring to the overall negative impact humans are having on the natural environment. The word "civilization" is always available, although destroying the environment in a civilized manner doesnt ring that well either. -
Doug Bostrom at 14:07 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
Chris: ...becoming much less dependent on fossil fuel and decarbonising our economies and our emissions being a very good idea anyway... On that we certainly agree! -
chris1204 at 13:15 PM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
Doug @ 14 '(4) relies on past as prologue; the past did not include what's happening in the present so anachronisms are a questionable means of discounting our influence.' However, both sides of the divide invoke the past as prologue. After all, we've just had a thread disputing Loehle's claims of being 'vindicated' following a recent study suggesting a robust MWP and LIA. It does matter then whether the LIA and MWP were not as hot as today - if they really proved as warm or warmer than today, then our debate around climate sensisivity changes significantly. However, becoming much less dependent on fossil fuel and decarbonising our economies and our emissions being a very good idea anyway for lots of other reasons, continues to apply. -
muoncounter at 13:10 PM on 30 September 2010We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
#40: "Is there a tipping point with solar values?" Did you miss the 2008 announcement that solar wind strength is decreasing? The average pressure of the solar wind has dropped more than 20% since the mid-1990s. ... The change in pressure comes mainly from reductions in temperature and density. The solar wind is 13% cooler and 20% less dense. And yet, we still see higher temperatures. Why would that be? -
Doug Bostrom at 11:57 AM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
Roger, "skeptics" of the type commonly found in the comments threads at WUWT are not generally amenable to any form of persuasion. Please see Roy Spencer's attempt to educate "skeptics" on the single most important feature of this "debate," paying attention to comments: Yes, Virginia, Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still Following a descending slope of obduracy to the very bottom is not how people holding politicians accountable for effective policy are going to be engaged on this topic. -
Roger A. Wehage at 11:47 AM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
#18: "there are intelligent choices" Cubans make intelligent choices; they use Oxen. Americans don't make intelligent choices; they use fossil fuel guzzling tractors and semi tractor-trailers barreling down the highway at 130 kilometers/hour. Their only thought is making a living. -
johnd at 11:47 AM on 30 September 2010New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
Albatross at 08:58 AM, thanks once again. I assume therefore that the note in the abstract "The temperature of the last two decades, however, is possibly higher than during any previous time in the past two millennia, although this is only seen in the instrumental temperature data and not in the multi-proxy reconstruction itself." is referring to the last two decades of the reconstructed time span. The calibration period therefore covers periods of lower temperatures whereas it is the periods of higher temperatures that are of most interest. doug_bostrom at 08:50 AM, I understand the need for funding, however given the importance of the matter whether or not current temperatures or past temperatures are greater, it becomes vitally important to calibrate any reconstructions against current temperatures levels in order to ensure apples are being compared with apples. As with any calibration, say of instrumentation, the calibration should be such that it is most accurate within the working range, not at the extremities. As a sideline, that temperature sensor that failed at high temperatures made me wonder whether it had an appropriate range or not, and how accurate it would have been as it approached the failure point. -
Roger A. Wehage at 11:41 AM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
#17: "WUWT posts are much more sophisticated and subtle than a lot of its readership." What kind of readership does Skeptical Science have? A bunch of people beating their chests, rehashing the same stuff over and over, trying to demonstrate who's most clever? I would venture that 99.94% of skeptics don't have a degree in earth sciences or related areas, and would have trouble following most of these discussions. I thought Skeptical Science was intended to educate those 99.94% of skeptics, but the ones I've interacted with stay about 30 seconds and delete the page. That's not going to help solve our worsening climate change problems. Skeptical Science should serve the congregation, not the choir. -
muoncounter at 11:36 AM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
#16:"is allowed" I don't quite understand what you're getting at here; where's the discussion of allowing this and prohibiting that? However, there are intelligent choices that can be made regarding food consumption. -
cruzn246 at 11:20 AM on 30 September 2010We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
"Er, no. Not even remotely. Did you miss this graph?" I can see it. I meant 1365. The graph is mostly under 1365, on average from about 800 AD to almost 1900 AD. from During the LIA it was averaging about 1364.75. Even the minimum around 1975 was higher than anything the previous 100 years. -
chris1204 at 11:10 AM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
Doug @ 14 Really, the so-called sceptical/AWG divide when you look at the output of mainstream contenders is akin to the two religious sects of Lilliputians who are divided between those who prefer cracking open their soft-boiled eggs from the little end, and those who prefer the big end. WUWT for example has of late put a fair bit of very conventional science into play much of which would pass without raising eyebrows if posted here and presented as coming from a 'warmist' source. WUWT posts are much more sophisticated and subtle than a lot of its readership. -
Roger A. Wehage at 11:04 AM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
#15, if breathing is allowed without eating food that has a carbon footprint, then I agree. -
NewYorkJ at 10:57 AM on 30 September 2010Blog review of scientific coherence
Contrarians are coherent and consistent in one respect: Significant efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are bad. Since nearly all global warming contrarianism stems from ideological fear of government, and the science implies some significant government action to solve the problem, one that involves significant greenhouse gas reductions, then they absolutely have to be consistent on that. If their skepticism of the science was genuine, one would think a few might not be so vehemently opposed to greenhouse gas reductions, because doing so would result in a much cleaner environment and a sustainable energy future. I haven't really observed this, though. In supporting the hypothesis that reducing greenhouse gases emissions is bad, there are a variety of ways to go about it, many of them contradictory, which brings us to this nice post and excellent site. -
muoncounter at 10:49 AM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
#12: "why are we still allowed to breathe" Breathing was discussed here. I don't want to presume that there was a consensus, nor speak for one, but at least some folks said something to the effect of "Don't hold your breath." -
Doug Bostrom at 10:46 AM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
Dangerously reasonable, even heretical in some circles, Chris. (3) is dubiously relevant given that we seem to have introduced a durable secular trend in energy retention. (4) relies on past as prologue; the past did not include what's happening in the present so anachronisms are a questionable means of discounting our influence. Past those points, I'm not sure what you're describing is really skepticism about science as much as it is worry over human nature. We do have many examples of how our nature has led us to underestimate our impact on the various systems surrounding us, which we more or less depend on to continue thriving. The body of evidence we have available suggests we've made some serious mistakes in the past and should be forewarned about scaling up those errors. -
muoncounter at 10:44 AM on 30 September 2010Does Climate Change Really Matter?
This WMO summary of the summer of 2010 makes delightful reading. Climate extremes have always existed, but all the events cited above compare with, or exceed in intensity, duration or geographical extent, the previous largest historical events. ... The occurrence of all these events at almost the same time raises questions about their possible linkages to the predicted increase in intensity and frequency of extreme events, for example, as stipulated in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007. The Report stated that “…the type, frequency and intensity of extreme events are expected to change as Earth’s climate changes, and these changes could occur even with relatively small mean climate changes. They go on to mention Stott, Stone and Allen 2004 Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003: it is very likely (confidence level >90%) that human influence has at least doubled the risk of a heatwave Does it really matter? -
chris1204 at 10:38 AM on 30 September 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
The current mainstream [ie, non-feral :-)]sceptical position at least as I understand it could be summed up as follows: 1) CO2 has been rising 2) Temperatures have been rising 3) (1) very likely has made a substantial but not exclusive contribution to (2) But 4) We're not as confident that temperature rise is unprecedented - ie, we have some doubts about the palaeoclimate proxy record when it is 'spliced' onto the modern record 5) We don't want to overlook the role of other feedbacks which may be important whether as exacerbating or mitigating factors 6)We're not as confident of catastrophic outcomes even if temperatures and CO2 rises more or less as projected 7)Even if our reservations in (4),(5), and (6) prove to be correct, becoming much less dependent on fossil fuel and decarbonising our economies and our emissions is a very good idea anyway for lots of other reasons. 8)However, we're much more likely succeed at (7) if we avoid a panicky response and scare the proverbial horses whilst triggering the laws of unintended consequences.
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