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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Recommended supplemental reading:

The Green New Deal: One climate scientist’s view, from the other side of the Atlantic by Myles Allen, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Mar 8, 2019

scaddenp at 12:36 PM on 11 March 2019

What's in the Green New Deal? Four key issues to understand

Hmm, I see over at desmogblog, that there are some democrats with views that I think are more realistic.

Mike Bloomberg, former New York City Mayor, criticized the GND in a statement announcing he would not run for president. "The idea of a Green New Deal — first suggested by the columnist Tom Friedman more than a decade ago — stands no chance of passage in the Senate over the next two years. But Mother Nature does not wait on our political calendar, and neither can we,” he wrote.

Former congressman John Delaney (D-MD), meanwhile, has been vocally critical of the GND. In a pair of tweets from February 14, Delaney called the GND “a step backwards in fighting climate change because its unrealistic goals and linkage to other unrelated policies will make it harder to do anything.”

“The Green New Deal as it has been proposed is about as realistic as Trump saying that Mexico is going to pay for the wall,” he tweeted.

Delaney argued that his opposition to the GND revolves around the sweeping scope with which the resolution ties climate change policy to other big reforms. “I actually don’t think the Green New Deal is the way to go,” he said in an interview with The Hill. “The reason is that I want to do something about fixing climate change tomorrow. I don’t want to tie it to fixing health care.”

All good points.

scaddenp at 06:09 AM on 11 March 2019

Sea level rise is exaggerated

Here is better comparison of satellite and tide guage data from CSIRO.

scaddenp at 05:58 AM on 11 March 2019

Sea level rise is exaggerated

Sealevel rise is not even across the globe.

Source:

Note that sealevel measured from satellite altimetry is based on height change with respect to the reference ellipsoid, avoiding the issue of subsidence or tectonics which plague tide guages (though both measurements systems yield comparable results).

Sealevels are falling close to melting ice thanks to reduced gravitional attraction and isostatic rebound. See here for more detailed explanation.

Mal Adapted at 05:39 AM on 11 March 2019

Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5

Tangentially to my last: I recently came across Charles David Keeling's 1998 autobiographical sketch. Great stuff. His contribution to the modern understanding of climate change was immense.

Mal Adapted at 05:27 AM on 11 March 2019

Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5

Alonerock,

Ben Davidson's claim that climate scientists ignore substantial incident energy fluxes is simply false: see this Oregon State University tutorial.

In any case, attribution of the recent, accelerating rise of global mean surface temperature to enhanced 'greenhouse' forcing is based on the radiative properties of the oceans, land and atmosphere. During the last 60 years, GMST has risen by more 0.9 degrees C (Berkeley Earth dataset), while atmospheric CO2 has increased from 315 ppm to 410 ppm (the Keeling curve). No significant trend in incident energy can be shown in that interval, however: thus the proportional contributions of the regions of the incident EM spectrum, along with high energy particle fluxes, are not relevant.

Bob Loblaw at 02:29 AM on 11 March 2019

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were ignored

To address the specific quote that Rogue provides in #17:

The quote should be interpreted as an indication that the single "temperature" value provided by the UAH model calculations (based on satellete-measured atmospheric radiation emissions - AKA brightness) are dependent on atmospheric conditions over the layer from the surface to roughly 8km. The value is not equally-weighted for all heights within that range. Spencer's web site shows the weighting for the various model values they produce:

UAH satelltie channel weights (altitude)

DrC at 02:29 AM on 11 March 2019

Earth’s oceans are routinely breaking heat records

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

I signed up for this site because of some fascinating scientific dialogue from 2010. Wow, has the tenor changed.

My understanding of the functioning of the oceans/atmosphere interaction is that 99% of the carbon dioxide of the surface of the earth is dissolved in the oceans. Therefore one must assume that the oceans act as a buffer in large measure for the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Am I mistaken, or is it not true that as the temperature of a liquid increases its capacity for dissolved gases increases up to a point of the liquid becoming a gas itself, boiling. As such, I think it is reasonable to expect a very small rise in the temperature of the ocean to cause a rather massive affect on a relatively small amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Has this been studied? Does anyone have any references to address this functioning of the ocean as a CO2 buffer?

Moderator Response:

[TD] The amount of CO2 able to be held by the oceans is a function of not only the temperature of the ocean, but the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. For details, in the left margin below the thermometer, click the "OA not OK" button.

Daniel Bailey at 01:34 AM on 11 March 2019

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were ignored

I would consider the satellite termperature record a useful supplement to the surface temperature record, but only as a supplement to it.

Other instrument packages on the satellite platforms are a great deal more useful.

Eclectic at 00:45 AM on 11 March 2019

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were ignored

Roque ,

If I understand Daniel's comment correctly :- you should pay little or no attention to the satellite record ~ it measures the air temperature (at best) at high altitude . . . say like the uppermost part of Mount Everest . . . which is of small relevance to the important global surface warming [land and ocean] where humans, plants, animals and fish, are living.

Worse, the satellite record is sometimes quoted with the intention of deceiving the uninformed citizen. If you follow the satellite record, you will notice that it tends to lag the surface temperatures by a number of months ~ so it adds little to the more accurate surface temperature records. Overall, the satellites have been disappointing / borderline useless.

Daniel Bailey at 00:39 AM on 11 March 2019

Antarctica is too cold to lose ice

As Eclectic notes, do not post the same comment on more than 1 page here. Put it on the most appropriate thread and wait for feedback.

Repeated from the other thread, augmented by extra content in response to the Schroeder paper:

The paper itself makes it clear that this result only applies to the area of the Thwaites Glacier. Not the WAIS in its entirety nor the rest of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, all of which are showing significant mass losses. Per the PAPER:

"We estimate a minimum average geothermal flux value of about 114 mW/m2 with a notional uncertainty of about 10 mW/m2 for the Thwaites Glacier catchment with areas exceeding 200 mW/m2"

So not a lot more than actual mean heat flows of continents and oceans, which are 65 and 101 mW m−2, respectively. And just in the area of Thwaites Glacier. A very tiny subset of the WAIS, itself a small portion of the overall Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Further, the authors of the paper have themselves repudiated misinterpretations of their paper:

"Dear Cryolist,
The last couple of days have been interesting. What seemed like an innocuous chat with a San Antonio AM radio station about the findings of our new paper on geothermal flux under Thwaites Glacier rapidly turned into a confusing internet news story on how we had disproven anthropogenic global warming (this news story has now been taken down at our request). This is obviously not the case.
For the record:
-Our study has no bearing on whether or not anthropogenic global warning is occurring.
-The amount of basal melting we find, although elevated compared to typical values estimated for Antarctica, is minor compared with both ice flux over the grounding line, snow fall in the catchment, and near the grounding line, the implied geothermal melting is small compared to the ice lost observed through various methods.
-We believe the main effect of this elevated heat flow is on the distribution and evolution of basal traction in the catchment. There may be a role for time varying interior boundary conditions to influence ice dynamics, complementing the now well established links to ice shelf thinning and ocean dynamics.
By and large, the media response to the paper has been accurate, but there obviously have been some outliers."
Cheers,
Duncan Young, Don Blankenship, Enrica Quartini and Dustin Schroeder

Additionally, vulcanism has been present in Antarctica for well over 50 million years.

The ice sheet there formed 34 million years ago, and persisted since, in spite of that vulcanism. A subglacial heat mantle plume would have produced detectable subglacial drainage and melting events. None has been detected for the Pine Island Glacier and the adjacent Thwaites Glacier has proven largely insensitive to the presence of such a mantle heat source:

"volcanic heat does not contribute significantly to the glacial melt observed in the ocean at the front of the ice shelf"

And

"the heat source beneath the Pine Island Glacier is roughly 25 times greater than the bulk heat flux from an individual dormant volcano"

The heat coming from the geothermal activities under the ice is not a whole lot more than that coming from a dormant volcano.

People walk on dormant volcanoes. Trees grow on them.

In Antarctica, ice forms on them.

Marie Byrd Land

The volcanic heat plume mentioned under the ice of a portion of Antarctica is fossil heat; its last activity predates the formation of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (itself more than 34 million years old).

"The plume is far older than the recent period of atmospheric warming; indeed, at 50 million to 110 million years old, it's older than our species and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet itself."

So the ice in the area formed anyway, in spite of the supposed "volcano".

Influence of a West Antarctic mantle plume on ice sheet basal conditions

roque at 00:30 AM on 11 March 2019

Sea level rise is exaggerated

Do an Earth mean sea level has any real meaning ?

https://www.psmsl.org/products/trends/

Moderator Response:

[DB] As a professional nautical cartographer, I can assure you that mean sea level has a concrete meaning. If you have an actual question, please be more specific.

Reduced image width (keep image widths below 500 to avoid breaking page formatting).

Daniel Bailey at 00:29 AM on 11 March 2019

Antarctica is gaining ice

Vulcanism has been present in Antarctica for well over 50 million years.

"volcanic heat does not contribute significantly to the glacial melt observed in the ocean at the front of the ice shelf"

And

"the heat source beneath the Pine Island Glacier is roughly 25 times greater than the bulk heat flux from an individual dormant volcano"

The heat coming from the geothermal activities under the ice is not a whole lot more than that coming from a dormant volcano.

People walk on dormant volcanoes. Trees grow on them.

In Antarctica, ice forms on them.

Marie Byrd Land

The volcanic heat plume mentioned under the ice of a portion of Antarctica is fossil heat; its last activity predates the formation of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (itself more than 34 million years old).

"The plume is far older than the recent period of atmospheric warming; indeed, at 50 million to 110 million years old, it's older than our species and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet itself."

So the ice in the area formed anyway, in spite of the supposed "volcano".

Influence of a West Antarctic mantle plume on ice sheet basal conditions

Eclectic at 00:26 AM on 11 March 2019

Antarctica is too cold to lose ice

btw Roque , it is best to keep your comments on one thread, not spread between two threads . . . which gets messy and confusing.

I have replied on your other thread. (The issue is a nothingburger, basically. But sea-level rise might increase faster, if, as some suggest, AGW-caused melting of West Antarctic ice leaves a lighter weight of ice . . . which might allow an increase in volcanic activity undereneath. )

Daniel Bailey at 00:21 AM on 11 March 2019

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were ignored

1. Satellite sensors measure brightness, not temperatures. Temperatures can be inferred from brightness, but there are numerous "corrections" and "adjustments" to the raw data that must take place prior to these inferred numbers being considered reliable. The corrections to the satellite data vastly outweigh the minor changes to the surface station data during the homogenization process.

2. Data series span multiple generations of orbital platforms. A tremendous amount of "corrections" and "adjustments" to the data are needed for these time series to become long enough to achieve statistical significance.

3. The one data channel that some favor among all the satellite data channels is that of the TLT. This is nominally of the lower troposphere. The TLT channel is a synthetic (derived) product, and not a measured product. Further, it is not a measurement of the surface (where people live), but of the lower troposphere (where airplanes fly). Thus, it CANNOT be used to compare to surface temperatures.

4. The known uncertainties in the satellite trend, as estimated by the record providers, are five times the known uncertainties in the thermometer record trend.

5. Thermometer measurements from ground-based and radiosonde instrument packages are still the gold standard. Note that the radiosonde temperature series goes back to 1958, so it's a longer and more robust series than is the satellite record. It shows continued warming of the lower troposphere.

In summary:

1. Satellites don't measure temperatures, they measure brightness
2. Satellites don't measure the surface temperatures, where people live
3. Satellites measure brightness of the air thousands of feet above the surface, where birds and airplanes fly
4. Satellites convert brightness to temperatures via computer models
5. The known uncertainties in the satellite trend, as estimated by the record providers, are five times the known uncertainties in the thermometer record trend.

http://www.ua.nws.noaa.gov/factsheet.htm

roque at 00:16 AM on 11 March 2019

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were ignored

I do not understand above comments as I found on UAH website : "The satellite-based instruments measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about eight kilometers above sea level."

https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/aosc/

Eclectic at 00:10 AM on 11 March 2019

Antarctica is gaining ice

Roque @484 ,

you can get more information from the University of Washington, which studies this area.

If I understand it correctly, there was no suggestion that the 91 previously unknown volcanoes were new (i.e. producing additional new heat to melt the overlying ice). So presumably all the local volcanoes have been producing heat for thousands of years ~ not much changed over the 5-6000 years demonstrated in the glacial records there.

But do note that there is a possibility that, as AGW causes more melting, there will be less weight of ice pressing down on the volcanic areas . . . and the volcanoes might therefore be able to increase their activity in the future (contributing to even faster ice melt & sea-level rise over an uncertain period). This is just one more of the uncertainties about rate of sea-level rise over the next century or more.

roque at 23:50 PM on 10 March 2019

Antarctica is too cold to lose ice

In addition to my previous post : Evidence for elevated and spatially variable geothermal flux beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
https://www.pnas.org/content/111/25/9070
" Our results further suggest that the subglacial water system of Thwaites Glacier may be responding to heterogeneous and temporally variable basal melting driven by the evolution of rift-associated volcanism and support the hypothesis that both heterogeneous geothermal flux (6) and local magmatic processes (5) could be critical factors in determining the future behavior of the WAIS."

roque at 23:43 PM on 10 March 2019

Antarctica is too cold to lose ice

It seems the melting of the land ice of the west coast has to be found in the volcanoes underneath the glaciers that have been discovered, not in human activity. A 2017 study claimed to have found 138 volcanoes, of which 91 were previously unknown. See :

https://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/early/2017/05/26/SP461.7

roque at 20:50 PM on 10 March 2019

Antarctica is gaining ice

It seems the melting of the land ice of the west coast has to be found in the volcanoes that have been discovered not in the human activity. A 2017 study claimed to have found 138 volcanoes, of which 91 were previously unknown. See :

https://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/early/2017/05/26/SP461.7

MA Rodger at 18:58 PM on 10 March 2019

Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5

Alonerock @46,

As nigelj @47/48, I too have not seen the need to watch the whole video (or actually listen - I was multi-tasking). I managed 9 minutes of the forty.

The speaker sets out that Total Slar Irradiance dips by up to 0.3% during a solar storm and also that this is not a good measure of the Climate Forcing for such an event. Indeed, it is argued the dip is likely the opposite - an increase in Climate Forcing. Further, this 0.3% dip in TSI is of the same magnitude as AGW and the only way we can assess AGW is by subtracting the natural Climate Forcings. Thus we have a problem if the natural Climate Forcing is so poorly accounted.

The speaker seems to be on the path of attributing recent global warming, not to AGW, but to the 0.3% dips in TSI which are not dips at all.

And the problems with such a proposal are:-

(1) The 0.3% occurs for just a day or two every few years (that is the major ones - the biggest by far was 0.3% or 4Wm^-2 and occurred once for three days back in 2003) while the assumption (which would make the 0.3% significant) is that such events are working 24/7/365, as is AGW.

(2) If such events were being mis-accounted by climatology (as claimed) and they were significant (as claimed), it would have to be demonstrated that such events are coincidental with the global warming. Thus these storms must be absent prior to 1970. And the warming must appear in the weeks months following these occasional events. The pre-satellite era has no such data but satellite data shows no indication of a post-1970 phenomenon having just started in 1976. And the best of luck matching the magnitude and timing of these big solar flares with climate warming. (The 2003 flare was followed by nothing of note bar several 2004 months that were rather cooler than previous.)

nigelj at 14:17 PM on 10 March 2019

Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5

Alonerock

Correction. Ben Davidson appears to be claiming climate scientists only consider the UV component of solar irradiance, and ignore the rest so radio waves, xrays, gamma rays, cosmic rays and that they also ignore the solar wind and high energy protons (I confess dont know what high energy protons are about). But as I said scientists obviously don't see these as significant in warming, and they are the experts.

nigelj at 13:13 PM on 10 March 2019

Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5

Alonerock

Regarding the Ben Davidson video. I've read somewhere that the guy is a lawyer, a science sceptic, and a conspiracy theorest, and it all goes beyond climate change.

I didn't watch his video in full. I gave it 15 minutes, and he is obviously not a scientist. His main argument appears to be scientists only consider impacts on earths climate of total solar irradiance and ignore other emissions from the sun including he claims xrays, solar winds, magnetic fluxes and high energy protons and their possible effects on warming. I'm not a physicist, but I would hazard a fairly confident guess that scientists ignore this material because these things have no bearing on earths climate, or are insignificant.

Physicists know what impact different forms of particles and radiation have, because it's in their training, and so they don't waste time with non starters. In addition there would have to be some proof that these fluxes have changed substantially since the 1980s when warming really started in earnest, and davidson provides none. Instead he just goes on about 11 year cycles and yearly cycles which can't explain a change over a sustained 50 year period of warming. His theories are all just crazy stuff.

I mean I'm not going to waste my time watching his numerous long videos on all sorts of scientific issues. The guy is a lawyer so is hardly likely to have anything credible to say on particle physics, and has proven he is not a logical thinker and is captured by motivated reasoning as below:

realitychallenged.blog/category/motivated-reasoning/

alonerock at 11:37 AM on 10 March 2019

Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5

Can someone please comment on the flaws in this "Fatal flaw in climate change science" video on youtube for me ?

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

He seems to almost totally ignore discussing CO2 and thousands of years of data that does not fit his agenda. Is this person speaking Ben Davidson, and whoever it is, what are his credentials?

Thanks in advance for any help any of you are willing to porovide to me, and I understand if everyone is too busy. I will work on this on my own as well.

Eclectic at 09:45 AM on 10 March 2019

Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5

Fair enough, PhilippeC .

As far as pattern recognition :- one of my favorite signs of denialism is the rhetorical mention of Galileo or Einstein or Feynman or Popper [Popper, in reference to "falsifiability"]. That's almost an infallible sign of failure of logic (either as Dunning-Krugerism, and/or insincerity).

I'd be grateful if you Philippe, Nigelj, or anyone else, could suggest some other prominent names to add to the list.

Over the years, despite hundreds of cases of faux-skeptics claiming that they have valid evidence or valid references supporting their "position", I have never encountered even a single one who could bring forward any valid evidence. Typically all they have is deluded, pseudo-scientific ideas and/or tinfoil-hat conspiracy ideation. Crackpot , Shill , or Conspiracist . . . or a combination thereof.

So I am not holding my breath in waiting for Prometheus's revelations (if they come at all).

nigelj at 05:44 AM on 10 March 2019

Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5

Phillipe Chantreau @42 &43

I'm not impressed with Prometheus statements either, as is probably apparent. However I tried to be reasonably non combative, and give him a few points, bearing in mind brutal rhetoric makes us look adversarial.

It probably comes down to what he means by "psychological denial". I have to assume he just didn't like the examples of logical fallacies and felt they didn't apply to his scientific scepticism. However his rhetoric on bias and politics is full of the same logical fallacies! Did you notice this?

Prometheus was one of the Greek Gods. A trickster.

However its really important people understand at no point did the article suggest all scientific scepticism was based on logical fallacies, just that they are common in the climate scepticism issue. I think more attention should have been placed on these fallacies much earlier in all mass media discussions on the climate issue.

He suggests this website stay away from politics and fills his own comments with politics. He is trying to have things both ways.

Anyway you don't need to defend yourself to me. Prometheus raised the issue of alleged relevant sceptical arguments, so its reasonable to ask for a few examples. He raised the claim of bias and has now tried to claim its off topic and all our fault for concentrating on it. I think he's just running away from the issue because he has no real case.

He would need to show systemic bias in the way government agencies do science. So far all he is come up with are a couple of unrelated operational matters and some 50 year old quote by Einstein that has no real relevance to the issue at hand. And contrary to Prometheus assertions Einstein would have understood logical fallacies perfectly well. They are nothing to do with free speech issues as such.

However if Prometheus is out there he can make some comments on the open threads like the weekly digest but he must expect to be challenged and not see this as adversity (in the negative sense).

An easy case can be made that corporate sponsered scientific research is likely to have more bias than any government funding mechanism and / or agency. I think Prometheus sounds like he / she has libertarian views suspicious of government, and this can easily move from healthy suspicion to tin foil hat material. If Prometheus disagrees explain in detail, and stop dodging the issue with silly claims people are not being constructive.

There's no evidene of systemic bias in government sponsered research and here is a list of some of the astonishing scientific achievements and technology spinoffs just from the NASA programme alone.

BaerbelW at 05:20 AM on 10 March 2019

Getting involved with Climate Science via crowdfunding and crowdsourcing

Coinciding with British Science Week between 8 – 17 March 2019, Weather Rescue is looking for help to transcribe pressure and temperature data found in old logs:

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/edh/weather-rescue/about/research

Philippe Chantreau at 05:05 AM on 10 March 2019

Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5

In his many words, Promoetheus manages to cloak himself in the virtuous following of such great scientists as Feynman and Einstein. There would be quite a bit to explore in this abusive rhetoric but that really is off topic, for a change.

I have to disagree with Nigelj when he says that Prometheus is polite, unless it is in the very limited scope of not using profanity, which would not make it through moderation. Prometheus has accused the entire MOOC team, without any substantiation. He has made multiple claims that he could not or would not substantiate, including some that were very much on topic. Normally, that's skating very thin on the edge of being moderated.

The funniest part of this exchange is Prometheus' last post, where he summarizes request that were made above in the thread and basically says that he won't respond to any of them. I'm not impressed.

Philippe Chantreau at 04:40 AM on 10 March 2019

Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5

Since we have seen very few of these high quality skeptics that Pormetheus claims to defend, I asked for some examples, a reasonable request and also very much on topic. Why is that? The OP presents a course aims at identifying all the non quality hallmarks of fake skepticism, of those how are not sincere, who are not bringing valid questions based on well informed opinions and logical reasoning. Bringing examples of what the MOOC is not aimed at would be as on topic as it gets in this thread. But we don't get that, just excuses and more rhetoric.

At this point, a definition of rhetoric should be introduced:

"a. A style of speaking or writing, especially the language of a particular subject: fiery political rhetoric. b. Language that is elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous: His offers of compromise were mere rhetoric."

There is another shining example of that later. I spent a paragraph outlining a typical example of bad skepticism and dishonest method with the MCIntyre "release the code" BS. It is abundantly clear from my words that the so-called skeptics who participated in that were not of the good kind, as it is patent from the sequence of events. Yet, because I mentioned that McIntyre has FF ties, a fact relevant because it can cause bias or conflict of interest, I am accused of ad-hom and guilt by association. Prometheus owes me an apology on this one, because it is obvious that at no point I try to establigh McIntyre's ties to FF as the cause of the code-releas BS being BS. There is no ad-hom argument in my post but Prometheus manages to squeeze that in there in the middle all his rhteoric and make himself appear virtuous, despite that he just accused again without any substance.

MA Rodger at 04:19 AM on 10 March 2019

New research, February 4-10, 2019

RedBaron @41,

I'm not a great fan of seventy-minute video presentations. I do still have you reading list @10 and do intend to run down it at some point.

Philippe Chantreau at 04:18 AM on 10 March 2019

Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5

It's been educational allright. Let's get back on topic, namely the OP, which I feel that should copy and paste to encourage everyone to read it attentively again:

"The next iteration of our free online course, Making Sense of Climate Science Denial, starts on March 5 and it will be the 12th run since the very first one in April 2015. Since then, more than 40,000 students from over 180 countries have registered for our MOOC which has been running either as a 7 weeks long paced or a longer running self-paced version like the upcoming one. The next run will be our longest self-paced run thus far and will stay open until December 17 2019, giving you ample time to work through the material at your own pace.

Our MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) is a collaboration between Skeptical Science and The University of Queensland and takes an interdisciplinary look at climate science denial. We explain the psychological drivers of denial, debunk many of the most common myths about climate change and explore the scientific research into how to respond to climate misinformation. With all the misinformation and outright lies coming out of Washington regarding climate science - not to mention many other topics in this age of fake news - our MOOC will give you the knowledge to spot and the tools to effectively counter them."

It is very evident that there is a lot of outright denial, myths and lies. We've seen them countless times, many examples are cited and analyzed on this site. Instances of misleading, misrepresentation, cherry picking, taking out of context, using logical fallacies are in fact quoted or otherwise imported in multiple SkS posts, then debunked. So, now let's look at how one poster chose to interpret these word:

"The point of this post is to promote the idea that rather than listening to a skeptic, point your finger at anyone other out there skeptical oppinion and tell them they have a psychological 'denial' issue, which not what any persons who supports freedoms of thought should do."

This is the most grotesque possible misrepresentation of the OP. There is absolutely nothing in the words I initially quoted that could even remotely be construed in that way. It is so far off that it's not even funny. It sets the tone from the get go as highly adversarial, it is a direct accusation of dishonesty, since it makes the assumption that the entire SkS MOOC team's intent is to shoot down by rethorical means any possible dissenting opinion, regarless of its intrinsic value. It is by all means an outrageous statement with no grounding in reality, and nothing is produced to back it up. Later, Prometheus whines about adversarial tone. My take is if you can't take the heat, don't light the fire. Moderators are nonetheless generous enough to let this pass without the customary warning, ironically demonstrating that even a completely dishonest attack can be let through for the sake of debate and openness, the exact opposite of Prometheus' claim. White is black, up is down, well in line with the times...

Evan at 00:05 AM on 10 March 2019

SkS Analogy 19 - A table full of crystal and ideal temperature

Hank@12 completely agree. We are talking about the difference between thriving as a global civilization and survival of the species. Going from where we are today to possible futures will not be pleasant.

Hank11198 at 23:38 PM on 9 March 2019

SkS Analogy 19 - A table full of crystal and ideal temperature

I don't think the problem is that humans will not survive climate change. They probably will. But civilization will not survive climate change. It's going to make WWII look like a cake walk.

Evan at 13:16 PM on 9 March 2019

SkS Analogy 19 - A table full of crystal and ideal temperature

Nick@10 Couldn't agree more with your statement.

When I see a bird visit our feeders, I wonder what their life is like. When we see a bird of a particular species return year after year it seems like they live a stable, sustainable life. But it is not the same bird we see. They die and are replaced by a bird that looks the same and life goes on for their species. We can wax poetic about the life of birds and how stable and resilient their species is, but what is life like for the average bird? I fear that the benefits of modern society have dulled our ability to identify with truly sustainable life and what a struggle it is to live in equilibrium with the natural world.

Nick Palmer at 12:07 PM on 9 March 2019

SkS Analogy 19 - A table full of crystal and ideal temperature

Just pointing out that the simplistic denialist meme that asserts 'we can adapt because life has survived and thrived after much bigger changes in the far past' does not fly on any human timescale.

nigelj at 06:05 AM on 9 March 2019

SkS Analogy 19 - A table full of crystal and ideal temperature

The Dinosaurs might have done well in a nice sub tropical climate but they in turn were wiped out by climate change, either a rapid event from an asteroid impact, or volcanism, or more gradual climate change here.

We have to try to figure out how adaptable humans are. Some people make the argument that human technological society and its structures are very complex and inherently "fragile". They have certainly never been tested by a massive event like climate change, or a thermonuclear war or asteroid impact.

The GFC (global financial crash of 2008) started with a few problems with american banks and nearly bought the entire world down with it. This suggests fragility under even moderate financial stress and climate change will undoubtably bring financial stress. We better pray our physical systems are more resilient than this.

We do seem to do a little better in helping countries who have famines. But neither is it a brilliant performance. We are also a world of nation states, and while we cooperate sometimes, there's great suspicion and adversity as well and I dont see this improving fast. This is not going to help to efficiently resolve climate problems. It could end up being every man for himself in some sort of dystopican future.

It's these fragilities that bother me, and would cause our civilisation huge problems. Its not that we are weak or that primitivism is a preferable lifestyle, its the way fragilities relate to a changing climate. We are not like a hardy simple slowly adapting baceteria.

Climate change will bring large refugee problems, coastal protection problems, problems with staple grain crops, etc that look like they will stress the system like nothing else. Maybe we will rise to the challenge, maybe not. It would obviously require huge costs and a level of cooperation that would be unprecedented. I'm not sure humans are smart enough, or altruistic enough.

One Planet Only Forever at 06:03 AM on 9 March 2019

Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5

The interactions with Prometheus have been educational. I offer the following comment in an attempt to reset/reframe the discussion in a way that may be helpful.

Politics is the actions that determine what actions will be taken by leaders. And political decisions determine what is to be encouraged and rewarded and what is to be discourage and penalize.
The essential guiding objective of politics has to be: Improving awareness and understanding and applying that improving knowledge to help develop sustainable improvements for the future of humanity. A diversity of political perspectives can operate under the guidance of that objective. And that objective can be understood to be the fundamental guiding ethical and moral objective of any person's thoughts and actions.
Improving awareness and understanding in the general population regarding climate science related matters is the important objective of SkS and many other websites and organizations.
Political people and groups (often masquerading as Scientific people or Groups), have developed to deliberately oppose the improvement of awareness and understanding of climate science and matters related to climate science. Their objective is not improving awareness and understanding. Their objective is contrary to the essential guiding principle. They oppose/resist improving the awareness and understanding of climate science because the improved understanding leads to the knowledge that developed popular and profitable pursuits of perceptions of personal or tribal superiority relative to Others are Incorrect, Harmful and ultimately unsustainable. And those climate science correction resistant political people/groups have been Uniting with other correction resistant groups all of which are on the political Right (which means they fundamentally resist change - back to the origin of Political Left and Right in France with those wanting change from Royal Rule sitting to the Left of the King, and those Loyal to the King, resisting that change, sitting to his Right - which they incorrectly extend to include resisting correction). The correction resistant Unite in the hopes that collectively they can delay correction of their understandably harmful incorrect beliefs, desires and interests. They can be seen to oppose many improvements of awareness and understanding that lead helpful moral ethical leaders to strive to correct what has developed.
The United politically incorrect correction resistant Right groups promote and defend harmful unsustainable attitudes and actions, including attempting to delay the general population's improvement of awareness and understanding of climate science and the required corrections of developed popular and profitable activity, and the related corrections of perceptions of status that incorrectly developed due to the pursuit of benefit from the harmful unsustainable activity (burning fossil fuels).

Therefore, scientists (and anyone else), interested in improving the awareness and understanding of climate science, and the related required corrections of what humans have developed, must confront and challenge the politically incorrect opposition to correction that has developed in response to that improving awareness and understanding.

I am open to changing/correcting any part of that awareness and understanding if Good Reason is provided for doing so.

michael sweet at 04:02 AM on 9 March 2019

SkS Analogy 19 - A table full of crystal and ideal temperature

While life might be "everywhere", the sea level would be about 265 feet higher so all land near the coastline would be underwater. That includes a large fraction of world wide farmland. Land in Siberia would no longer be frozen but it is not suitable for growing most crops.

I don't thik it is a good idea to permantly flood all major ports and prime farmland in trade for useless peat land.

Evan at 03:18 AM on 9 March 2019

SkS Analogy 19 - A table full of crystal and ideal temperature

Nick@5 thanks for your interesting comments.

"abundant life was everywhere"

It would be interesting to ask skeptics/deniers if it was the same life everywhere, or just life everywhere? We have 8 billion of exactly the same species living on Earth. There are species for whom oxygen is poisonous, and those species are doing just fine in some zones that lack oxygen. There are extremophiles that do well in near boiling water. There can be abundant life everywhere, but that does not mean that it is the same species everywhere nor that humans would be able to live everywhere on Earth under those conditions.

I know you know this Nick, but just pointing it out as an argument to use with deniers/skeptics.

Sunspot at 02:46 AM on 9 March 2019

SkS Analogy 19 - A table full of crystal and ideal temperature

I googled "Earth's ideal temperature"...

https://www.space.com/17816-earth-temperature.html

"GISS data show global average temperatures in 2017 rose 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) above the 1951-1980 mean. According to GISS, the global mean surface air temperature for that period was estimated to be 57 F (14 C). That would put the planet's average surface temperature in 2017 at 58.62 F (14.9 C)."

Nick Palmer at 01:58 AM on 9 March 2019

SkS Analogy 19 - A table full of crystal and ideal temperature

I like this analogy. Often, when fighting climate science deniers, one will be challenged with the question 'What is Earth's ideal temperature?'. This one is actually on one of those denier lists of hard-questions-to-shoot-down-warmists-with that they pass around the denialosphere. They do have their tricksy defence mechanisms if one just replies with the standard 'there isn't an ideal temperature, but the relatively stable temperature of the last 10,000 years is what enabled our civilisation to develop'. I usually say that of course there is no ideal temperature, but clearly there could be many 'bad' temperatures for civilisation and I then hit them with this follow up.

When arguing in this area, one will also often get at the same time the 'CO2 levels were much higher in the past and so were planetary average temperatures' meme - there were no ice caps and life existed in much greater numbers from pole to pole so why are 'warmists' worried about the future?

I usually agree with the first part - it's true that, for example, during the Carboniferous and 'dinosaur' periods, Earth was much warmer and CO2 was a lot higher and abundant life was everywhere. The second 'why worry' part though is where denialist thought goes seriously astray.
Sure, if we carried on loading up the atmosphere and global average temperatures climbed high enough, Earth would eventually stabilise in a state which would probably be more conducive to abundant life but what deniers turn a blind eye to is the timescales involved. It would probably take millions of years to get from where we are now to the fertile, universally warm, planet many deniers assert that climate science and policies are denying us all. They ignore the massive disruption, and probable mass species extinctions, that would occur as the ecosystems tried to adapt to the new and continually changing conditions. The ordered table of crystal would be continually shaken and disrupted for aeons. It may be true that that denialist 'destination' may be 'better' than what we have today, but no-one in their right minds who understands how ecosystems react to long term changes would want to go on the enormously long and dangerous ride it would take to get from here to there.

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