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nigelj at 07:27 AM on 24 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
Scaddenp, yes that pretty much sums it up. As does this amusing quote from John Rogers:
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
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scaddenp at 06:13 AM on 24 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
Gee, I would have said the attraction of Rand's confused philosphy was in how to feel good about being a completely self-centered, immoral prat. Followers really dont want to think too hard about how her idea connect actual reality, preferring to try and shape reality to fit Rand's fantasy worlds.
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RedBaron at 01:28 AM on 24 January 2019Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
@324 MA Rodger,
"room" in this case refers to the size of the sink potential, not the size of the pool or the rate at which carbon moves from one pool to another.
Clearly because this is a complex system the rate will vary quite a bit due to many factors, but the size of the sink is far more than large enough to handle all the excess carbon in the atmosphere easily. That would not even get soil carbon levels to pre-industrial, much less pre-agriculture.
Keep in mind though, I have stated multiple times here with evidence that LUC as you depect here for example is about emissions and completely inadequate at resolving the whole stable soil carbon cycle including lost sequestration capacity. It's a labile or biomass state. ie short term carbon cycle and labile carbon pools. Apples and oranges.
Because you are about oranges instead of apples I can see where you might think this is off topic. But instead of going off topic, go back on topic, and you'll see more clearly my point. I am not talking about LUC in the biomass and labile carbon pools, I am talking about saturation capacity in the long term stable carbon soil sink.
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SirCharles at 00:30 AM on 24 January 2019State of the climate: How the world warmed in 2018
So we're at 2045-2050 where we will hit the 2°C above pre-industrial baseline. 1.5°C probably by 2030. Not much time left. I'd say the oncoming decade is DECISIVE for anything like Paris.
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MA Rodger at 22:43 PM on 23 January 2019Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
RedBaron @323,
Your assertion that there is "room for all emissions to be absorbed by natural systems" (by this meaning the biosphere) is a little off-topic here.
However, a few facts (numbers sourced mainly from the Global Carbon Project).
About one third of our CO2 emissions since 1750 have resulted from Land-Use-Change (or in simple terms cutting down trees). And as a result of these LUC emissions, the biosphere only became a net absorber of our emissions from the 1970s-on (when FF emissions became the 'bulk' of the total).
Today (ie the last 40 years) the biosphere absorbs significantly more of our emissions than do the oceans. But when we manage to stop boosting atmospheric CO2 levels (hopefully soon), the oceans will become the major absorber, eventually taking the vast majority of our emissions and in doing so, reversing the biosphere absorption of today (and since 1990 when CO2 was ~350ppm).
The absorption of CO2 on man-managed lands can be improved and the carbon then 'sequestrated' (ie out of reach of the natural carbon cycle) to somewhere safe (rather than relying on natural 'sequestration' processes). But without such 'sequestration,' added reabsorption relies on either reversing the LUC (so simplistically able to reverse that third of our emissions that came from LUC) or a continued presence of an elevated atmospheric CO2 level, which logically implies not "all emissions" can be absorbed by this route.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:27 PM on 23 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
nigelj,
Thanks for the added insight into Ayn Rand.
And I will continue using the term Altruism but will trying to remember to describe it as 'helping others with no expectation of any return benefit' and the related understanding 'not harming Others'.
That is the essence of the motive for establishing and pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals. Most of the required actions and corrections should not be expected to return a direct benefit to those who put the effort into achieving and improving on them. The required actions are not a set of Trades in the Market between supposedly fully informed and equally influential parties.
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nigelj at 12:48 PM on 23 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
OPOF @19, I did a design degree, and Ayn Rands Fountainhead "came with the territory" and I also read Atlas Shrugged. I think you are right her views were very coloured by her experiences of the Soviet Union. She saw the worst side of socialism, a confused set of policies often forced onto people in barbaric and senseless ways at the point of a gun. Intellectuals rounded up and forced into labour camps. Anyone should be horrified, but it made her react against anything even remotely socialist, and means she was letting circumstances colour her evaluation of things, so although she claimed she was an objectivist, she was actually the complete opposite. Not that all her observations are wrong, but her ideology and her code of morality is little more than her opinion and doesn't make a lot of sense.
For example its nice to say everyone should be productive. Who would disagree? Nobody sensible. But if someone gets lucky and wins the lottery and stops being productive there is nothing we can do about it short of forcing them, the very thing Ayn Rand would rebel against.
And how do we deal with people who cannot be productive like invalids? Because it's really this that is her real, hidden concern. In Ayn Rands world they are left to the wolves, because she rules out any collective response where the public assist such people through something like a social security programme, because she sees this as the alleged mob telling her that she must help pay for such a scheme through taxation. She sees this as fundamentally wrong, having seen the worst consequences of such forced programmes in the soviet union, however the only viable way of funding such schemes is in fact taxation. The only viable way of funding any form of government action is taxation, so if taxation is "theft" then we cannot escape some element of theft, because the alternative is the rule of the jungle- and this is even worse than Soviet collectivism. So I say her world view is laughable and not logically thought through.
In fact the real solution is to create socio economic structures that help people and tax as required, but structure them to minimise such structures abusing their power and over taxing and over spending.There are obvious ways of doing this.
Yes sure I agree Rands acolytes try to give altruism a bad name. I'm in two minds, because I see your point of view, yet why should we let them dictate the terms of the debate? Altruism is a recognised form of human behaviour and a word in the dictionary. We do it because we are human, and I'm damned if anyone is going to tell me it's somehow fundamentally wrong or cannot form part of governments thinking! Even if we use the term Helpful they will finad a way to pull that to bits!
Ayn Rands world might have purity of ideas, but it is a cold sterile purity and is unable to deal effectively with problems in the real world. The real world is complicated and messy. I do not believe in soviet union style collectivism as such, this sort of ownership just leads to stagnation, because nobody owns anything so nobody cares, but environmental problems fall into the category of "things needing some government input" because free markets simply dont adequately solve the problems. This might annoy Rand, but too bad for that. Ayn Rands thinking means such problems would go completely unsolved for the sake of her "principles" which is just madness.
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RedBaron at 11:35 AM on 23 January 2019Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
@321 chromedome49
You are correct. There is actually room for all emissions to be absorbed by natural systems. But of course we humans have significantly degraded that side of the carbon cycle as well.
Farming Claims Almost Half Earth's Land, New Maps Show
So even though there is room, particularly in the soils, in reality agriculture has turned that sink potential into the second leading cause of AGW behind fossil fuels.
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One Planet Only Forever at 11:30 AM on 23 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
nigelj,
Thanks for the link. Improving understanding relies on updates of information that alter or strengthen an existing understanding.
One pore point. I am moving away from using the term Altruism.
I have been learning that people have different perceptions of the term. And some of those perceptions are not consistent with my intent to focus on helping vs. harming others. Using the term can end up in misunderstanding.
Some people, like Ayn Rand, have very extreme views of Altruism. They see a altruism as a complete abdication of all personal choice or freedom. Ayn thought that way because she considered the Authoritarian Soviet state actions to be examples of what altruism is all about. What was happening was not Ayn Rand's observation of a requirement of altruism from Soviet citizens. A portion of the Soviet population was abusing claims that sounded altruistic as misleading marketing for their authoritarian strongman pursuits of more personal power and perceptions of superiority relative to others.
My current understanding is that Ayn Rand would likely have been a strong proponent of what I am thinking is required. One gap in her expression of her thinking was the failure to describe what she meant when she said things like it being 'best for every man to do as they please except that it was 'immoral' for a man to not be productive'. Productive is open to a range of helpful and harmful possibilities. It is possible that a person interested in being deliberately harmful (as I describe help vs harm) could be considered to be productive because they are doing something that impacts others and they are succeeding.
Ayn Rand has said other things that indicate she expected people to be helpful rather than harmful. But she never seemed to clearly elaborate on the requirement for helpfulness. Tragically, an acolyte of Ayn's, Allan Greenspan, claimed in his testimony to Congress after the 2008 financial debacle he oversaw the development of, that he had no idea that business leaders would consider doing anything that would result in future harmful consequences.
Many anti-altruism freedom fighters appear to similarly misunderstand what is actually going on. The mere mention of the term altruism can trigger a fear and anger gut-reaction that isn't helpful. Using the terms helpful and harmful still challenges their beliefs, but it is harder for them to be dismissive about a help/harm description than they can be about a term like Altruism. Some of them actually even try to claim that altruism does not exist, probably because they do not want it to exist, because the likes of Ayn Rand state that altruism and capitalism cannot co-exist, but more likely because the thought of giving up a potential personal benefit out of consideration for Others is seriously contrary to their interests.
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MA Rodger at 10:27 AM on 23 January 2019Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
chromedome49 @321,
You appear to be asking a question by beginning a sentence "Question:" but this isn't followed by a question. So I will assume you are asking something like: 'Why, if anthropogenic emissions are but a small fraction of natural emissions (using the numbers in the OP, actually 3.7%); why then can't such a small extra amount be taken up and absorbed by the much larger natural mechanisms?'
The problem with such a proposition is that the natural cycle was in balance prior to our emissions. Today, the reason the natural cycle is out-of-balance and takes more CO2 than it emits is simply because the atmospheric CO2 levels have gone up. Without such an increase, the balanced natural cycle would fail to take any of our emissions. But as there is now an extra 1,055Gt(CO2) in the atmosphere, there is extra space in the natural absorption part of the cycle for some of our CO2 to be absorbed in that cycle. While we continue to emit at increasing rates the proportion of our CO2 emissions absorbed by the natural cycle will continue to be large, roughly 50%. Were we to stop emitting, the natural cycle would continue absorbing extra CO2 and reducing the anthrpogenic burden in the atmosphere, initially quite quickly over a few decades, then more slowly in successive centuries until in a thousand years 75% or 80% of our emissions will have been drawn out of the atmosphere. After that, the process becomes so slow that it will take many tens of thousands of years to reduce the remainder to insignificance.
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chromedome49 at 07:46 AM on 23 January 2019Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
If I understood your answer correctly, you said our 29 GT Co2 is small compared to the 750 GT exchanged each year, and that ours is about half absorbed. Question: 29 GT times 25 is 725 GT. It looks to me as if there was plenty of room for ALL of our CO2 to have been absorbed.
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Norm Rubin at 04:41 AM on 23 January 2019Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
All I can find this minute is the abstract and citation with the full text behind Nature's paywall. I thought I'd read it but I've never paid for a Nature subscription
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0165-2 is the link.
And here's a paste of the contents, FWIW:
Nature Sustainability
Analysis | Published: 26 November 2018Normalized hurricane damage in the continental United States 1900–2017
Jessica Weinkle, Chris Landsea, […]Roger Pielke Jr
Nature Sustainabilityvolume 1, pages808–813 (2018) | Download CitationAbstract
Direct economic losses result when a hurricane encounters an exposed, vulnerable society. A normalization estimates direct economic losses from a historical extreme event if that same event was to occur under contemporary societal conditions. Under the global indicator framework of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the reduction of direct economic losses as a proportion of total economic activity is identified as a key indicator of progress in the mitigation of disaster impacts. Understanding loss trends in the context of development can therefore aid in assessing sustainable development. This analysis provides a major update to the leading dataset on normalized US hurricane losses in the continental United States from 1900 to 2017. Over this period, 197 hurricanes resulted in 206 landfalls with about US$2 trillion in normalized (2018) damage, or just under US$17 billion annually. Consistent with observed trends in the frequency and intensity of hurricane landfalls along the continental United States since 1900, the updated normalized loss estimates also show no trend. A more detailed comparison of trends in hurricanes and normalized losses over various periods in the twentieth century to 2017 demonstrates a very high degree of consistency.Access options
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I believe the item linked in post 84 is aimed at the second item I was asking about
Moderator Response:[DB] A full copy is here.
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nigelj at 04:36 AM on 23 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
OPOF
"My current developed understanding is that the Objective of human activity needs to be helping others."
Some of the research posted recently supports this notion: "What affects individual energy conservation behavior: Personal habits, external conditions or values? An empirical study based on a survey of college students" The study found values and in particular altruistic thinking was the most significant factor leading to more energy conservation.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:04 AM on 23 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
nigelj @1,
I try to constantly improve my awareness and understanding.
My current developed understanding is that the Objective of human activity needs to be helping others. With the highest level of that objective being to sustainably improve the future for humanity. The flip side of that understanding is that, as a minimum, people need to avoid harming others, including and especially not harming the future of humanity.
The Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Climate Action, are a great presentation of what is required to achieve a better future for humanity.
And the responses to the required corrections of what has developed that are exposed by the understanding of the Climate Action Goal, or any of the other Sustainable Development Goals, expose inconvenient realities of the socioeconomic-political systems that people developed their preferences and ways of thinking in.
A clear understanding to me is that Competition for perceptions of superiority relative to others brings out the Best or Worst in people. If people in the competition can get away with behaving worse (more harmfully) then the competition encourages the development of worse competitors (more misleading secretive harmful people - deniers) because that behaviour is an easier way to be a bigger winner. Without close monitoring and rapid effective correction things can be expected to devolve away from sustainable helpful improvements (like that entropy thing).
What needs to be encouraged is the development of 'Passionate thoughtful helpful' people rather than the misleading marketing creation of 'Angry gut-reacting fearful' people.
From that basis of understanding I agree with your concerns about the Psychology Today article. And I have some minor points to make regarding your points 1) and 2), and I would add some new points.
Regarding your point 1): I believe that the awareness that needs to be raised is awareness of how easy it can be to keep people from improving their awareness and understanding. People can easily be kept from improving their awareness and understanding, be kept from changing their minds, if they have developed a personal liking/desire for an incorrect belief that leads to harmful results or the risk of harmful results. People can be easily tempted to like claims that defend their developed desire to not have to change their mind, or change how they act, or admit that their actions are harmful.
Regarding your point 2): Leaders and followers are a matched set. A leader needs followers to remain a leader. I agree that getting better behaviour out of leaders is key to achieving the required corrections. The problem is how fickle the followers can be. Back to 1), many people can be easily tempted by deliberately misleading wanna-be-leaders.
A Good Helpful solution is to have all competitors for leadership being dedicated to honestly improving awareness and understanding of the corrections required to sustainably improve the future for a robust diversity of humanity (based on the understanding that the only viable future for humanity is a robust diversity of humanity sustainably regionally fitting in to a robust diversity of life on this planet). That requires increasing the number of people who understand the need for that type of leadership.
In addition, the climate change problem will not be solved by only the Good Helpful people changing what they do. The problem requires fairness, meaning everyone understanding what they have to do - No Free Riders allowed to believe and do as they please (PeterV included a version of this point in his Jan 11, 2019 comment on the SkS item “Discussing climate change on the net”). Allowing harmful beliefs and activity to persist uncorrected is very dangerous and damaging to the future of humanity.
A key issue is the type of attitudes, ways of thinking about things, that the socioeconomic-political systems encourage people to develop. People act based on the way they think. Even gut-reacting is a way of thinking. It is thinking without well reasoned evaluation of the helpfulness/harmfulness of the thoughts and resulting actions.
Constantly improving awareness and understanding (being more correct), to help develop sustainable improvements for others (being more helpful), should be the understood ideal for every member of humanity. And it should be the expected behaviour of all of the winners and leaders in socioeconomic-political competitions for popularity and profit. The more influential or wealthy a person is, the higher the requirements should be for them to behave correctly helpfully.
Acting harmfully in spite of the ability to more correctly understand how to be helpful is the worst thing a person can do, especially a wealthy or influential person. A person who has the ability to correctly understand something but chooses to act harmfully in spite of their ability to be correctly helpful needs to be seen to be a very harmful type of person. And a person who claims to be doing something helpful but achieves that claimed helpfulness through a harmful action must not be given credit for that Good Thing they claim to have done.
An example of 'understanding that Actually Doing Something Good does not justify compromising on helpfulness by doing some Bad to get the Good - the ends do not justify the means' is drug operation leader El Chapo. El Chapo is not a Good Person even though his leadership of the regionally popular and profitable activity provides significant assistance to very many poor people in Columbia. That Good does not excuse any of the harm done.
The same goes for fossil fuel burning being excused because of perceptions of Good Results being observed in the world that has been dominated by the burning of fossil fuels (incorrectly attributing the Good that has happened to an understandably unsustainable and harmful activity).
And that need to find excuses for understandably unacceptable desires relates to the following point in the Psychology Today article “Psychologists consider denial—the refusal to accept facts in order to protect us from uncomfortable truths—to be a primitive defence mechanism.”
The need to find excuses for developed harmful preferences is a defence mechanism. It is being triggered by some very smart people who understand how to manipulate the thinking of people. They try to make people fearful. But the political ones also try to make people incorrectly angry enough to be sure to vote for the leadership contender who makes them incorrectly fearful and angry. And those very smart people have the ability to correctly understand the climate science. But they are willing to work for the interests of wealthy and powerful who can also understand climate science and the socioeconomic-political corrections that need to occur to limit the harm being done to future generations. Collectively they fight against corrections and limits to their freedom to harm others and future generations, because such corrections and limits are 'correctly perceived to be at their personal expense, their loss of perceived superiority and prosperity relative to others'.
My understanding leads to another comment regarding the following Psychology Today article point "How easy it is to shut the bad news away and look to deal with more tractable problems. Even poverty, war, and famine seem more easily solved than climate change.". Without achieving the Climate Action Goal, any perceptions of success regarding any other Sustainable Development Goals will be unsustainable. The more rapidly the climate action goal is achieved and improved on the easier it will be to sustainably reduce poverty, war and famine.
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Postkey at 21:47 PM on 22 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
'Climate Forecast: World Is “Sleepwalking into Catastrophe”'
Is there a difference between 'catastrophe' and 'doom'?
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scaddenp at 13:36 PM on 22 January 2019Sea level is not rising
" If people are to be forced by law to move away from coastal areas or suffer other penalty due to events that merely might happen, then it is bullying."
Interesting. Where is that happening? This sounds like something out of a rightwing fake news. Moved by law?? Please provide a link. Insurance companies stand to lose money and so funnily enough study the science quite seriously. They are getting tetchy about properties in highly exposed areas.
" I still think that our planet has amazing self correcting and regulating abilities."
And yet the projected changes are well within past states for the planet. 400ppm of CO2 takes us back to the much warmer Pliocene when we didnt have ice ages. What is worrying about historical evidence, is that rate of change is very very high compared to past and fast rates of change in the past have been very bad for many species. What is informing your belief that the planet will be self-correcting? Hope or facts?
"Actually I do now accept both, but the extent and attendant risk are arguable."
What do you mean about extent? You are still doubting the current measurement of around 3.7mm/yr from satellite and tide guages? Or the more reasonable doubt about how high it go?
"My wife says it is merely the tail end of the huge cooling period (ice age) where the glaciers only continue doing what they have been doing for thosands of years."
The question to ask is why? Scientists are incredibly attached to conservation of energy and temperatures have to rise and fall for a reason. And there is a well understood reason. Past glacial cycles are orbital-driven and happen via mechanisms that only can only operate when other forcings (including and especially CO2 levels) permit persistance of winter snowfall in NH through summer when the orbital forcing result in low insolation. On that basis, instead of warming, we should be very slowly cooling. (see here for details). With CO2 at current levels, it is not going to happen. The change in insolation driving glacial cycle is large but changes at rate of a few milliwatts/m2/ century at latitude 65N. By comparison, greenhouse forcing is increasing at around 3 watts/m2 /century on average over the entire globe.
I know the Fox well (I am in Dunedin) and those West Coast valley glaciers have some special characteristics. There are two main drivers. On hand, the warming Tasman is increasing snowfall in the neve region pushing it forward, especially in El Nino. On other hand, the warming at terminus is increasing the melt rate. Its retreat/advance is the balance of those factors.
I still find it astonishing that you could contemplate some hand-wavy explanation instead the hard work of thousands of scientists accumulating data over decades.
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Bob Loblaw at 12:45 PM on 22 January 2019Sea level is not rising
Gentlepeople:
On the subject of atmospheric water content, the measurement you want is "precipitable water" - the total water vapour in the atmospheric column, as if it were condensed and fell as rainfall. That will tell you how much it can contribute to sea level (or change).
This web site provides a map (updated daily?), showing values ranging from close to zero up to about 70mm.
https://eldoradoweather.com/climate/world-maps/world-precipitable-water.html
This web site gives similar data, and mentions that the global mean is 21.6mm.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/precipitable-water
If you account for the oceans only covering 2/3 of the world, that means that the 21mm could increase sea level by about 30mm. So, if you doubled atmospheric water vaour concentration (a huge change, much beyod what 3C of warming would cause), you'd lower sea level by 30mm.
Entirely consistent with MA Rodger's numbers in comment #15.
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bArt17240 at 12:23 PM on 22 January 2019Sea level is not rising
scaddenp@21
Thanks for the link to the paper on OHC. In it, it states:
"Our reconstruction, which agrees with other estimates for the well-observed period, demonstrates that the ocean absorbed as much heat during 1921–1946 as during 1990–2015."
I take from that that as much heat was absorbed in the early 1900's as was being absorbed at the turn of the century (44 years later).
You wonder why I fail to explain why I dont accept the direct observations of sea level rise (and for that matter ice loss). Actually I do now accept both, but the extent and attendant risk are aguable. If people are to be forced by law to move away from coastal areas or suffer other penalty due to events that merely might happen, then it is bullying. Why not use education? It's worked on me so far. I used to be a denier (of sorts) although I still think that our planet has amazing self correcting and regulating abilities. There seems to be as much alarmist language as there is the opposite, lets just stick to verifiable facts.
My wife says it is merely the tail end of the huge cooling period (ice age) where the glaciers only continue doing what they have been doing for thosands of years.
Fox Glacier in New Zealand moves at approximately 10 times the speed of other valley glaciers around the world.
Fed by four alpine glaciers, Fox Glacier falls 2600 metres on its 13-kilometre journey towards the coast. It is 300 metres deep and its terminal face is just 5 kilometres from the township. Vertical schist rock walls on either side of the Fox Glacier valley are over one kilometre high. It is said that at one time Fox Glacier fed straight into the ocean, 13 kms. away. That means it's been receeding for quite some time.Please point out any wrong facts or assumptions I make, thanks.
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nigelj at 08:28 AM on 22 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
PC @14, there is so much denialism about, that its easy to jump to conclusions, and I do it as well. We get on edge.
You are right, the event is not unusual, however it does look like inversions will become more frequent as in the links I posted.
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Philippe Chantreau at 07:36 AM on 22 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0450(2003)042%3C1302:TASVOF%3E2.0.CO%3B2
OK, I was dead wrong in my hasty interpretation of sunspot underlying message, I guess I'm a little jaded from years of fending denier's BS. Apology for that.
However, I was not wrong in my assessment of how unusual this is for NH; it's not. Sunspot said verbatim at post #3 above "should be impossible." There is absolutely no reason why it should be impossible and it certainly is not uncommon.
Changnon et Karl (2003) mapped the frequency of freezing precipitation for the 48 contiguous for the perio 1948-2000. Only Southern Cal and Southwestern Arizona have an average frequency of freezing precipitation days of zero. See link above, for some reason, it would not insert anywhere but at the top of the page.
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Daniel Bailey at 07:06 AM on 22 January 2019Sea level is not rising
"This to me means that only the upper levels of the ocean are being warmed"
When you preclude yourself from reading the actual scientific literature and restrict yourself to contrarian sources, I can see why that might be the conclusion you have been guided to make.
However, the actual science knows that the ocean mixing layer in real life depends upon the time of the season, the location and even the extended weather patterns. Hence, the mixing layer can range from a few meters to the abyssal depths, aided by Ekman trnsport and the above conditions.
The oceans are warming, top-down. Per Cheng et al 2017:
"OHC has increased fairly steadily and, since 1990, has increasingly involved deeper layers of the ocean. In addition, OHC changes in six major oceans are reliable on decadal timescales.
All ocean basins examined have experienced significant warming since 1998, with the greatest warming in the southern oceans, the tropical/subtropical Pacific Ocean, and the tropical/subtropical Atlantic Ocean."
"The new result (Fig. 6) suggests a total full-depth ocean warming of 33.5 ± 7.0 × 1022 J (equal to a net heating of 0.37 ± 0.08W/m2 over the global surface and over the 56-year period) from 1960 to 2015, with 36.5, 20.4, 30.3, and 12.8% contributions from the 0- to 300-m, 300-to 700-m, 700- to 2000-m, and below 2000-m layers, respectively."
More here.
Cheng and Zhu 2018 - 2017 was the warmest year on record for the global ocean
And, per Zanna et al 2019, global warming has heated the oceans by the equivalent of one atomic bomb explosion per second for the past 150 years (since 1871):
"The ocean heating rate has increased as global warming has accelerated, and the value is somewhere between roughly three to six Hiroshima bombs per second in recent decades, depending on which dataset and which timeframe is used. This new study estimates the ocean heating rate at about three Hiroshima bombs per second for the period of 1990 to 2015, which is on the low end of other estimates."
Background SKS posts to read:
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scaddenp at 06:11 AM on 22 January 2019Sea level is not rising
More on deep ocean heating and circulation in a paper just out. See here.
The determination of steric sea level rise is done by whole-of-ocean temperature rise as determined by observation, not back-of-the-envelope though admittedly deep-ocean temperature change is poorly constrained and the largest source of error in the estimates.
You are still failing to explain why you dont accept the direct observations of sea level rise (and for that matter ice loss). Any sort of modelling of sea level rise is seeking to understand the actual measurements not the other way round.
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nigelj at 05:42 AM on 22 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
Clearly Manchester had some sort of rather large temperature inversion. Either snow hit a warm layer and turned to rain or rain passed through a shallow cold layer before it had time to freeze completely.
The thing is would climate change be making temperature inversions worse in some way? Turns out climate change is expected to increase the occurence of temperature inversions.. and here as well.
Just a bit of Sherlock Holmes searching on my part. So Sunspot might have been onto something.
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John Hartz at 04:43 AM on 22 January 2019Sea level is not rising
Recommended supplemental reading:
Ocean warming speeds vary with depth by Tim Radford, Climate Home, Jan 10, 2019
It's chock full of embedded references to scientific findings on the subject matter.
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MA Rodger at 01:21 AM on 22 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
Sunspot @11,
The GISTEMP graphic @4 is a month's average not a single day. Were there no budget dispute running in the US, I would consider examining US state temperature data to see how unusual this East Coast cold spot actually is, but the child on Pennsylvania Ave is still in tantrum mode & NOAA data is off-line.
As for your question which I paraphrase - 'What would we be seeing if Global Environmental collapse were happening?' That would likely depend on what you mean by "Global Environmental collapse."
And while you insist The IPCC "don't specify what (twelve years left) really means," the IPCC SR15 does make clear what it expects in 12 years - a 45% cut in carbon emissions relative to 2010. And this is required, they say, to "limit warming to 1.5°C" and provide analysis of what exceeding such a warming would result in.
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MA Rodger at 23:41 PM on 21 January 2019Sea level is not rising
bArt @17,
I wouldn't say (as @18) that the short essay by Lilly Li you cite is "incorrect." Rather it is saying (although not very well) that the surface ocean waters are well mixed while lower depths below this mixed layer require circulation to spread the warming. Circulation is a slower process.
Perhaps it would be worth explaining that the bottom of the ocean is 'cooled' rather than 'warmed'. You will be familiar with the high temperatures in the Earth's core. Puddled over the majority of the Earth's surface are the oceans & above that is an atmosphere with a temperature averaging 15ºC. Yet the ocean depths, sandwiched between the molten Earth's core and the sun-warmed atmosphere, are only just above freezing. (Until recently there was parts below 0ºC but reportedly this is disappearing.) So the only way the bottom of the ocean can be so cold is because something is keeping it cold. And that is salty cold water from the poles that tumbles down into the abyss.
Under AGW, the cooling of the ocean depths is less and the warming of the ocean surface is greater. So the whole ocean is warming. A quick look at OHC data shows the 600m ocean layer below the top 100m level (which contains the mixed layer) is warming at a third the rate of the surface 100m layer. Deeper down, the 700-to-2,000m layer is warming a sixth as quick as the surface 100m (these calculated from 1955-2013).
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Sunspot at 22:18 PM on 21 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
As usual, everyone just wants to argue. Well, it's the internet...
I wasn't born yesterday. I have never seen anything like sleet at 14 degrees. When it is that cold - it snows!. Every time! Yes, of course, there was a warm layer meltng the precipitation on the way down. I get that.
And I certainly did not say that it was 'impossible". Obviously not. And anyone paying attention to the weather yesterday knows that this was not just in Manchester, NH, it was a widespread phenomenon all over the Northeast. Very low temps, but still sleet or even freezing rain. Not impossible, but very, very unusual. I'd bet that, if you showed what happened yesterday to any meteorologist thirty years ago, they would have said that storm was so unlikely as to be nearly impossible. Nearly.
@MA Roger - Great map. One day. One day is weather. Climate is not shown on a map of one day's weather. The cold air detaching from the Pole to this extent and remaining so far south for so long, and how frequently this sort of thing is happening in the past couple of decades, is an obvious consequence of Global Warming. Sure looks like a major slowdown in the thermohaline circulation to me.
The question I was trying to ask was: If the Global Environment was collapsing before our very eyes, what would we be seeing? In other words - explain to me how what we are seeing is NOT ongoing Global Environmental collapse? Because I think that it is. And it is accelerating. The simple fact that 75% of the insect population has died off provides strong evidence right there.
Here's the thing - IPCC says we have twelve years left. They don't specify what that really means. Wise. I say they are overly optimistic, and I maintain evidence is "on my side". I feel like I know too much. I just go along with my day, but I think it is highly likely that the humans don't have much time left. And honestly, I don't talk about it because the last thing I want is for people to understand that the way I understand it. I claim no superior mental stability, but I know most people can't handle the concept that most life can be extinguished on this planet within a few years. Let's be kind and say a decade. I don't want people to know that. Enjoy what time is left. My only suggestion is this: if there is something on your bucket list you are planning for five years from now, and you can do it next year, move up your plans.
So there's my little rant. I just wanted to point out the contrasting weather at opposite ends of the planet. I enjoy the discussions here about the problems we face in 2300. It means that, even here, nobody really gets the full nature of the problem. But that's OK... keep vapin' the Hopium...
Moderator Response:[DB] Promoting doom (snipped) is unhelpful.
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michael sweet at 21:52 PM on 21 January 2019Sea level is not rising
Hi bArt,
Your source of information is incorrect. There is a circulation into the deep ocean from both poles where cold surface water sinks all the way to the bottom of the ocean. This sinking water circulates around the world (on the bottom) and then re-emerges at other locations like the coast of Chile. Wikipedia thermohaline circulation explaination. I learned about the thermohaline circulation 50 years ago, it is not news to scientists.
The circulation in the ocean has been modeled. Recent data has shown that scientists underestimated the amount of heat that has been transferred into the deep ocean and the warming is worse than expected. It is typical for scientists to underestimate warming because they are conservative.
It is easy to raise quesitons about AgW if you ignore what scientists understand. I recommend that you stop wasting your time on skeptic disinformation.
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bArt17240 at 17:05 PM on 21 January 2019Sea level is not rising
Hi, doubting thomas is back again. This website https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2007/LilyLi.shtml states "There is a barrier between the surface water and deeper layers of the ocean that are not mixed. The barrier begins around 100 meters and can extend another few hundred meters downwards. There is a thermo cline meaning there is a quick change in temperature when entering the deeper surface of water. A CTD (Conductivity, Temperature and Depth) instrument (usually placed in the water from a ship or a platform) measures temperature in the deep ocean. Recordings have shown that the average temperature of water ranges from 0-3 degrees Celsius (32–37.5 degrees Fahrenheit)."
This to me means that only the upper levels of the ocean are being warmed and are therefore only expanding over a fraction of their volume. Has this been modelled anywhere that anyone knows about?
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Philippe Chantreau at 13:53 PM on 21 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
NigelJ is right. Freezing rain happens when there is a temperature inversion, which is common when a warm front overtakes a cold air mass in the winter. It often starts with snow, then sleet, followed by freezing rain. It obviously indicates that the temperature at higher altitude is above freezing. I certainly would not believe that this is an impossibility anywhere in NH, nor is a temperature of -10 degrees C.
The average low for January in Manchester is 12 degrees Farenheit, lower than the temperature of this event according to Sunspot. Nothingburger. Just another example of "it snowed so there is no global warming" nonsense.
https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/manchester/new-hampshire/united-states/usnh0361
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scaddenp at 13:11 PM on 21 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
OK, I see - 14F didnt mean much to me, but -10C makes it clear. Ed Hummel gives a pretty useful explanation here.
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nigelj at 12:45 PM on 21 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
I didn't think rain could form and fall at subzero temperatures. I'm not a physics expert by a long way, but this seems self evident. So perhaps Manchester just had a thin layer of sub zero air near the ground, and the rain shot straight through this?
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scaddenp at 07:02 AM on 21 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
Sunspot, you say "Which pretty much should be impossible, but here it is".
Why do you say that? Why should it be impossible?
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william5331 at 04:25 AM on 21 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
Australia bakes and they still burn coal instead of using solar panels. Perhaps lying around on the beach has cooked their brains.
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LFC at 04:24 AM on 21 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
I ran into these two posts over at RealClimate. It appears that Dr. Ray Bates needs to be added to the list of climate misinformers. A rebuttal filled with debunked science is standard fare for the denialist community but attacking an investigation (that cleared the scientist who was attacked with false accusations) that was under your own leadership without disclosing this little fact is a level of mendacity that should disquality him from ever being allowed any near respectable institution involved in science.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/12/bending-low-with-bated-breath/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2019/01/noaa-thing-burger-officially-confirmed/
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John Hartz at 03:54 AM on 21 January 2019Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
@ Norm Rubin #82
Here's one response to pseudo-science poppycock written by Paul Homewood and posted on the GWPF website:
GWPF’s “Incoherent” Climate Reports Misrepresent IPCC; Chairman’s Resignation Unrelated, ClimateDenierRoundup, DailyKos, Jan 18, 2019
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mayur126 at 03:17 AM on 21 January 2019Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
DEFINITION OF GREENHOUSE EFFECT
The greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon, which helps to keep the earth’s surface warm and that is why life on earth is possible.What is Greenhouse Effect ? is a simplequestion I thought
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MA Rodger at 23:10 PM on 20 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
Sunspot @3,
The map below shows temperature from November so a couple of month's old. (A more recent version is delayed, likely because of that tantrum from the child on Pennsylvania Ave.) Yet, despite Nov 2018 being the =5th warmest November on record, the NE US is looking decidedly chilly (as it also had in October 2018). From what you say, it will still be in place in January but is that anything more than weather? How does it compare with past cold winters?
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Sunspot at 22:34 PM on 20 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
I just have to point out that at the same time it is now 14 degrees F in Manchester NH with sleet and freezing rain. Which pretty much should be impossible, but here it is. It is going to be like that all day across much of New Hampshire. Maybe all this is just bad weather. What would global environmental collapse look like anyway?
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Riduna at 18:26 PM on 20 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
In Australia, a series of heatwaves have pushed land surface temperatures to new highs. A consequence of this in western NSW has been that the water temperature of the Menindee Lakes has risen which, combined with an algae bloom and lack of water flow due to drought and maladministration, caused oxygen levels in the water to plummet. The result: over a million fish died.
A lot of excuses and pious words from politicians and water consumers but the devastation is ongoing as successive heatwaves in summer produce new record highs.
This time its only fish casualties. Future temperature rises could produce human fatalities. That might jog government into doing something about global warming. Nothing else seems to have worked.
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braintic at 16:22 PM on 20 January 2019IPCC admits global warming has paused
As this presentation shows, even the UAH data shows that there was no pause in warming:
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link
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michael sweet at 10:01 AM on 20 January 2019Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
Norm Rubin,
Can you link the article you are talking about so we can find it?
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Norm Rubin at 09:47 AM on 20 January 2019Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
Sorry, rookie error. I refreshed the page to see if anything had changed and my browser entered my post again. And I don't see how to delete the duplicate.
Moderator Response:[DB] While the moderators usually notice, should it happen again just ask for the duplicate to be removed.
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nigelj at 09:07 AM on 20 January 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3
Regarding the psychology today article on the reasons for climate denial. It makes some good points, but imho is full of strawmen and this makes it even harder to motivate people to do something. Eg:
"One reason for the refusal to accept the reality of climate change is what is called “motivated interference,” ..... this can include a general unease with large government projects that are expensive and interfere with individuals’ lives."
I dont see hard evidence of general unease. The majority accept social security programmes, pensions, governments owning some infrastructure so why would climate programmes be different? The unease seems more to be with some small government leaning groups and businesses with a particularly hard line attitude.
"We can grasp a potential calamity if we know it is made up and will be okay in an hour and a half. But we resist when that calamity is real, will be spread out over decades, and is of catastrophic proportions that can only be averted if we change almost everything about the way we live. Stop driving your car, eating meat, and flying in planes, we are told. "
We are not being asked to change almost everything about how we live or to stop driving our cars etc. We are being asked to make commonsense and moderate cut backs to consumption.
So why aren't people taking more action in their personal lives and lobbying politicians harder? Well some reasons are the denialist campaign has obviously worn people down as the article infers, and its obviously true that making changes to our lives is hard work. But here are a couple of things I think the articles misses:
1) We do resist action if the calamity is real and spread over decades, but this is because we are genetically programmed to respond to short terms threats rather than long term threats. Our adrenal system kicks in more with short to medium term threats, so we may intellectually conceptualise long term threats but our motivational system is effectively asleep.
However imho awareness of this problem is how we can combat the problem.
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5530483
2) I think it's a leadership issue ultimately. Human beings are followers. Governments need to lead and only governments and business can create a modern renewable energy grid. People might feel there is not huge point individuals making huge sacrifices until governments get these basics right and look like they mean business, and so far transforming the grid has been very slow.
Yes of course we as individuals can and should do all we can to reduce our carbon footprints as well, and not wait for other people and governments to move, but its important to understand the dynamics that are driving the whole issue, and see it in context.
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Norm Rubin at 07:34 AM on 20 January 2019Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
Did anyone here respond to the recent article in Nature apparently documenting that hurricanes in the US have shown no trend, either in frequency or intensity or (the authors' index of) damage caused?
And while I'm asking, thegwpf.org recently published a compilation of stats on global cyclones that seems to show the same pattern so far globally. (This one NOT peer reviewed or published in maybe the most prestigious scientific journal.)
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:54 AM on 20 January 2019Book Review: Saudi America
Many unsustainable and 'harmful to future generations' things are happening related to the fracking activity in the USA:
- The activity was developed after it had been made clear to global leaders (and the entire global population) that rapid curtailing of fossil fuel burning (I add burning after 'fossil fuel' because many people who are difficult to correct incorrectly claim that fossil fuels make plastic), was required to minimize the harm done to future generations. That clear required correction was solidly established by the late 1980s.
- Massive financial gambles have been sunk in the expansion of fracking in attempts to quickly obtain personal benefits from the unsustainable and harmful activity. Some people are getting very rich every year in spite of the growing financial questions about the 'Business viability of the activity'. Important Note Here: The business justification for fracking is undeniably totally contrary to, devoid of being governed by, what is needed to develop a better future for humanity.
- The recent global oil price drop made it clear that something needed to be done to bail-out the bad financial gamblers who continue to personally profit handsomely from the unsustainable and harmful activity that is also financially questionable. Sanctions were reimposed on Iran to limit Iranian oil in the market as part of that bail-out of the Bad Betters, and it was probably helpful for getting the Saudi's to lead an OPEC reduction of production.
- The people who benefited most from the unsustainable harmful activity are also unlikely to suffer the most financially in the future if the massive gambles do not pay off. Some of them may suffer no negative consequences if it all crashes down.
Fracking for Oil and Gas in the USA is like Canada's Oil Sands. As Trudeau stated, what nation would leave a large opportunity for short-term benefit from an understood to be harmful activity in the ground (a stranded asset)?
Good Caring People struggle to be influential enough to get proper corrections of the directions of development, or corrections of what has developed, when undeniably harmful pursuits of benefit are big opportunities for undeserving people to get more undeserved benefit at the expense of the future of humanity.
Anyone wanting to claim they are a Good Caring Person but who is still willing to support anything but the rapid curtailing of the harmful and unsustainable pursuits of benefit from fossil fuel burning will have to be forced to face the reality that they are not Good Caring People, no matter what else they do to try to look like Good Caring People.
That requires serious correction of the developed socioeconomic-political systems/games that are clearly willing to see anything compromised for business/personal interests (especially compromising the future of humanity because none of those people are able to influence the game). And that compromising for profit and popularity becomes a poor excuse for claiming to be a Good Caring Person even though you support an unsustainable harmful belief and action that is contrary to sustainably improving the future for humanity.
Regional temporary unsustainable impressions of popularity and profitability are easy to promote. And that easy appeal to greed (or intolerance) develops impressions that are hard to correct. What gets developed are regional/tribal unjustified impressions of success and superiority relative to Others. An obvious result is the Uniting of greedy people with intolerant people, supporting each other's harmful interests to collectively have more influence relative to the Good Caring People who are not so easy to impress and are trying to correct them and the harmful developed beliefs and actions they want to continue get away with.
Climate science unintentionally exposes how much correction is required of what has developed, including the requirement to correct the developed socioeconomic-political systems.
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MA Rodger at 22:40 PM on 19 January 2019Sea level is not rising
@15, I had intended to add a more realistic SLR for a 10ºC increase in global temperature.
IPCC AR5 Figure 13.14 (below, minus caption) shows SLR obtained from physical model simulations resulting from themal expansion (a&f), glaciers (b&g), Greenland ice cap(c&h), Antarctica ice cap (d&i) & Total (e&j) at equilibrium (LH column) & after 2,000 (RH column).
Thus a 10ºC increase in global temperature would more realistically see a 4.2m SLR from thermal expansion, reduced by 35mm due to greater evaporation.
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MA Rodger at 21:20 PM on 19 January 2019Sea level is not rising
bArt @14,
The volume of the ocean water is 1,388M cu km and water has a Coefft of Thermal Expansion of 0.000214. So a universal 10ºC temperature would increase ocean volume by 2.8M cu km, enough to raise the 361Msq km oceans by 7.9m. (This is entirely hypothetical so accuracy is of little consequence.)
The atmospheric water totals 12,900 cu km. An increase from 10ºC to 20ºC would roughly double the saturation vapour pressure. Thus increased humidity in the atmosphere would (assuming constant Relative Humidity) reduce the increased ocean volume by some 13,000 cu km (~0.5%) and the multi-metre SLR by 36mm. It would be a brave man who described this reduction as "a lot."
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william5331 at 15:35 PM on 19 January 2019Our oceans broke heat records in 2018 and the consequences are catastrophic
Aw comon guys. If you are going to present a graph, label the X and Y axis and include units.
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bArt17240 at 13:02 PM on 19 January 2019Sea level is not rising
Thank-you! I am a skeptic of the best kind (one who can accept incontrovertible evidence) and you answers have sure gone a long way.
I calculated myself the expansion factor for 10 deg. (10 to 20) on the entire vol. of the oceans.
Avg. Depth calc done by dividing the surface area at 10 deg. 361740000.0000000000 by the Ocean Vol. 1350000000.0000000000
Doing the same calc at 20 deg. Vol. is then 1352015107.0416000000
Avg. depth at 10 deg C. 3.7319621828
Avg. depth at 20 deg C. 3.7375327778
Difference in Kms. 0.0055705950 or 5.57 metres!
The area that interests me now is the amount of water in vapour that the entire atmosphere can hold for the same amount of warming of the oceans. (10 to 20 deg.) I peronally believe it is a lot and possibly could create equilibrium for the expansion factor of the oceans vol.
Moderator Response:[PS] Go for it, but if you think evaporation is offsetting thermal expansion, then you cannot close the water budget - the observed level of sealevel rise cannot be accounted for by observed loss of ice. What is so hard to accept about direct measurement of sealevel rise? Atmospheric water vapour and water vapour equilibrate very quickly. Observed change in water vapour in atmosphere matches the expectation from temperature rise.
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