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Comments 12901 to 12950:
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Josbert Lonnee at 01:37 AM on 23 November 2018Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
MA Rodger @ 135
The number of collisions between molecules stays the same, independent of the concentration of CO2. Only the CO2 molecules are less likely to pass all kinetic energy from collision to collision. So, the mode CO2 is in S, the more energy is radiated away as photons.
I still do not get this point. Do you have another? You suggest you have more points.
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Art Vandelay at 17:27 PM on 22 November 2018The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
It should be noted too that Judith Curry, Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen et al, are all painted as skeptics or "deniers", but are in fact members of the 97% consensus.
Perhaps a more valuable statistic would be one that indicated a percentage of (climate) scientists who hold the view that it's a serious threat requiring urgent, universal remedial action.
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Art Vandelay at 08:05 AM on 22 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
nijelj @ 20, "Obviously we do both, but management of forest fires is off topic. We are supposed to be talking about climate change."
I see and hear quite a bit of media commentary - to the effect that "forest fires" is why we should act on climate change.
As if there aren't enough reasons already.
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MA Rodger at 06:53 AM on 22 November 2018Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
Josbert Lonnee @131,lecules
Mu point is that you are wrong. Your stated hypothesis contains a number of fundamental flaws. I set out just one (and it only requires one).
You say the probability of an excited molecule emitting a photon following a collision is increased by an increased average path-length between collisions (thus your A:B ratio increases). You suggest this increase would increase cooling in S relative to T but you ignore the lower number of collisions that the molecules endure in S relative to T, a consideration which will cancel out your A:B increase.
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nigelj at 04:34 AM on 22 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
Art Vandelay @18, fair enough you are not being incoinsistent, some places are having success reducing ignitions. I was being a bit overly suspicious of your comments.
"The question is, do we accept that challenge or do we simply ignore it and focus solely on reducing CO2 emisions?"
Obviously we do both, but management of forest fires is off topic. We are supposed to be talking about climate change.
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John Hartz at 02:45 AM on 22 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
Recommended supplemental reading:
California’s wildfires are hardly “natural” — humans made them worse at every step by Umair Irfan, Energy & Environment, Vox, Nov 19, 2018
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Josbert Lonnee at 01:32 AM on 22 November 2018Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
scaddenp @ 133
Im am not doing any of both. Please, can you, based on the RTEs, tell me why my theory is wrong?
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michael sweet at 23:49 PM on 21 November 2018The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
Rickg,
What could possibly be more detailed than the IPCC report? The 97% consensus is that scientists agree with the IPCC report.
The IPCC report was set up to be very conservative. The consensus position is always reported as the consensus of the minimum risk, not the consensus of the maximum risk. That means sea level rise is reported as several feet when the high end of estimates is several meters.
All the nations of the world, including the Trump administration, have accepted the IPCC reports. What more detail do you think is necessary?
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RickG at 22:46 PM on 21 November 2018The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
I my view I think the public needs a more specific persentation of just what the 97% consensus is. It is not an opinion or poll of what scientists think about climate change, it is what 97% of the published professional scientific research addressing climate change shows. Note that I said "professional" rather than "peer reviewed". I think that is important because the public doesn't have any idea what the peer review process is and the denial side is quite happy misrepresenting it as a buddy system.
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Art Vandelay at 22:41 PM on 21 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
nigelj @ 15: "You say in comment @2 "the actual incidence of ignitions is also increasing," and now you say "but ignitions have actually reduced over the past 20 years thanks to government education programs"
"Which is it? You are not very consistent or convincing".
If you read my posts again you'll find that there's no "inconsistency" at all.
And I would be surprised if there aren't other regions or localities that are also bucking the global trend for similar reasons.
Eclectic @ 14 says, "a small nitpick : California's wildfire risks are influenced by the ongoing rising global CO2 emissions ~ regardless of whether (or not) the USA's emissions have fallen in recent years.
(Of course, reducing local wildfire incidence & severity, is a difficult and expensive task.)"
OK, I confess, your small nitpick was anticipated, and i agree with you of course, on both points.
Reducing the incidence and severity of forest fires will definitely be challenging in many cases, and probably also expensive. The question is, do we accept that challenge or do we simply ignore it and focus solely on reducing CO2 emisions?
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ancient_nerd at 19:05 PM on 21 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
Southern California has had Santa Ana winds for a long time. However, the conditions seem to be getting more common in northern California over the past few years. We definitely had that weather pattern as the recent Camp fire was getting started. If I recall correctly, last years wine country fires got started under similar conditions. We did not get these every year in the past in northern California.
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ancient_nerd at 16:22 PM on 21 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
Many of southern California's brush fires get started during the Santa Ana windstorms. The ones that grow past a few acres are almost impossible to stop until the winds die down. A big factor in the severity of these fires is the frequency, duration, and intensity of these windstorms. As a long time resident of California, it seems like we may be seeing an increase in all three parameters. But, I have to wonder if there is any data. It seems difficult to quantify.
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nigelj at 14:55 PM on 21 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
Art Vandelay @13
Partial clearing is not going to solve the problem, according to this scientific expert.
You say in comment @2 "the actual incidence of ignitions is also increasing," and now you say "but ignitions have actually reduced over the past 20 years thanks to government education programs"
Which is it? You are not very consistent or convincing.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:37 PM on 21 November 2018The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
This article sparked a clarification of understanding for me.
A logical extension of the Dentist, House, and Airline examples is to consider what the future would be for an Association or Society of Dentists, Home Builders, or Airlines that allows harmful misunderstanding to remain uncorrected. It is obvious that they would be replaced by groups that base their actions on more correct understanding.
And the logical extension of that understanding is that any socioeconomic-political system that fails to curtail the marketing of misunderstanding has no future, is destined to fail.
Tragically, a lot of harm can be done before that failure is undeniably realized. And tragically, the failing system may be damaged beyond correction.
Humanity has successfully developed the understanding of the need to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals which include the key Goal of Climate Action (key because achieving it to a higher degree and achieving it more rapidly makes it easier to achieve and improve on the other SDGs)
Any perceptions of success that are not consistent with achieving and improving on the SDGs are destined to be corrected.In order to survive and thrive an institution/society/system/game must be able to effectively identify and correct misunderstandings that could lead to unsustainable or harmful developments, regardless of the temporary regional popularity or profitability of a misunderstanding that is harmful to others (especially to the future of humanity). The quicker an institution/society/system/game identifies and corrects those misunderstandings, the more rapidly it will improve its chances for a better future. And any institution/society/system/game that struggles to correct misunderstandings can easily be understood to be headed towards failure, no matter what perceptions of prosperity or superiority relative to others it has developed.
The case of climate science has exposed that free-market democratic capitalism is headed for failure. Free-market democratic capitalist competition that is restricted to truly sustainable activities would be a brilliant system/game to help advance humanity. It would be a tragedy if free-market democratic capitalism continues to progress so far down the incorrect path of marketing misunderstanding that the thought of it is crippled beyond easy repair and recovery.
Anyone who sees value in free-market democratic capitalism should be extremely concerned about the damage being done to the reputation of free-market democratic capitalism by the popularity and profitability of marketing misunderstanding related to climate science (and similar damaging actions related to all of the other SDGs).
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Eclectic at 13:31 PM on 21 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
Art Vandelay @13 ,
a small nitpick : California's wildfire risks are influenced by the ongoing rising global CO2 emissions ~ regardless of whether (or not) the USA's emissions have fallen in recent years.
(Of course, reducing local wildfire incidence & severity, is a difficult and expensive task.)
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Art Vandelay at 12:21 PM on 21 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
nigelj@12: "If we want to reduce the forest fire problem our best bet might actually be reducing emissions".
Unfortunately, reducing emissions won't help in the short or medium terms, and a case in point is the USA, where emissions have fallen against a rising incidence and severity of forest fires. That's not a reason not to reduce emissions of course, but rather an acknowledgement of reality.
The solution(s) to reduce severity and incidence will differ for different areas of the globe, but will obviously involve better monitoring and management methods. In some cases it may even involve partial clearing. If 90% have a human cause it does at least provide reasonable scope to reduce ignitions. For instance, in my part of the world, scientists estimate a 10% increase in risk due to climate change, but ignitions have actually reduced over the past 20 years thanks to government education programs to make people more aware and diligent, and better forest management, which includes hazard reductions during winter.
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Daniel Bailey at 10:59 AM on 21 November 2018Solar cycles cause global warming
NASA tracks the solar forcing and compares it to global temperatures over time, here.
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dalesmith at 10:52 AM on 21 November 2018The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
@BeezelyBillyBub, the US could easily cut 50% from its military budget, but only when other countries start paying their fair share for their own defense.
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scaddenp at 08:43 AM on 21 November 2018Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
I do understand that, but I have massive mistrust of hand-wavy models compared to precisely stated mathematical models which reproduce multiple types of observations. It isnt clear to me whether you are challenging the RTEs or trying to do a plain English explanation of the net effect.
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michael sweet at 08:33 AM on 21 November 2018Solar cycles cause global warming
Ed,
Googling "Solar Cycle Activity" gives a number of hits that describe solar cycle 24 as the weakest in a century. That means that you would expect the solar forcing would be smaller than usual, probably around 0.1C (my estimate). The peak was in 2014.
We observe that 2014 was the hottest year recorded at that time and was the hottest year without an El Nino (now 2017 holds that record). The effect of the sun is often delayed for a year or two. 2015 and 2016 also set heat records.
It seems to me that it was fortunate the solar cycle was so low or we would have roasted even more than we did 2014-2016. Hopefully politicians will do something before it is too late.
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Josbert Lonnee at 07:22 AM on 21 November 2018Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
scaddenp @ 129
Do you understand that I am not challenging the observations that the troposphere is warming and the stratosphere is cooling?
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Ed the Skeptic at 07:22 AM on 21 November 2018Solar cycles cause global warming
Well, it's now 2018, so we can evaluate the integrity of this article, which states that "The other significant finding is that solar forcing will add another 0.18°C warming on top of greenhouse warming between 2007 (we're currently at solar minimum) to the solar maximum around 2012. In other words, solar forcing will double the amount of global warming over the next five to six years.
How'd that turn out?
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Josbert Lonnee at 07:15 AM on 21 November 2018Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
@MA Rodger at 21:01 PM on 2 November, 2018
I really do not understand what you are trying to tell here, sorry. What is your point?
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BeezelyBillyBub at 06:05 AM on 21 November 2018The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
*The Addiction Ghost of Ideology* 25 min by Gabor Maté *[ Ideology as addiction ]*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2YdpvnwtGcThe top 10% earners = 50% emissions, if taxed to middle income equivalent, emissions will decline 33%. If we tax the top 30% of earners to a middle income, emissions will decline 999% faster than any thing else we tried so far. We have 10yrs to reduce emissions 50%, and 20yrs to reduce emissions 100%. 100% private carbon credits will unite the left and right and stop an ideological race/sex war. After taxing the rich to pay for education and health, you add a 100% private carbon tax which will act as a Basic Income currency worldwide. I'm getting sick of talking to the wind. All America has to do to fix their county is cut the Pentagon budget 50%. These are the kind of actions needed to save mankind, worrying about your identity is for pub nights.Let's pretend you agree with everything I said above, but now I'm going to call you a cunty twat dick head, are you still with me?The young left say that there’s no difference between men and woman, and that sex and race are just social constructs, and white males are to blame. So, I’m being oppressed by 2 social constructs? White and male. Are you kidding? Would my oppressors be NPCs? Is life really a video game? Am I oppressing genetic transhuman Jews? Who knows? I guess, maybe. I hate white guys and love change as much as anyone, but that shit’s whacked. This is what I define as evil, social constructs. I’m liberal that way. It’s killing me.
Moderator Response:[DB] Inflammatory/off-topic snipped. Please keep it clean.
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nigelj at 05:18 AM on 21 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
My understanding is typically about 80% of wild fires are caused by human factors, (campfires, discarded cigarettes, and arson) and lightening causes about 20%. But more forest area is destroyed by lightening because its in more remote hard to access areas.
www.air-worldwide.com/Blog/How-Humans-Shape-the-Wildfire-Peril/
Number of human caused ignitions does appear to have increased a little for some specific types of fires.
www.pnas.org/content/114/11/2946
Climate change is also causing more ignitions because dry areas are more susceptible to all ignition sources whether a discarded cigarette or a lightening strike.
Climate change is causing larger areas to be burned and increasing fire intensity.
www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-global-warming-has-increased-us-wildfires
Climate change is also causing more lightening strikes.
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180531084415.htm
I think it would be very difficult to reduce problems like campfires and arson, because it's so hard to identify the perpetrators, and probably not politically practical to ban campfires. If we want to reduce the forest fire problem our best bet might actually be reducing emissions.
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fahad at 02:06 AM on 21 November 2018Renewable energy is too expensive
michael sweet,
We need equilibrium, we can't choose one, we need both. 100% shift in any scenario does not seem valid according to me, of course, I would choose to save fossil fuels for our kids and their kids and so on but in reality we are habitual of all these things and also renewable energy technology adoption will take several more years.
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SirCharles at 23:29 PM on 20 November 2018The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
97% is understating the real scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0270467617707079?journalCode=bsta
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nigelj at 16:50 PM on 20 November 2018Katharine Hayhoe on Fossil Fuels
OPOF @6, yes its probably too simplistic to say economic growth would stop. This is how I see future patterns of gdp growth: Growth based on mining industries is likely to slow and even fall eventually, given limits on reserves of minerals and higher extraction costs, although recycling woud partly offset this.
Growth in the services sector is likely to continue especially with AI and more people working in this sector as manufacturing automates. But its likely to be low levels of growth as increasing output of services is notoriously challenging.
Growth in agriculture may continue quite robustly due to GM food and other innovations, but I would suggest the whole thing will slowly reach a limiting factor especially as land is finite, and if population declines there would be little reason for generating higher levels of output. Perhaps growth will be in quality.
It all depends on how we define growth, and timeframes, and low growth does not have to be a bad thing imho if it is in life promoting things and sustainable things as you mentioned. Japan has had low growth for years without major problems.
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Philippe Chantreau at 13:18 PM on 20 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
It would be nice if the Park Service would refer to sources for this kind of statement. Nonetheless I'll take it. It mathches what is on Wikipedia. In Canada and other regions, natural causes are more frequent sources of ignition. The recent situation in Canada points to climate change as a major factor in the severity and duration of the fire season, as is explained by Natural Resources Canada.
The fact that the number of fires per year is as variable as NOAA shows is interesting in that light. The highest year in their 18 year record has 4 times as many fires as the lowest and the number of fires does not follow the expected distribution of an increasing population. That would suggest some pretty wild variations in human behavior from one year to another, which warrants some skepticism.
In any case, if we are to consider the recent California fires, the root cause of their catastrophic nature and unprecedented speed of expansion have nothing to do with their ignition sources.
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:55 PM on 20 November 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
Someone criticizing climate science by bringing up this correction, or any other climate science correction, could be a great opportunity to have a discussion about the importance of people being open to changing their minds, especially being open to correcting incorrect beliefs about developed socioeconomic-political systems.
It is well understood that people can be encouraged to develop a personal resistance to being corrected. But as an engineer it was clear to me, and it also seems to be common sense, that it is not helpful to compromise on correcting a misunderstanding when unsustainable or harmful actions would be the result of not fully correcting the misunderstanding.
And an extension of that understanding is that systems that encourage people to develop resistance to being corrected (like systems driven by pursuits of popularity or profitability), rather than encouraging people to improve their awareness and understanding and change what they do accordingly, need to be corrected.
The Sustainable Development Goals are the most robust developed awareness and understanding of what is required for the future of humanity (and justified presentations to improve the SDGs can also be made).
Any developed beliefs and actions that are not aligned with achieving the SDGs can be understood to need to be corrected. And claims that every belief is an equally valid opinion, to evade being corrected, can be understood to be incorrect. Also, claims that everyone's beliefs need to be accommodated and compromised for, also an attempt to evade being corrected, are incorrect.
It is undeniable that people need to be corrected when the potential for harm is involved. And it is undeniable that there is harm being done to future generations (as well as to members of the current generation) by the unsustainable burning of fossil fuels. And the developed resistance to correction regarding climate science is proof that the socioeconomic-political systems that developed such resistance need to be corrected.
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Art Vandelay at 10:31 AM on 20 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
Where does that 90% figure come from?
"As many as 90 percent of wildland fires in the United States are caused by humans. Human-caused fires result from campfires left unattended, the burning of debris, negligently discarded cigarettes, and intentional acts of arson.Nov 17, 2017"
www.nps.gov/articles/wildfire-causes-and-evaluations.htm
Information found in 0.02S
Moderator Response:[JH] Snark snipped.
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One Planet Only Forever at 10:25 AM on 20 November 2018Katharine Hayhoe on Fossil Fuels
I disagree with claims that the future is "zero economic growth".
Once the economic activity is corrected to all be sustainable, improved efficiencies (better sustainable ways of living), will be developed to Grow The Economy.
The current problem is the magnitude of correction required due to the lack of interest in starting to correct things since 1972. And the need to maintain the progress of reduction of poverty is the part of developments to date that needs to be protected (not the unsustainable perceptions of relative degrees of superiority that were developed by undeserving people who continued to try to get more benefit from the burning of fossil fuels)
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scaddenp at 08:28 AM on 20 November 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
Slight correction. Argo "float" measure temperature down to 2000m, so since argo we have very good handle on OHC. But as Nigel says, Argo only go back 14years (from memory) and measurements, especially below 700m get very sparse going back, consequently they have quite large error bars (see here)
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nigelj at 06:32 AM on 20 November 2018Katharine Hayhoe on Fossil Fuels
Can't fault Williams logic either. We are inevitably going to have to live with a low or zero growth world, because resources are finite, and we could eventually see higher prices for many products due to scarcity of resources, but we can prioritise and waste less to reduce these problems.
We can conserve resources and farm sustainably now, to ensure the best possible future supply of resources for future generation. Smaller population will reduce demand for scarce resources.
All these things help the climate problem as well. Its all mutually reinforcing.
We are going to have a huge demographic bulge of elderly people. It will be a tricky transition. It's really important to progress health care research to make the elderly as independent and productive as possible, and it will need more carers and a lot of compassion.
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nigelj at 06:12 AM on 20 November 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
William, the trouble is the argo floats only measure the surface and only go back about 10 years.
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scaddenp at 06:09 AM on 20 November 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
Keeling's article at RealClimate explains it.
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nigelj at 05:01 AM on 20 November 2018The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
The reason the public largely aren't aware of the consensus on climate science is because they mainly get their science information from the mainstream general media like newspapers and television, and the media don't report the consenus much from what I have seen (admittedly a bit anecdotal).
I suspect the reasons are threefold. Firstly its more of a good news piece, and the media largely only report bad news and celebrity gossip. Secondly the media's advertisers include business and fossil fuel interests who probably don't want a consensus given publicity for obvious self interested reasons.
Thirdly a consensus ends most of the debate on climate change and the media like controversy because it keeps people reading. This is also probably why they publish a 50 / 50 split of opinions from warmists and sceptics even although it doesn,t represent the true proportionality of views.
Trump is half right. The media are useless and fake, its just not in the way Trump thinks.
Not good enough. The media need to do the right thing and keep the public constantly informed of important things like scientific consensus on major issues like climate change.
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william5331 at 04:41 AM on 20 November 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
You would wonder why they would use a proxy method to estimate the heat that has been accumulated in the oceans when we have a direct measurement system in the Argo floats which is orders of magnitude better than any system we have had before. Perhaps they should look back at their proxy method and compare it with the actual measurements and see if the difference is not telling them something interesting.
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Philippe Chantreau at 04:33 AM on 20 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
Art Vandelay, "relevant government agencies" is rather vague. I don't see that you have actually done the work to back up your assertions. NOAA has wildfire statistics for the period 2000-2017 on the following page:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/societal-impacts/wildfires/
I have not done a statistical analysis of the numbers, however at first glance, there is no easily discernable trend in the number of fires starting. The acres burned does seem to show an upward trend. The highest number of fires is reported in the first year of the period, over 7600 fires. Considering that the population did increase over the period, it seems that these data do not support your hypothesis of more people simply igniting more fires. I looked at NOAA, FEMA and USGS and could not find categorizations of fires by ignition source. Where does that 90% figure come from?
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Art Vandelay at 20:43 PM on 19 November 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
Still, it's always a bad look when the process of peer review fails as is the case here, and especially so when it's a climate change contrarian who brings it to public attention.
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Art Vandelay at 20:12 PM on 19 November 2018The many ways climate change worsens California wildfires
Philippe Chantreau says "It may be the case that there are more fires happening (which would correspond to more ignitions) but you don't bring evidence to substantiate that."
The data is readily available from relevant government agencies. For the mainland US States it's around 90% that have a human ignition. Obviously, more humans can only result in more human ignitions, and it's difficult to stop urban creep into more fire sensitive hinterlands.
As was pointed out in the post above , we can't stop CC any time soon but there is very considerable scope to reduce ignitions as well as scope to improve forest management, and that's where the focus needs to be right now, because what else is there?
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rkrolph at 18:48 PM on 19 November 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
Regarding "Scientists acknowledge key errors in study of how fast oceans are warming", I have come across a few media articles about this which I found interesting.
From my (very limited) understanding, it seems like there were basically two main errors in the paper, one was in underestimating the uncertainty in the results, and the other was in overestimating the actual trend, which overstated the warming.
If my understanding is correct on there being two different errors in the paper, was it actually two separate mistakes that were overlooked in the original paper? That's what I would assume.
I'm not being critical, because I know the authors quickly corrected their mistakes once they were pointed out to them, and mistakes happen.
Just trying to understand it a little better.
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RedBaron at 16:47 PM on 19 November 2018Katharine Hayhoe on Fossil Fuels
#1 Absolutely spot on William. Well stated too.
We really are as a society getting what we paid for with AGW. Even now fossil fuel subsidies vastly outsize renewable energy, and subsidies for industrial agriculture vastly outweigh subsidies for regenerative Ag that sequesters carbon.
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nigelj at 14:46 PM on 19 November 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
Unfortunate, but quickly rectified to the credit of the researchers, and perhaps there is a positive side. We have an army of sceptics scrutinising the most important research, and just occasionally they find genuine fault with a research paper. It helps confirm that the vast majority of the research, including the critically important research is robust, a point I hope is not lost on the general public.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:34 PM on 19 November 2018Katharine Hayhoe on Fossil Fuels
I have a concern with stating that burning fossil fuels has developed significant benefits for humanity. Humanity requires the development of sustainable benefits for the future of humanity. Implying that the burning of fossil fuels has been beneficial is misleading from the perspective of that awareness and understanding.
Before people became aware of the unsustainability and harmfulness of the activity, people who benefited can be excused. But the global winners and leaders have been aware of the unacceptability for a long time (though they make-up unjustified evaluations that they claim justify the continuation of the activity they have developed an addiction to benefiting from).
I appreciate the developed political preference, particularly in supposed democracies, to allow all opinions to be considered equally valid, and negotiating a compromise of those opinions to get along. But humanity advances by improved awareness and understanding. And that advancement is compromised when improved awareness and understanding is compromise, especially if popularity and profitability get to significantly influence how those compromises get made.
While significant benefits were obtained by portions of humanity from the burning of fossil fuels, it is important to understand that almost none of the developed sustainable improvements for humanity have been a result of the burning of fossil fuels.
In fact, a similar, and likely stronger, claim can be made that developments of sustainable improvements for humanity have been tragically compromised by the ability of already more fortunate people to unjustifiably obtain increased personal benefit, convenience, pleasure and enjoyment from the burning of fossil fuels.
Any developed improvements for humanity, especially perception of reduction of poverty, that are due to burning of fossil fuels are as unsustainable as benefiting from the burning is. Therefore, stating that there were legitimate benefits developed by the burning of fossil fuels is not helpful. Many people will likely respond to that claim with a reinforced belief that burning fossil fuels should not be stopped, because of the harm that will do to the poor.
A more sustainable statement is admitting that there have been no sustainable benefits developed that rely on the burning of fossil fuels. And it can be added that global leaders (in business and politics) have been aware of the unacceptability of the burning of fossil fuels since before the 1972 Stockholm Conference that documented that awareness at the global leadership level. And that understanding can be further reinforced by pointing out that the awareness and understanding of the unacceptability of burning fossil fuels has been steadily improving since the late 1800s.
Honest altruistic pursuit of improved awareness and understanding is the only way to sustainably improve awareness and understanding. It is the only way to be on the Right side of history on any issue where reason can be applied to improve awareness and understanding.
The development of perceptions of progress, grandeur and superiority relative to others as a result of burning fossil fuels has been understandably unsustainable and harmful for many decades. The people who have most significantly developed such perceptions through the burning of fossil fuels are likely to deserve to experience losses of such developed perceptions.
A portion of the population can be seen to have divisively polarized themselves away from that improved awareness and understanding (and United with others divisively polarizing themselves away from many other improved understandings). Compromising with that portion of the population is harmful to the pursuit of sustainable improved awareness and understanding and the application of that understanding to develop sustainable corrections and improvements for the benefit of the future of humanity. There is no denying that. There is just the potential for some people to really dislike it because they would prefer to not be corrected (back to every opinion being deemed equally valid and compromise, to their satisfaction, being demanded rather than them being corrected).
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mbryson at 01:00 AM on 19 November 2018Climate science comeback strategies: Al Gore said what?
The aether was a well-motivated hypothesis, given that physicists were trying to interpret light as a mechanical (transverse) wave in some 'medium'. And the predictions the model made were really based in Maxwell's equations, which we still use. So saying there turned out to be no ether is a completely different kind of 'correction' than saying that CO2 emissions don't cause the climate to warm. The ether was required if Maxwell's equations described a mechanical wave phenomenon. But whatever the deep metaphysics of radiation and its interaction with various gases, we know that CO2 absorbs IR and causes the earth to be warmer than it would be (quite a bit warmer, in fact) if the atmosphere didn't include CO2...
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:55 AM on 18 November 2018There is no consensus
realelybritt, you should have followed the link included in the paper you referred. All this is old news. Cook et al published a response to Tol 2014, here are the highlights:
T14′s consensus value is based on a math error that manufactures ~300 nonexistent rejection papers.
•T14 infers data drift using an inappropriate statistic that poorly correlates with consensus.
•Analysis of appropriate consensus statistics reveals no significant data drift.
•T14 wrongly conflates abstract ratings and author self-ratings; differences are detailed in C13.
•Re-analysis without T14′s errors confirms 97±1% consensus on AGW
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william5331 at 03:44 AM on 18 November 2018New research, November 5-11, 2018
Tax and Divident (offset payments) can be a great stimulus in a low income economy. Money is put in the hands of the poorest who immediately spend it just to survive. At every transaction a portion flows to the government who, ideally, spend it on good works, putting the money back into the economy. Money supply is far less important than velocity (the rate that money circulates) and this increase in velocity lifts a country out of its poverty. Money is simply a mechanism to get people working and the amount of work done depends to a large extent on the speed of circulation of money.
A man comes into a hotel bar. He says to the propriator I would like a room. Here is $100 to show my good faith. Could your porter show me your rooms before I decide to stay here. The propriator calls the porter and away they go. The hotel propriator immediately sends the $100 to the butcher to pay off part of his outstanding bill. The Butcher uses the $100 to pay off part of his outstanding rent. The owner of the butchers store goes to the lady of the night who uses one of the rooms of the hotel to contuct business. She pays of part of her bill at the hotel. The man comes down and says he has decided not to stay and takes his $100 back.
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Daniel Bailey at 00:07 AM on 18 November 2018There is no consensus
Richard Tol accidentally confirmed the 97% global warming consensus. An "own-goal" if there ever was one.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the literature on climate change overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans. I have very little reason to doubt that the consensus is indeed correct.”
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realelybritt at 22:35 PM on 17 November 2018There is no consensus
The 97% mantra is debunked in this empirical analysis, including some rebuttals by actual scientists cited in the 97% claim who say their assessments were misrepresented.
Any responses to clear up this speed bump would be appreciated.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421514002821
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