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Comments 14851 to 14900:

  1. Climate Science Denial Explained

    I agree with all comments above that climate denialists score high with confirmation bias, but we are all at risk of confirmation bias to some extent. For example I like coffee and chocolate, so I hunt out research that finds benefits, and it takes me some effort to check research that shows problems, although I'm reasonably objective and disciplined compared to some people I know.

    But why would some people exhibit 1) extreme confirmation bias and 2) only in the direction of climate denialism? Come on think it through.

    The answer is the root cause of the confirmation bias with climate denialists has to be something and its mostly political ideology. Conservatives are more sceptical of the science for a range of reasons related to their deep seated instincts.

    Read this article which sums up the political ideology and confirmation bias and how they relate.

    Conservatives are possibly more susceptible to confirmation bias itself, but thats just a guess on my part. Its certainly not unique to any world view.

    While its natural to look for supportive evidence, its important to try to train yourself out of confirmation bias getting out of control. Because if you get totally wedded to some belief its hard to back down as pointed out above.

    Remember also that acceptance of the science is different from actually supporting changing energy systems to renewables and this is another area of potential scepticism, and while the two go together they dont always do this.

  2. Climate Science Denial Explained

    Anyone wanting examples of extreme confirmation bias, follow "JeffDylan" (one of many sockpuppets that began as cosmowarrior as far as we know) and following sockpuppets on water vapour as a forcing starting here. You cannot help someone understand what they desparately do not want to understand.

    Climate scientists are pretty upfront about what data would cause them to doubt their theories and change their mind. It would be nice if climate "skeptics" could do the same but either they want something that the science (if they read it) says is impossible (eg "temperatures rise every year because CO2 rises every year")  or simply are so sure they are right, they cannot conceive of any observation that could change their mind.

  3. Climate Science Denial Explained

    And I mean by indulge that they do not even try to weaken their confirmation bias.

  4. Climate Science Denial Explained

    To be a denialist is to indulge in an extreme form of cofirmation bias. But they do not see themselves as doing that. Many times I have seen them claim that they are just askink for empirical evidence that humans are causing dangerous climate changes. They genuinely do see themselves that way and cannot see the special pleading that they indulge in.

    And then there is the claim by many of them that to call them denialists is to try to smear them by associating them with Holocaust denialists. This claim is self pitying and itself an attempt to smear critics of their behaviour. Again they cannot see how they appear to others.

    You have to somehow get them to see what they are actually doing. But you are asking them to not only admit that they were mistaken but that they were doing was improper. And that is hard.

  5. One Planet Only Forever at 08:26 AM on 12 April 2018
    2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14

    Art Vandelay@11,

    The beneficial advancements for humanity that have been occurring may have occurred during the same time period that burning of fossil fuels was occurring, but that does not prove that the beneficial developments were due to fossil fuel burning. In fact, it is easier to argue that any current day activity that is perceived to be beneficial but relies on fossil fuel burning has no sustainable value, it has to be given up in the near future. Every admired perception that is due to fossil fuel burning is actually of no real value.

    It can also easily be claimed that more beneficial developments would have occurred if there had been an effective global effort to correct the unsustainable and damaging pursuit of benefit from fossil fuel burning. All the talent and effort and investment that was misdirected into fossil fuel burning ventures would have been able to produce sustainable improvements for humanity. Undeniably we could have developed far more renewable energy capability and far less energy intensive ways of living if fossil fuel burning had been curtailed starting in the 1970s and been globally completely banned by now.

    So, it is likely that if fossil fuel burning had been curtailed earlier, and the Sustainable Development Goals had been the objective of all global leaders, the world would currently be a much better place that it is with far less challenge to be dealt with going forward.

    From the perspective of developing a sustainable improved future for all of humanity, the burning of fossil fuels has been Significantly Unhelpful/Harmful. And it is undeniable that the developed popularity and profitability of that activity is continuing to delay the corrections of the understandably harmful and ultimately unsustainable activities that have incorrectly developed.

  6. American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

    Well NorrisM, you could just look up the Ar5 and find it. (ch 10). The attribution statement and pseudo-skeptic responses are discussed here with numerous useful references.

  7. Climate Science Denial Explained

    I think scepticism about new scientific theories among the public forms a continuum from people with a naive and instant acceptance of new theories, to people with mild healthy scepticism, to people with a rigid permanant denial.

    You will convince mild sceptics with education, information, exposing the trikery of lobby groups, and showing that jobs lost in fossil fuels will be replaced with new jobs.

    About 60% of Americans accept climate science. Given acceptance of other scientific theories can get to 90% or more it seems theres room to convince more people.

    You wont change the core group of rigid denialists. Polls show its politically driven and thats hard to change. I would put their number at 10 - 20%. The best outcome would be to pressure the Republicans into accepting policies on renewable energy and revenue neutral carbon taxes.

  8. 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14

    Art Vandelay @10

    I understand your ideas and good logic, but even just a temporary geoengineering of the N Hemisphere its still risky. It could still have unintended consequences, and I'm not sure how you would limit solar geoengineering to just the summer months, because particles in the atmosphere normally last a couple of years I think.

    Having said that, Steven Pinker in his book Enlightenment Now does mention the idea of a mild form of solar geoengineering as a temporary thing, until renewable energy is well developed and negative emissions technology sequesters remaining atmospheric carbon.

    Pinker acknowledges we are altering the climate and that geoengineering has risks, hence his idea of a mild, temporary solution. However I'm still sceptical, because once you geoengineer it tends to remove the pressure to reduce emissions.

    However like Pinker I try to keep an open mind on things and the idea needs research. 

  9. michael sweet at 03:51 AM on 12 April 2018
    American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

    Norrism:

    From Wikipedia":

    "Recently, it has become widely accepted that late Holocene, 3,000 calendar years ago to present, sea level was nearly stable prior to an acceleration of rate of rise that is variously dated between 1850 and 1900 AD. Late Holocene rates of sea level rise have been estimated using evidence from archaeological sites and late Holocene tidal marsh sediments, combined with tide gauge and satellite records and geophysical modeling. For example, this research included studies of Roman wells in Caesarea and of Roman piscinae in Italy. These methods in combination suggest a mean eustatic component of 0.07 mm/yr for the last 2000 years.[15]

    Since 1880, the ocean began to rise briskly, climbing a total of 210 mm (8.3 in) through 2009 causing extensive erosion worldwide and costing billions.[19]"

    They provide a peer reveiwed source.

    We find that sea level was stable for 3000 years until humans began seriously releasing carbon dioxide in 1850.  Then sea level starts to rise.  Scientists predicted that releasing carbon dioxide would cause sea level to rise.  The rise from 1900-1950 was caused by the carbon dioxide released from 1850 to 1950.  All of sea level rise is due to humans. 

    You cannot ignore the measured acceleration since 1900.  Sea level rise is currently about 4 mm/yr and accelerating.

    Curries waves are a figment of deniers imaginations.  They were proved incorrect by the extreme temperatures since she proposed the idea in 2014.  They are falsified by the measured data on sea level rise from 0 AD to 1900 AD.

  10. American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

    michael sweet @ 14

    Thank you for your reference but I did request a comment from the IPCC Fifth Assessment.  Surely, the papers have not changed on this analysis since 2013.

    But even with the US Climate Report, these statements are not at the level of "Very High Confidence" (ie 90%) but rather "High Confidence".  Again, “High Confidence” means moderate evidence (some sources, some consistency) medium consensus.  "Likely" means at least a 66% chance of occurring.  In other words, there is no slam dunk agreement of the experts.  I think the reason why is that there is no clear explanation of what happened in the 1930-1940 period both as to temperatures and the rate of sea level rise at that time.

    As for your statement: "All of sea level rise and all of warming is caused by humans.", how can you say that all sea level rise is caused by humans when everyone agrees that the sea level has been rising at an average rate of 1.1 to 1.7 mm/yr between 1901 and 2010?  

    By the way, I have not really responded to your first reply to my long blog on sea level rise.  I have just been too busy on other things but I promise to get to it at some point.  But I will say that I have zero disagreement with the premise that when it comes to building major infrastructure like a nuclear plant, we probably should use a 1% risk scenario.  This may cut out Florida from a lot of infrastructure but so be it.  

  11. New resource: The Fact-Myth-Fallacy slide-deck

    Dissenting opinions are not allowed in the process of debunking. That makes debunking very effective.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] This is an evidence-based venue.  While you are welcome to entertain a dissenting opinion, without credible evidence found in relevant scientific (peer-reviewed) sources to support them, you are not welcome to share those dissenting opinions in this forum and represent them as factual.

    Please read the Comments Policy for this site, and ensure that future comments are constructed to comply with it, before making further comments on it.

  12. Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural

    should read
    In response to one of my comments

  13. Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural

    Thanks again.  I posted a comment with the abstract from the Köhler et al (2017) paper that debunks Harde.  Also 10 lines of evidence of Human source added CO2, supplied by Dan Bailey.  
     
    I just noticed that supposed "skeptic" RealOldOne2 posted a comment with half a dozen links to WUWT, in response to one of my articles, while claiming SkS is just propagana.  Not much point in continuing the conversation

  14. Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural

    Eclectic @30,

    Yes. I was in error using the term "surface albedo" when I was meaning insolation 'absorbed at the surface' of which Hatzianastassiou et al. say "Our computed value of 43.7% for the part of solar radiation that is absorbed by the Earth’s surface, is smaller than the values given in previous studies, which are larger than 46%." And the difference they describe is more to do with atmospheric absorbtion & atmospheric albedo than surface albedo. So "surface albedo" was certainly the wrong term.

    sailrick @31,

    To put that surface radiation budget issue in context, it does suffer from larger levels of uncertainty than other parts of the global energy budget. One of the most active in the field is Martin Wild & if nothing else, the graphics in this Wild et al (2017) show the long-term changes that were being 'wielded' by that denialist.

  15. EPA’s war with California proves America needs a carbon tax

    Good article! A comprehensive, national carbon tax (levied at the source where it enters the economy, mine, well, port) that is also revenue-neutral (money 100% re-distributed) which allows 1) the tax to be significantly high so to have adequate economic "bite" (i.e. at least $100/m-ton CO2, ramped in place), while also 2) assuring its maximum political durability, is an absolute must to achieving any significant & sustained reduction in carbon emissions. Everything else will be futile.

    The hard part is building the political-will to enact such a rev-neutral tax macro-policy. Getting all climate warriors on the 'same page', screaming the same thing 'in unison' is essential to building this political-will. If you want to be a part of the only real solution to achieving carbon emission reductions, then join your local Citizens Climate Lobby chapter, and get involved! CCL is an amazing organization with loads of talent and resources, but to achieve real change requires everyone to get involved!

  16. 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14

    One Planet Forever @8, With respect I'm very aware of the downsides of burning fossil fuels but at the same time I also respect the fact that fossil fuels have largely 'fueled' the Industrial and technological revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries.  For all of the negative health effects, and there are many, it's also impossible to deny the compelling data in areas of infant mortality, adult life expectancy, and global population growth during the fossil fuel epoc.  Of course now is the time to migrate to new energy sources and to walk a path to sustainability, difficult as that may be.   

  17. 2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14

    nigelj@5, Points taken but I was thinking along the lines of polar regional NH and during the summer months only. Obviously, it would not be necessary to geoengineer all year round, and if isolated to the northern polar region it could help to reduce polar amplification - reduce the rate of sea ice loss and weakening of the NA current etc. 'Whitening' the atmosphere globally as you say would risk undesirable climate change to parts of the world that can least afford it, but if seasonal / regional geoengineering can be done without serious side effects and help to prevent global warming beyond 1.5 degrees K while the globe transitions to clean energy.......we would be crazy not to give it serious consideration.  Another point I would make is that a small amount of geoengineering sooner rather than later would also prevent the possible need to undertake serious global climate experiments if and when global climate change catastrophe becomes a reality.   

  18. EPA’s war with California proves America needs a carbon tax

    bjchip, actually that's fiction.

    Franklin never said it.

  19. michael sweet at 20:54 PM on 11 April 2018
    American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

    Norrism:

    From the 2017 US Climate Change Report:

    "The likely range of the human contribution to the global mean temperature increase over the period 1951–2010 is 1.1° to 1.4°F (0.6° to 0.8°C), and the central estimate of the observed warming of 1.2°F (0.65°C) lies within this range (high confidence). This translates to a likely human contribution of 93%–123% of the observed 1951–2010 change. It is extremely likely that more than half of the global mean temperature increase since 1951 was caused by human influence on climate (high confidence). The likely contributions of natural forcing and internal variability to global temperature change over that period are minor (high confidence)."

    The estimated warming from human sources is 93-123% of the warming.  The central estimate is that humans cause about 110% of the warming.  Natural processes would cause cooling on their own.  That is the consensus. You have been given this information before.

    All of sea level rise and all of warming is caused by  humans.  

    If you wasted less time chasing Curries references to geothermal heat in the Antarctic you would be more informed.  The critical issue with any geothermal heat is has it changed?  Deniers claim any finding of heat causes warming.  That is false, the source of heat must have changed to cause warming.  There is no evidence of any geothermal, solar or other natural source of heat increasing.

    In 1850 scientists predicted on the basis of the properties of carbon dioxide that the globe would warm and the sea would rise.  In 1896 Arhennius projected the amount of warming accurately.  Why is it so hard for you to accept what experts measure?

  20. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    Well, well. Looks our dear old friend cosmowarrior back pushing the same half-baked garbage again with yet another sock puppet. Seriously, do you think repetition of nonsense and demonstrations of your problems with logic is somehow going to change the logic of science if only can repeat enough times? Bye bye. 

  21. Is it Really That Hard at 20:12 PM on 11 April 2018
    There is no consensus

    I can't edit my comment there, but @767, I meant "How is anyone against what the scientists are recommending against global warming".

    I sincerely believe that global warming is real.

  22. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    Eclectic@318

    I don't quite know what you are talking about here, but since you mentioned Pluto@306, I would very much like to know just what he said and why moderator TD took it down (except for the "I agree" part).  Somehow, you seem to know something about this posting, so why don't you fill me in?

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Sock puppet of serial spammer cosmoswarrior/Pluto/et al removed.

  23. Is it Really That Hard at 20:04 PM on 11 April 2018
    There is no consensus

    Also, this article:

    http://humanevents.com/2014/03/24/the-carbon-dioxide-level-is-dangerously-low/

    David Archibald says "higher level of CO2 is better for all lifeforms on the Earth" - OK, well, can we trap him in a room that only has CO2 in it and see how much he benefits from it? I would love to watch that. For scientific purposes.
    CO2 is a waste material for any species that requires cellular respiration - and, uh, there are heaps of species like this out there. Tell me you at least know this. In case you didn't pay attention in Biology classes in high school, the waste products of cellular respiration is H2O and CO2. That's why you have to breathe out and pee. Bottom line: humans, as well as many lifeforms that are not plants, do not benefit from high CO2 level. Who benefits from the waste products?

    He says "lucky for us, the relationship between CO2 level and temperature is logarithmic, not arithmetic" - buddy, a logarithmic relationship increases faster than arithmetic. This is where you lost all credibility. You can't even tell the difference between the two and claim to know "science".

    Lastly, our good old David is also a CEO of an oil company in Australia. You know why he keeps claiming there's no global warming? It's cos he's losing money if you believe the facts. Wake up.

  24. Is it Really That Hard at 19:55 PM on 11 April 2018
    There is no consensus

    How is anyone against what the scientists are saying against global warming? They're telling you to, you know, drive less, use less coal/petrol/other forms of fossil fuel, don't litter, recylce, etc. To me, it seems win-win either way and so far anyone who wants to disbelieve these scientists seem to be trying to justify themselves for their environmentally destructive behaviours. Let's give everyone a benefit of the doubt and use two hypotheses:

    a) Global warming is real.
     If it is real, then if you do all the things the scientists are saying, you'll be slowing down the process. Sweet, we get extra years, we don't have to experience such extreme weather conditions/changes, etc. Good for us.

    b) Global warming is a hoax.
     If it is fake, then if you do all the things the scientists are saying, you'll be cleaning up the planet. Sweet, we get a clean planet to live on. Good for us.

    So tell me, why is it so hard for you to accept global warming?? Do you only disagree because it seems like the "mainstream" thing to do and you want to seem "different"? I never understood this.

  25. American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

    NorrisM @12 : You wish some references for the "attribution" having approx 100% human causation ?

    NorrisM . . . Can I believe the evidence of my optics?  [Yes, a Foghorn Leghorn quote seems called for, here !! ]

    NorrisM, you will find many scientific literature [& IPCC] references supporting the 100% Attribution, if you care to take a quick scan through SkS's list of Most Used Climate Myths -— for instance, Myths numbered #1 ; #6 ; #12 ; #16 ; #30 ; #33 ; #34 ; #39 ; #43 ; #47 ; #49 ; #52 ; #56 ; #59 ; #61 ; #65 ; #68 ; #70 . . . and probably a good many of the subsequent 100+ Myths after number #70.

    NorrisM, because my sandpapered antennae detect that your Attribution question may not be entirely lacking disingenuousness, I do not propose to lead you through Chapter & Verse of the science — any more than I would if someone had asked me for detailed evidence that The World ain't Flat.

    My apologies to you, NorrisM, if my response to you has seemed overly brusque — yet I really feel that your question also indicates that you have spent disproportionately more time in posting your opinions at SkS, than you have spent in reading at SkS.   (Reading the summarizations & articles at SkS, is a far more efficient use of your time than is the occasional reading of isolated scientific papers.)

     

    As to the question of attribution of present sea level rise : we have (you and I) previously discussed this question, where I criticized Dr Curry's presentation/summation of the present state of play.  She made a good case that maybe as little as 40-60% (in other words, roughly 100 mm) of MSL rise during the last 50-100 years was purely from AGW.   I myself suspect that she has overstretched her argument that AMO and PDO and other cyclic changes/variabilities (plus increased groundwater extraction) had produced an equivalent 100 mm — but really, such small rises are a quibble when viewed against the general picture of the size of glacial/interglacial MSL alterations (and their rate of alteration).   And against the present-day rapid MSL rise which is accelerating towards a drastic increase.   There is no realistic comparison between the minor events of the 1930s/1940s and the subsequent [present and future] changes — which are ongoing and not trivial & cyclic in origin.

    Additionally, I had (at that same time) pointed out that Dr Curry was indulging in the purely rhetorical method of implying (to the unthinking or inattentive reader of her statements) that a less-than-100% AGW causation of very recent MSL rise . . . must likely mean that modern Climate Change would also not be near 100% human-caused . . . and thus that the scientific consensus would be erroneous/questionable.   I feel Dr Curry's line of argument was deficient in probity, in that it was incomplete and designed to mislead the reader.

  26. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    BlackThunder , whatever argument you are trying to put forward, promptly loses itself in a welter of poorly-thought-out semantic quibbles & excessively "binary" thinking on your part (in a way not unlike the good poster Pluto @ #306 and prior posts).   Please step back and look at the overall picture.

  27. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas


    Globally averages and over a period of few days, the relation holds.

    The Clausius Claperyon (CC) relation was derived on the basis of an isolated system containing gaseous and condensed phases of a certain substance in thermal equilibrium with each other. This means that the system is characterized by a single temperature and a single vapor pressure (or equivalently vapor concentration), and hence cannot be applied globally since the earth contains wide variations in temperature and humidity. It would be mathematically invalid and meaningless to assign global averages of these values into the CC relation. Therefore, this relation does not hold globally.

    Dry air moving over sea rapidly absorbs the deficit moisture. As I pointed out, the observations directly support this interpretation, they do not support yours.

    I never claimed that dry air over the sea doesn't absorb moisture or that the water vapor increase doesn't cause warming. But what you are describing here is a water vapor forcing, not a feedback.

    You need to provide observational support for any other interpretation which seems lacking from numerous different analyses of available data source summarized in the IPCC reports.

    The observation I have made is that the current climate science arguments for the water vapor feedback are physically and mathematically incorrect, and therefore the existence of such a feedback is highly unlikely. The implication of this is that whatever global warming we may be experiencing is not being driven by any CO2 greenhouse effect.

  28. Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated

    Glenn Tamblyn @ 65

    I have now read the De Conto & Pollard paper which clearly has had a major influence on the increase of the upper estimate in the US Climate Report to 130 cm.  This paper is very technical and I will not pretend to be able to evaluate it.  But on a "risk" basis the US Climate Report places a very low percentage on any significant impact at least up to 2100.   

    Perhaps discussion of the WAIS has to be located somewhere else even though it directly impacts sea level rise which is the topic of this blog.  Any suggestions where?  I see Philippe Chantreau has referenced a paper which is paywalled.

    I have now read a couple of papers on possible geothermal impacts in this area and I now see they are only talking about the identification of former volcanoes and do not suggest that there are presently open rifts causing any heating.

  29. American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

    eclectic @ 10

    "the consensus among scientists is very clear: that the attribution is approximately 100%, not 50% or a bit over 50%."

    Could you provide some references in the IPCC Fifth Assessment for this statement? 

    If we have temperature increases in the 1930-1940's and rates of sea level rise per year during this period that match the average 1993 - present sea level rise rates, both of which I believe are presently attributed to "natural internal variability" (for the lack of any other explanation), then how can you say that the present temperature rise is 100% attributable to AGW? 

    I assume you do not attribute all of the present sea level rise to AGW, and if you do not, then what is causing that portion not attributable to AGW? 

  30. EPA’s war with California proves America needs a carbon tax

    Franklin said a Revolution ever 200 years.  The USA is overdue, but I think for not much longer. 

  31. New resource: The Fact-Myth-Fallacy slide-deck

    william @6

    This isn‘t a resource to convince the unconvicible but to inoculate those still „on the fence“ or disengaged against their misinformation.

  32. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    Further reading - as to how climate models actually handle water vapour.

    https://scienceofdoom.com/2017/11/05/water-vapour-feedback-is-simply-written-into-climate-models-as-parameters/

    and for gory detail. Held and Soden 2000 (dated but good start).

  33. EPA’s war with California proves America needs a carbon tax

    Some of the ideas coming out of America lately just don't make any sense.

    For example Scott Pruitt doesn't want Obamas federal fuel efficiency standards, and now he doesn't want California being able to set its own fuel efficiency standards. So Pruitt apparently hates federal rules and also the states having power. This looks like it's anti constitutional.

    The idea of the constitution was to limit federal power, but ensure states could set their own laws. What Pruit is doing would horrify the writers of the constitution and the founding fathers of america.

    And Pruit is downgrading other federal environmental rules. This makes no sense either because he is damaging quality of life for generations of people for the sake of short term corporate gains. Pruit is doing more harm than good. Corporate rights are of course important, but ultimately corporates have to serve the public good. Corporations are a means to an end, not the end itself.

    Pruitt is out of touch with reality.

  34. Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural

    Eclectic and MA Roger
     Thank you very much.  I usually do very well at debunking denier claims on the internet, but being a layman, this one was more than I usually deal with.  I spent about 10 years and 10,000 hours learning about the science, here and at other climate science blogs, Open Mind, Real Climate and others.  I am friends with Daniel Bailey on Facebook.  

  35. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    Globally averages and over a period of few days, the relation holds. Dry air moving over sea rapidly absorbs the deficit moisture. As I pointed out, the observations directly support this interpretation, they do not support yours. The water vapour increase in the troposphere as it warms is consistant with the temperature rise. You need to provide observational support for any other interpretation which seems lacking from numerous different analyses of available data source summarized in the IPCC reports.

  36. New resource: The Fact-Myth-Fallacy slide-deck

    This campaign to convince the unconvincible is bound to fail just like all our other campaign.  Save the flowers save the bees, save the snails save the trees.  All is a waste of time unless we get the root problem solved.  http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2018/01/wasted-effort.html

  37. New resource: The Fact-Myth-Fallacy slide-deck

    Bärbel, jg – A lot of work has been put into this and it was well worth it. Very informative.

  38. One Planet Only Forever at 03:49 AM on 11 April 2018
    EPA’s war with California proves America needs a carbon tax

    I need to revise a term in my opening para.

    "The people currently controlling the actions of the USA Government, not just the EPA, attempting to 'legally' get away with the promotion and defense of damaging Private Interests is strong evidence that even the 'Rule of Law' needs to be responsibly governed."

    And I would add that "Government by 'all of the people' for 'the benefit of all of the people' - including all fuure generations of humanity" would also be a great objective for global leadership. If the USA honored that ideal they would be the most helpful nation on the plant. When they do not honour that ideal they can become the greatest threat to the future of humanity.

  39. One Planet Only Forever at 03:43 AM on 11 April 2018
    American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

    Presenting information focused on the consensus regarding climate science matters may be improved by adding that the consensus is a strengthening robustly developed emergent truth. The number is rather irrelevant, but a high number does relate to how strong the emergent understanding is. It may also be helpful to always include an explanation for the motivations of some people in the field of investigation, and many people not in the field but having Private Interests that are negatively affected by the improved understanding, to try to argue against the emergent understanding.

    More than 100 years ago there was little doubt about the impact of increased CO2 in the atmosphere. The only questions were about the specific magnitude of the impact and the nature of regional impacts.

    The evidence gathered since then has strengthened the understanding that the impacts of the burning of fossil fuels are a net-negative for the future generations of global humanity, and the activity creates many 'non-CO2 impact' negatives for current day humans and future generations. The understanding was strong enough in the 1980s to mobilize global leadership in an effort to responsibly address what are undeniably unsustainable and harmful 'developed way that humans try to enjoy more benefit in their lifetime'.

    The failure of global leadership to responsibly lead the correction of what had developed, particularly the failure of 'all' the richest among humanity to develop responsible behaviour, is also an emergent truth (something that there could be a consensus understanding about if everyone was honestly concerned about how their actions affected others).

    To be fair, some of the richest have tried to help correct what has developed. But the socioeconomic-political games that have developed did more than produce the damaging unsustainable development of burning of fossil fuels. Those systems have also developed resistance to correction, particularly through carefully targeted misleading marketing appeals for people to be greedier or less tolerant and Unite and vote together to win what they want (the uniting of emotionally triggered voters who have been tempted to be greedier or less tolerant).

    The abuses of the understanding of misleading marketing by the more irresponsible undeserving profiteers among the richest winners has delayed and diminished those efforts to correct the aspects of what has developed that undeniably need to be corrected. The worst of that group attempt to claim that rich people continuing to benefit from the burning of fossil fuels is required for the poorest to be able to live a better life, claiming that any perceptions of improved circumstances for the poorest are due to richer people benefiting from the burning of fossil fuels.

  40. One Planet Only Forever at 01:16 AM on 11 April 2018
    EPA’s war with California proves America needs a carbon tax

    The people currently controlling the actions of the USA Government, not just the EPA, attempting to 'legally' get away with the promotion and defense of damaging Private Interests proves that even the 'Rule of Law' needs to be responsibly governed.

    Every aspect of human life and activity, including the making-up and enforcement of Rules of Law, needs to be Ruled by the objective of developing a suatainable better futre for all of humanity.

    Government by 'all of the people' for 'the benefit of all of the people' is a brilliant guiding principle. Maybe some day the USA will break free from being "Ruled by undeserving rich/winners claiming that they need to be richer for the Good of all of humanity".

  41. Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural

    MA Rodger @29 , in their paper, I think Hatzianastassiou et al are treating their albedo figure of 12.9% as applying to the planetary surface itself [for ultraviolet/visible/near-IR] rather than the more usual [~30%] astronomical albedo which of course derives from surface + atmosphere/clouds (and is heavily weighted toward visible light).   That ~13% figure fits in well with the observed figures of reflected/absorbed SW radiation at the land/ocean surface. 

  42. American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

    TPohlman @9 , the consensus among scientists is very clear: that the attribution is approximately 100%, not 50% or a bit over 50%.

    Are there any "persuadable skeptics"?   None that I've ever heard of, in the past decade or so.   There are deniers and dismissives [=deniers].   Real skeptics were all persuaded by the scientific evidence, many years ago, that the climate scientists are correct.   So . . . there are no persuadable skeptics left to be influenced by soft-soap "rebuilt credibility".   

  43. American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

    The difficulty I see with consensus surveys is the definition of what the consensus components are. For example, President Obama defined the consensus as “warming is real, manmade and dangerous”.  Unfortunately, that definition is wrong, per the scientific papers on the consensus, and also other surveys of the scientific community, so it’s easily attacked. If the definition is watered down to “CO2 is rising and the planet is warming”, then there is consensus, but it’s meaningless, because most skeptics agree with that as well.  Getting a meaningful consensus statement such as “It is warming, man is over 50% responsible, with fossil fuels the majority of the driver, and will lead to dangerous effects if not reversed”, is difficult, given the state of the peer-reviewed science, and is certainly not the consensus at the 97% level. 

    I think it would be well for political purposes to be more cautious about climate change attribution, and attempt to rebuild credibility among persuadable skeptics. Non-scientists who fuel alarmist memes are hurting the cause, and reducing the credibility of climate science, as amply noted in the trends the article describes.

  44. New resource: The Fact-Myth-Fallacy slide-deck

    Great resource! Many thanks.

  45. Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural

    sailrick @25,

    Further to Eclectric @26, the egregious CO2 cycle nonsense in Harde (2017) has been rebutted at RealClimate and in the literature by Köhler et al (2017). The paper itself still sits for unsuspecting fools to feed from courtesy of the heatland of fiction-creation the Heartland Institute which pretty-much says it all.

     

    The solar radiation claim cites five papers to suggest that the increase in solar heating of the surface is far more significant to climate than levels of GHG forcing.

    It is good to see that the papers provided give a similar answer (although they may not be considering similar periods). Yet they certainly do not provide some AGW-busting finding. Without setting out the findings of all five papers, consider here just the first -  Hatzianastassiou et al (2005). This paper models surface short-wave radiation with reanalysis and concludes:-

    "Significant increasing trends in DSR and net DSR fluxes were found, equal to 4.1 and 3.7 Wm−2, respectively, over the 1984–2000 period , ...  indicating an increasing surface solar radiative heating. This surface SW radiative heating is primarily attributed to clouds, especially low-level, and secondarily to other parameters such as total precipitable water. The surface solar heating occurs mainly in the period starting from the early 1990s, in contrast to decreasing trend in DSR through the late 1980s."  (DSR = SW downward surface radiation)

    Thus the finding is that DSR was increased through a certain period through a reduced level of cloudiness. The paper does not address wider implications of that change in cloudiness, for instance the impact of that loss of cloud on LW radiation transfers. Hatzianastassiou et al. are surely happy that this conforms with other papers as they make no mention of any controversy (although their estimate for surface albedo is different enough to be worth a mention). In any of these five papers, if their findings were AGW-busting stuff, would they not be saying so?

    The changes in energy flux quoted by these papers are large but the actual values for global warming are measured at the top of the atmosphere and such large levels of warming are not present. The more-reliable measure of Ocean Heat Content supports such measurements, levels that are those to be expected from AGW.

    All the denialist is doing is picking a large change within the climate system and arbitrarily attributing it to his preferred non-AGW fantasy.

  46. Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural

    Time I had a coffee.  Another typo !   Should read :- cloud layer has become significantly less reflective.

  47. Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural

    Sailrick, a correction of my "typo" in my last sentence :- should read "solar radiation incidence".   The friend appears to be suggesting that the sun has been significantly more active and/or the Earth's cloud layer has become significantly more reflective, during the 20th Century.   Both such suggestions are unsupported by the evidence.

  48. Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural

    Sailrick @25 , you will find useful information at Climate Myth #34 (see: Most used climate myths, listed top left of this page, and click on View all arguments).  Read the Intermediate version.

    It sounds like your friend RealOldOne2 is trying to pull a swift one, and being very economical with the truth.   Interesting name, "RealOldOne2" . . . perhaps he regards himself as a son of the real  Old One (= The Father of Lies   ;-)   )

    Apparently he is saying that because anthropogenic CO2 emission is around 4% of the annual planetary flux of CO2 into the atmosphere, then human activities can only be responsible for 4% of the modern rapid global warming.   Obviously that is an illogical argument, when all is taken into account.   The natural organic Carbon Cycle at the surface has been in mildly-fluctuating equilibrium for millions of years.   Fossil CO2 (as represented by the approximately "4%" ) is a cumulative addition to the surface Carbon Cycle.   Hence the AGW.

    I feel moderately sure that RealOldOne2 would be well aware of that fact . . . but being the son of his father, he can't bear to speak the scientific truth.   Or maybe his IQ is so very room temperature, that he is in serious need of some Cranial Warming.

    The residence time of CO2, and the alleged rise of solar during the 20th Century, are both issues where scientific truth seems unknown to your friend.

  49. Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural

    I've been engaged in debate at a Discovery article, with someone called RealOldOne2, who is made the following claim today, in response to a comment by me.


    ["Peer reviewed science says that only 15% of the increased CO2 since the Industrial era is human, and 85% is natural:

    "The anthropogenic contribution to the actual CO2 concentration is found to be 4.3%, its fraction to the CO2 increase over the Industrial Era is 15%" - Harde(2017) "Scrutinizing the carbon cycle and CO2 residence time in the atmosphere"]

    I don't have the resources or know how to research the subject enough to counter his claim.  Anyone want to take a shot at it?  

    He also makes claims (in another comment) about short wave energy striking the earth increasing due to cloud changes effecting albedo, and cites published papers, to back his claim that this effect is stronger radiative forcing than human CO2 emissions. 
     

    He said.
    "And the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth's surface increased by 2.7W/m² to 6.8W/m² during the late 20th century warming. This is documented in the following peer reviewed science:"

    Here's the link
     
    LINK

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Shortened link

  50. One Planet Only Forever at 15:47 PM on 10 April 2018
    On climate change, zero-sum thinking doesn't work

    MA Rodger@33,

    The quote from John Stuart Mill regarding the group called Conservative in his time in England fits with his warning in "On Liberty".

    “If society lets a considerable number of its members grow up mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame for the consequences.”

    The quote you referred to is essentially Mill saying the Conservative Party in his time relied on the support of members of society who grow up mere children, or stupid.

    Today's case related to the Republicans may be more sinister.

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