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NorrisM at 14:58 PM on 11 April 2018American 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?
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bjchip at 14:45 PM on 11 April 2018EPA’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.
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BaerbelW at 14:44 PM on 11 April 2018New 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.
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scaddenp at 07:54 AM on 11 April 2018Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Further reading - as to how climate models actually handle water vapour.
and for gory detail. Held and Soden 2000 (dated but good start).
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nigelj at 07:50 AM on 11 April 2018EPA’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.
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sailrick at 07:26 AM on 11 April 2018Murry 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. -
scaddenp at 07:18 AM on 11 April 2018Water 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.
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william5331 at 06:11 AM on 11 April 2018New 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
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Riduna at 06:05 AM on 11 April 2018New 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.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:49 AM on 11 April 2018EPA’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.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:43 AM on 11 April 2018American 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.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:16 AM on 11 April 2018EPA’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".
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Eclectic at 00:26 AM on 11 April 2018Murry 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.
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Eclectic at 00:13 AM on 11 April 2018American 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".
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TPohlman at 23:24 PM on 10 April 2018American 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.
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SirCharles at 22:24 PM on 10 April 2018New resource: The Fact-Myth-Fallacy slide-deck
Great resource! Many thanks.
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MA Rodger at 19:14 PM on 10 April 2018Murry 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.
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Eclectic at 19:04 PM on 10 April 2018Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural
Time I had a coffee. Another typo ! Should read :- cloud layer has become significantly less reflective.
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Eclectic at 19:00 PM on 10 April 2018Murry 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.
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Eclectic at 18:50 PM on 10 April 2018Murry 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.
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sailrick at 16:51 PM on 10 April 2018Murry 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
LINKModerator Response:[DB] Shortened link
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:47 PM on 10 April 2018On 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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BaerbelW at 15:09 PM on 10 April 2018New resource: The Fact-Myth-Fallacy slide-deck
nigelj @2
Thanks for the feedback!
Check http://sks.to/debunk for a comment regarding the familiarity backfire effect. Bottom line seems to be that it doesn‘ hurt quite as much as thought earlier to mention the myth but it‘s still the better option (my interpretation) to do fact-myth-fallacy. Especially if people don‘t pay close enough attention to what they read or hear, what gets to them first has the best chance to stick.
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nigelj at 13:43 PM on 10 April 2018New resource: The Fact-Myth-Fallacy slide-deck
Very powerful slide show and nicely concise, but I still think it would read better "myth, fact, fallacy". Its more traditionally ordered. I thought an article on this website discussed how having the problem myth up front didn't reinforce the problem in peoples minds?
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Digby Scorgie at 12:50 PM on 10 April 2018New resource: The Fact-Myth-Fallacy slide-deck
Looking at the very first graphic (3 elements to an effective debunking) makes me think we need to invent a new word:
mythconception!
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william5331 at 05:32 AM on 10 April 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14
We have mucked with the climate sufficiently already. Even if geo-engineering did work, the expected, unexpected consequenses raise the hair on the back of my neck. Any bright teen ager could tell the politicians exactly what they should be doing. It is not rocket science. But talking to politicians unless you have your cheque book with you, is a waste of time. http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2018/01/wasted-effort.html
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:51 AM on 10 April 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14
Art Vandelay@4,
The burning of GHGs has produced global scale climate geoengineering and large local scale water contamination and air pollution and destruction of developed ecosystems. None of that is acceptable, particularly since there is no evidence that any lasting benefit for the future of humanity has been developed specifically and exclusively as a result of people burning fossil fuels.
To 'correctly' apply a global climate geoengineering application it would be essential to understand the intricate detail of how the impacts would affect any and all developed living ecosystems. That understanding is unlikely to ever be developed to a level of adequate certainty.
What we can be quite certain about is that the climate change impacts from the unsustainable burning of non-renewable ancient buried hydrocarbons are unpredictably disruptive to the intricately developed inter-related life ecosystems on this planet. We can also be quite certain that rapidly curtailing the selfish pursuits of benefit form that activity are the only reliable way to develop a better future. And we can also be quite certain that global geoengineering to specifically remove CO2 from the atmosphere is an activity that can and should be developed, even if other 'cheaper and quicker' geoengineering options appear to exist.
Sean Carroll's "The Big Picture" is a brilliant presentation of the developed understanding of reality, including the development of thinking. He includes the fact that everyone's self-interests can develop to be anything in the range from purely selfish pursuit of pleasure any way that can be gotten away with, to intense desire to dedicate effort to developing a truly better future for all life with humanity fitting is in a diversity of ways.
The self-interested among humanity only care about what they can personally benefit from. And they often incorrectly believe/claim that advances of technology are advances of humanity.
Those self-interested admirers of artificial and potentially unsustainable harmful developments can learn to become more concerned about sustainably developing a better future where humans fit into a robust diversity of 'real life' on this or any other amazing planet.
And, for the sake of the future of humanity, that is the learning development that needs to be happening. And as that happens, anybody who suggests that instead of correcting harmful and unsustainable ways of living we should attempt to artificially create new impressions of 'technological success' would be laughed at and justifiably ignored, except for keeping a close watch to make sure they don't try to do something they shouldn't try to get away with.
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John Hartz at 00:18 AM on 10 April 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14
Recommended suplemental reading:
Why Green Groups Are Split on Subsidizing Carbon Capture Technology by Richard Conniff, Yale Environment 360, Apr 9, 2018
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jef12506 at 23:33 PM on 9 April 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14
Art - Yes we have been geoengineering the planet for a long time so we should be able to geoengineer a solution and if that solution causes more damage we can always geoengineer away that problem and so on, and so on, and so on....
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nigelj at 15:57 PM on 9 April 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14
Art Vandelay, our models on climate change are based in part on a wealth of historical data on whats been happening to the planet as a whole over extended time periods, and are good, but we are still not completely certain about climate sensitivity.
Imho with solar geoengineering (and the like) we dont have that historical data to inform modelling, and we would be reliant mostly on theory and some localised experiment. Applying this to the whole planet would be an unknown, and a localised experiment couldn't duplicate this completely. Nobody could ever be certain what would happen globally.
At this stage it appears solar geoengineering could have negative effects regionally, and we would be permanently reliant on it. We also run the risk of geoengineering to fix problems caused by geoengineering gone wrong, to fix problems of geoengineering gone wrong.
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Art Vandelay at 14:30 PM on 9 April 2018American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus
Perhaps it's the simplicity of the question that invites resistance from a significant minority. Most people are aware that vast majority of scientists agree that rising CO2 causes warming of the atmosphere and other changes to the climate system, but that doesn't itself provide the level of detail that many people feel is necessary.
It shouldn't be too difficult to create a more refined analysis that indictes what percentage of scientists say that the consequences will be severe unless urgent steps are taken now to limit atmospheric CO2 to 'nnn' ppm, or limit global temperature to nn degrees C etc.
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Art Vandelay at 14:08 PM on 9 April 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14
We are aleready geoengineering the planet - with GHG emissions and land use changes etc, and our confidence in the theory and resulting models is reasonably high. On face value there should be no difficulty working out the effects of geoengineering solutions that address climate change, and given that it's possible to conduct localised and time limited experiments, modelling can be far more accurately tested.
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nigelj at 11:38 AM on 9 April 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14
Recommended supplemental reading on Rush Limbaugh : “Comedian Al Franken who later became a Senator, wrote a satirical book (Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations) in which he accused Limbaugh of distorting facts to serve his own political biases.[108”] “
From wikipedia "Of Limbaugh's controversial statements and allegations they have investigated, Politifact has rated 84% as ranging from "Mostly False" to "Pants-On-Fire" (a signification for extremely false), with 5% of Limbaugh's contested statements rising to the level of "Mostly True" and 0% rated "True."[109] These debunked allegations by Limbaugh include suggestions that the existence of gorillas disproves the theory of evolution, that Ted Kennedy sent a letter to Soviet Leader Yuri Andropov seeking to undercut President Reagan, that a recent lack of hurricanes disproves climate change, and that President Obama wanted to mandate circumcision.[110][111][112][113]"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh
You can't get much more badly informed and irrational thinking than this. It seems to me Limbaugh has an unusually suspicious devious mind, so falsely thinks everyone else is the same, and that everything is some sort of hoax or agenda. He can't seem to grasp mostly its just scientific discoveries, or attempts to solve very real problems that face humanity.
Some of these talkback radio "shock Jocks" like Limbaugh know how to press peoples buttons and get attention, and thus a big audience. This can sometimes go over the edge into something obviously unhealthy. My theory is the good ratings probably convinces them the nonsense they speak is true, and leads to more of the same nonsense in a feedback effect. But good ratings dont mean everyone agrees.
Some people worship authority figues and media people, and believe everything they say. Its a self reinforcing little bubble world generating complete nonsense, toxic views and conspiracy theories, one example is that "liberals" are manipulating storms so they sit over cities, to create worry about climate change to futher their "liberal agenda". People actually believe this stuff!
The strong theory that burning fossil fuels leads to climate change goes back centuriues to the work of Svante Arrhenius, who published a research paper on the subject with pages of detailed, painstaking calculations, and also predicting CO2 emissions would cause temperatures to rise in the 20th century by about one degree. Nothing to do with liberal agendas, The UN, world socialism, Modern China, or anything like that, and before these things were even invented in most cases.
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BlackThunder at 10:51 AM on 9 April 2018Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
scaddenp — It doesn't matter how much of the earth is covered with water. If that liquid H2O is not where the warming is occurring so that it can evaporate there, then the feedback loop is broken. Also, the Clausius-Claperyon is valid only if the system (earth in this case) is in thermal equilibrium. Such is not the case if air masses are moving around carrying water vapor from the oceans to the deserts. Furthermore, deserts generally are at higher altitudes so that moist airmasses tend to lose H2O vapor to condensation before arriving, which is why the area is a desert. The bottom line is that if the water vapor concentration is less than saturation, the feedback loop is broken.
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One Planet Only Forever at 10:48 AM on 9 April 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14
Proposals implying that inflicting additional geoengineering 'solutions' should be considered to be responsible mitigation or correction of
a damaging unsustainable geoengineering activity that Global leaders (elected representatives and the wealthy winners of economic competitions) have failed to provide responsible leadership to sustainably solve or correct
is undeniably more irresponsible pursuits of excuses for those who irresponsibly continue to try to get away with benefiting from an understood to be damaging and ultimately unsustainable activity, an activity that cannot be proven to be providing any sustainable benefit for future generations of humanity, only doing harm.
As a Structural Engineer I am very aware of the potential for future harmful consequences of anything I design. And that awareness should be in the fore-front of any engineering thinking, especially global geoengineering. And the need to resist and even oppose the desires of people who want to profit from an activity is undeniably the primary responsibility of a responsible engineer.
The depth of understanding to provide the required level of certainty of the results of an intentional global geoengineering activity would appear to be centuries away, if it can ever properly be developed. The intricate inter-relationships of so many things would need to be known in incredibly correct detail.
Others will see it differently, but they are undeniably potential serious threats to the future of humanity. And the higher the level of elected office or the more wealth they have the more of a threat they should be understood to be ... if humanity having a good chance of developing a sustainable better future on this or any other amazing planet is the understood Good Objective.
The history of damaging developments created by the pursuits of perceptions of success resulting in popular support for harmful profitable pursuits is a tragic history that needs to be learned from (it has been learned, but responsible response to that learning is resisted by many among the wealthy and powerful).
The socioeconomic-political systems that have developed damaging results and have developed resistance to being corrected need to be significantly corrected before anyone seriously considers global geoengineering to be a potential solution to otherwise obviously avoidable future problem. And that discussion will be brief in the corrected system because such an action would be understood to be unnecessary and potentially harmful and therefore simply unacceptable regardless of its potential popular support or temporary perceptions of profitability for a sub-set of humanity.
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Doug_C at 09:25 AM on 9 April 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #14
Rush Limbaugh is likely funded by people like the Koch brothers so he produces nonsense totally detached from reality.
Like claiming one of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded was "fake" news.
Rush Limbaugh calls hurricane Irma fake news before fleeing in his private jet
"May as well go ahead and announce this," he said. "I'm not going to get into details because of the security nature of things, but it turns out that we will not be able to do the program here tomorrow. ... We'll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown. So we'll be back on Monday. It's just that tomorrow is going to be problematic. Tomorrow it would be, I think, legally impossible for us to originate the program out of here."
There's nowhere to flee to when the growing calamity of climate change spans the entire globe.
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scaddenp at 09:03 AM on 9 April 2018Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Black Thunder, while true that you need a source of water, with 72% of planet covered by ocean, that usually isnt a problem. Furthermore, weather moves airmasses around so under-saturated air from a desert rapidly takes up water when it passes over an ocean. Observations show that relative humidity has remained the same (Clausius-Claperyon relation holds) and globally TPW pretty much matches the 7% per 1C rise. This is discussed in chapter 2 (2.5 ) of the AR5.
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BlackThunder at 08:27 AM on 9 April 2018Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
In explaining the positive feedback loop, you make the statement
If you increase the temperature, more water evaporates and becomes vapor, and vice versa. So when something else causes a temperature increase (such as extra CO2 from fossil fuels), more water evaporates. This statement, of course, assumes that there is a source of liquid H2O in the immediate vicinity of the temperature increase. Otherwise, there would be no water available for evaporation which would break the feedback loop you describe. Therefore, it seems that this positive feedback loop can occur only at the surfaces of water sources (such as streams, lakes, or oceans) or if it is raining, and is not something that happens globally.
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John Hartz at 01:15 AM on 9 April 2018American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus
Recommended supplemental reading:
Trump’s Climate Change Denial Is Already Reshaping Public Opinion. Opinion by John Cook, HuffPost, Apr 3, 2018
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MA Rodger at 18:53 PM on 8 April 2018On climate change, zero-sum thinking doesn't work
One Planet Only Forever @27,
You do not provide no an explanation for the finding you present - "the evidence shows that currently the group identifying as Republicans has a much higher percentage of people who do not accept or who misunderstand climate science."
Perhaps JS Mill, who is described as "One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism," has provided us the explanation.
Moderator Response:[JH] Typo corrected.
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Doug_C at 12:36 PM on 8 April 2018American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus
"For example, about two-thirds of Americansnow realize that most scientists agree global warming is occurring, up from less than half in 1997."
To amplify william's comment, it's not the scientists that are in agreement on this, it is the data. And there has been high confidence in the data of human fored climate change by the massive emissions of carbon dioxide through repeated demonstration of its accuracy through direct observation for decades.
The chances of the science behind an increasing positive forcing of the radiative balance through massive emmissions of a molecule tuned to absorb heat being in fundanmental error is vanishingly small.
The chances of ongoing claims that there is no significant forcing of the radiative balance through the emission of gigatons of CO2 every year is also vanishingly small.
This isn't a question of one group of experts out-competiting another group with a rival theory, this is a question of virtually all the verifiable data indicating a very specific response to changing the ability of the atmosphere to absorb heat as opposed to the intellectual equivalent of a child putting their fingers in their ears and chanting loudly so they don't hear something they are unable to accept.
Isaac Asimov coined a term, the Relativity of Wrong. This compares competing hypothesis that are attempting to descirbe a phenomena. It scales a hypothesis by how well it explains something in testible terms.
Applying this relativity of wrong concept to the science of human forced climate change by the massive emissions of carbon dioixde to the hypothesis that it has no major radiative forcing, there is no comparison.
In pure information respects there is no competing hypothesis to explain why the Earth is rapidly warming as we drive the concentration of atmospheric CO2 ever higher.
Which means that those scientists who are doing genuine research in climate change and the human forcing factor are in far more than 97% agreement.
Like a massive object trying to achieve the speed of light, it is never possible to achieve 100%. I'd say that the genuine science on this has to be more 99.99%.
Because virtually all the observation is in agreement with the fundamental theories. Are we going to tweek quantum mechanics now to appease the fossil fuel sector...
If so then modern society will come to a crashing halt, because the same quantum theories that allow all our modern transistor based electronics to work also describe why molecules like N2 and O2 - which make up almost all the atmosphere - are transparent to heat but CO2 isn't.
Anyone posting online how the science of human forced climate change is in error has just disproved their own statements by demonstrating our high confidence in the fundamental theories that allow them to enter the online digital world and also explain why the Earth will warm as we increase the concentration of a gas that has been demonstrated in clear quantum mechanical terms to absorb heat.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:11 AM on 8 April 2018On climate change, zero-sum thinking doesn't work
scaddenp and Bob Loblaw,
My comment@28 to Dan_the_Engineering_Man was to prompt his thoughts on the matter since he was claiming CO2 cannot be up in the atmosphere because it is heavier than O2.
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Bob Loblaw at 07:35 AM on 8 April 2018On climate change, zero-sum thinking doesn't work
Yes, O3 is highly reactive. NaSty stuff a ground level where it readily combines with many biological tissues (such as lung tissue).
Much of this discussion revolves around non-reactive gases. CFCs are largely non-reactive (which is why they make such good refrigerants) - until they reach the stratosphere where they break down under UV radiation. The by-products then react with O3, upsetting the natural balance between O3 creation and O3 reaction (destruction).
If Dan was right, there would be no oxygen-breathing live at the surface....
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scaddenp at 06:58 AM on 8 April 2018On climate change, zero-sum thinking doesn't work
On the other hand, the CFC that destroy the ozone, creating the ozone hole are lifted from surface by convection and diffusion. If Dan was right, the CFCs would accumulate as a layer at ground level.
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scaddenp at 06:29 AM on 8 April 2018On climate change, zero-sum thinking doesn't work
One Planet - not a good example. O3 is generated in the stratosphere. Diffusion is limited as it is a highly reactive molecule.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:33 AM on 8 April 2018On climate change, zero-sum thinking doesn't work
Dan_the_Engineering_Man,
Have you heard of the Ozone layer? Can you explain how molecules of O3, heavier than CO2 could be up so high?
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:29 AM on 8 April 2018On climate change, zero-sum thinking doesn't work
Dan_the_Engineering_Man @15,
I wish to clarify my comment @10 about your presentation of a political misunderstanding in your comment @5.
Your comment @5 included the following:
“... it would be written without the Political Spin. I do not believe that Conservative Thinkers, who can be broken down as Republicans, Tea Party Patriots, Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, NRA Members, Factory Workers, Small Business Owners and Workers, Hunters, Fishermen, Policeman, Firemen, Military Personnel both presently serving and Veterens(sic), Mothers and Fathers, and many others including Billionaires like our President, get up in the Morning and want to ignore Science and destroy the Planet.”It is a misunderstanding and misrepresentation to claim that those categories of people are “Conservative Thinkers”. As I corrected in my comment @10 those categories each contain Progressive Liberals.
The more important distinction is if a person cares More about how their actions may help or negatively affect others, than they care about how they can personally benefit from an action.Using that categorization the collective thinking they are Right or Conservative, or claiming to be that, currently includes a high percentage of people more concerned about their personal benefit than they are about helping others, mainly because greedy neoliberals and less tolerant religious and racial extremists have been welcomed into the group that has United to increase the chances of winning their unjustified Private Interests though unjustified abuse of wealth to obtain unjustified regional popularity.
Specifically on the matter of climate science the SkS OP “American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus” is the most recent of many OPs presenting the higher level of climate science misunderstanding among people who identify as Republican, a high percentage of the group who (to quote your comment) “get up in the Morning and want to ignore Science and destroy the Planet.”
I agree that many people in the categories you listed do not “get up in the Morning and want to ignore Science and destroy the Planet.”, but that is because the large number of others claiming to be Conservative or Right are misunderstood to be able to be labelled Conservative Thinkers.
Which brings me to my final observation. You need to provide a definition for what you are referring to when you use the term Conservative Thinker. Visualizing Venn Diagrams of all the different possible categorizing of people can help you appreciate the need to clearly define the category you refer to. The category of people who identify as Republican includes many people who accept or correctly understand climate science. And the category of people who identify as Democrat includes many people who do not accept or who misunderstand climate science. But the evidence shows that currently the group identifying as Republicans has a much higher percentage of people who do not accept or who misunderstand climate science.
I end this comment by referring you back to how I ended my comment @10. Engineers need to be careful to thoroughly understand the work they do to be sure they get it Right.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:55 AM on 8 April 2018American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus
SirCharles:
The paper you link to is from May 2017. It is a response to a comment on an earlier paper by Powell. The comment was written by several SkS participants, and our dear late friend Andy Skuce was the lead author. Andy wrote a blog post about it when the comment paper first appeared (at the same time as Powell's reply):
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Bob Loblaw at 00:45 AM on 8 April 2018On climate change, zero-sum thinking doesn't work
John:
From a quick Google search:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2006GL025886
...which includes in its opening paragraph:
The observed stratospheric profiles of d15N and d18O were in agreement with those calculated using a steady-state 1-dimensional eddy-diffusion/molecular-diffusion model, which suggests that the upward decrease of stratospheric d(O2/N2) is caused by a gravitational separation of O2 and N2
molecules....which I would interpret to mean "yes". The stratosphere appears to be stable enough to see some gravitational stratification.
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JohnSeers at 00:33 AM on 8 April 2018On climate change, zero-sum thinking doesn't work
@Bob Loblaw 24
" ... does not happen in our atmosphere."
Am I right in thinking it does happen in our high/stratospheric atmosphere?
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