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

Recent Comments

Comments 16601 to 16650:

nigelj at 07:45 AM on 23 November 2017

Video: Climate, Sea Level, and Superstorms

HK thanks, sounds slightly like that movie "a day after tomorrow".

HK at 07:25 AM on 23 November 2017

Video: Climate, Sea Level, and Superstorms

#3:
This is probably one of them:
Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms by James Hansen et al.

#2:
One of the points made in the study referred to above is that increased freshwater flux into the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean from melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica will cool the sea surface. This will increase the temperature contrast between high and low latitudes and thus cause more intense storms. The surface cooling will also reduce the heat loss from these oceans and lead to a higher global energy imbalance (possibly as much as 3 or 4 watts/m2) and more deep ocean warming since the elevated GHG level continues to pump heat into the oceans at lower latitudes.

scaddenp at 06:09 AM on 23 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

Let's distinguish carefully between natural forcings (things that change the planetary energy balance and thus climate of natural origin) and internal variability (modes of weather variation due to uneven heating of a wet planet - ie ENSO, PDO etc. This is internal redistribution of heat, not a change in planetary energy balance). Climate is defined formally as 30 year average of weather because shorter time periods are dominated by internal variability. The temperature readings are absolutely a combination of internal variability and long term forcings but internal variability is chaotic and cant be predicted more than few months in advance.

If you want to see how well you can account for the temperature record using just forcing + ENSO, then see the excellent series here. Unlike various mathturbation exercises fitting climate to planets, moon, no. of athetists in world etc. this uses part of the record to determine the fit parameters and then then uses those to predict the other part. However, this cannot be used to predict the temperatures in next decade because ESNO in the future is unknown (and seems to be unknowable).

nigelj at 05:13 AM on 23 November 2017

What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?

Alex, my apologies. I didn't see your paragraph at end in 9 on combustion products of coal and molar calculations, acidity calculations, etc, I was distracted by a problem in my house. However M Sweet has criticised it, and you haven't refuted his criticisms, so it looks to me that theres just not enough S02 and N02 to be significant.

I will leave it there and not comment any more on this. I'm getting totally out of my depth on the chemistry, and leave it to you people. Thanks for interesting discussion.

But M Sweet appears to know exactly what he is doing to me, and you should listen to him.

SteveS at 04:47 AM on 23 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

First of all, I have to agree that including ENSO would be incorrect. However, if one were to do so, I believe you would be able to, on occasion, see an ENSO event on the above chart. Gavin Schmidt is on record as estimating the effect of ENSO on the 2015 temperature as 0.07C (see here). That would suggest that there would be a visible blip at 2015 in the natural line. However, again, that wouldn't be the correct thing to do. My understanding of the blog article by Karsten Haustein is that they were only looking at climate forcings (i.e., things that actually cause the climate to change) and ENSO isn't a forcing.

nigelj at 04:32 AM on 23 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

Tom13 @9

The natural variation line in the global warming index graph is flat overall, if by that you mean it shows no upwards trend over the whole period, but it is clearly not flat as a graph. It clearly shows small increase from 1920 to approx 1980. This is consistent with increasing solar irradiance over this period. The reason the slope is small is because solar irradiance is not as powerful a driver as CO2. Solar irradiance was flat as a trend from 1980 - 2016, so obviously would not be represented in the graph other than as a flat line.

Things like le nino and la nina are short term repeating cycles that show no long term trend upwards or downwards. When you put that information in the index the el ninos and la ninas cancel out and you get a straight line. That is why you dont see them in the index. Remember its an index not a temperature trend, in laymans terms its a composite index. The PDO cycle is the same basically.

There are no natural forcings known that would cause the index to slope up over the entire period. Thats just the way it is. If you believe otherwise theres nothing stopping you publishing a research paper.

michael sweet at 04:06 AM on 23 November 2017

OA not OK part 20: SUMMARY 2/2

Aleks,

It appears that you have abandoned your previous arguments. I presume that you accept that not enough NO2 and SO2 are emitted to affect ocean pH and that your calculation was incorrect.

You currently argue that

"The result can not be explained from the point of view of a chemist. I think that the analysis of these data allows to doubt the correctness of the theory that explains the ocean acidity only by the presence of CO2."

You feel that somehow an argument can be made that since you do not understand why the pH changes with depth that contradicts the fact that CO2 controls the pH of the ocean.

I will note that an argument from ignorance is not a scientific argument.

OA is not OK #14 (whose graph is slightly different from the one you provide) states:

"dissolution of calcium carbonate [in the deep ocean] increases the pH slightly (by removing an acid). As depth increases, the pH does not recover to the surface value and this tells us that there must be more respiration (producing acid) than shell dissolution (consuming acid)."

The Pacific ocean water is lower in pH because it is older than the Atlantic ocean water. Over time more CO2 has dissolved, lowering the pH in the Pacific Ocean.

As the OA is not OK has demonstrated, from a chemists point of view it is easy to explain the pH of the deep ocean. Scientists understand the reasons for the composition of the deep ocean waters. Perhaps you should read your references more carefully.

michael sweet at 03:49 AM on 23 November 2017

What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?

Aleks:

Your post is off topic here. You should post all your questions in OA is not OK #20. I have posted a response to you there.

One Planet Only Forever at 03:38 AM on 23 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

Tom13,

You are clearly misunderstanding what El Nino is.

Even if you looked into El Nino a little more you might still misunderstand its relationship with global warming. It is complex, but understandable with a little effort.

NOAA is one of the groups that reports its measurement of the status of the ENSO cycle (La Nina, El Nino). It is the NOAA Ocean Nino Index (ONI).

The explanation of the NOAA ONI process is presented by NOAA on the tabulated summary of the ONI values.

The presentation includes the understanding that they need to update the baseline for determining if the Nino 3.4 region of the Equatorial Pacific Ocean is warmer or cooler than average.

The NOAA presentation of their updates of the 30-year averages every 5 years shows that the 5 year averages have been increasing. That increase is not a natural variation. That increase is due to the warming caused by the added GHG created by human activity.

The 30-year averages have increased about 0.3 C. That is significant compared to the threshhold of + 0.5 C for declaring La Nina or El Nino. If NOAA did not adjust the ONI baseline then eventually there would be no identified La Nina events. And with a little more human induced global warming eventually El Nino would be identified as permanent. That would be a massive misunderstanding since the Nino 3.4 would still be cycling warmer and cooler than the average.

Properly understanding many aspects of climate science requires the setting aside of personal preferences for information that excuses a personal desire to benefit from the burning of fossil fuels. Once you have set aside personal belief preferences you will be able to more effectively analyse the legitimacy of information sources.

Warning - if you do not set aside your personal interests you will struggle to properly understand many things, potentially going so far as to believe/claim that information like NOAA's ONI is fake because they revise the numbers every 5 years, and by extension believing that everything from NOAA or NASA or any other major science group that is contrary to your preferred beliefs is fake.

Lampacres at 03:02 AM on 23 November 2017

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

There’s no such thing as the radiative greenhouse effect. I accept it’s a rather bold statement, so let me explain why;

Do you agree that the heat flow equation (for plane parallel) is: Q = sigma * (T1^4 – T2^4) ?

The net difference between the radiative ENERGY which is emitted from both surfaces will result in HEAT being transferred to the surface of the cooler object and this will result in the TEMPERATURE of the cooler surface increasing. It may also result in the TEMPERATURE of the warmer surface decreasing (if the warmer object does not have it’s own power source). Either way, HEAT will continue to be transferred to the cooler object until thermodynamic equilibrium is achieved, when Q =0. At this point no further HEAT is transferred, although both surfaces continue to emit ENERGY. The TEMPERATURE of both surfaces will thereafter remain constant.

When confronted with this statement of truth, many climate experts will revert to the “restricted emissions” argument where the back radiation from the shell inhibits the warmer object from emitting it’s internal ENERGY thus causing the warmer object to HEAT itself and thus cause an increase in TEMPERATURE of the warmer surface.

If this is your claim, show me the part in the HEAT FLOW equation where it states that the primary object, T1, stops emitting because it is prevented from doing so by the secondary object, T2?

The heat flow equation states that T1 emits fully, at: sigma * T1^4, all of the time; it never has its energy “stopped up” inside of itself. And, the ENERGY from the 2nd body (if it's cooler than the 1st body) can’t act as HEAT. The 2nd body does not stop the 1st one from emitting. The 2nd body never sends back more ENERGY to the first than the first sends to the 2nd, hence the 2nd can never HEAT the 1st.

Photons don’t act like electrons. Photons are bosons. Bosons stack upon themselves and can share the same space. They are waves, not particles. Normal matter is particulate and can NOT stack upon itself…if you try to shove matter together it takes up more space. Much confusion is caused by a misunderstanding between particulate material and photon waves. The waves from the secondary (cooler) object don’t suddenly become part of “the commitment” from the primary (warmer) object…photon waves don’t add up like that. If you take two equal waves and pass them through each other, at some point in the phase overlap the amplitude of the combined wave will double…and also at some point during the overlap the two waves will cancel each other out. But the effect is on the amplitude. The effect is not on the frequency. You would need a change in the frequency in order to increase temperature, but when identical waves combine they do not change their frequency. This is why the waves from the secondary object only resonate and scatter…they can’t do anything to the frequency of the existing vibrations in the primary object.

That’s the plane parallel scenario dealt with.

Now to move to a steel shell around a sphere where the sphere has it’s own internal power source.

If you agree that only net ENERGY can cause HEAT transfer, and providing that you also agree that the only object which experiences HEAT (and thus experiences a TEMPERATURE increase) is that object where, on it’s surface, Powerin > Powerout i.e. if the power received by an object is greater than the power emitted by that object, then the [positive] difference will be manifested as HEAT upon the surface of that object, and this HEAT will increase the TEMPERATURE of that object, then we can proceed as this the essence of the 2nd LoT.

The model that we are now considering is slightly more complicated than the plane parallel model because of the distance between the outside of the sphere (say having radius 1m) and the inside surface of the shell (say having radius 2m): the surface areas of the two objects are not identical. I therefore suggest that it is more convenient to use power densities (with units of W/m2) rather than absolute power values, so we can say HEAT will be transferred across the [single] boundary between the two objects when PowerDensityin > PowerDensityout and that HEAT will be experienced only by that object where the net difference is positive.

When the temperature of the sphere is Tsphere then, at the surface of the sphere, the PowerDensitysphere = sigma * Tsphere4

When the temperature of the shell is Tshell then, at the surface of the shell, the PowerDensityshell = sigma * Tshell4

Let's consider what happens at each surface;

At the surface of the shell, all of the sphere's emissions are received by the shell. However, due the inverse square law, the PowerDensity of the sphere's own emissions are dissipated over the larger area of the shell (and on the dimensions provided we conveniently know that the surface area of the shell is four times that of the sphere). Nevertheless, if at the surface of the shell PowerDensityin > PowerDensityout then the shell will receive HEAT.

At the surface of the sphere, due to the angle of view from the surface of the shell, not all of the shell's emissions are received by the sphere (some will radiate onto another part of the shell's own surface, again without transferring HEAT). Only if Rshell = Rsphere , will 100% of the shell's PowerDensity leaving the inside surface of the shell be received by the surface of the sphere. Nevertheless, if at the surface of the sphere, PowerDensityin > PowerDensityout then the sphere will receive HEAT.

Hopefully, we can still agree on all of the above, because it's still 2nd LoT. If we do agree, then;

If Tsphere is greater (warmer) than Tshell then HEAT may (depending upon the respective PowerDensity values at the inside surface of the shell) be transferred to the shell (and no HEAT will be transferred to the sphere). Conversely, if Tshell is greater (warmer) than Tsphere then HEAT may (depending upon the two respective PowerDensity values at the surface of the sphere) be transferred to the sphere (and no HEAT will be transferred to the shell).

For a sphere with no internal power source of it's own, the concept of introducing a shell around the sphere actually does decrease the rate of cooling experienced by the sphere (than it would otherwise do as is dissipates it's ever decreasing ENERGY into a 0K environment) but unless the shell was warmer than the sphere at the point the shell was introduced, the sphere will never get hotter.

For a sphere with it's own internal power source, the concept of introducing a shell around the sphere does not change the rate at which the sphere dissipates it's ENERGY to satisfy it’s Stefan-Boltzmann commitment i.e. the temperature of the shell does not impair the sphere from radiating it's ENERGY and so the TEMPERATURE of the sphere does not increase (unless the shell was warmer than the sphere at the point it was introduced - but even then, the increase in TEMPERATURE would be transient).

The (false) argument that the introduction of the shell around the sphere prevents the sphere from radiating it's due power density of: sigma * T4 (and so gets warmer from it's own heat) appears to be derived from the erroneous belief that the net energy difference is calculated as the difference between PowerDensityin - minus zero (being the amount it would have received had the shell not been present). This can be shown to be a fallacy if we let the radius of the shell be diminished to it's minimum value i.e. the radius of the shell is reduced to be that of the sphere. In this scenario, the "restricted emissions" argument says that at thermal equilibrium, the PowerDensityshell = PowerDensitysphere and because the shell radiates this on both surfaces, the surface of the sphere also receives PowerDensityshell as HEAT. If this were indeed true, the Sphere would have it's own constant power source of Psphere plus that which receives from the shell (PowerDensityin minus zero), which is Pshell (which is also Psphere) i.e. this is 2*P. But the original model only generates 1 * P. The incorrect "restricted emissions" logic has resulted in the creation of energy (by a factor of two, no less) - something that the 1st LoT says is not possible.

If you now substitute the sphere with internal power source for the Earth and it’s constant ENERGY from our sun and substitute the steel shell for greenhouse gases at the top of the atmosphere then you will now see that the whole radiative Greenhouse effect story has been mathematically busted – the Earth’s surface does not get hotter from back-radiation from the atmosphere.

Moderator Response:

[PS] This is an absurd travesty of the actual physics. You would possibly benefit from detailed look at the physics at scienceofdoom assuming you want to understand the problem as opposed to trying to convince yourself that you are justified in opposing climate action.

John Hartz at 02:31 AM on 23 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

Daniel Bailey or SteveS:

Given the scale of the graph, would the impacts of ENSO variations even be discernible?

SteveS at 02:04 AM on 23 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

In addition, incoming solar radiation is accounted for in the blue line. You need to click on the links and read them to understand what you're seeing.

citizenschallenge at 02:03 AM on 23 November 2017

Video: Climate, Sea Level, and Superstorms

".. a recent study..." How about some references to which study?

John Hartz at 01:41 AM on 23 November 2017

Ocean acidification isn't serious

[JH] Recommended supplemental reading:

Ocean acidification: climate change's evil twin by Lars Bevanger, Deutsche Welle (DW), Nov 21, 2017

aleks at 01:32 AM on 23 November 2017

What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?

It's too difficult to answer all comments at once. I'd like to invite my opponents to analyze together the data from two publications related to the main problem of our discussion: CO2 in the atmosphere and seawater acidity. Doug Mackle (OA is not OK, #14) shows a graph of pH versus depth in Pacific and Atlantic (Fig.13). In more recent article by Z.Ernest a.o. there is a similar graph pH vs. depth along with the graph of the dependence CO2 concentration (T CO2) in water on the depth (see below).

Values of pH at water surface in both articles confirm the difference between Pacific and Atlantic. How to explain this difference if we assume that ocean acidity is determined by CO2 uniformly distributed in the atmosphere?

Left and right graphs clearly show that significant difference between pH at zero depth in Atlantic and Pacific corresponds to almost equal values of T CO2 (how to explain?). It can be seen that increase of TCO2 from 2000 to 2350 (Pacific, depth from 0 to 500m) decreases pH from 7.82 to 7.3. So, increase in CO2 concentration by 17.5% leads to growth of [H+] of 3.3 times. The result can not be explained from the point of view of a chemist. I think that the analysis of these data allows to doubt the correctness of the theory that explains the ocean acidity only by the presence of CO2.

Daniel Bailey at 01:31 AM on 23 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

Oceanic oscillations by definition cannot sustain a long term trend.

You need to up your game to compete in this forum.

Tom13 at 01:24 AM on 23 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

Figure 1 is the first graph in this article - between paragraph 2 and pargraph 3

Tom13 at 00:34 AM on 23 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

[PS] If Tom13 is trying to indicate that climate is not following natural forcings or that models fail to reproduce past variations,

The graph in figure 1 asserts the warming attributable to natural forcings since circa 1860 has been flat. That assertion would seem highly unlikely. As previously noted, the blue line representing the natural forcings, do not include then AMo/PDO cycles, nor the El nino spikes, nor the increase in TSI (with the links previously attached), which has shown a general long term upward trend (albiet with a small down turn since the mid 1950's while still maintaining the general upward trend).

Those well known factors are not incorporated in the blue line representing the natural forcings.

Moderator Response:

[JH] Please provide the source for Figure 1 and a link to it.

michael sweet at 22:02 PM on 22 November 2017

CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration

Patrickjl,

What Eclectic said x2.

Chiefio restates questions as problems when the answers are well knows. For example, he questions wether we know the ratio of C12/13 at midocean ridges. Seems like a good question since the mid-ocean ridges are underwater. Except Iceland is a midocean ridge with many active volcanoes so this ratio has been measured. Undoubtedly scientists have also measured this ratio for other mid-ocean ridges.

This is not an issue of scientists not knowing the answers but Chiefio has made no effort to find the answers to the questions he asks. There is probably a lot of Chiefio ignoring the answers when they are provided to him.

It is easy to make any problem look hard if you ignore the answers scientists have found.

TokyoTom at 13:41 PM on 22 November 2017

The Libertarian Climate Conundrum

Grypo/moderators, I thank you for the link to my blog at the bottom of your post, but note that the link has changed as I migrated hosts. The current link to the referenced post is: http://tokyotom.freecapitalists.org/2010/02/10/productive-libertarian-approach-climate-energy-environmental-issues/

Eclectic at 13:37 PM on 22 November 2017

CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration

Patrickjl @3 , your chiefio.wordpress reference = a waste of time.

It is a 2009 article, containing one or two thinly specious arguments [e.g. that recent forest clearing favoring C4-metabolism grasses which deal with carbon-13 slightly differently from C3 plants . . . thus contaminating/invalidating the standard C12/C13 ratio conclusions].

Worse, the arguments are not quantified (i.e. are little more than handwaving).

Worse still, they are accompanied by the Usual Suspects -— a grabbag of run-of-the-mill anti-science nonsense arguments, all long-debunked but living a zombie-like undead existence on Denialist websites.

[ The author himself claims to be a frequent contributing author at WUWT. My apologies, if that is taken as an Ad Hominem ! ;-) ]

All in all, chiefio-wordpress is a waste of readers' time.

Sorry for the harsh review, Patrick. "Chiefio" was a waste of your time, too.

wili at 12:35 PM on 22 November 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46

Thanks, nigel. As Alley points out, we don't worry about these things because they are the most probable outcomes, but because they are not at all impossible, and would pose very great risks...low odds, perhaps, but very high stakes. We don't put our seatbelts on because we think it highly likely that we will get in a crash on that particular ride. But the possibly lethal consequences of not putting it on if that one and a ten-thousand chance happened to be on that ride make it a logical choice.

patrickjl at 12:09 PM on 22 November 2017

CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration

I find this one bit hard. While I can accept what is written above, I come unstuck when comparing it all with what is written at: https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/the-trouble-with-c12-c13-ratios/

Is there any simple answer or is the complexity muddying the waters?

John Hartz at 11:37 AM on 22 November 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46

Recommended supplemental reading:

Antarctic glacier's rough belly exposed by Jonathan Amos, BBC News, Nov 20, 2017

nigelj at 06:39 AM on 22 November 2017

Video: Climate, Sea Level, and Superstorms

These superstorms in the past appear many orders of magnitude greater than even worst case scenario of increasing hurricane intensity (which is bad enough). Yet these superstorms appear to have occured in period of CO2 concentrations similar to where we are heading.

So assuming evidence for superstorms is convincing, is the current scientific modelling too conservative? Or has it missed some unusual weather / climate phenomenon? Could something cause radical regional ocean warming like a hot spot, at just right time of year to cause incredibly intense storms in some locations? Maybe change in ocean currents. Because what else could it possibly be?

nigelj at 06:12 AM on 22 November 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46

Just on this rapid sea level rise issue. We know that in distant past coming out of the last ice age, sea level rise has been very rapid in bursts of several metres over decades, so such things are not unprecedented. For example:

www.scientificamerican.com/article/oceans-can-rise-in-sudden-bursts/

The situation was different then, but its a thing that should make us think hard. It appears Antractic could follow similar pattern of fairly rapid melt leading to a couple of metres on decadal time scales as opposed to several centuries. It is unlikely to be as rapid as in the past, but could still be rapid enough to be a deadly serious concern.

The important thing is to attach probability to this especially in public discussions and media. The probablity would be reasonably low, but the issue is still serious because of the implications, and risk level even with low probability.

What has to be avoided is crazy media releases "sea level set to rise three metres over decades" without in depth qualification and probablities. Such scaremongering will not help credibility of climate community. Yet at the same time possibility of rapid rise needs to be made public, but carefully described in cool headed way.

nigelj at 05:35 AM on 22 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

The 40% of Americans in denial of evolution are probably the same group sceptical of climate science, and vaccines, and they are probably the same people who believe the moon landings were fake, and 911 was an inside job. Foolishness and ignorance loves company.

Just out of interest I googled my own speculation, to try to find some evidential support, and first hit was interesting article on conspiracy theories by Scientific American as below "Why people believe in conspiracy theories":

www.scientificamerican.com/article/moon-landing-faked-why-people-believe-conspiracy-theories/

Some tasty little samples:

"A popular example of such higher-order beliefs is a severe “distrust of authority.” The authors go on to suggest that conspiracism is therefore not just about belief in an individual theory, but rather an ideological lens through which we view the world."

"Interestingly, belief in conspiracy theories has recently been linked to the rejection of science. In a paper published in Psychological Science, Stephen Lewandowsky and colleagues investigated the relation between acceptance of science and conspiricist thinking patterns. While the authors' survey was not representative of the general population, results suggest that (controlling for other important factors) belief in multiple conspiracy theories significantly predicted the rejection of important scientific conclusions, such as climate science or the fact that smoking causes lung cancer. Yet, rejection of scientific principles is not the only possible consequence of widespread belief in conspiracy theories. Another recent study indicates that receiving positive information about or even being merely exposed to conspiracy theories can lead people to become disengaged from important political and societal topics."

Moderator Response:

[PS] Just a little note to commentators to say "Eagleflight" was yet another manifestation of banned serial sockpuppet cosmowarrior et al. Removed and thread cleaned of all references. Sorry to those who wasted time replying this idiot. You were wasting your time.

wili at 05:00 AM on 22 November 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46

And more recently (as in today):

grist.org/article/antarctica-doomsday-glaciers-could-flood-coastal-cities/
Doomsday on Ice

Rapid collapse of Antarctic glaciers could flood coastal cities by the end of this century.

By Eric Holthaus on Nov 21, 2017

"The only place in the world where you can see ice-cliff instability in action today is at Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland, one of the fastest-collapsing glaciers in the world. DeConto says that to construct their model, they took the collapse rate of Jakobshavn, cut it in half to be extra conservative, then applied it to Thwaites and Pine Island."

wili at 04:47 AM on 22 November 2017

Video: Climate, Sea Level, and Superstorms

I thought a recent study determined that a storm the size of Sandy could have moved that boulder to where it is, given the special topograph of the location mentioned in the film. Is it deceptive a bit to still use it as a backdrop? Or should we say, hey, we're already at that point, and it's gonna get worse from here!"?

william5331 at 04:46 AM on 22 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

What Americans do or don't believe is hardly a measure of anything but gross ignorance. After all, survey after survey shows that 40% of them think that the world was created around 6000 years ago and deny the theory of evolution.

wili at 04:45 AM on 22 November 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46

Richard Alley, the glaciologist who the MIT atmospheric physicist Kerry Emanuel described as the world’s foremost expert on the relationship of ice and climate, discussing recent ice sheet model results in 2016. At Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica,

“once you get off of the stabilizing sill, whenever that is in West Antarctica, the time scale of getting rid of the West Antarctic [3.3m GMSLR, 4m in the Northern Hemisphere], it’s not centuries, it’s multi-decadal. This is not maybe the best case, it’s not the worst case.”

At 31:40 in this presentation www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7MNA44RMNA

wili at 04:42 AM on 22 November 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46

From the NY Times : “When I asked Richard Alley, almost certainly the most respected glaciologist in the United States, whether he would be surprised to see Thwaites collapse in his lifetime, he drew a breath. Alley is 58. ‘‘Up until very recently, I would have said, ‘Yes, I’d be surprised,’ ’’ he told me. ‘‘Right now, I’m not sure..."

www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/magazine/the-secrets-in-greenlands-ice-sheets.html?_r=0

wili at 04:39 AM on 22 November 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46

In an interview, Richard Alley said that he could no longer rule out the possibility that Thwaites would disintigrate within his life time. He's 60. How much srl would that generate?

MA Rodger at 18:31 PM on 21 November 2017

What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?

michael sweet @23,

Concerning 'insignificance' of the issue raised by the commenter 'aleks', there is a polution issue identified with SO2 which extends to very local OA in regions where heavy shipping vent tanks used to scrub SO2 from their exhaust fumes. The rest of his OA blather is more vacuous than fumes.

DrivingBy at 13:01 PM on 21 November 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46

" It could take decades or centuries, but..."

No, we will not have ten feet of SLR in "decades" under any likely scenario. In an unknown number of centuries, yes.30 years from now, no way. Anthrogenic SLR is quite real, but the quoted formulation is easily seen as misdirection.

This sort of thing does not help our credibility. Sure, articles written by scientists don't get read because average people want drama and excitement, not probabilities and statistics and certainly not numbers, unless it's numbers for Lotto. But when journalists cover science, the result is usually 90% journalism, 9% random and 1% science, except the that1% will be half wrong.

nigelj at 10:59 AM on 21 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

Tom @3

1) The line representing the natural variations shows no increase for the 2015/2016 el nino,

It doesn't show 2015 el nino spike, and any other el nino. This is probably because El nino / la nina is a repeating very short term cycle, that doesnt show a long term trend upwards or downwards. Its flat in other words on time scales more than a decade.

"2) The line representing the natural variations shows no warming for the warming side of the pdo/amo cycle which was generally credited from the early 1980's through the late 1990's,"

It doesnt show pdo warming, or cooling side either, because its a roughly 20 year cycle upwards and downwards so not driving longer term trends. Its also not big causal factor in warming, its affects are complicated, and trend was peaking in 1980 and falling gradually after 1980. See article below.

www.skepticalscience.com/Pacific-Decadal-Oscillation.htm

"3) the line representing the natural variations shows no effect for the emergence from the little ice age,"

Thats because theres no such effect. An emergence is just a vague word, not something quantified.

"4) The line representing the natural variations shows no effect for the long term general increase in solar radiance for the period from 1850 through 2015."

Theres no long term general increase. There was increase in solar irradiance from approx 1920 - 1980 which is reflected in the slight positive slopes in the global warming "index" graph in article over those periods. I'm going from data on solar irradiance here from 'sorce', the official people who compile this as below:

lasp.colorado.edu/home/sorce/files/2011/09/TIM_TSI_Reconstruction-1.png

It's also important to recall effect of solar irradiance changes is much less in watts / m2 than CO2.

"My citation to the two solar radiance links, both of which show a general long term increase in solar radiance are directly on point"

Your citation is someones weather blog, that is unclear on original source on data, and shows two contradictory graphs. The actual real data is as follows from 'Sorce' as I stated above.

Moderator Response:

[PS] If Tom13 is trying to indicate that climate is not following natural forcings or that models fail to reproduce past variations, then it would helpful if he and commentators would reference 5.3.5.3 of the IPCC WG1 report (or the referenced papers). The relevant graphic is here showing temperature reconstructions, simulations from models and natural forcings.

ubrew12 at 10:51 AM on 21 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

Tom13@3 said: "The line representing the natural variations... [doesn't match the natural drivers that I think it should match]" Tom, the line is from a physical model of the atmosphere and its climate drivers. If you think you have a superior understanding, the obvious request is that you build your own model, make predictions with it from 1850 on, and see if it does a superior job. Otherwise, its like someone building the Golden Gate Bridge, and you saying "I could have done better." Well, talk is cheap...

You're speaking on behalf of an industry that makes a trillion dollars a year in pure profit. Don't you think they can afford a model? Case in point: you think models from 1850-on should reflect some 'rebound' from the Little Ice Age. But the LIA ended around 1700. Why should there be 'rebound' and how much 'rebound' should there be? And that's why you need a model: so you can put that in and prove it matters. People who actually build models don't include effects, like the LIA, that they don't think applies. That's their perogative. You can insist on deaf ears that they do it anyway. But if you can't lean on your incredibly wealthy fossil friends to build a competing model, you'll be ignored. The scientists are not including the LIA to be nasty to you. They genuinely don't think it matters. If you do, prove it.

scaddenp at 10:16 AM on 21 November 2017

Climate Bet for Charity, 2016 Update

I wonder if "Kiwi thinker" has revised his opinions on climate change. Good to see the image still being updated.

Sunspot at 10:07 AM on 21 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

I was going to point out to Tom13 that his statement that solar irradiance has increased from 1850 to 2015 is totally false. Any solar astronomer knows that the sun has been slightly cooler than normal for decades, and this is forecast to continue for at least a few more decades. It's called a Maunder Minimum.

Tom13 at 09:41 AM on 21 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

A few observations
1) The line representing the natural variations shows no increase for the 2015/2016 el nino,
2) The line representing the natural variations shows no warming for the warming side of the pdo/amo cycle which was generally credited from the early 1980's through the late 1990's,
3) the line representing the natural variations shows no effect for the emergence from the little ice age,
4) The line representing the natural variations shows no effect for the long term general increase in solar radiance for the period from 1850 through 2015.

That is just the first four items in the study that jump out which do not reconcile with known natural events..

weather.plus/total-solar-irradiance-tsi.php

lasp.colorado.edu/home/sorce/data/tsi-data/

www.iceagenow.info/historical-total-solar-irradiance/

Moderator Response:

[DB] Off-topic snipped.

michael sweet at 09:03 AM on 21 November 2017

What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?

Aleks:

On doing background reading on the topic of CO2 and ocean acidification I found this reference. It appears to be classroom material written by someone who does research in this area.

It states:

"At typical surface seawater pH of 8.2, the speciation between [CO2], [HCO3−], and [CO3 2−] is 0.5%, 89%, and 10.5%,"

Looking back at your calculation at 9, you claim that 34 mmol of CO2 would yield 0.12 mmol of H+ ions. At 19 you state that the .12 mmol is 30 times too high.

The actual value of the mmol of H+ ions formed from 34 mmol of CO2 is about 37 mmol. The calculations you base your argument on are off by approximately a factor of 9,000 or four orders of magnitude.

It appears that you used the properties of distilled water for your calculation and not the properties of the ocean. Since we are discussing Ocean Acidification, you must use a pH of 8.2 in your calculation.

You have botched the calculation. When done correctly it is clear that CO2 is the primary contributor. We do not even have to consider that NO2 and SO2 are removed by the environment. You would not receive a passing grade in my AP Chemistry class for this work.

When I tried to Google the contribution of NO2 and SO2 to ocean acidification I was unable to find any information, even in frequently asked questions. The contribution of these ions must be insignificant or I would have found it. You have provided no links to support your wild claims.

Scientists have shown that your agument is based on flawed calculations and has no merit.

MA Rodger at 07:53 AM on 21 November 2017

What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?

The statement @19 that "we know about increase of CO2 in atmosphere after industrial revolution, and we know that emission of SO2 and NO2 also increased significantly at the same time," deserves critical assessment.

We do indeed know that anthropogenic CO2 emissions (which are not balanced by absorption) are 100x bigger than natural ones. Increases in SO2 and NO2 are less widely known.

However as the graph below shows, we can say for SO2 that annual anthropogenic SO2 emissions peaked at some 70Mt(S). These are not 100x the natural emissions which are estimated by Fischer (2008) to be 100Mt(S). Thus peak man-made SO2 emissions did not even exceed the natural emissions.

The values for NO2 have not appeared so easily butfor NO & NO2 we can say that "Globally, quantities of nitrogen oxides produced naturally (by bacterial and volcanic action and lightning) far outweigh anthropogenic (man-made) emissions."

nigelj at 07:07 AM on 21 November 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46

Kiwiano, regarding changes in ice sheet volumes, and implications for specific regional sea level rise, and including gravity effects, I just read this article below recently.

"NASA just launched an online tool to show you which coastal cities will be swallowed when global warming ramps up"

The tool is linked from this article, very sophisticated tool and graphics, rather geeky but may be of interest to people.

bgr.com/2017/11/16/global-warming-nasa-world-map-tool-sea-level-rise/

Kiwiiano at 06:57 AM on 21 November 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46

Re ”Fails to make timescale clear”....to be fair the timescale is anything but clear, with so many intangibles to consider. In particular the rate of the polar ice cap melts in relation to each other. It mildly spooked me when it was observed that, say, Oslo has more to fear from the Antarctic because currently Greenland’s gravitational mass is drawing water toward it, so if/when it melts nearby regions like Oslo will have a sea level fall. This suggests the levels may fall initially but rise as more water returns to the oceans. Just when and what the different effects will be globally are blind guesses.

nigelj at 06:49 AM on 21 November 2017

Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change

Yes I think bad weather is clearly making people take notice.There is much we can do individually about climate problem, without having to be forced, but humans are followers. It also needs strong political and business leadership, plus carbon fee and dividend scheme.

John Hartz at 06:34 AM on 21 November 2017

It hasn't warmed since 1998

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