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John Hartz at 12:34 PM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Tom13: The following articles address the surrent scientific thinking about various components of the the hurricane-climate change connection. You would do well to read them with an open mind.
Harvey Shows How Planetary Winds Are Shifting by Eric Roston, Bloomberg News, Aug 30, 2017
Does Harvey Represent a New Normal for Hurricanes? by Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, Aug 29, 2017
Katrina. Sandy. Harvey. The debate over climate and hurricanes is getting louder and louder by Chris Mooney, Energy & Environment, Washington Post, Aug 30, 2917
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BilB at 12:28 PM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #35
BobL
I'm not sure which part of the article that you read. The particular comment is under the heading "The signature of seafloor methane" where the author is speculating that the rate of increase of methane in the stratosphere "looks like" being the product of plumes delivering sea floor methane very directly to high altitudes. I believe this to be highly probable and await more direct evidence. I believe this just as I have projected for many years that Atlantic Conveyor heat would eventually penetrate deep into the Arctic to soften sea floor clathrates and release large amounts of methane to the atmosphere, which is looking more probable every year.
It seems we will have to agree to disagree on my postulation on air density.
Of course these things are known and occur routinely in nature, just as does CO2 capture and re-emission of infra red radiation, both to a very marginal degree.
My point is that one very marginal influence, CO2, provides the small degree of change over the entire Earth surface to provide a marginal amount of additional material, H2O, to the entire near surface atmosphere to produce a profound change via a very merginal density difference to the climate impact on humans. It is about perception and identifying the pivotal driver of each process of change. CO2 is heating the oceans ever so slightly, moist air density difference is accelerating atmospheric circulation, I believe, and that is the Global Warming/Climate Change couplet that periodically reshapes our planet.
If you want to demolish my argument demonstrate quantitatively that the density difference of humid air provides zero "lift" to an air mass relative to a dry air mass at the same temperature.
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Tom13 at 12:08 PM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-tropical-cyclone-activity
www.nap.edu/resource/21852/Attribution-Extreme-Weather-Brief-Final.pdf
The NAS report, however, assigns “lower confidence” to making attributions about how climate change may be affecting hurricanes.
"It is awfully difficult to see climate change in historical data so far because hurricanes are fairly rare," Kerry Emmanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at MIT in Boston, told AFP.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:18 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Tom13 @ comment 13:
You make a serious logical error when you equate "It is premature to conclude" with "they admit there is no data to support any connection".
If you are making this error subconciously, sit back and think about how much evidence it takes to draw a conclusion on a subject you know well, and then think about how far that is from the time when you knew nothing about that subject.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:12 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #35
BillB:
There is nothing in your link to suggest that any "plumes" of methane have formed through a process of methane being lighter than other gases. The mechanisms of what meteorologists call "lift" are well understood, and local lift (convection) is explained entirely by standard meteorology. Any local updraft will carry the methane along with it.
The role of water vapor enhancing convection is also well understood, through the release of latent heat as water vapour condenses in the rising/cooling air.
Your discussion shows a tremendous lack of knowledge of standard meteorology. You are trying to explain things that are already well-explained, and your explanations do not make sense.
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Wol at 10:32 AM on 5 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
Such a debate would be pointless, as many above have indicated.
As a non-scientist (let alone a non-scientist in any related field) I can see that climate, and in particular climate change, is possibly the most complicated area of scientific research.
Given that the objective of any "debate" would be to show Joe Public the truth - whicever way it went - any real debate would involve such esoteric and complex issues that no-one except those involved in the research could possibly understand them. And abstracting them is being done now, daily, so those who choose to ignore the conclusions will do that regardless.
It's just a "doubt" tactic.
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Eclectic at 10:14 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Tom13 @9, thank you for the "txhur" link to a history [published 2009] of Texas hurricanes.
Interesting reading, of historical woes, and hurricane frequency. As others have pointed out, the "noisy" background makes it difficult to detect the initially small but now growing influence there of AGW/climate-change.
Particularly of note (and also noteworthy in view of the author's effort of 3 years in total preparation) was the brief paragraph titled "Long term trends/hurricane cycles". From which I quote: "We are currently [2009] in a hurricane-rich period which began in 2003. This is expected to last until around 2014, plus or minus a few years."
Not even a hint of a mention of Global Warming, or its likely effects. Possibly that derives from local censorship pressures in Texas — or from some bias on the part of the author (who is not representative of the NOAA). But a remarkable omission, even for 2009.
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nigelj at 10:07 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Regarding flooding, and buildings codes, and land zoning. In the past I was involved in building design consultancy work in New Zealand. All our building codes are based around 1:100 year floods etc and set certain minimum floor levels and ground clearances and storm water disposal etc. I certainly know that several other oecd countries are the same, but not sure if all are.
Like OPOF suggests climate change now makes all this complicated and codes may have to change. It's also a moving target with several possible sea level rise scenarios (none of them good) so hard to decide what to do.
I appreciate that houston floods and is built on a flat sort of bayou. I suppose a lot of this is old past history. But regardless, local government officers legally owe a duty of care like anyone. If they continue to allow building on low land they could be in trouble legally given climate change impacts.
Local government could possibly be in trouble legally if they dont mandate sufficient ground clearance in building codes to deal with climate change.
Our councils are formally warning locals in writing about predicted rates of sea level rise, just as an information thing, and this is useful. Councils are also debating whether to forbid building on very low lying areas, and issues around building floor heights in the code but no decision has been made as yet.
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BilB at 09:51 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #35
Bob Loblaw
This is the source site http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/high-methane-levels-over-the-arctic-ocean-on-january-14-2014.html
...but the suggestion was made regarding methane growth in the tropics which may be exacerbated by methane coming more directly from the Arctic. I'm still looking for the reference.Some say Sam Caranae are alarmist, but I prefer to see Arctic News as attempting to examine evidence in real time rather than "studied and published" time with the aim of directing exhaustive study where it will better quantify dangerous trends. And here is the particular item
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/methane-erupting-from-arctic-ocean-seafloor.html
...again requiring scientific validation.
Yes, air movement over the oceans generally promotes mixing of water vapour into the broader atmosphere reasonably quickly, but air movements are not always rapid and they are generally the product of a low air pressure system which is itself the product of rising air for which the question becomes what is driving that process.
For another way of looking at this is to see if thermal energy in dry air alone can create the same degree of atmospheric change as humid air can. From what I can see desert wind speeds can reach 180 kph but nothing like those possible in hurricanes, and desert air convection can form tornadoes and dust storms, but not cyclonic structures.
Clearly H2O vapour makes a huge difference to the intensity of atmospheric air movements, so the question I am posing is, is it the mixed humid air density difference that makes the difference, or is it purely warm air convection, and/or the energy that the moisture carries and transfers to the air once condensation occurs (at altitude) that makes low pressure systems so intense. From what I am reading purely thermal lows have weak circulation.
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed links. Please learn how to do this yourself with the Link button in the comment editor.
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nigelj at 09:40 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Tom13 @11
The article I linked to had research that hurricane 'intensity' has already become more intense, but I accept it's not definitive research and opinions do differ. Part of the problem is not enough accurate records going back as your NOAA study notes.
But the article I posted goes on to note the IPCC has high confidence hurricane intensity will increase in the future. The reasons are obvious scientifically given warming oceans etc.
The 2014 IPCC report also noted high confidence that heavy rainfall events have already increased and will increase further. (This was the main issue with Hurricane Harvey so its relevant).
IPCC synthesis report on extreme weather etc below:
www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf
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ubrew12 at 08:12 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Also I point out that when somebody builds in a bayou and is thus required Federal flood insurance, they are asking me, and other Americans, to subsidize their flood risk. That's absolutely not OK, and if I were a self-professed 'libertarian' that would go double. My point is climate change is now impacting us in the pocketbook. We're being asked to subsidize risk for people who should know better (as Hurricane Irma approaches Florida this is heavy on my mind).
This is no longer about saving the Polar bears. The climate deniers are hitting us where we live.
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ubrew12 at 08:03 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
OnePlanetOnlyForever@12 said: "the design code values are typically based on the weather history of the region, particularly the most recent 30 year history." That seems sufficient. My earlier point is municipalities need to start planning for the updated standards. The argument that failure to do so is not a legally-prosecutable offense seems very weak because such planning is 'adaptation', and not 'mitigation'. Adaptation doesn't argue that humans are causing climate change. It's simply accepting that, whatever the cause, its happening. Houstonians may have built in a bayou, but they aren't crazy. They made an estimation that they'd be OK in the short term, and Harvey now encourages them to revisit that estimation. In doing so the climate community should give them new targets to aim for. If the fossil-fueled deniers want to do the same, they can do so (and back it up with evidence). But Houston would be legally culpable, I think, if it didn't peg its planning to somebodies estimation of what a 100-year event now looks like.
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Tom13 at 07:53 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
NigelJ - This statement from the NOAA sums up the scientific thought on GW and tropical storms and hurricanes. See NOAA geophysical fluid dynamics lab (8/30/2017).
It is premature to conclude that human activities–and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming–have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity. That said, human activities may have already caused changes that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of the changes or observational limitations, or are not yet confidently modeled (e.g., aerosol effects on regional climate).
In other words, they admint there is no data to support any connection between Global warming and hurricane activity but they have reached the conclusion that global does in fact increase hurricane activity not withstanding the lack of data.
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nigelj at 07:51 AM on 5 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
NorrisM, just coming back to your point about climate sensitivity estimates varying from 1.5 - 4.5 degrees, as stated in the last IPCC report. You believed theres no agreement or consensus on climate sensitivity. In fact its not that simple.
There are hundreds of climate sensitivity papers and most predict medium to high sensitivity so the consensus is actually tilted towards medium to high sensitivity. The majority of research is centred around 3 degrees. A small number predict low sensitivity down near 1.5 degrees, but these studies have had a lot of criticism. Some were based on the pause, which was not as deep as first thought when the studies were done, and the pause is over now anyway. It was always a dubious thing to base a conclusion on one single time period, when we knew it could have been an anomaly, and was still within the boundaries of what models expected. All models expect slow periods of about 10 years, the pause was a bit longer but not particularly deep, and still within the boundaries of the models.
But the IPCC being conservative felt duty bound to point out there is not 100% agreement on climate sensitivity and estimates do vary. This does not mean there was total disagreement or a 50 / 50 split, as I have pointed out!
The vast majority of climate science opinion is towards medium to high sensitivity and only a small number of papers claiming low sensitivity and they are unconvincing papers. So it seems artificial to have a debate with equal numbers of sceptics and warmists on the red and blue teams, as if theres a huge difference of opinion when there isnt.
But if the red blue team confined things to debating areas of some level of uncertantly like climate sensitivity, that would at least make some small degree of sense. Theres no genuine disagreement over things like the MWP except from a couple of total cranks.
I don't want to speculate too much on where a red blue team debate would take climate senstivity, but given the whole red blue process is flawed any result would be suspect. It could also end up with a result that hugely embarasses Scott Pruit, despite his attempts to skew things in favour of the sceptics.
But you still have a huge problem. The whole red blue thing is tainted with bias and people you have suggested to lead things are clearly biased. What public credibility do you think the process would have? Not much I would say.
How do you resolve issues of bias? How do you convince the public the process would be robust and thorough when the IPCC has hundreds of people working on the issues?
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Bob Loblaw at 07:43 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #35
Yes, BillB, a fart in an elevator takes a bit of time to spread around an elevator. Try the same experiment outside. Add a bit of wind. We're talking minutes, not hours, for the gases to mix. The atmosphere is a turbulent place. Horizontal pressure and density differences are rapidly equalized over short distances (m to km - feet to miles, if you prefer).
Show me a reference for your Arctic plumes of methane claim. I doubt it shows what you think it shows.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:42 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Regarding 1:100 year event design. As a Professional Engineer in Civil/Structural I am very familiar with the issue.
The code that is in effect at the time a drainage system (or building roof) is designed includes a specific value for the 1:100 year rain event as the 'code minimum design requirement'. The value of the 1:100 year design basis may be changed in future updates of the design code but already existing items are typically not required to be modified to meet a 'new code requirement' (unless there is a serious risk of failure that would result in harm to people).
And the design code values are typically based on the weather history of the region, particularly the most recent 30 year history.
The weakness of that method is that with rapid climate change what happened in the past 30 years is no longer very relevant for design into the future.
As a result, code design values 'should' be updated based on a conservative evaluation of the rate of climate change and a conservative evaluation of how much more severe any design condition could become because of that rapid climate change. And all existing drainage/storage features should be required to be modified/corrected to survive possible events far beyond 100 years into the future (or we just 'save money' making a bigger problem that others will suffer from sooner in the future).
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Tom13 at 07:31 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Nigelj -From the 9th paragraph of the Atlantic article
Thomas Knutson, a research meteorologist at the NOAA fluid-dynamics laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, told me that a “trade-off” signal still isn’t strong enough to see in the hurricane data. “We haven’t really detected clear changes in the data in the same way we can detect changes in global mean temperature,” he says. “I just think [30 years] is a rather short record to be inferring [human-caused climate] effects, because you can also have natural modes of variability over a period of several decades.”
The Atlantic article starts off with the premise that GW has caused more intense and less frequent hurricanes - yet the 9th paragraph admits that they have no scientific basis to make such a claim.
The NOAA data from the mid 1800's to present, shows no discernable difference (other than normal cyclical trends).
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:20 AM on 5 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
NorrisM,
In the future, instead of the misleading and demeaning term 'Warmist' please use the description: 'People who are more fully aware of the existing observations and experience related to climate science and the currently developed and constantly improving best explanation for all of that information' (or a term that cannot be misunderstood to mean something other than that description).
BTW, there are many posts in SkS explaining in detail why Denier is an appropriate term to apply to people who try not to have to accept the developed best explanation that human burning of fossil fuels is a significant problem that must be curtailed far quicker than the socio-economic systems 'as they are' could be expected to stop making bigger problems for future generations. I like to use Delayer/Denier because the people trying to discredit/dismiss/distort/deny or raise unjustified doubts about the understanding of climate science do so to Delay being stopped from getting away with obtaining more undeserved personal benefit from the undeniably damaging (particularly to future generations) and undeniably unsustainable pursuit of benefit from the burning of fossil fuels.
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scaddenp at 07:04 AM on 5 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
NorrisM - maybe but your comments on MWP and LIA appear indictative of extent to which you have uncritically taken on disinformation without examining what the science actually says. If you what you assume to be true was actually true, then your comments on red/blue team might make some sense but instead you are merely demonstrating the problems with disinformers and bias that would doom such an exercise.
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BilB at 07:00 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #35
Thanks for your feedback Swayseeker. I've put this argument up several times hoping for some quantitative comment. When I did the calculation it was difficult for me to get the parts of the calculation in the same form and I came up with a a different answer. I'll go over it again to see where I went wrong.
I still maintain that the premise that the density difference of moist air is the primary driver of climate change holds up, though the energy content of the moisture turbo charges air flows once condensation conditions are reached.
Evidence regarding clouds is based on the experience of aircraft descending to and through clouds. Air smooth until once in the cloud where turbulence is significant then into smooth air below. The energy flows within clouds have to be really interesting.
Bob Loblaw
Well mixed gasses? granted. But gasses do not mix instantaneously, it takes time and density gradients must be present near a low density gas emitting sources. Evidence? A fart (lower density methane) does not reach every one in a crowd immediately once emitted, it takes time, even in a crowded elevator. In fact methane releases in the Arctic appear to be forming plumes which carry the gas to altitude rather than mixing uniformally at the surface (still subject to scientific validation).
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nigelj at 06:51 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Tom @13
"Attached is a link to a pdf detailing Texas huricanes, There has been virtually no discernable change in the number of tropical storms and huricanes since the 1800's, which makes it difficult to attribute Harvey to anything other than natural causes."
Yes numbers of hurricanes haven't changed, and may not change, but I think you miss the point. Climate change is expected to make hurricanes more intense, because of higher ocean temperatures and more atmospheric water vapour etc. There is research evidence this has already happened.
www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/hurricanes-harvey-climate-change/538362/
The following is commentary on hurrcane harvey from Michael Mann where he states climate change certainly made it worse and gives reasons:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/28/climate-change-hurricane-harvey-more-deadly
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BaerbelW at 03:54 AM on 5 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
NorrisM @46
The AAAS published a very good summary about What We Know which has been available for the American public (and obviously many others around the world!) for quite a while. A Red Team / Blue Team exercise may be helpful to find the best solutions to a given problem but it's not at all suited to decide scientific questions. That is done - as many others have already pointed out - via the peer-reviewed and published literature.
If you haven't already, watch the video linked to in michael sweet's comment @31 - John Oliver really drives home the point, why a debate like this red team / blue team exercise is one we shouldn't have (and don't really need).
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Tom13 at 03:44 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Michael #8
A) the article you cited from Slate deals with zoning, not lax building codes.
B) Houston has been flooding for decades, (see the 1935 flood)
C) Houston is build on a bayou, the whole city is practically one big Bayou. It is flat as a pancake, virtually no place for the water to run off. As with any major city, there is lots of concrete. Those are the primary reasons for the flooding.
D) www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/txhur.pdf Attached is a link to a pdf detailing Texas huricanes, There has been virtually no discernable change in the number of tropical storms and huricanes since the 1800's, which makes it difficult to attribute Harvey to anything other than natural causes.
See also www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html
Vecchi and Knutson 2008 acknowledge that the recorded increase is due to lack of the ability to detect storms prior to the mid 1960's.
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Bob Loblaw at 03:43 AM on 5 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
NorrisM:
I just read through the Koonin document you linked to. It is full of vague, incorrect, and rhetorical contrivances. They may appear "reasonable" to someone that does not know the science, but it is not a good summary of the science.
Koonin's statement:
"My training as a computational physicist - together with a 40-year career of scientific research, advising and management in academia, government and the private sector - has afforded me an extended, up-close perspective on climate science.
...is exactly the sort of false claim of expertise that I reject in comments 34 and 44.
How the hiatus affects our understanding of climate is grossly overblown by the denial side of this discussion. Yes, it provides an interesting observation to help us understand short-term variability, but it has not lasted and the long-term trend continues (as evidenced by the pasts few years). That the IPCC reflected on it is direct evidence against the idea that the science ignores these things.
A Red Team/Blue Team exercise, where the rules are made by a biased group, and the evaluation will be led by a biased group, will have a zero chance at uncovering any "truth". You've said you have a legal background. How would you feel arguing a case in court when the other lawyer and the judge were old school mates, with no legal training, and they got to make up the rules under which the case was to be tried?
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NorrisM at 02:39 AM on 5 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
scaddenp @ 39
Thanks. My purpose was not to get into a discussion of MWP but rather to discuss what might be part of an exchange of information as part of a Red Team Blue Team process. But talk about a "Rabbit hole". That blog seems to have a higher fever pitch than any other!
Bob Loblaw @ 44
Yes I have read Andy Lacis' comments and in fact reread them. I read them and they made a lot of sense. Then somehow I was directed to a summary by Koonin of his WSJ article this spring. I read it and it made a lot of sense. At least take a look at it here. http://cusp.nyu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Climate-article-annotated1.pdf
What strikes me is that reading these two discussions tells me that for someone with a non-scientific background, it is a hopeless case to "research" this area and come up with a view.
It is for that very reason that I would dearly love to hear the experts directly contradict each other in some form of "give and take" so you are not just listening to one side and then the other. You deal with each statement as it is made.
I understand why you would not want Koonin as the sole chair of such an exchange. He himself has suggested Co-Chairs and perhaps that is the way to go. Koonin on one side and a representative of the "warmists" (for lack of a better term) on the other side. I am not using the term "scientific consensus side" or similar term because we are not talking about whether the current warming is primarily caused by man where there is (largely) a consensus but disagreements on what the effects on temperature will be.
But I have to admit there were two things that made me at least question the warmist position. They were : 1. IPCC's acknowledgment of a "hiatus" in their 2013 Assessment; and 2. Reading the transcript of the APS investigation that was chaired by Koonin. I have elsewhere made the point that the IPCC climatologists had their chance to strongly state their case and they seemed to have admitted that their models were not matching observations. By the way, I did notice the first time I read that transcript that Koonin's expression of "surprise" about the uncertainty in the models surprised me in that he had to have formed the group who wrote up the Framework Document. So the "surprise" had to be a little feigned. But it does not change the response by the IPCC climatologists.
A Red Team Blue Team would be the chance for Warmists to make their case to the American public.
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michael sweet at 02:22 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Here is a good article from Slate that discusses Houston's code.
Houston is well known for lax building codes. Approximately 7,000 homes are built in the 100 year flood plane and require Federal flood insurance. This flood was so big that most of the homes flooded would have flooded anyway if they had better codes.
The bigger issue is they have had three big floods in the last five years. SInce that is likely due to AGW they have only more big floods to look forward to.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:43 AM on 5 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
Obvious Correction to my post @43,
"... one occurs, but in ends in the early 1960's (meaning it ends with the 30 year averages ending in the late 1970s 1980s)"
My original phrasing had been 'approximately 1980' and I failed to change it to 1970 when I revised the wording to 'the late ...'
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ubrew12 at 01:13 AM on 5 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Tom13: No, I don't have the legal background for that. It's common among builders, for example, to design buildings to withstand 100 year events (a roof withstanding a 100-year snowfall, for example), so I assume its also used as a metric for urban planners designing drainage systems, etc. I'm pretty sure the building code is a legal requirement. I would be surprised if urban planners aren't held to a similar standard.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:49 PM on 4 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #35
BillB:
Please read about the law of partial pressures, and how well-mixed gases do not behave as independent fluids. Water vapour is just another component of air, affecting the density of air but not behaving independently.
The real reason high humidity is associated with convection is that rising, cooling air will eventually lead to saturation and condensation. The more humid the air, the earlier this will occur. Once condenstation is happening, the release of the latent heat of vaporization reduces the cooling rate. This increases the instability of the air - promoting greater convection.
This is all basic, introductory meteorology.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:39 PM on 4 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
NorrisM @ 38:
Did you read the post I linked to at #34? It outlines many of the items that Koonin just simply gets wrong about well-known climate issues, and how his rhetoric just does not follow logic. It is also worth following the link on that page to Eli Rabbett's blog post:
http://rabett.blogspot.ca/2015/04/beneath-contempt.html
And yes, Judith Curry exhibits symptoms of crankhood in many of her blog posts, congresisonal testimony, etc. Although she has a successful scientific career in some subjects, she has supported crank-level ideas from others as if they had scientific merit.
My statement in #34 is not a definition of crankhood - it is one element that leads in that direction. I repeat (and rephrase): success in one subject area is not a legitimate claim to authority or ability in another. I have spent 40 years studying and working in climatology and related atmospheric sciences, but there is a limit to my knowledge. If I were to try to start to tell particle physicists that everything they know is wrong, I would be descending into crankhood.
What makes Konnin et al cranks in the climate rhealm is not that they disagree with me, but that they disagree with huge amounts of well-founded, widely-accepted basic physics and reason. And yes - if they want to overthrow physics they are going to have to provide evidence and a better explanation. It is not good enough to just throw stones.
And if you are going to try the "they laughed at Einstein" ploy, remember that they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. And read the following "Crackpot Index" web page:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
Koonin is already hugely invested in the denial side of the climate "debate". Having someone like him lead a Red Team/Blue Team exercise would be like having Stalin lead a debate of communism vs. captailism in 1950. Koonin is not a disinterested, independent party.
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Tom13 at 23:34 PM on 4 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Ubrew -
Harvey has become a 1-in-100 year event, or even more frequent, then Houston has a legal obligation to prepare for such, and possibly can be sued if it doesn't.
I would note is municipalities generally have a legal responsibility to prepare for 1-in-100 year events.
No they dont - Can you provide a citation for any court that has upheld that concept
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Philippe Chantreau at 23:33 PM on 4 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
You may be right ubrew, as this kind of loophole exploitation is exactly what one would expect. However, Houston has experienced about 3 events of that kind in 3 years, so it would be easy to argue that after the 2nd one, the entire risk/probability ranking should at least have been reviewed.
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Swayseeker at 22:24 PM on 4 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #35
To answer the comment re density of air and water vapour content: At a temperature of 40 deg C with RH of 30% and P=101.325 kPa, air has a density of about 1.118 kg/cubic metre. If you raise the RH of this air to 90% it has a density of about 1.099 kg/cubic metre. This is the same as air with an RH of 30% and T=45 deg C. By increasing the RH of the air with RH = 30% to one with RH = 90% (all at T=40 deg C) you have about the same effect on density as raising the temperature of the air by 5 deg C ( from 40 to 45 deg C).
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michael sweet at 21:40 PM on 4 September 2017Polar bear numbers are increasing
The author of your citation is Susan Crockford. She is an adjunct professor at the University of VIctoria. Her expertise is in the breeding and history of dogs. She is paid a monthly retainer from the Heartland Institute.
No sign of expertise in polar bears, although she lives closer to their habitat than I do.
The article was submitted on March 2 for comments but no-one has seen fit to comment. The impact factor of the journal is 2.2 which is very low. If you have $400 you can get a pre-print on PeerJ.
She purports to examine the status of polar bears when sea ice minimums are 3-5 mkm2. Current projections are less than 1 mkm2 in a few decades. Populations of long lived animals like polar bears change slowly in response to environmental changes.
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OldStick at 21:21 PM on 4 September 2017Inuit Perspectives on Recent Climate Change
Hi Caitlin, Here in the Netherlands just about no-one seriously questions human influence on climate change. It is really interesting to read your first hand view of the effects in an area which is so isolated and unknown to the rest of the world. One thing though.... you said that there are no roads leading to Nain, access is by boat or airplane. But on google maps street view I see all sorts of cars and streets (I was looking at Sandbank's Road). So what do you all use the cars for?
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ubrew12 at 21:05 PM on 4 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Re: "How Much Is the Future Worth?" by Will Oremus, Slate, Sep 1, 2017. This is a really fascinating article about how to calculate the 'social discount rate' to evaluate present-day investments in, for example, climate change remediation that have future benefits decades away. The author asks "How much should [Houston]... have been willing to spend? [in the 1990s, to harden the city against predictions of a Harvey-scale event]". I'm not an economist but one thing I would note is municipalities generally have a legal responsibility to prepare for 1-in-100 year events. So when the President came on twitter and called Harvey a '1-in-500 year event', he was making a subtle legal argument: that Harvey was an 'Act of God' which couldn't be prepared for, rather than a more common event that should've been prepared for. This is where climate attribution studies can be really important. If, due to climate change, Harvey has become a 1-in-100 year event, or even more frequent, then Houston has a legal obligation to prepare for such, and possibly can be sued if it doesn't.
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RSaar at 20:56 PM on 4 September 2017Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
MA Rodger. In scenario where molecule absorbs infrared, then cools (say by losing some of its kinetic energy) and then re-emits infrared (it is likely to happen when background is cooler than given molecule), it is not going to be same wavelength? If it is so, could it be a wavelength that same type of molecules do not interact (can CO2 molecule emit infrared that it itself unable to absorb?).
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:13 PM on 4 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
NorrisM,
As part of your detailed response to my query @41 please include your explanation for the different results of temperature change over 17 years when the starting year is 1999 vs 1998. The SkS Temperature Trends tool can be helpful for such a pursuit of increased awareness and better understanding.
Reviewing the full history of all available temperature data sets is also helpful (note that to get the most recent 2017 data points to show up in the SkS Temperature Trend tool you need to have 2018 as the end date). Experiment with the moving average value and note how much the shorter duration averages, like 6 months, pop up and down relative to the smoother trend of a 30 year average (this may help you more correctly understand variations and why climate models deal with treds of long duration averages - like 30 year averages). And look for a leveling out of the 30 year average in the data sets - one occurs, but in ends in th early 1960's (meaning it ends with the 30 year averages ending in the late 1980s). Note that satellite data, in addition to being up into the CO2 rather than under it all so not really comparable to surface temperature data, has a history that is too short to make meaningful evaluations of 30 year averages, but the short amount of 30 year averages are trending up very similar to the surface temperature data sets.
Hope that helps.
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:38 PM on 4 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
NorrisM,
Please explain in detail your understanding of the causes of and extensiveness of the events referred to as the MWP or Little Ice Age.
It may be beneficial for you to do more research before replying since there actually are well understood best explanations for what happened in both the MWP and the Little Ice Age (and the understandings have been around for a while even though "Questions" continue to be asked as if a Good Robust - able to withstand critical scrutiny - Explanation has not yet been developed).
btw - all the "doubts" about climate science also continue to be regurgitated/respun in spite of the long existence of a Good Robust Explanation for the developed and constantly improving understanding of climate science.
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nigelj at 12:35 PM on 4 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
I have a laptop with Macaffe anti virus and google chrome, and I'm not getting a certificate message. I note the information pages for Macaffe says "this website is minimal risk" their lowest risk rating.
But my other computer has windows defender and google chrome as well, and is giving a message "this page is trying to load scripts from unauthenticated sources" whatever that means.
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:29 PM on 4 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
NorrisM,
Please explain in detail what you mean when you say: "... varying temperatures over the 20th Century and the 17 year pause are relevant because they at least address the issue of the predictability of the models".
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Wol at 11:16 AM on 4 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Thanks - Kaspersky still saying same thing @ 11.08 4 Sept:
>>This certificate or one of certificates in the certificate chain is not up to date<<
Now I notice that although the browser points to skepticalscience.COM the Kaspersky warning refers to skepticalscience.NET!
The details of the certificate, issued by Let'sEncryptAuthorityX3 include:
>>This Certificate may only be relied upon by Relying Parties and only in accordance with the Certificate Policy found at https://letsencrypt.org/repository/<<
Just wondering if some third party has infiltrated the site - my technical knowledge isn't up to doing any more than asking the question!
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nigelj at 10:27 AM on 4 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
NorrisM @38
"Perhaps I have not fully researched John Cook's "97% of climate scientists" as to what they do agree on but do you think there is a consensus on what future impact the AGW will have on temperatures and the consequences in terms of melting ice? This is the issue. Even the IPCC provide a range of 1.5C to 4C without offering even a best guess."
The Cooke study looks at what is the main cause of recent climate change and does not go into all the other issues or melting ice. Other consensus studies are similar and listed below. All the consensus studies find 90% or more of climate scientists think we are warming the climate.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveys_of_scientists%27_views_on_climate_change
Virtually all the published research predicts significant sea level rise so you could call that a definite consensus as well. It's an easy thing to determine anyway.
So I repeat given the red blue team does not reflect the consensus of climate scientists it is not representative and is dishonest imho.
You have also slightly missinterpreted the example scenario range of 1.5 - 4.5 degrees. This is climate sensitivity, not an estimate of temperatures by year 2100.The actual increase in temperatures by 2100 are in the IPCC report below for various emissions scenarios. The high emissions scenario is 2.6 - 4.8 degrees by 2100 relative to 1985 baseline, so the range of numbers is not as wide as your example. The IPCC dont make best guesses they give the range of numbers that is highly likely.
www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/SYR_AR5_FINAL_full.pdf
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scaddenp at 10:00 AM on 4 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
NorrisM, I have responded to your offtopic comment in the appropriate thread.
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scaddenp at 09:58 AM on 4 September 2017Medieval Warm Period was warmer
NorrisM asked on a different thread:
"But it does raise questions. If it is accepted that there was a MWP and a Little Ice Age, then unless these are explained using natural causes there is a natural inference that the existing warming may consist of more than just CO2 concentrations. "
And lo an behold, as explained here or in even a cursory glance at IPCC reports 3,4, or 5, there are indeed natural causes that produce model results consistant with forcings. You seem to leaping to assumptions without making an effort to be informed first (again).
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Tom13 at 09:49 AM on 4 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #34
Why do you think only an ice age would effect crop yields? Higher temperatures could equally have an effect. So could more intense droughts.
I am basing that on the historical record ( the old adage cant know where you are going if you dont know where youve been). Crop yields were much higher during the mwp than the little ice age, post emergence of the little ice age, crop yields quickly improved. The improvements in crop yields post little ice age have been helped considerably by improvements in technology, innovations, improvements in farming methods, etc, along with a warming planet, That trend is most likely to continue.
On a second note - the ncbi article you cited further supports the comments I have made and provides a good basis which undercuts the general premise of the UN agency report.
Moderator Response:[JH] Which "UN Agency report"?
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NorrisM at 08:49 AM on 4 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
Bob Loblaw @34
I worry that your definition of "crank" is anyone who does not agree with you. I am sure Judith Curry is also a crank based upon your definition.
nigelj @ 35
Perhaps I have not fully researched John Cook's "97% of climate scientists" as to what they do agree on but do you think there is a consensus on what future impact the AGW will have on temperatures and the consequences in terms of melting ice? This is the issue. Even the IPCC provide a range of 1.5C to 4C without offering even a best guess.
Jeff B @ 36
Very interesting and thoughtful comments. I would agree that the MWP probably is not as relevant but varying temperatures over the 20th Century and the 17 year pause are relevant because they at least address the issue of the predictability of the models.
But it does raise questions. If it is accepted that there was a MWP and a Little Ice Age, then unless these are explained using natural causes there is a natural inference that the existing warming may consist of more than just CO2 concentrations. I have earlier mentioned what I hope a Red Team Blue Team could address. But for sure, this is a way of bringing this front and centre before the American public.
The Pew Reserch study was conducted in June 2016 during the Obama administration. If there was so much skeptcism even during the Obama years then surely there is a need to address this skepticism.
I fully agree that Citizens United decision of the US SC is one more example of why it is hard to argue that the US has a true democracy. Add that together with gerrymandering and you do have to ask if there is a Deep State in the US. On the other hand, were it not for a few of the rust belt states, Clinton would have won.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:44 AM on 4 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
Jeff B,
I believe the key is to minimize the effectiveness of any and all attempts at misleading marketing.
That is why I commented the way I did @18. And I support the other suggestions that focus on addressing/minimizing the potential misleading marketing Success/Winning through the Red/Blue Debate.
A variation of that suggestion @18 is for anyone (like Team Trump/Pruitt) who wants to question 'the already very robustly developed vast awareness of observations and experience related to climate science and the resulting current best explanation/understanding of all that information', to be required to ask their question to the National Science Foundation/National Academy of Science 'the group that shares and can explain that awareness and understanding'.
And in an effort to help the entire population be more aware and better understand this issue, everyone/everymediacorp who has ever delivered information regarding climate science should be required to publish each question and the full answer, without any supplementary comments, through the same mechanisms they delivered their previous climate science information points "As a Public Service - with potential penalties for failing to do so".
The best explanation for all of the currently available observations and information is already well established. That best understanding can only be challenged by the presentation of new valid information and observations. However, asking a question is not the same as presentation of a Reasoned Challenge with new information. Some back and forth would be required (the process I suggested @18 would be appropriate with the same requirement for the full back-and-forth to be presented to the entire US population without edit or supplementary comment - including Presidential Tweets).
if actually raising awareness and better understanding is the objective, the Red/Blue debate would be ineffective and potentially very damaging to the future of humanity (which is why it has been proposed by those who do not care about the future of humanity when such consideration of Others would contradict their personal interests). Pointing that out is all that the scientists should do, offering to formally answer questions or review and respond to proposed alternative explanations that either present verifiable new information or "Better Explain all of the currently avaialble information, observations and experience", as long as the reply they provide gets presented completely 'unaltered' (along with what they are responding to) and without additional comments made that the scientists have not been given the courtesy of responding to 'up front'.
Unjustified and ultimately unsustainable Winning through the abuse of communication science/marketing science is perhaps the greatest threat to the future of humanity that humanity has ever developed.
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BilB at 08:06 AM on 4 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #35
Good John Hartz article, and good to see terms such as "energy in the atmosphere" entering the conversation.
What is missing in this article is the reason why, or how, the "energy in the atmosphere" makes a difference.
It is all about density.
The 60's high school science that I grew up with, and take note here that this includes the bulk of the baby boomers who are commanding the bulk of the world's wealth and political power, was that storms are caused by the sun's energy warming air which rose carrying moisture with it to form rain. I now believe that this is demonstably a false understanding of how rain making works (I hasten to add that I am not a scientist and this is entirely guesswork on my part). The percep[tion that hot air causes storms has been utilised by the denialists to obfuscate the real atmospheric processes, as they concentrate on the notion that Global Warming will result in ever higher daytime air temperatures, which we know full well is not the case and Gabriel Bowen points to what really happens.
The one piece of knowledge that is missing from general public knowledge is that humid air is lighter than dry air, it is all about relative density. It turns out that high humidity air, although only a little bit lighter than dry air has a very large uplift capacity relative to warm air. In fact by my back of the envelope calculations it takes a 20 degree C difference in dry air to equal that humid air uplift capacity.
So what we see in the environment is thermal energy creating uplift and this level of uplift gives us the spotted fluffy clouds of a standard summers day where the uplift rises to a level where there is a temperature and density barrier which causes the moisture in that air mass to begin to condence into larger droplets and the air energy is expended in turbulent air movement and infra red radiation, but no rain formation. It only dawned on me recently what mists and clouds are about when I drove through a morning mist near my business premisis. A mist is where the moisture forms droplets large enough for the uplift effect of the density difference to balance out and the moisture cannot rise until more energy is delivered with the morning sun, else bigger droplets form causing dew (we often sense a warmth from such air as the latent heat of condensation warms the carrying air).
My conclusion is that rain clouds are formed not by thermal up lift but by humidity uplift. It was not until I realised this that I understood why there can by storms in sub arctic environments.
So the full story is that Global Warming delivers heat to the oceans (and the land) thereby increasing the average air moisture content. This moisture content moderates the average air temperature and the increase in average air temperature is predominately visible in the average night time temperature, ie as the average night time temperature increases it is seen as the time of the early morning at which the temperature begins to fall (later and later as Global Warming intensifies and invisible to most people who are generally asleep and do not experience the time of change).
Climate Change is predominately the impact of the increase in atmospheric energy in the form of atmospheric moisture, and the primary driver of how that makes a difference is the relative density of moist air over dry air. The density difference creates the atmospheric overturning effect and volume of the moisture both increases that effect and causes the increase in rain volume that we are seeing around the globe.
The simple message is that CO2 increase is the primary driver of Global Warming and moist air increase density difference is the primary driver of Climate Change.
It would be interesting to know if Judith Curry and her cohorts understood this important point.
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Jeff B at 08:03 AM on 4 September 2017The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists
I hope that I am not too late to this discussion to make a comment.
First, in my view, this request for a "Red Team/Blue Team" exercise is not originating from the politicians of the Republican Party. It is instead originating from the donor class of the Republican Party, which is composed primarily of very wealthy and politically active Free Market/Libertarians. For those who follow US politics, it became apparent in about 2008-2010 time frame that Republicans abruptly went from a party that was willing to discuss (albeit not take action) on global warming to one where even discussion was considered off-limits. With the "Citizens United" Supreme Court decision in 2010, the ability for dark money to influence campaigns allowed the Free Market/Libertarian donor class to enter into the political process early in campaigns with substantial financial resources when it is very important for candidates. The choice was given to candidates of either to agree to the dogma of the donor class or face a well-funded primary opponent. In my view, this is the reason why trying to change Republican policy through evidence or grass roots lobbying is bound to fail. It is not the Republican politicians that need convincing, it is the Republican donor class that needs convincing.
Second, strategically the Free Market/Libertarians deniers/luke-warmers have placed advocates for action on global warming in a difficult position. For if one says "no" that we won't participate in a "Red Team/Blue Team" exercise then it is easy to state the "Of course, they are hiding something because they don't want to have an open debate". So even though it makes absolutely no sense to have such an exercise from a "this is how science works" perspective, it is really important to have the exercise from a political/convincing the public perspective.
Another point, the "Red Team/Blue Team" exercise could be looked at an important means to educate everyone as to the basics of global warming science. The US media just does a lousy job of keeping this issue in the limelight and as a consequence the American populace is just going to respond not based on rational evaluation but according to their tribal affiliation. This exercise could be immensely successful if climate scientists would use this as an opportunity to communicate very basic scientific concepts to the greater populace. For example, the concept of thermal inertia is just not communicated at all. Neither is the concept of thermal expansion of the oceans and the non-uniform increase in sea temperatures contributing to sea level rise. And I rarely hear anyone talk about how night time low temperatures should be considered a finger print of global warming.
The key to making it successful though is to frame the discussion very narrowly to the key issues as hand. I have watched enough congressional testimony and read enough Wall Street Journal opinions to see how debate is side-tracked by red-herring arguments, such as the existence of the Medieval Warming Period or the 17-year "pause". The purpose of a "Red Team/Blue Team" excercise should be to remove "doubt" so it would be imperative to structure the discussion so that non-germane points which serve only to sow confusion are off-limits.
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