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Daniel Bailey at 02:35 AM on 26 July 2017It's methane
Let's look at atmospheric methane levels, shall we?
First, we see that overall levels of atmospheric methane are indeed rising:
We can also look at the global methane budget:
We can even look at atmospheric levels of methane by latitude band:
From the available evidence, we see that the primary sources of the recent rise are from the tropics and mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, with some further contributions from animal agriculture and fugitive emissions from industry.
Doubtless further research will elucidate better quantifications.
Your contributions from Zickfeld et al (not Solomon) are noted. But the sheer size of the bolus emissions from CO2 have multi-millennial consequences, too:
Per Zhang and Caldeira 2015, when you burn a lump of coal or some gas, the greenhouse effect from the resulting CO2 will over time warm the Earth 100,000 times more than the heat released upon combustion.
(1 min video on their new study comparing CO2 and direct thermal warming from fossil fuels)
At the end of The Long Thaw, David Archer calculates that the amount of energy that is trapped by the CO2 produced by burning gasoline today is, over its atmospheric lifetime, 40 million times the amount of fuel energy released today.
"The lifetime of fossil fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is a few centuries, plus 25 percent that lasts essentially forever. The next time you fill your tank, reflect upon this. The climatic impacts of releasing fossil fuel CO2 to the atmosphere will last longer than Stonehenge," Archer writes. "Longer than time capsules, longer than nuclear waste, far longer than the age of human civilization so far."
"The effects of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere drop off so slowly that unless we kick our "fossil fuel addiction", to use George W. Bush's phrase, we could force Earth out of its regular pattern of freezes and thaws that has lasted for more than a million years."
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Mike Evershed at 01:30 AM on 26 July 2017Temp record is unreliable
Moving on to a more sensible discussion. Surely the instability in the reconstructed temperature record is a legitimate cause for concern? Ole Homlums has published a lot of data on the adjustments and seems to come to the reasonable conclusion that:
"Based on the above [detailed charts of changes over time ] it is not possible to conclude which of the above five databases represents the best estimate on global temperature variations. The answer to this question remains elusive. All five databases are the result of much painstaking work, and they all represent admirable attempts towards establishing an estimate of recent global temperature changes. At the same time it should however be noted, that a temperature record which keeps on changing the past hardly can qualify as being correct. With this in mind, it is interesting that none of the global temperature records shown above are characterised by high temporal stability. Presumably this illustrates how difficult it is to calculate a meaningful global average temperature. A re-read of Essex et al. 2006 might be worthwhile. In addition to this, surface air temperature remains a poor indicator of global climate heat changes, as air has relatively little mass associated with it. Ocean heat changes are the dominant factor for global heat changes."
Source (http://www.climate4you.com)
Moderator Response:[DB] "Surely the instability in the reconstructed temperature record is a legitimate cause for concern"
You document no instability, so you posit a strawman. Further, Humlum's nonsense has been debunked in this venue before (here and here, notably), so if you wish to address anything from him, take it to one of those threads. Not here. Further, no matter where you place comments at Skeptical Science, the Burden of Proof is on you to bring credible evidence to support your claims.
Further, your supposed quote is actually from here.
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Joel_Huberman at 23:25 PM on 25 July 2017Study: our Paris carbon budget may be 40% smaller than thought
Agreed. The important message, as stated in Dana's last section heading, is "We need to cut carbon pollution ASAP."
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HK at 23:14 PM on 25 July 2017Study: our Paris carbon budget may be 40% smaller than thought
In a summary of the global temperature in 2016, James Hansen et al start with a discussion of what the term "preindustrial" really means and argue that the period 1880-1920 is appropriate. They then present a global temperature graph with that baseline, and conclude that the best estimate of global warming since "preindustrial" time is 1.07°C based on the linear trend since 1970.
When I did the same with the Berkeley Earth data, but used the linear trend since 1975 instead of 1970, my "end-of trend" result was 1.14°C. With the 1880-1920 baseline the BE temperature in 2016 was 1.34°C, so it seems that the 2016 El Niño boosted the global temperature by 0.2°C.
Therefore it’s not necessary to move the "preindustrial" back several hundred years to reach the conclusion that the global warming has already crossed the 1°C threshold. -
Baraliuh at 22:59 PM on 25 July 2017It's methane
When will you update this nonsense that CH4 is not increasing anymore?
As it definetly is:
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends_ch4/ -
Kevin C at 20:02 PM on 25 July 2017Study: our Paris carbon budget may be 40% smaller than thought
I agree in part and disagree in part.
To the extent that the 1.5 and 2C warming limits are social conventions, I agree.
However there is an objective component to the amount of warming since pre-industrial. If climate model simulations reliably show a particular impact at 1.5C vs pre-industrial, then we should probably work on the hypothsis that that impact will appear at that level of warming compared to pre-industrial. The key is then to define 'vs pre-industrial' in the same way between the models and observations. That's not a trivial step, and requires an understanding of the forcings used in both historical and control runs - I would need to look into that further.
I like the paper. The implications, which dominate the media coverage, are something to which I need to give more thought.
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bjchip at 19:31 PM on 25 July 2017Study: our Paris carbon budget may be 40% smaller than thought
Agreed with the others here. This feels too much like moving the goalposts and realistically we've only ever worked from the basic late-1800's starting point. Moreover, it feels foolish to me, to be specifying over a tenth of a degree when we can't know the sensitivity that well or actually get any indication that we are going to stop before we hit 4 or 5 degrees. We have not really even slowed down and adding more to the target will not I think, help us to change course.
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nigelj at 16:05 PM on 25 July 2017Study: our Paris carbon budget may be 40% smaller than thought
There is this theory that human agriculture and deforestation, starting when farming first emerged which is approximately 12,000 years ago caused some warming. I think it's a plausible theory, but was clearly a modest increase in temperature over many thousands of years. This has no comparison to the more rapid, and clearly unsustainable, damaging, warming from fossil fuels, so should not be used as some form of baseline point.
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nigelj at 09:03 AM on 25 July 2017Study: our Paris carbon budget may be 40% smaller than thought
I totally had the same reaction as OPOF. Focussing too much on pre-industrial temperatures wont help.
Pre-industrial temperatures are of some scientific interest, and the work of Rudiman is worth reading in this regard, but were not that much different anyway so of no huge practical use to the discussions about reducing emisssions.
It's of deep scientific interest, but will only confuse the Paris issue and sidetrack the more practical discussions on emissions targets and reductions, in unhelpul energy wasting directions, and will play into the hands of the denialists.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:53 AM on 25 July 2017Study: our Paris carbon budget may be 40% smaller than thought
The scientific investigation of what the real pre-industrial temperature was is a dangerous, and unnecessary, 'debate' to open up.
At the time of the Paris Agreement the global average of the late-1800's was understood to be the starting point for the 2.0 C and 1.5 C limits.
The warming imposed by human activity prior to the late-1800s is not relevant even if it can be considered to also be pre-industrial. It is a purely scientific exercise. If there was 0.1 C before the late-1800s then the limits become 2.1 C and 1.6 C above that lower starting point.
The danger is that some smart delayers will claim that this is just more proof that climate scientists are still debating the science. They will be able to gather popular support by claiming that world leaders (who all need regional popularity to remain leaders) would be irresponsible if they acted on understanding that was still not well understood/agreed to. And each region of the developed and developing world has a large potentially easily infuenced portion of its population, a portion that perceives the required changes to their way of living/benefiting to be a personal negative that they will not 'vote for' (and many of them are correct because they currently live in ways that have developed very far in incorrect/unsustainable/damaging directions or they perceive opportunities for personal benefit from the pursuit of activity that is incorrect/unsustainable/damaging).
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:25 AM on 25 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
nigelj@90,
I would strongly advise against the belief that important matters should be allowed to be based on popularity or profitability. History is full of cases where what is popular or profitable was actually well understood to be unacceptable while it maintained popular support or profitability.
There seems to be more of that type of unacceptable popularity and profitability in some developed/advanced societies. So things are not really advancing in spite of new artificial technological things being developed.
Perceptions and desires appear to be more easily made 'popular' than increased awareness and better understanding. That means that 'leaders' have to be tasked with the responsibility to be more aware and better understand what is going on and apply that to actually sustainably make things better for everyone, no one unjustifiably harmed by actions that help others (justified harm is changing or correcting a person's incorrectly developed perceptions of prosperity, superiority, or opportunity and that is something that responmsible leaders would 'have to do'. And though that is not really 'harmful' the person being corrected will perceive it as a harm to them, as a threat to be feared).
And anyone in a position of leadership that acts contrary to the above requirement deserves to 'legally' have their power and influence curtailed (until they can prove they have changed their mind and become responsibly helpful).
That is how significant threats are being dealt with today. All that remains regarding 'climate science and the required changes of human activity that it has identified' is the global recognition that people in leadership roles who act less responsibly deserve to be legally removed from those roles regardless of their potential for regional election popularity or popularity among shareholders because of the short-term profitability they can get away with by willingly behaving less responsibly, less acceptably.
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Climate Clive at 02:16 AM on 25 July 2017Study: our Paris carbon budget may be 40% smaller than thought
Dana,
Can you confirm, from your point of view, if you see us being able to saty below 2 deg? In this article you say with Ratcheting we could achieve 1.8 deg but I have heard, over and over, that the warming in the system already will get us above that. Kevin Andersons Emperors new clothes presentation shows how absurd reaching 2 deg is even if you believe in tech not invented yet that gets us negative emmissions.
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nigelj at 14:12 PM on 24 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Scaddenp @89, yes the work on ethics is really more an understanding of the issue in a psychological sense, of what some of our deep seated traits are and their biological origins. It doesnt do a lot to help us decide what to do.
Questions of right and wrong, good and bad are partly matters of conviction and belief, or value judgements. There are no convenient equations that tell us what to do. The science of ethics can give us some clues, or inform the debate, but can't direct the decisions.
But I think we can have a few ethical principles that might be useful: We have the principle of rights of individuals to do as they wish, provided they dont significantly harm others, and this is the basis of many laws. It could be applied to questions of whether genetic engineering should be allowed, but its unlikely to be a sufficient criterion. The issue is very large and so will need a lot of thought.
And who would decide limitations on genetic engineering and ethical standards? The experts? Politicians using a conscience vote? Or do we put fundamental issues about genetic engineering to the public in some referendum?
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scaddenp at 13:30 PM on 24 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
On ethics, I think science is doing very interesting investigations on how with think ethically and why etc. However, those descriptive models are not that useful in my opinion for actually deciding ethical questions.
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nigelj at 12:31 PM on 24 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Scaddenp @87, yes consensus doesn't require unanimity. Anything above 90% is very strong I would say.
I wasn't being clear. It was really just an observation of how a few people come up with various objections even to changing genes that cause disease, however they might do this more out of concern with the methods and politics.
Yes science can inform on genetics and the big questions appear largely ethical. On the other hand, science might have something to say about ethics. Quite a lot is being published on evolutionary origins of morality and ethics. For example "Behave, by Robert Sapolsky".
However ethical decisons and issues are sure challenging and may come down to what society agrees on as a whole, and will no doubt become politicised as well!
I'm just an interested lay person on all this and suspect you have more knowledge of the hard science of genetics.
I would bet society will do what it often does and compromise. Some genetic engineering will be allowed but with various approvals required and ethical guidelines, and thats not a bad approach. The thing will be approached slowly and cautiously like drug liberalisation moves around the world, to see if there are any hidden problems.
Yes the AGW debate is at least largely different and more about the science, and methods of emissions reduction, and costs etc. Although OPOF has raised an interesting ethical / political perspective on it.
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nigelj at 12:12 PM on 24 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
Even criticisms of Jacobsen admit he is right in theory, and its more practical and cost criticisms. However from what I have read, the criticisms are none too robust anyway.
Renewables can work without nuclear or gas fired, provided they had a lot of wind and solar, enough wind surplus to ensure theres enough electricity even in low wind conditions, or alternatively storage options of various types. This might however become more expensive than the nuclear option in some countries, so nuclear might be preferable in some cases.
What happened to thorium reactors? They were supposed to solve all the usual nuclear problems.
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nigelj at 11:29 AM on 24 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
Thoughts on Bjorn Lomberg.
His environmental scepticism has consistently been shown to be discredited and badly informed. Hes an economist not an environmental scientist. Although this doesnt automatically mean he is wrong, it means he does not bring much formal training to books on the environment.
I have had some trouble reconcling this climate sceptics scepticism with his involvement in some worthy looking social causes and advocacy. Normally people active in these sorts of areas are receptive to climate science.
It is staring us in the face. Lomberg is a leader in the Copenhagen Consensus Center's advocacy for data-driven smart solutions to global challenges. This means he has a vested interests in resources going into his consultancy on multiple projects, rather than climate mitigation.
I also think it's essentially cynical of Lomberg to attack Californias efforts on emissions. They are not the only place making an effort, and it has not hurt their economy. Like the comment above we have to start somewhere.
Ideally we want all countries to move equally in tandem, but its not happening. I would be more impressed with Lomberg if he gave us some ideas how we could better get everyone to move on the issue. Anyone can be a critic or sceptic, theres nothing easier. But I think his priorities are his consulting work, not climate change.
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scaddenp at 11:19 AM on 24 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Well consensus doesnt necessarily imply unanimity.
I do agree that gene technologies are arriving that are leading to questions about a "new eugenics". It has to answer the same questions about effectiness, ethics and targets. Science can inform that debate (eg what percentage of time you can expect CRISPR to miss the target) but the bigger questions are not for science to answer. That debate is very different to the one about AGW.
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:09 AM on 24 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
Rust... Being that I'm responding to someone claiming definitively that renewables "will not by themselves be an adequate response", I believe there is enough research to suggest that might not be the case.
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nigelj at 10:53 AM on 24 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Scaddenp @85
I agree there was probably a social consensus that it would be better defective genes did not exist. However I have seen a few people argue let nature take its course, possibly sometimes for religious reasons and other reasons.
Genetic counselling makes plenty of sense to me. This leads to the issue of how we really define eugenics, and there’s nothing wrong with counselling, but the trouble is if you say this you get labelled a nazi by some people. Its the forced or coercive aspects of Eugenics of most concern.
Regarding your points:
1) I will accept you can’t silence these genes effectively with sterilisation. I take your word for it because I haven’t done university level genetics.
However doesn’t the new crisper technology have huge potential to fix these problems?
2) Regarding is forced sterilisation ethical, this set’s off big alarm bells for me. It’s a huge use of state power, authoritarian power, to dictate biological function of private individuals. Children born with defects are of no great harm to society, and it’s normally harm caused that would justify state intervention. The procedure is open to considerable potential abuse.
I wouldn’t rule it out 100%, because we always have to balance desirable individual rights and freedoms, with justified rights of community expressed through state power and law, but you would need a solid justification like a widespread problem or emergency. As you point out sterilisation doesn’t work too well, and I’m not sure the problem is large enough to justify something forced, even if it did work. The one issue is whether children become a burden on the state, in state care, but we aren’t seeing a massive problem in my country.
It may be that simply discouraging some of these pregnancies is enough by simply providing parents with good information. Alternatively there would be nothing wrong with state incentives, but this would get complicated and contentious.
The new crisper technology might be such an easy solution it resolves the issue.
It’s also like vaccinations. I’m in favour, but nervous about the idea of making it compulsory.
However we make manufacturers add iodine to salt. But the reasons appear overwhelming so this is a case that appears justified and safe.
3)What is defective? Yeah exactly where do you draw the line and who decides, doctors, the state, family?
This leads on to designer babies where people want blue eyes, genes that encourage intelligence or stamina, whatever. Of course nobody in their right mind would force these things on anyone, that would truly be Orwellian, but it leaves the questions of a) should doctors be allowed to provide these options? b) should parents be encouraged or discouraged?
It opens the pandoras box of a genetically engineered civilisation. Better and smarter, perhaps, but this would probably come with risks. We would be narrowing the gene pool wouldn’t we?
Just generally, I’m an advocate for parents having good information on genetic problems. I think the state has a role to ensure this happens, but going beyond this is harder to say. However it’s hard to stop the march of technology, and if we can develop technology that can genetically engineer humans, it’s tough to know what we should do.
There’s something scary about the notion, yet its hard to see a non emotive reason that such procedures would be banned. I suspect it may be a case of looking at specific issues, or classes of issues on their merits and having some ethical guidelines and laws, and limits if there appear to be risks with specific procedures or issues, or they are done for trivial and badly informed reasons. The process will need to be managed I would say.
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scaddenp at 10:06 AM on 24 July 2017The Larsen C ice shelf collapse hammers home the reality of climate change
Well as per last paragraph in the article, data is limited so it is not easy to make definitive statements linking the calving event (which is after all a natural event on ice shelves) to specific aspects of global warming. I think scientists are correct in not jumping to conclusions for which there is insufficient hard evidence.
I understand there are efforts to measure sea temperature and bottom melt on the Ross ice shelf which may show whether there is a link between future calving and the warming ocean. Perhaps other research groups are doing the same for Larsen?
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citizenschallenge at 09:56 AM on 24 July 2017The Larsen C ice shelf collapse hammers home the reality of climate change
Well, it's a done deal, as the beat goes on.
projectmidas.org/blog/calving/
I find that their press release presents us with another epic example of a gross Failure to Communicate Climate Science reality. Or playing by the Koch/Murdoch script.
Can anyone explain how Dr Martin O’Leary, a Swansea University glaciologist and member of the MIDAS project team could possibly say the following about the calving:
“Although this is a natural event, and we’re not aware of any link to human-induced climate change, this puts the ice shelf in a very vulnerable position. This is the furthest back that the ice front has been in recorded history. ”
Moderator Response:[JH] Sloganeering snipped.
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scaddenp at 07:28 AM on 24 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Good points Nigel. I think that you could say that there is social consensus that it would be better if defective alleles that lead to say Huntington's, cystic fibrosis, etc didnt exist. I doubt that geneticists now or then would have contested the point that a species would be better without "bad" genes. Even now, many countries would be taking measures of one sort or another ("genetic counselling") to prevent baby-making where there is a high probability of a major defect.
From that point on, however, things become more complicated.
1/ Do you have an effective means of removing or siliencing defective genes? - Norton's calculation shows sterilization is pretty ineffective for instance.
2/ Is that means ethical? This has historically been the main battleground and strictly speaking is outside science.
3/ What is "defective"? The other major battleground. Early eugenist also clearly had a belief in single gene to characteristic mapping that was unsupported by science.
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nigelj at 07:10 AM on 24 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
Singleton engineer, You say nuclear must be in the mix, but have not provided an actual reason?
Provided countries have a reasonable mix of renewable options, they are unlikely to need nuclear. As evidence, my country is quite small and already has over 80% renewables and are told we can get to 100%. We have good renewable resources, so simply dont need to even consider nuclear power. Its more expensive than wind power for us, and has obvious safety issues. So please explain to me why nuclear would have to be in our mix?
But I can see that a country with poor levels of sunlight and wind may consider nuclear. Its a geographical issue, and a costs and benefits issue.
But I would say countries should explore other options first in preference where possible, because I dont particularly think we should encourage wide proliferation of traditional forms of nuclear given safety issues.
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nigelj at 06:47 AM on 24 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
Wili @4, yes I understand your point. I knew someone would post a response something like yours.
But how far do we go scaring people? Sometimes I want to say very scary things to wake people up and get their attention, but this can totally backfire.
I'm with Michael Mann. Doomsday scenarious will just be depressing and won't convince hardened denialists or politicians. I like Steven King novels, but we probably dont want to present climate change in that way do we?
Like I tried to say, and you seem to have ignored it, is we should have controlled scary stuff that frames the issue urgently, but in a measured, intelligent, adult way.
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rustneversleeps at 05:53 AM on 24 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
No, RobH. There is not "plenty" of research to that effect. Jacobson's work is a huge outlier and widely rejected by most researchers in the field.
Granted, Leo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo endorse it. But other scientists, not so much.
Moderator Response:[JH] Recommended reading:
100% Clean, Renewable Energy Is Possible, Practical, Logical — Setting The Record Straight by Karl Burkart, Clean Technica, July 22, 2017
The Attacks On Cleantech Leaders Have Begun — Expect More by Zachary Sahan, Clean Technica, July 23, 2017 -
ubrew12 at 05:12 AM on 24 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #29
"Arctic sea ice is declining at a rate of 13.3% per decade." Is this for area or volume? I expect the rate for volume is twice that. In any case, it may be helpful to say which it is.
"it’s been a surprise to climate scientists that 2017 has been so remarkably warm " It's never good when the scientists are surprised. This is just speculation: could this be related to the rise in CO2? As recently noted in the NYT: "excess carbon dioxide... rose at the highest rate on record in 2015 and 2016... Scientists are concerned... because... the amount... people are pumping... seems to have stabilized...". Many of us have been concerned that CO2 emissions could begin occuring outside human control. Could this be happening already?
I also think the recent temperature run-up could be related to the Chinese acting to reduce their coal combustion (whose aerosols may have been helping cool the planet). That would work on the short timescales here.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:10 AM on 24 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
The 20 minute long 2007 "Story of Stuff" movie presents an even more comprehensive story about Stuff. A key component is the references to marketing that tempts people to buy things. A key component of marketing is limiting information that is presented and deliberate attempts to distort the perceptions, awareness and understanding about things.
People freer to believe whatever they want to excuse what they want to do clearly cannot be expected to develop sustainable constantly improved results. The ones getting away with behaving less acceptably have a real and perceived advantage over more caring and considerate people. And the ones most effectively creating delusions can be the biggest winners for as long as people can be tempted to accept/like the delusions.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:44 AM on 24 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
BBHY@16,
A better explanation of the absurdity of Lomborg's claim about the irrelevance of California acting to curtail its 1% of global total trouble making is: California's 40 million people are 0.53% of the total global population of 7.5 billion. So their 1% is double the average per-capita impact. And there are some people in California doing far more impact than others. So the largest trouble-makers in California are more than twice as bad as the global average and the global average has to be reduced to zero. A very good way to get to zero is to focus on scaling back the impacts of the bigger trouble-makers.
Looking at the Wikipedia presentation of USA states per-capita CO2 impacts, the impacts of California are actually far lower than most states (not a big fan of Wikipedia as a reference but this information presentation was quick to validate). So in a way, Bjorn is correct. The reduction of the per-capita impacts by other states should be the focus. But responsible national leadership will clearly be required for that (regional Winning leadership is clearly failing to care). California can only strive to Lead by Example (and they should be admired if they truly effectively reduce the impacting by the highest impacting portions of their population - like shutting down their dirty oil production).
And a better analogy than a journey of 100 miles is a condominium community that has developed the nasty habit of everyone pooping outside rather than face the costs of connecting to a community sewage treatment system and paying per-unit for their waste. And some members of the condominium are doing far more pooping than others, but all of the pooping outside has to stop. Bjorn is arguing that the households that comprise 0.53% of the population but contribute 1% of the outside pooping should not act to reduce the amount of popping outside done by the biggest poopers in their households. It is true that there are other housholds that per-person poop a lot more. But that is no excuse for 'The Leaders of the households in the California portion of the condo group' to not reduce the outside pooping done by the biggest poopers in their housholds.
An even better analogy to the global situation is a community of people that poops outdoors in the communities that are far away from them. That is the way many of the wealthiest in the supposedly most advanced or fastest advancing nations have been behaving since 1972 when the Stockholm Conference made it undeniable that the wealthy needed to stop sloppily harvesting non-renewable resources and gobbling them up for personal benefit (reducing the resources avaialble in the future) and pooping their damage results all over the world, piling up bigger problems that future generations would have to try to dig out of.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:36 AM on 24 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
SingletonEngineer... While it's likely nuclear will be a part of the future energy generation mix, there's plenty of research that demand can be 100% supplied by a variety of renewables.
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SingletonEngineer at 00:04 AM on 24 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
Quote: "2) massive government investment in renewables..."
This recommendation (demand?) is an illogical insult to one's intelligence in at least two ways: (1) The claim that renewables, by themselves, are the best available response to the threat of climate change; and (2) governments are wholly responsible for the cost of transition to low CO2 emitting technologies.
We need to ensure that our future is energy-rich. I'm convinced that this will require, as a minimum, two essential features:
1. That the desirable shift is to low- or zero-CO2 emitting technologies.
2. That renewables, ie wind and solar energy plus percentages of geothermal, wave and tidal sources, will not by themselves be an adequate response - nuclear power is an essential component of the mix, as also severely reductions in industrial processes that result in CO2e emissions, such as current primary methods of smelting iron and manufacturing cement.
Moderator Response:[JH] Please speify the source of the quote you have cited.
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wili at 22:41 PM on 23 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
I would like to thank SkS for publishing and highlighting the thoughtful and insightful piece by Margaret Klein Salamon. I'm afraid that, when it comes to psychology, many of us have the same views that some denialists have about climate--just as some of them seem to think: "We are in climate all the time, so they think we know all there is to know about it and don't need 'experts' to tell us the truth."
...so with psychology...may of us seem to think, basically, something like, "We are observing our own and others psychology all the time, so we can just rely on our common sense to know all about it."
This piece is an important corrective to that attitude.
Moderator Response:[JH] You're welcome.
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wili at 22:27 PM on 23 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
nigel, is it possible that one of the concerned villagers in your story might have said to the scientist, who was trying to warn people about just how dangerous a large tiger could be, somdthing like:
"Blatant scaremongering about worst case one in a million chance scenarious isn't going to help. People could get fatigue over too much of all this, and a sense of hopelessness can prevail, and cynicism because some scares in the past have come to nothing."
??
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BBHY at 18:37 PM on 23 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
Lomborg's logic: If you are driving your car on a one hundred mile trip, the first mile is only 1% of the distance, so it's not worth bothering to drive that mile. The second mile is also only 1% of the distance, so don't bother driving that mile either. And so on.
Therefore, your best method of travel is to wait patiently for someone to invent teleportation, so you can arrive at your destination instantly.
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nigelj at 16:50 PM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Tom Curtis @83
I agree.
Eugenics is probably not even a great example of an alleged scientific consensus that eventually changed, because it has two elements that can be confused.
The first is the belief that genetics leads to inherited disabilities etc. Theres truth in this with some, and I assume most scientists at the time agreed, although I don't know.
The second is eugenics proper, including forced sterilisation etc,etc. This is more of a political, engineering and ethical issue. It appears plenty of politicians supported this, as laws were passed, and I can see why, but its wrong to assume some majority of biologists supported such a thing, and theres no evidence they did. It could have a small minority, and your membership numbers suggest it was unlikely to be a majority.
Eugenics was taught in schools, no question, but this doesn't even mean all teachers believed in it, and many may have had doubts. Such things are largely curriculum decisions, made by politicians and the authorities.
My understanding is the whole Eugenics thing fizzled out after the awful abuses of Nazi Germany. For what its worth I'm instinctively sceptical and a bit repulsed by anything remotely like eugenics, as in the measures promoted like enforced sterilisation, etc, for all sorts of reasons. There would have to be compelling reasons for anything like this, and I havent seen any. Maybe some people meant well, to prevent problems, but the cure was worse than the disease.
On the other hand we have this modern issue of designer babies, etc. So ethical issues and freedom of parental choice issues are back again.
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Digby Scorgie at 15:13 PM on 23 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
nigelj @2
Methinks there should be a postscript: "The biologist did leave as requested and is currently working at a top university in Europe."
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Tom Curtis at 14:28 PM on 23 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
chriskoz @14, I think you have misinterpreted Nikolov and Zeller (2014). Their full equation for planetary temperature with no atmosphere (Tna) is give by equation (14) {(4a) in Nikolov and Zeller (2017)}, and does indeed include terms for the Cosmic Ray Background Radiation (Rc), geothermal heating of the surface (Rg) and regolith heat storage (ηe). However, they state:
"Similar to Eq. (10), here one can also safely assume R c = 0.0 if S o > 0.15 W m−2 and R g = 0.0 in most cases. This reduces Eq. (14) to (11a) with the regolith thermal enhancement factor..."
They then give equation (16) as the reduced form without either the (negligible) effect of the cosmic background radiation or geothermal heating, and it is the equivalent of equation (16) {equation (4b) in Nikolov and Zeller (2017)} that is used in Nikolov and Zeller (2017) (which also discusses the reasons for ignoring geothermal and background microwave heat sources). In both papers they give the threshold at which Rc and Rg can be ignored as an insolation >0.15 W/m^2, ie, nearly a hundred thousandth of that at Earth.
The regolith thermal enhancement factor represents storage of incoming solar energy by surface rocks (the regolith). Heat storage and conduction in the outer rocks is in fact an important factor and is responsible for maintaining night time equatorial temperatures on the Moon at around 100 K, rather than around 2 K as per the background radiation. So, while I cannot confirm their treatment of it, I can confirm that it is a legitimate factor. It is negligible on Earth only because of the far greater heat transport by ocean and atmosphere - factors neglected in the hypothetical Tna which assume no ocean, atmosphere, or surface ice, or vegetation (and that albedo is consequently equivalent to that of the Moon).
Where I can say emphatically that Nikolov and Zeller are in error is in their attribution of the cause of the extra 90 K of surface warming they find. To begin with, the calculation of the effective radiative temperature {(Te), Equation (3) in Nikolov and Zeller (2014) and Nikolov and Zeller (2017)} assumes the surface temperature to be equal at all points. That is not the case on Earth, which would require near infinite thermal conductivity for it to be the case. As unequal temperatures allow the radiation of more thermal energy for the mean surface temperature, that means the greenhouse effect causes more than 33 K warming to the Earth's mean surface temperature. That is, part of the additional 90 K warming estimated is due to the GHE.
The largest part of it, however, is due to the thermal transfers by atmosphere and ocean that greatly restrict the temperature extremes on Earth, and reduce them still further in the upper troposphere. Needless to say, it is not due to a "pressure induced thermal enhancement".
Curiously, there is a pressure induced thermal enhancement of a type involved in the surface temperature of planets with atmospheres. It is, however, a component of the greenhouse effect. In particular, in planets whose atmospheres are optically thick enough, the surface temperature is a function of the altitude of the temperature of effective radiation to space, and the adiabatic lapse rate. The adiabatic lapse rate is, in turn, largely a function of the pressure gradient in the atmosphere.
As has been explained ad nauseum to a variety of deniers, however, adiabatic processes can explain the slope of the thermal gradient with altitude, but a slope by itself does not explain the temperature at any particular location. To explain the temperature, you need the temperature of a point on that slope. That point is the effective altitude of radiation to space. With no greenhouse gases, the point of effective radiation to space is the surface, resulting in no thermal enhancement. With greenhouse gases, that point is lifted above the surface with a consequent enhancement of temperature.
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nigelj at 13:40 PM on 23 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
The following was written by some guy on another website. I hope he doesn't mind me copying it to here. Its rather brilliant and amusing, on climate denialism, and scaremongering. In fact it's more of an analogy and allegory.
"One hot morning near a remote village at the edge of a large forest, a group of villagers discovered a strange large animal in a clearing, apparently asleep. They went back and inform the village elders, who called in the local chamber of commerce, and also summoned the only biologist in the region.
Later, the biologist arrived and reported back to the village. “This is a very dangerous situation. That animal is a large predator. It has huge canine teeth, an absence of molars, eyes relatively close together for focused hunting, and large claws. My best estimate from the body pattern is that it is a large feline. Judging from the stripes, it is a “tiger”. While it is still asleep, it will wake and hunt, perhaps tonight. I got a rough reading from my infrared camera, and its metabolism seems consistent with a large cat. You would do best to evacuate the village, but you MUST keep a large distance, and DO NOT DROP OBJECTS ON ITS TAIL.”
The chamber of commerce spokesperson replied “Don’t listen to this alarmist! It’s a good thing that we invested in an internet satellite station for the village. The pictures of locals dropping sand on its tail have gone viral. We’re making tons of money and creating jobs. Next step is pay-per-view when they drop something bigger. Besides, the epistemology of this job-killing so-called expert is completely warped. The teeth and claws could be for symbolic threat displays during mating season. Besides, you haven’t even observed it move, let alone what it eats. It may not even have any nerves in its tail. We suggest that it’s an estivating herbivore that will be in a torpid state for months, and slow-moving when it does awake.”
The biologist exclaimed “This is nonsense! It can’t be an herbivore with those teeth, and cats have never been observed to estivate, although they do sleep a lot after a large meal.”
The chamber spokesperson scoffed “You haven’t even proven it’s a cat. You’ll need an autopsy or a DNA sample for that. You didn’t get one, did you? You haven’t even demonstrated that it has nerves in its tail. They’re your assumptions, and you’re obliged to demonstrate them. Otherwise, it’s the null hypothesis that it’s not dangerous, won’t wake for a long time, and has no nerves in its tail. You’re illogical. Leave now.”
“Leave now, leave now,” the villagers chanted.
The pay-for-view was the sensation of the season, but nobody from the village ever appeared at the big city bank to collect their money.
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Tom Curtis at 13:36 PM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
nigelj @78, some idea of the prevalence of suport for eugenics can be gained from membership in the American Eugenics Society:
"Peak membership of the AES was in 1930 with 1,260 members. Although New York, California, and Massachusetts were the states with the highest memberships, every state in the US had at least one member. The 1930 cohort of the AES consisted predominantly of wealthy men and women, and few scientific professionals from fields relating to eugenics. However, in reaction to the eugenic atrocities of World War II, support for eugenics and AES membership began to drop. By 1960, the AES has less than 400 members, most of whom were male scientists and medical professionals. After that time, the AES's focus shifted to genetic analysis and to the investigation of the factors driving human evolution."
For comparison, in 1930, 2071 PhDs were awarded in the sciences in the United States (p387). Of those, 318 were awarded in medicine or biology (excluding agricultural science). The total membership of the American Eugenics Society was, therefore, equivalent to just four years worth of additions to the relevant expert group, with the scientists being members being equivalent to perhaps one years addition.
It would be wrong to suppose that all scientists who supported eugenics supported it strongly enough to join the American Eugenics Society, but it would be hard to argue from these figures that even a majority of relevant experts supported eugenics.
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scaddenp at 12:09 PM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Mike, one of us is misunderstanding derivation of H-W equation. As far as I can see and literature would seem to support it, H-W implies that sterilization of individuals expressing a rare defect would make negliable difference to incidence in the general population. T J Norton did the calculations for Punnett in 1915. Consider also fatal defects (eg cystic fibrosis until recently) which dont require sterilization to ensure those expressing it dont breed. Still prevalent in the population.
Some eugenists knew this at least - Jennings goes for rhetoric "propagation of even one congenitally defective individual puts a period to at least one line of operation of this devil. To fail to do at least so much would be a crime." Others believed "genetic feeble-mindedness" wasnt rare, despite data from LR Penrose, who was expert on mental deficiency genetics, demonstrating the hetrogeneity of causes. I remain unconvinced that support for eugenics was rooted in science rather than in sociopolitical values of the time - and I do accept that the turning tide on eugenics and close examinations of its assumptions was due to more to changing political values (rise of nazism) than further advances in science.
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nigelj at 07:56 AM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Bob Loblow @80,
Thank's for that reference. I had never heard of Mortons Demon. The science explanation on the perpetual motion things is interesting, and it's actually a better analogy for how a transistor amplifies a current.
Of course denialists do indeed filter out everything they don't want to hear. They have a big mortons demon.
I think a lot of people would also look in the mirror and simply not care. The psychopathy, sociopathy demon.
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nigelj at 07:33 AM on 23 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
Blatant scaremongering about worst case one in a million chance scenarious isn't going to help. People could get fatigue over too much of all this, and a sense of hopelessness can prevail, and cynicism because some scares in the past have come to nothing. I find myself tempted to scaremonger, and I'm an inveterate worrier, but I'm just going to pull back.
Of course climate change is very serious, and well proven now, and even the likely scenarious are grim enough to anyone remotely intelligent.
I think we need "controlled" and measured scary stuff. Scary enough to get the seriousness across to people, but without going overboard or spending media time focussing on very unlikely doomsday scenarios too much. (although I personally find these fascinating). People lead busy lives, and only have so much time available to digest news on global problems, so its important to get messages on climate change sensible and measured. We need an urgent message, but not crazy low probability messages.
There are plenty of things happening that are scary enough with weather changes, and changes in rates of ice loss in the antarctic. Just highlighting this in a concise, measured, urgent way should be enough, and the right approach to get through to most people.
Of course you are right people will feel still fear, and it's completely absurd to water down the message to prevent this, but neither should the message be exaggerated.
I also agree you have to wonder if demand driven responses like rather weak looking carbon taxes ar cap and trade will be enough (and I admit I have promoted these).
We are delicately walking around the issue, trying to find something gentle that may be politically acceptable, and the trouble with this approach it sends a message that the problem is not considered that urgent, so people then take it even less seriously with less pressure put on politicians for change. Perhaps it's necessary to cut through everything with much sharper policies that just keep fossil fuels in the ground.
Ideally it would be good for a market lead response, but because attempts at this have been so weak, we are now left with limited time, and a need for more of a more government lead response. The stuff needs to be simply kept in the ground.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:46 AM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
How would they feel? That depends on how strong their Morton's Demon is. They possibly would not notice, and for sure would not see a parallel with their own behaviour.
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nigelj at 06:28 AM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Bob Loblaw @77, yes exactly we get these endless, frustrating denialist arguments, and one only hopes the public see the contradictions.
In a couple of years we will probably get a la nina, and they will be back to "global warming has stopped." Another zombie resurrected.
Some of these denialists should look in a mirror occassionally, and ask themselves how they would feel if their friends or family fed them a constant line of lies, deceptions, and nonsense every day.
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nigelj at 06:12 AM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Mike Evershed and others, the problem we have is no apparent study trying to measure the alleged scientific eugenics consensus. It may have been nearer a 50 / 50, or 60 / 40, so a weak sort of consensus. We will probably never know of course as too much time has gone past.
And the alleged scientific consensus on eugenics could have been more of a political consensus, or even a consensus of clinicians who felt they may benefit from implementation.
But I appreciate the point being made, some consensus positions have been abandoned or changed.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:30 PM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
In this discussion of "consensus", it is worth remembering that the studies looking at the level of consensus in climate science are not trying to make an argument that "climate science is correct because there is a consensus". Rather, they are a counter-argument to the "skeptic" false argument that there is widespread disagreement in climate science.That argument is currently #4 on SkS's list of climate myths.
The finding af a very high degree of consensus on the key points of anthropogenic climate change is direct emprical evidence that disproves that key "skeptic" zombie myth. That the "skeptics" then switch to an argument that "consensus doesn't prove the science is right" is an example of shifting the goalposts. It is largely an attempt to divert attention away from the fact that their "no consensus" argument has been disproven. Of course, once the "debate" on "the consensus can be wrong" quietens down, the "skeptics" will usually return to the "there is no consensus" argument, and the cycle continues. That is why it's a zombie myth.
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Mike Evershed at 22:23 PM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Re: Scadenp: I think it is fair to say that the nature of the scientific "consensus" on eugenics was different from that arising from the climate change literature. Perhaps "widely accepted" would be better? Anyway the reason for posting was that I looked up Haldane's views, which were rather interesting . Here is a brief exerpt from the introduction to his book "Heredity and Politics" from 1938, written when the whole idea was starting to become discredited (not leats by the Nazis): Haldane says:
"It may well be that an increase in our knowledge will fully justify the application to man of certain measures which have led to improvements in the quality of our domestic animals. As one who is endeavoring to increase this knowledge, I can even say that i hope it will do so. But I believe the facts on human heredity are far less simple than many people think them to be. And I hold that a premature application of our rather scanty knowledge will yield little result, and will merely serve to discredit the branch of science in which i am worikng"
Incidentally - for non biologists - I would say the Hardy-Weinberg equation is irrelevant here as it applies to populations not subject to selection pressure. The whole point of Eugenics was to apply such pressure.
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scaddenp at 20:34 PM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
By all means find an appropriate thread. However, I remain unconvinced by "There was a scientific consensus in favour". Science literature seems very lean, nor did "university courses" appear to be science courses. It did most certainly rest on finding from evolutionary theory, but science, unlike many social or political theories is bounded on empirical constraints and the rigor by which a theory/model can account for observations. Biologists (eg Haldane, Holmes, Muller), strongly questioned it's assumption and the long bow it was drawing from evolutionary biology. The Hardy-Weinberg equation was published in 1910 and more or less rips the floor from under it. That it could be promoted despite this discovery smacks mightily of racism and politics. Reconciling the desire for "pure stock" for humans while frantically breeding hybrid plants takes that special attribute of human irrationality so common in "pseudo-skeptics".
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Mike Evershed at 17:29 PM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Thanks to nigelj and scaddencap others for good contributions to the debate on consensus. I don't want to prolong this, but just to complete the eveidence trail, the source for the second part of my statement (on the adoption of eugenic laws across the USA) is "A Century of Eugenics in America" edited by Paul A Lombardo in which it is stated that:
"In 1907 Indiana passed the first involuntary sterilization law based on the theory of Eugenics. In time more than 30 states and a dozen foreign countries followed Indiana's lead".
This isn't the right thread to say where I think the anthropogenic warming hypothesis is most vulnerable to challenge (NB not wrong, but most vulnerable to challenge). But I'll try and find one.
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nigelj at 11:57 AM on 22 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
Chriskoz, ok well given English is not your native language, you have a rather good defence. My excuse for bad spelling is laziness.
I tend to keep home laptops for ages as well, my last windows vista laptop was at least 7 years old, but became very slow, probably due to spyware, and the fan became ominously noisy. But it was basically perfectly fine for general home use.
I splashed out on a new core i5 laptop that was on sale. Like you say web pages are so loaded up with videos, general junk, and sneaky advertising you need power and decent broadband just to make them work. Its a peculiar thing like a treadmill we are on at times, where you need new electronics just to get certain basic services to work.
But on the other hand, some of the graphics are nice especially educational graphics.
Many of my other home appliances are quite old. I could buy all the latest and greatest for cash and hardly notice, but I cannot see the point. The washing machine does the job just fine.
I don't even own a dishwasher. I'm the dishwasher.
My television is a basic 32 inch flat screen. As someone bought up on picture tube televisions, I still marvel at the great quality of even a basic flat screen tv. I dont think the new super high resolution screens offer enough transformation to be tempting. It's becoming more and more money for diminishing returns.
I do however look at electricity efficiency. I bought a new fridge recently, as the old one was possibly becoming a fire risk, and had poor efficiency.
And I do have my little obsessions. I have a lot of books, and a very up market audio system, and a nice car because I hate unreliable cars. But it's not a big, gas guzzling car. That's about it. To some extent the article is also preaching to the converted with me.
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