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wili at 05:22 AM on 14 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #26
For the next weekly digest? :
NYMagazine: "...What CC could wreak..."
Much discussed at various places online and on twitter... -
Tom Dayton at 02:39 AM on 14 July 2017Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
Mike Evershed: GoogleMaps is a computer model of traffic. It "predicts" when I will arrive at my office, given my home departure time. I run that model multiple times, each time with a different input of my departure time (a different "scenario"), and each such run "predicts" the resulting arrival time. GoogleMaps does not predict when I will depart, so it does not predict when I will arrive.
GoogleMaps can be "wrong" about my arrival time if I input the wrong departure time. GCMs can be "wrong" about the climate if I input the wrong forcings. Such "wrong" outputs do not in any way reflect poorly on GoogleMaps or GCMs. To help keep that distinction clear, scientists use the term "projection" for what GCMs output, as a more concise term than "prediction given a particular set of input assumed forcings."
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Tom Dayton at 02:31 AM on 14 July 2017Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
Mike Evershed: The models are not used to make "predictions," they are used to make "projections." Whereas in typical English those terms might be synonyms, in technical climatological language "prediction" means asserting both that a set of specific values of climate forcings will occur, and that the climate will respond in a particular way. Climatologists rarely use "prediction," because rarely do they assert that a particular set of values of forcings will occur.
Climatologists usually use "projection," because they make merely a working assumption about the values of the forcings, which they give as inputs to climate models. The models themselves do not "contain" those forcing values, but merely respond to them. For example, the climate models do not make predictions about the amount of energy the Sun will deliver to the Earth's top of the atmosphere. The climate models instead "predict" the Earth's climatological response to whatever solar energy is input to the models.
For climate models to produce those estimates, they must be given those forcings as inputs. Each set of such forcing inputs is called a "scenario" or a "Representative Concentration Pathway." Models' accuracies properly can be judged only by comparing their projected responses to the forcing scenarios that actually happened. In the absence of a time machine, that must be done after the fact. "Hindcasts" of the models are exactly that: "projections" using the values of the forcings that actually happened, up to the most recent year for which the forcings are known. When models are run for years in the future, scientists input to them one or multiple scenarios as what-ifs.
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Mike Evershed at 01:34 AM on 14 July 2017Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
As I understand it the authors of the recent paper in Nature Geoscience said that: "We conclude that model overestimation of tropospheric warming in the early twenty-first century is partly due to systematic deficiencies in some of the post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations". As neither a believer or a denier, I think the logical view to take is that the model predictions were indeed wrong and due to wrong assumptions. I leave others to judge whether the wrong assumptions reflect shortcomings in our understanding of how the climate works. But I would plead for more humility on all sides in this debate.
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Eclectic at 01:16 AM on 14 July 2017Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
JeffDylan @267 , as the moderator has indicated, you seem to have misunderstood the rebuttal presented here. Permit me to expand the discussion :-
The authors pointed out that H2O vapor has a larger greenhouse effect (than CO2 does) at current ambient temperatures of the planet. And you agree with that. However, when the authors pointed out the "fragility" [if I may call it that] of H2O levels existing in vaporous & cloud-droplet form in the atmosphere, they were not suggesting that the "fragility" (i.e. rapid large amplitude variations in levels) detracted in any way from the important H2O greenhouse effect. And that's because those fast changes would be too brief to have more than a relatively momentary effect on the planetary surface temperature — as I am sure you were already aware.
Nor were the authors suggesting that the often extremely transient residence time of any one particular H2O molecule in the atmosphere would have any relevance either. Since at any one time it is the total amount of vaporous or cloud form, which produces the effect. Likewise with the somewhat longer residence time of an individual CO2 molecule (compared with the centuries/millennia duration of CO2 molecules en masse at a certain overall level).
You will note how I emphasized H2O's role at current ambient temperatures (say roughly minus 30 to plus 50 degreesC temperature range).
Where it gets interesting , JeffDylan, is if you do this thought experiment :- (a) picture all H2O suddenly removed from the atmosphere — result: within days "new" H2O has evaporated from land & sea, and the status quo is restored. Essentially nothing has changed (other than a brief blip of coolness from evaporation). Now (b) picture all CO2 suddenly removed from the atmosphere — result: a strong rapid negative feedback. Temperatures plummet, with widespread snow & frost precipitation on land and a fast-spreading layer of ice on the sea [with further sunlight reflection and further spread of sea-ice, to 100% coverage]. Ultimate result: a frozen world (and with minimal H2O in the atmosphere).
As you see — whichever way you look at it, CO2 (not H2O) is the temperature "control knob".
Moderator Response:[TD] Lest Jeff misunderstand your accurate statement about total H2O in the atmosphere: Clouds comprise liquid water ("cloud-droplet")--condensed water--not water vapor. Liquid water in the atmosphere interacts with infrared radiation (IR) differently than water vapor does. Notably, liquid water reflects IR in addition to absorbing it.
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Tom Dayton at 00:35 AM on 14 July 2017Models are unreliable
Clarifying MA Rodger's excellent reply to NorrisM: Risbey et al.'s approach demonstrated that the models do a good job of producing the sizes and durations of ENSO events. What the models do a poor job of is getting the timings ("phasings") right. Possibly the models never will get better at that, no matter how powerful the computers. Part of the reason for that shortcoming is that climate models are not intialized with the conditions yesterday in order to project the conditions tomorrow. Weather models do that, which is why weather models solve the "initial values" problem. In contrast, climate models are initialized with conditions far enough in the past so that by the time they get to projecting the future, the weather has canceled itself out, thereby wiping out any preferential effect of their particular choice of initial values. What constrains climate models to converge on their long run statistics regardless of their initial values, are the "boundary conditions" of the climate system, such as the net energy entering/leaving the top of the atmosphere. See the post on weather versus climate. After you read the Basic tabbed pane there, read the Advanced tabbed pane, and be sure to watch the video there.
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chriskoz at 23:10 PM on 13 July 2017Those 80 graphs that got used for climate myths
kar@4
very good point, although I don't think blogs like this offer the visual tools to the ir authors and commenters gto do so. Maybe make it a task to an admin or to Bob to add it in the "Insert" tab.
By the same token, contrarian studies when debunked for their errors and mistakes, are obviously oridinarily cited by the debunking authors. So, the contrarian authors, commonly producing shonky studies and succeeding in publishing them in the journal where editing/reviewing standards are not so high, receive the credits for each citation. They in fact, should have received "anti-credit" for demonstrated poor quality of their work. There should be an "anti-citation" choice available to the citing party for such cases.
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JeffDylan at 22:28 PM on 13 July 2017Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
I'm afraid I disagree with the rebuttal presented here. The explanation of how the water vapor feedback works is that the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect warms the atmosphere and enables it to absorb more water vapor. At the same time, the CO2 greenhouse heating causes more evaporation from the oceans and other liquid H2O sources. Since H2O vapor is the stronger greenhouse gas and there is much more of it, the small amount of greenhouse heating from CO2 is then amplified by this H2O vapor feedback. In this manner, the relatively small amount of greenhouse heating from CO2 nevertheless controls the much larger H2O feedback.
This argument, unfortunately, neglects the much larger greenhouse heating term resulting from the H2O vapor feedback being driven by the H2O vapor greenhouse effect itself. As was stated earlier, the greenhouse effect for H2O vapor is much stronger than that for CO2. At this point, climate change believers point out the very short residence time of H2O molecules as water vapor in the atmosphere as compared with CO2 molecules. In other words, H2O vapor may be the strongest greenhouse gas, but it is much more "short-lived" in the atmosphere that CO2. The greenhouse effect, however, does not depend explicitly on atmospheric lifetimes of the molecules, but only on the concentrations and IR spectral profile of the greenhouse gas. A greenhouse gas molecule will contribute to the greenhouse heating with a strength determined from its IR spectrum for as long as it is in the atmosphere. If it drops out of the atmosphere (due to condensation or precipitation), then it does not participate in the greenhouse effect until it re-evaporates. The frequent precipitation and re-evaporation of H2O does introduce short-term fluctations into the temperature profiles, but does not affect the longer term greenhouse heating.
Therefore, I must disagree with the "control knob" theory of carbon dioxide driving the water vapor feedback. It is the greenhouse heating from water vapor driving the water vapor feedback that actually dominates the greenhouse effect.
Moderator Response:[TD] You misunderstand the explanation, by focusing on "residence time." The residence time of individual molecules is irrelevant. Warmer air retains more total molecules of water vapor, regardless of how often individual molecules swap out. See the relevant post.
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MA Rodger at 19:27 PM on 13 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
NorrisM @55,
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MA Rodger at 19:24 PM on 13 July 2017Models are unreliable
NorrisM @that other thread,
In the context of seeing the results of Multiple Linear Regression adjustment to the global temperature record (Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) adjusting for Sol, Vol & ENSO), you ask:-
"I do not know if you are able to do this but if you were to elimate both the 1998 El Nino and the 2015-2016 El Nino from the data, how would the models stack up to actual observations excluding those events?"
The linear assumption for temperature response in F&R2011when Sol,Vol&ENSO are accounted for does leave much unaccounted for while the models in accounting for actual forcings and climatic responses and so have no problem with the 'non-linear', but in so doing fail to reproduce the very important but unpredictable ENSO oscillations.
One approach to coping with ENSO unpredictability adopted by Risbey et al (2014) is to be selective of the model results and only include "those models with natural variability (represented by El Niño/Southern Oscillation) largely in phase with observations are selected from multi-model ensembles for comparison with observations."
And the finding - "These tests show that climate models have provided good estimates of 15-year trends, including for recent periods and for Pacific spatial trend patterns."
Another approach adopted by Huber & Knutti (2014) is to calculate the adjustment required to account for ENSO effects in the models. They conclude from this work "that there is little evidence for a systematic overestimation of the temperature response to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations in the CMIP5 ensemble."
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BaerbelW at 14:23 PM on 13 July 2017James Powell is wrong about the 99.99% AGW consensus
qwertie @9 - James Powell lists them at the end of his methods-post on his blog:
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nigelj at 10:57 AM on 13 July 2017Those 80 graphs that got used for climate myths
Ubrew @12, yes exactly.
Some years ago I saw a collection of about 100 studies claiming the mpw is hotter than recently, similar to the article. I checked the first page of 12 studies, just the graphs and abstracts. Many were on specific cities, some were so long term the wiggles in the graphs were meaningless, some were on parts of oceans so they werent a convincing selection, and I had no way of knowing if it included all studies on the MWP. It certainly didn't prove anything to me or add genuine clarity.
The IPCC reviews "all" the studies. I have more trust in their findings, than some suspiciously selective list by some sceptic.
The 80 studies in the article above sounds formidable, but I was immediately interested how many studies are there on northern hemisphere historical temperatures? As per the link I posted there are many hundreds and hundreds, so 80 is not so impressive, and we cannot be sure it is representative of the true weight of evidence.
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Eclectic at 10:42 AM on 13 July 2017It's too hard
Carn @65 :
"So while a lot will change to 2050, it could well be that the certain changes we desire simply will not arise." (unquote)
Yes Carn, that outcome is quite understandable — if we deliberately do nothing more than sit on our bums. Though I am not quite sure why you would wish to be so passive & fearful, in facing the clear and present danger from a situation [AGW] which is steadily worsening.
Please show some Can-Do attitude, and express your own ideas of how best to tackle the AGW problem. After all, to ignore the problem of rising CO2 atmospheric levels, is a failure of the personal responsibility that each of us has to help our neighbours (now and in the future).
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DPiepgrass at 09:34 AM on 13 July 2017James Powell is wrong about the 99.99% AGW consensus
I am curious who the four authors of 69,406 are that rejected AGW in peer-reviewed literature. Anyone know? I only know of 4 prominent contrarian climatologists – John Christy, Roy Spencer, Judith Curry, and Willie Soon – but only the first two are still publishing in the scientific literature AFAIK, and most likely Roy Spencer and John Christy would not attempt to publish something that explicitly rejects AGW.
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nigelj at 07:27 AM on 13 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
NorrisM @70, I just couldn't find a graph of that. But I have visually compared the last 30 years of what models predict, against actual temperatures, with el nino removed. Models are still over estimating temperatures, but its just not by very much. I think that is the key thing its just not that different.
And it would only take a few more years of high temperatures to cancel this discrepency, and it should be noted 2017 is already showing quite high temperatures so far. It would also only take a slightly higher than anticipated acceleration near the middle or end of this century.
One theory is that oceans are simply absorbing more heat than originally thought, but that energy won't stay in the oecans forever (in simple terms)
I have always been upfront I'm not a climate scientist or any form of expert on it, but I do have a reasonable university education in a variety of things, and knowledge of the general climate debate. I'm interested in the science, but also the psychology, economics, and polictics, as these are personal interests of mine, and I did some psych. at university. So the climate issue encapsulates all the things I'm interested in, sort of by coincidence.
I think what counts is the long term trend once you get past about 20 years at least, so century scale predictions count most. These are based on the effects of CO2 and basic solar cycles that can be quantified and predicted. It's not possible to predict the wiggles along the way, and ten year periods, as ocean cycles are a bit random. That's my reading of the situation, and Im prettty clear on this in my own mind.
If we had experienced a pause of 20 years, I would say this would have been totally unanticipated, and our climate understanding would have been poor, but we just havent seen that. It's more of a 6- 8 year blip at most, if you look at any temperature data like giss. The overall upwards trend in this data is also just very clear now.
Moderator Response:[PS] Please follow other commentators and put discussion of model in the correct thread. A reply to NorrisM there already points to a page with the graph he has asked for. (and note of course obs are within error bars. Please do not ignore error bars when discussing model fit -that is just another way to avoid science in preference for rhetoric).
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nigelj at 06:45 AM on 13 July 2017Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
Earthking doesn't refute the article in detail, and resorts to calling people names, and raising other issues to score points, and distract attention. However the issues he raises are all nonsense.
For example, we are not reliant on Michael Mann's early hockey stick study. Numerous other studies using different data and / or statistical techniques have found much the same hockey stick, eg Briffa or Espers studies.
The so called pause is insignificant, plainly obvious in the nasa giss global data as below:
data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
It's the long term 20 year plus trend that counts, and can be estimated. This is driven by greenhouse gases and fundamental quantifiable solar issues. Nobody can predict the wiggles along the way, or decadal length variability related to ocean cycles, because its partly random.
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NorrisM at 06:29 AM on 13 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
nigelj @ 55
Thanks for the reference to the graph removing ENSO. This was interesting. I agree it would be nice to have also had the average model projections grafted onto this chart but it is helpful to see the Raw Data comparison to the temperature increase removing the effects of ENSO.
So this chart shows the "line" of heating attributed to anthropogenic causes which is the combination of CO2 plus the positive feedbacks primarily from water vapour. This line should match the projections of the models in the "business as usual' case although I appreciate that this would not be linear given the accumulating effect of existing CO2 accumulations in the atmosphere.
Moderator Response:[PS] Other commentators have replied to you on the correct thread. Please do likewise for anything further about models.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:28 AM on 13 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
To be clearer:
"... moved by rational consideration of distant motives ..." with 'distant' understood to mean 'beyond short-term personal interest - consideration for all other life and the distant future'.
The need to chance the course of human development to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and work to expand/improve those goals with Good Reason could be an effective part of the presented criticisms of actions by the likes of Team Trump. Doing so would expose that many other actions by the likes of Team Trump are damaging/unacceptable, not just their stance on climate inaction.
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nigelj at 06:22 AM on 13 July 2017Planet Hacks: Food
A large recent research study shows vegetarians do seem to live longer. This was in our media a while ago. I'm not a vegetarian, and would be unlikely to cut all meat out of my diet, however it has made me think about how much meat I eat.
I saw another similar study somewhere. There does seem to be this emerging evidence that low meat and high vegetable diets are pretty healthy, provided you get plenty of plant protein and sources of iron etc.
Clearly animal farming also causes other issues like high carbon emissions, high use of water ultimately, pollution of rivers etc.
So several "lines" of evidence, or the consilence of evidence suggest a low to moderate meat diet is a good thing.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:18 AM on 13 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
Climate scientists should continue to increase awareness and better understanding, including rebuking and rebutting whatever ridiculous impressions/ideas a USA Red Team/Blue Team creates. And that includes pre-emptive efforts to denounce/discredit the validity of a USA Red Team - Blue Team exercise given the already completed and far more legitimate Broad Spectrum evaluation by the IPCC (Broad hoped to be not as jarring to the snowflakes in the denier mob as the Rainbow Plus I previously used to describe it).
There are so many ways to delay the required correction of developed behaviour in the USA, and so much desire to maintain the undeserved perceptions of prosperity and opportunity, that it appears that the wealthiest USA deliberate delayers will need to be very effectively targeted by international sanctions.
That is the globally established non-violent way of addressing trouble-makers who will not be "... moved by rational consideration of distant - other than short-term personal interest - motives ..." (a portion of one of my favorite statements by John Stuart Mill in "On Liberty").
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ubrew12 at 06:03 AM on 13 July 2017Those 80 graphs that got used for climate myths
I remember being directed to a website purporting to show all the different studies, around the World, that supported the 'Medieval Warm Period' (WMP) as a global phenomenon. It was certainly impressive: a large compendium of studies (most of them anecdotal). First thing I thought was: who has the time to compile such an impressive array of studies and yet doesn't have the time to properly integrate those studies for year and location? My answer is someone whose purpose is to cast shadow and not light. They're betting that most people will be blinded by the sheer number and give up and just accept the conclusion of the web-site.
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carn at 04:52 AM on 13 July 2017It's too hard
@Tom Curtis
"Now, if the 5 billion bushels used for biofuels creats a threat to human life by using essential foods, so also does the equivalent amount used for animal feed"
Correct.
But if in a situation factors A, B, C and D cause death of humans, the deliberate introduction of a factor E, which also causes deaths, is not ethically made ok by A, B, C and D existing. It is still ethically questionable (or at least one should care about the negative consequences and minimize them).
"and certainly never suggest regulations restricting that use of corn so as to maximize the corn available for human consumption."
Trying to change the existing factors A, B, C and D is very different from not introducing factor E; changing something about the former might or might not be difficult; not introducing E is in itself always easy; just do not do it. Hence, it might be that the position of being against introducing factor E but also not to do much about A to D could be a reasonable position, if trying to alter A to D is expected to be futile.
Note, that i just try to explain how the people you consider to not believe their own argument, might actually believe their own argument and have a - from their POV - somewhat reasonable and ethically sound position (Important word in this sentence: "might"; of course many of the people you talk about might also be simply incoherent or have not thought enough).
@Eclectic
Personally, i tend to be against many GHG reduction proposals (in the way proposed by those actors themselves) suggested by anyone more to the left and especially by people devoted to ecological issues; basic reason is that they both tend not to understand what can be expected of scientific progress, when and how sometimes things are technically actually not possible, the efficiency of central planning and the unseen problems possibly caused by interference in free markets.
Entrust them with the task of decarbonization and give them the power to do so and i would expect the probability for disaster to be too high.
I generally prefer that their ideas and proposals are only implemented in rather diluted form by center or conservative politicians (though of course, they sometimes do too little).
"No need for "the piles of bodies" which will happen with even worse floods, wildfires, droughts and forced migrations, that occur if we fail to act in a sensible intelligent way (to slow down & halt the global warming)."
Sorry, but the maximum capacity of the state to produce dead bodies is only rivaled by earthquakes, impacts, volcanoes and diseases (only the latter influenced by climate; but far more influenced by ecos banning DDT and other useful stuff to fight mosquitos); so i will remain sceptical about suggestions proposing very drastic change.
And this is supported by seemingly many people being unaware about the problems entrusting the state to implement drastic changes can cause.
And about technical progress, think about H-bomb; its still the best option for large scale destruction; and it will likely remain for the next decades, maybe even for longer, potentially even "forever"; because it might be the best large scale destruction mechanism in any reasonable way available, that nature has to offer. In 2050 it will probably still the best and only option if one wants to destroy a mega city with a single strike.
Such technical boundaries can exist in any field and no plannable research and development can take us across the boundary (evidence: defense spending in general, especially for nuclear weapons; if anything more destructive would be achievable with a few decades of development, it would already have been devloped).
Even something like processing power might hit a "wall" in 15-25 years; cause nature is a nasty bitch and has its rules and does not care about what we would like to develop.
So while a lot will change to 2050, it could well be that the certain changes we desire simply will not arise.
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BaerbelW at 03:28 AM on 13 July 2017Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
Climate Feedback published a scathing review of Delingpole's Breitbart article about this white paper.
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Eclectic at 02:34 AM on 13 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
Quite so, Michael Sweet @66 .
Truthful science is going to get a hammering, either way. it is a Lose/Lose situation, unless some smart thinking finds a way to mitigate the harm.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:15 AM on 13 July 2017Planet Hacks: Food
Great "Brief" delivery of helpful information.
Like all brief punchy deliveries it fails to mention some important points (it has to fail to mention them to remain "Brief and Punchy").
A major point about changing diet is to do it based on the region of the planet you are in. Buying Local is a potential big deal, but only if the locally grown stuff is more sustainably produced than it being shipped in from somewhere else.
An example of that point is the value of eating sustainably harvested meat like cariboo and arctic char in the Arctic. It may also be better to ship in vegetable and fruit than 'greenhouse grow it locally in far Northern climates' depending on the source of heat used and how they are shipped.
That example flies in the face of the simple premise of reducing meat consumption.
Another helpful point would be to add about only buying what you eat is to buy what you need to eat. There are some pretty silly developed cultural beliefs like:
- eating beef is somehow a Prime sign of success, especially the "Too Die For Oversized Steak Dinner". (4 ounces of beef delivers about 30 gm of protein which is what most bodies can process from a meal - try to get a serving that small in a restaurant)
- or the absurdity of places like Brazilian Restaurants serving 13 types of meat to everyone at Dinner (as much as the customer wants to force in at one meal - even though the body will not effectively process it and potentially have kidney problems trying to process it).
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michael sweet at 02:15 AM on 13 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
Climate scientists need to be careful about refusing to participate. If the Red team is Lindzen and Monkford the Blue team is Spencer and Curry it might lead to a refutation of the IPCC report.
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Eclectic at 01:58 AM on 13 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
OPOF @64 , the red-team/blue-team approach to climate science may be the current "talking-piece-du-jour" for denialists & ultra-right-wing politicians. But I think they will meet you with hostility if you suggest a "rainbow" approach ;-)
Scaddenp @63 , the GOP politicians could go either way, about setting up (or not) a red-team/blue-team Investigation or Inquiry. Certainly they would like to set up a rigged inquiry : and certainly they know that a truly fair/impartial inquiry would inevitably show the denialists to be completely wrong.
Personally, I think the genuine climate scientists should reject any kind of inquiry (of the proposed type) and they should state assertively A/ that a "new" red-team/blue-team assessment would be a great waste of the taxpayers' money, and B/ that such assessments had already been done and are always being done continually every year by by large numbers of scientists as part of normal everyday science.
The anti-science politicians in power might well decide to try to carry out a red-team/blue-team "Inquiry", despite a high certainty of an adverse decision (adverse to them). Because they would gain in the short term (and if they can't rig a favorable result, then they will still gain by drawing out a fair Inquiry for many years. )
They can beat the genuine climate scientists over the head for not participating in the Inquiry — for the non-participation will look bad to the non-thinking public. And if participation does occur, then [the GOP politicians] will publicly use that participation as an admission by the scientists that the mainstream science is so uncertain & doubtful, as to be very much in need of a thorough inquiry.
The anti-science politicians would gain tactical advantage in forestalling journalists' questioning of (lack of) Climate Change policy and (lack of) action or leadership :-
— "The science is not settled, obviously."
— "We are actively looking into these questions."
— "It is premature for me to comment on that."
— "No, I can't comment, because the matter is [sub judice]."
— "As soon as the Inquiry is finished, we will study its report and decide on appropriate action."
In summary : it would be a very unskilled politician who couldn't arrange for the Inquiry to be stacked with so many submissions, as to take many years to complete. An excellent way to continue to stonewall, without being perceived as stonewalling!
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earthking at 23:15 PM on 12 July 2017Those 80 graphs that got used for climate myths
More leftist lies to propagate their ideological nonsense.
Moderator Response:[JH] Blatant sloganeering snipped.
[PS]
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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earthking at 23:10 PM on 12 July 2017Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
Oh, I see it is just fine that leftist wili violates policy with a radical leftist nutcase like Noam Chomsky. I am positive posting a "political" video of the informed and far more plausible right wing would be unacceptable: "Political, off-topic or ad hominem comments will be deleted. Updated Comments Policy..."
Moderator Response:[JH] Blatant sloganeering snipped.
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earthking at 23:00 PM on 12 July 2017Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
And then there is the hockey stick and the incriminating evidence "in writing" that damnably condemns the climate change sycophants; or would that be psychophants? There is no logical or scientific evidencial explanation for "the pause." Did man suddenly call on the cooling gods to reverse warming? It used to be that science was defined by theories based upon repeated experimentation and explainable from a formulated hypothesis. And even under that premise, honest scientists would admit, there is still a margin for error--possibly completely false--no matter the evidence. As is always the case: follow the money.
Moderator Response:[JH] Blatant sloganeering snipped.
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kar at 21:36 PM on 12 July 2017Those 80 graphs that got used for climate myths
The "80-graph table" should really be put into an expandable small database or table here at SkS for future expansion, and with links to the REAL tables/articles!
PS:
Allways tag links to fake science or denial-articles with attribute rel="nofollow":
This is important to avoid search crawlers to Google and others to elevate their hit rank!! -
One Planet Only Forever at 13:37 PM on 12 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
My understanding is than the IPCC process is far more robust than a USA Red Team - Blue Team Competition would be.
I see the IPCC process as a rainbow team approach (plus teams beyond the visible spectrum) all having to agree on the understanding/wording of an issue with the restriction that the wording must be supported by, and be consistent with, all of the available information brought into the evaluation by the global spectrum of paticipants.
A result of a USA Red Team - Blue Team Game (potentially gamed significantly by a few powerful wealthy people and how it gets covered in the media) could not be expected to come close to the comprehensiveness and legitimacy of the IPCC results.
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nigelj at 13:11 PM on 12 July 2017Those 80 graphs that got used for climate myths
I don't know if the study tells lies, but in my view it certainly tells lies by omission, misleading claims, and manipulated graphs. It would be interesting to know if its possible to take some sort of legal action against climate denialists for all this. Misleading claims are the basis of false advertising laws, so some precedent is there.
You would at least need to prove both misleading claims, and that real harm was caused, as that's how the law basically works. I'm no lawyer, and would be interested in expert comment.
Maybe a solar power company could bring a claim that the denialists misleading nonsense is causing them harm. Maybe governments should take a case that denialist misleading nonsense is undermining efforts to combat climate change, and thus causing harm to the public good.
Make the denialists sweat, and realise they cant get away with everything.
If its not possible under existing laws, pass laws making it illegal to mislead people with lies by omission in science reports. The IPCC is upfront about the full picture, and uncertainties, so why shouldn't everyone be expected to do the same? -
scaddenp at 12:53 PM on 12 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
The peabody case was interesting. Deniers on whole are trying to convince themselves or a gulliable public that they have a point. That is much harder to when points can be debated by actual scientist. One reason I would like to red-blue team approach and bring on the popcorn. On the other hand, some of advocates of the approach are just looking for soft money and its hard to feel good about that.
I suspect that there are some astute GOP people that would see the likely outcome of the red/blue team approach and quietly can it. I love the assumption that climate scientists are blue team. Maybe nowdays most are given way they are treated, but certainly wasnt always the case. Which team is Richard Alley playing for?
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Bob Loblaw at 10:48 AM on 12 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
...and lastly (for the moment), if NorrisM really wants to see what a court of law would do when "the two sides" face off in court over climate, I suggest he read this article describing the results of a recent court case.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/06/07/peabodys-outlier-gang-couldnt-shoot-straight
Hint: the "skeptic" side does not come off looking very good.
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Bob Loblaw at 10:44 AM on 12 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
NorrisM: I have also posted a comment over on the models thread.
As for your statement "I think you are saying that the observational information is not good enough to explain the increase in temperature."
No, that is not a proper interpretation. The observational information is good enough to explain the increase in temperature, for the most part, within the uncertainty limits of the observations. It's just that the uncertainty is larger the further back in time you go, and thus the power of explanation is weaker (and may always be limited).
The error in logic that is often made is to think that a larger difference means the models have failed. They have not, because we cannot know if the larger difference is due to model error or poor measurement. We also have difficulty in using that difference to improve the model, because we may be chasing an observational error, not reality.
A lot of effort is made to try to find additonal sources of information on the past. We can't go back and measure temperature at weather stations again, but we can find more lake sediments, more tree rings,, more ice cores, etc. and improve the methods of deriving temperature information from them, though.
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Bob Loblaw at 10:33 AM on 12 July 2017Models are unreliable
Also following from NorrisM's comment on the thread Tom Dayton refers to:
The model spread is also not an ideal representation of the uncertainty in the prediction, because the number of models is very limited and the type of things they include is different.
RealClimate has set up a page that discusses such things in more detail.
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bjchip at 09:50 AM on 12 July 2017Those 80 graphs that got used for climate myths
Can "the scientists" sue these people for defamation ? Is there perhaps a class action that can be taken ordering them to cease lying or pay the penalty for it?
Yet lying in public is "protected free speech" and the only answer to it is more speech.
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Tom Curtis at 08:35 AM on 12 July 2017It's too hard
Carn @62, in recent history 4.3 to 5.3 billion bushels of corn have been used for animal feed (2011/12 to 2014/15, see table 1 here). Over the same interval, 4.6 to 5.2 billion bushels have been used for fuel alcohol, a fairly consistent 140 million bushels have been used for alcohol for manufacturing use, and human consumption, a fairly consistent 490 million bushels have been used for high fructose corn syrup, and a fairly consistent 200 million bushels have been used for cereals (ie, direct human consumption).
Now, if the 5 billion bushels used for biofuels creats a threat to human life by using essential foods, so also does the equivalent amount used for animal feed (which provides only a tenth of the human food quantity in animal protein). Likewise the much smaller amounts used for corn syrup or bourbon. Yet the people who think the amount used for biofuels leads to starvation never draw the same conclusion about those other usages, and certainly never suggest regulations restricting that use of corn so as to maximize the corn available for human consumption.
That leads me to conclude that those people do not believe their own argument; or that to the extent that they do, they do not care about people starving due to lack of corn. If they did, they would be equally concerned about the other inefficient (in terms of food content) uses of corn.
I agree that much of the biofuel industry is a boondoggle driven by a political desire to subsidize the profits of corn farmers. It is not, however, a threat to human life.
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nigelj at 08:07 AM on 12 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
NorrisM @57
You still like this red team blue team approach, and appear to want it run as a court process etc. I just think you are very wrong on both issues.
I note you appear to be a lawyer, so do have vested interests or a probable bias. I can appreciate this, and I would maybe do the same in your shoes and want a court approach, but it's still a bias.
I think courts or similar processes are no place to decide matters of science. With respect neither judges, lawyers or lay people on juries are in any position to analyse such complex science and pass reasonable judgement.
Not even expert witnesses could resolve the issue. Climate science runs to over 12,000 research papers and all are important, and its hard to see your process dealing adequately with that.
We are seeing similar huge difficulties in complex financial fraud cases, which are beyond the expertise of judges and juries etc, but in those cases it's hard to do anything other than a court process.
With climate science its both feasible and far more appropriate and sensible to have large review bodies like the IPCC. This was designed specifically because of the problems with court style processes and even inquisitorial processes as in the european legal system.
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nigelj at 07:55 AM on 12 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
Norris M @56
You say "I do not know if you are able to do this but if you were to elimate both the 1998 El Nino and the 2015-2016 El Nino from the data, how would the models stack up to actual observations excluding those events?"
Look at figure 3 in this graph below. And also the article in general.
skepticalscience.com/foster-and-rahmstorf-measure-global-warming-signal.html
It removes all el nino and la nina events from the trend. It's from work by Foster and Rhamstorf. You can plainly see what is left is a roughly linear trend of clearly increasing temperatures, and quite steep. It's therefore clear el nino is not the reason for increasing temperatures.
A picture paints a thousand words, and when there are arguments and disputes its best to go back to the basic data as in a graph or table.
Unfortuantely it doesnt have model predictions grafted on, but you will find the models run in the early 1990s have predicted this trend pretty well, but are still slightly under in the last few years as I have said. They are not sufficiently under to be some huge concern, imho. It's certainly false and at least a huge exaggeration to say the models failed to predict the pause and / or dont predict temperature trends adequately.
It's believed models are slightly under, as oceans are absorbing more heat than first thought, and this is delaying warming slightly. But a delay is only a delay.
Regarding Santer and Held not talking up over discrepencies. I dont know why, and we may never know why and there could be many reasons, some people are a little shy by nature for a start, or just get side tracked by other issues they feel are more important. Dont read things into things.
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nigelj at 07:18 AM on 12 July 2017Those 80 graphs that got used for climate myths
More very unreliable, unrepresentative 80 studies research, with giant cherrypicks and manipulations and time frame problems.
The following link is a list of published research studies on past climate histories as at 2014. I did a rough count and there appear to be about 500 studies! They also say its far from a complete list.
So 80 studies proves nothing, and they have not demonstrated it is representative. Plenty of studies show a hockey stick eg Briffa, Esper, and they are proper, relevant studies
www.c3headlines.com/list-climate-history-studies-research-peer-reviewed.html
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Tom Dayton at 05:32 AM on 12 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
NorrisM, I have replied to your comment here on the original, appropriate thread.
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Tom Dayton at 05:28 AM on 12 July 2017Models are unreliable
Response to NorrisM's comment on another thread: Norris wrote "If I understand your first example, this would suggest that it is appropriate to "average" the various model results and compare them with the actual observations."
No. There is only one observation run, so you cannot average it with other observation runs to obtain the observations mean, so you cannot compare the models mean to the observations mean. Instead, you compare the observations run to the statistics of the model runs, including not just the model runs mean but the model runs spread.
Likewise, we have only one observations run of Earth's temperature because we have only one Earth. You continue to ignore my explanation from weeks ago. As MA Rodger noted, in that comments thread you have merely reiterated your claims from this thread without responding here to the people who gave you information you asked for.
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NorrisM at 05:24 AM on 12 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
Eclectic @ 53 and MA Rodger at 54
My reply to MA Rodger is that I started that process of reading the thread starting in 2008 and was prepared to slog through it all, knowing after a very short while that I would hardly understand most of the technical information.
That was until I heard that Perry may very well undertake a Red Team Blue Team investigation which, for a lawyer, is the way to go because it forces both sides to mount their evidence and bring their experts.
In fact, Eclectic, although I fully agree with your comments on the APS Panel regarding preparation ahead of time, we should have what is the equivalent of a Supreme Court hearing on this. It still troubles me that Santer and Held did not speak up more strongly on the discrepancies (and I note no one has yet commented on that). But the problem I had with both the APS enquiry and the Berkeley Red Team Blue Team project is that they did not follow through with what we have come to expect in a common law justice system. An independent judge (or judges) listening to both sides of the argument and their experts, that panel of judges coming to a decision, and then providing their reasons. Any dissenting judges would also provide their reasons.
In the case of the APS Panel, the Board of Directors one year later came out with a revised statement that basically was the same as the previous one (after backing off of the word "incontrovertible") but without providing any reasons.
In the case of the Berkeley project, Mueller (sp) really acted like a judge in the European system where the judges get actively involved in searching out for evidence on their own. This system may or may not be better than our adversarial system but I like our adversarial system because it is open. Basically, Mueller hired his own guy and came up with his own reasons and ignored the evidence of both sides or certainly did not use it.
What we will be relying on as Trump takes a run at our institutions, is an independent judiciary with no axe to grind. That I am sure is why Judith Curry does not want the NAS to conduct the review. I fully understand that some scientific bodies felt that they had to make a stand on the question of climate change but it does then hit their independence when later asked to preside over any adversarial process to consider the very issue upon which they have come out with a policy.
When the APS came out with their statement after the Koonin chaired APS Panel, I am sure that one of the discussions amongst the Board was how much they could "modify" their statement now that they had taken a stand without causing a major issue not just in the press but in the world.
So if there is to be a Red Team Blue Team organized by the Department of Energy, it would probably be better to place the responsibility in some agency that has not come out one way or the other on this issue. I still have some misgivings with this rather than the NAS but it might be that the NAS itself would pass on it.
For those that say this is a "waste of time" I can only repeat myself. It is called RealPolitik. As lawyers, we used to refer to the "Golden Rule". He who has the gold makes the rules. I hate to say it but you know who makes the rules in the US at this time and for the foreseeable future. That is why I think the climate science community should sign on to this process and be a part of it.
Perhaps this website should set up a separate section to consider the issues that should be considered by such a Red Team Blue Team.
Who knows, perhaps Trump will only sign on to this process if he has some assurances that 'he will win". If the panel is "weighted' one way or the other it would destroy its credibility. From what I have seen of Koonin, I do think that he would ensure that the panel had representation from both sides but that the majority of the panel were truly independent.
I truly think that the Red Team Blue Team structure should be modified to require the panel to provide its recommendation and reasons for its decisions. As with judgments of any appellate body, there could be dissenting opinions.
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NorrisM at 04:48 AM on 12 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
nigelj @ 52 and scaddenp @ 50.
I certainly get the message that models cannot predict 10 year cycles. I guess what I should have asked Bob Loblaw are the model predictions and their variance based upon: 1. Period 1900 to present; and 2. 1975 to present.
Thanks nigelj for your explanations of the periods of temperature increase and decrease (or levelling off) during the 20th century. I know that one of the pet peeves of Lindzen (from one essay by him) has been the use of aerosols to "adjust" models. All very confusing for the layman. See my comments to Eclectic and MA Rodger below.
But if the models are within one SD over 20 years then this is certainly material information. Reading Christy's chart you would not think so.
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NorrisM at 04:30 AM on 12 July 2017Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
Bob Loblaw @51.
If I understand your first example, this would suggest that it is appropriate to "average" the various model results and compare them with the actual observations. In your example, the model of 50:50 chance is correct because the average of the models is bang on with the theory.
Although statistics is not my strong suit (I have to admit I did take one course in my undergrad degree (BA Economics), do I understand that a bell curve of the GCM results are within one standard deviation. If so, what percentage of one SD?
I do not know if you are able to do this but if you were to elimate both the 1998 El Nino and the 2015-2016 El Nino from the data, how would the models stack up to actual observations excluding those events?
As to the second example, I think you are saying that the observational information is not good enough to explain the increase in temperature.
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rugbyguy59 at 04:19 AM on 12 July 2017Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
Thanks, Tom. I greatly appreciate the effort, quick reply, and the hints about how to check these things. If one positive thing has come from the hours spent confronting these people it's that my own knowledge of science, climate, and the Internet continue to grow.
scaddenp @6 He's a lukewarmer and somehow the idea that small increases in temp "exaggerated by homogenization" can cause these big changes in the real world makes sense to him... without making him think; Wow, these are some big changes.....! -
michael sweet at 03:07 AM on 12 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27
Chriskoz,
The US Navy has already made jet fuel from CO2 recovered from sea water. They estimate the cost at about US$3-6 per gallon. It is not clear from the article if they have to pay for the electricity they use to run the process. If renewable energy was cheap enough you could make jet (or automobile) fuel but the efficiency of the process is low (internal combustion engines are only about 30% efficient while electric motors are over 90% efficient). In addition, internal combustion motors are high polluting compared to electric if you ike clean air to breathe.
This is modern technology, not a miracle.
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Eclectic at 02:00 AM on 12 July 2017It's too hard
Carn @62 ,
you are too pessimistic by far. The major problems (caused by AGW) won't be solved by fear & paralysis.
2050 is 33 years away. A third of a century. Look back in history and see what great changes have been achieved in the past 33 years — from the internet/computerization and GPS satellites, to lithium batteries and cheap solar panels. Or the 33 years earlier still [i.e. back to 1950 ..... almost the Fred Flintstone Age ;-) ..... except for the H-bomb, that is! ] .
Now look forward 33 years into the likely future : and at the much faster technological rate of change occurring now and increasingly during that third of a century. And we can do a damn fine job eliminating two-thirds of (present day) CO2 emission rate, using the technology available today. All it needs is some good old-fashioned Can-Do attitude ! (Surely the Can-Do attitude didn't die out in year 2000, did it? )
The remaining one-third of emissions will need more effort and R&D — especially the liquid hydrocarbon fuels for planes and ships. You know it yourself, that the current "biofuels" are a complete scam [carried out for county/state political reasons : not for genuine scientific reasons] as well as being detrimental to actual food-growing (as you well point out).
No, Carn, let's face it — jetfuel and diesel fuel from renewable sources will require advanced catalysis-based chemistry in yet-to-be-built factories (using recycled organic "waste" feedstock) and/or vat-fermentation with algal enzymes (also using "waste" feedstock). The latter is already commencing in a tiny way with small pilot plants — but is still $200 or more per barrel of "oil". But give it another 20 years!
No need for "the piles of bodies" which will happen with even worse floods, wildfires, droughts and forced migrations, that occur if we fail to act in a sensible intelligent way (to slow down & halt the global warming).
Rock and a hard spot. But sitting on our bums will be the worst choice.
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