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Comments 19201 to 19250:

19201. nigelj at 06:36 AM on 3 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26
       

       Trump and Pruit will be burning climate science text books next. People come up with convoluted analysis of Trump's ideas and policies, but just apply occams razor and you are left with pure idiocy.

19202. Doug_C at 03:02 AM on 3 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       bjchip @13

       Ultimately that money represents physical resources available in the natural world. Whether it's the free oxygen we breath, the fresh water we can't survive without or the food that in many cases requires complex interactions between many species and essential elements that need to be availabe in precise states. Everything beyond that in a sense can be considered a luxury in purely survival terms.

       There is real no separation between the economy and the environment and the economy is a subset of the environment. Knock away all environmental supports and all our economies are coming crashing down.

       This is the problem that I think exists with the focus on economic imperatives over environmental, it obscures what the genuine realtionship is at a time when we need to be very clear about them.

       We can live without money. We can not live without oxygen, fresh water and food.

       As reported here there is growing evidence that what we're doing with regards to fossil fuel use alone is entering the same scale as the changes that caused things like the Permian Extinction Events.

       Skeptical Science- Permian Extinction and Fossil Fuel use

       During events like this only the species with the lowest oxygen and nutritional requirements survive, we don't fit in that paradigm.

       Which means that focusing almost exclusively on economics while recreating what we are in fact in the process of recreating is going to cause the worst economic outcome possible. No economy when there are no people left.

19203. HK at 02:00 AM on 3 July 2017
       It's the sun
       

       The first sentence in this article by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert debunks any arguments about cumulative TSI:

       "In a single second, Earth absorbs 1.22 × 10¹⁷ joules of energy from the Sun. Distributed uniformly over the mass of the planet, the absorbed energy would raise Earth’s temperature to nearly 800 000 K after a billion years, if Earth had no way of getting rid of it."

       (my emphasis)

19204. Mal Adapted at 01:41 AM on 3 July 2017
       What Does Statistically Significant Actually Mean?
       

       WRT allegations of a statistically-significant 'hiatus', during the interval from about 2000 to about 2014, in the long-term (30+ years) trend of GMST: according to Tamino, because a significant long-term trend had already been shown,  the correct null hypothesis isn't that the slope of the GMST trend was zero during the alleged hiatus, but that there was no change in the long-term trend.  There wasn't, as it turns out; statistically speaking, no change from either the trend from 1970 - 2000, or the current 30-yr trend, emerges from the noise.

       https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/11/07/testing-for-change/

19205. NoctambulantJoycean at 01:40 AM on 3 July 2017
       It's the sun
       

       John Christy recently used a cumulative total solar irradiance (TSI) index to argue that the Sun, not CO2, caused most of the recent global warming. This cumulative-TSI-based approach is flawed, though explaining why is beyond the scope of this post. I instead want to point out how Christy contradicted himself in his defense of his claim.

       In the 1st edition of his hotspot blogpost/"report", Christy claims that 150mb is the tropical upper troposphere:
       "On the Existence of a “Tropical Hot Spot" & The Validity of EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding" (page pages 23, 25, and 59)
       
       

       But in the 2nd edition of his blogpost/"report", he claims that 150mb is the tropical stratosphere:
       "On the Existence of a “Tropical Hot Spot” & The Validity of EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding, Abridged Research Report, Second Edition" (pages 24, 25, and 70)
       
       

       So in the transition from the 1st to the 2nd edition, Christy re-labelled upper tropospheric temperature as stratospheric temperature, with the effect of making it look like the stratosphere warmed. He did this despite the fact that the stratosphere actually cooled (as shown in a source Christy cited in his "report"; see the Sherwood paper cited on page 23 of the "report's" first edition). Christy's re-labeling is convenient for his position, because Christy's solar warming hypothesis implies stratospheric warming. Furthermore, CO2-induced global warming would result in stratospheric cooling, and Christy's "report" is committed to saying that CO2 has had no significant impact on temperature records.

       So Christy's self-contradiction on atmospheric temperature, allowed him to claim that CO2 had no significant effect on temperature and that the Sun caused most of the recent global warming. I'm surprised that Christy would cite such a distorted blogpost/"report" to the US Congress:
       "U.S. House Committee on Science, Space & Technology, 29 Mar 2017, Testimony of John R. Christy" (pages 10 and 11).

19206. HK at 01:39 AM on 3 July 2017
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       A little background info about the updated TLT data from RSS.
       The temperature trend now matches the surface records pretty well.

       

19207. Eclectic at 01:25 AM on 3 July 2017
       It's not bad
       

       Banbrotam @375 , you seem to be applying selective vision to the situation.

       First, you should clarify to readers (and to yourself) how much precisely of present-day rapid global warming is caused by human activity.  If you hold that rather less than 50% of warming is anthropogenic, then you might well have a point that it would be a struggle to halt or reverse the global warming process.  However, the facts are against you there — in actuality, the human causation is very close to 100% (as you will discover if you educate yourself about the issue).  And therefore your denial of reversibility carries no weight.

       Secondly, what are the "positives" of climate change (i.e. global warming) that you would wish to mention?  Sure, you can point to some small areas, such as southern Patagonia and northern Russia, which would (from a human perspective) benefit from a few degrees of global warming.  But — taken as a whole, the planet would be 95+% worse off.  Especially for the human race in total, and also for most marine life [re temperature for the coral reef systems, and re acidification for much of the rest of the marine biosystem].

       If you stop and think it through, Banbrotam, it will occur to you that the present-day plants and animals have evolved to suit the world temperatures (typified by the climate of approx 100 years ago) of the Holocene period.  And so you would expect major disruption from very rapid rise in global surface temperature — and so you would be hard-put to find any definite "positives" arising from AGW.  And so you would not be surprised that such "positives" [should they exist] are rarely mentioned in discussions.

       Remember too, that the present large size of world human population is already pushing the limits of sustainabilty.  Any small advantages to AGW (e.g. in northern Russia) are enormously outweighed by more general disadvantages — and particularly so in the Tropics.

       Banbrotam, the only real debate that remains, is how to expeditiously tackle climate change.  A scientist (for instance: yourself) will of course realise that denial of reality is not "debate" but is simply slogan shouting [which here on SkS is named sloganeering].

19208. NoctambulantJoycean at 01:22 AM on 3 July 2017
       New study finds a hot spot in the atmosphere
       

       Yay, my first post. As most people here probably know, this isn't the first study to find the hot spot. The hot spot has been found since at least 2004 in the NOAA satellite data analysis. So I wanted to give a brief list of studies that found the hot spot. This list is by no means exhaustive, since it does not include at least 6 other papers that provided evidence of the hot spot. But it should be a helpful list nonetheless.

       Here's the list, along with the data sources for the papers (I think your article is on paper #6):

       In satellite data:
       #1 : "Contribution of stratospheric cooling to satellite-inferred tropospheric temperature trends"
       #2 : "Temperature trends at the surface and in the troposphere"
       #3 : "Removing diurnal cycle contamination in satellite-derived tropospheric temperatures: understanding tropical tropospheric trend discrepancies", table 4
       #4 : "Comparing tropospheric warming in climate models and satellite data", figure 9B

       In radiosonde (weather balloon) data:
       #5 : "Internal variability in simulated and observed tropical tropospheric temperature trends", figures 2c and 4c
       #6 : "Atmospheric changes through 2012 as shown by iteratively homogenized radiosonde temperature and wind data (IUKv2)", figure 1 and 2
       #7 : "New estimates of tropical mean temperature trend profiles from zonal mean historical radiosonde and pilot balloon wind shear observations", figure 9
       #8 : "Reexamining the warming in the tropical upper troposphere: Models versus radiosonde observations", figure 3 and table 1

       In re-analyses:
       #9 : "Detection and analysis of an amplified warming of the Sahara Desert", figure 7
       #10 : "Westward shift of western North Pacific tropical cyclogenesis", figure 4b
       #11 : "Influence of tropical tropopause layer cooling on Atlantic hurricane activity", figure 4
       #12 : "Estimating low-frequency variability and trends in atmospheric temperature using ERA-Interim", figure 23 and page 351

19209. banbrotam at 23:18 PM on 2 July 2017
       It's not bad
       

       I come on this forum as not a skeptic about climate change nor do I deny that we have some impact. However, as a scientist myself I am very skeptical that it is magically reversible or reversible to the degree some say it would be

       One of my issues with the whole hostile shouting down of skeptics, is that I have still to find a single man made climate change believer, who is balanced enough in their argument to give a single positve about climate change, i.e. apparantly it is all 100% bad!!

       This is simply not possible and I suspect is indicative of an agenda that can't allow any good to be admitted, for fear of undermining the argument

       Logically, that can only be because the climate change want everyone to think that "we're doomed" unless we agree with them  - which is a poor way to have a debate

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Blatant sloganeering snipped. 

       [TD] Click the Intermediate tab of this post to see a list of positives and negatives. Then read the Advanced tabbed pane. If you want more resources, inquire politely here.

19210. ubrew12 at 23:11 PM on 2 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26
       

       chriskoz@3: I thought of an analogy to what Pruitt is doing with his 'red team-blue team' nonsense: 

       "Magic mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?"

       "Queen Coal, you are fairest here in town, but Princess Green's beauty is now renown."

       "Magic chamber pot so true, perhaps I should be asking you?"

19211. Tom Curtis at 21:44 PM on 2 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       bjchip @8:

       "The difficulty they have is that if there *is* a definition for money it will be - "Real money represents work done" where work is precisely the work defined by a physics text."

       If money represents work done, in the standard sense of physics, then mining 100 tonnes of nickel ore and transporting it to a refinery would generate no more, and no less, value than mining 100 tonnes of quartz, or clay, or shale, etc, and transporting it to the same location.  Work as defined in physics takes no account of the the usefulness of a mass for manufacturing goods, or constructing buildings, or maintaining good health in human bodies.

       @13:

       "I do "root cause analysis" for a living - the hard core stuff and I asked myself why economists could not imagine or support a near-zero growth economy."

       You should distinguish between the support of a low and stable inflationary regime, and the support of economic growth.  The two are different things, and while the first relates to the nature of money, the second does not.

       With regard to inflationary regimes, if more currency is in circulation than is needed for the total amount of transactions in the economy, you will have inflation.  If less, there will be deflation.  Modern governments typically issue slightly more money which  is not backed by debt, or bullion, or any other measure in order to insure a low, stable inflationary regime.  It needs to be stable so to enable security of investment.  It needs to be inflationary so that money stuffed in a matress gradually loses its value, so that to be effective, savings must be invested.

       The consequence of this is that people on static incomes (such as pensioners) or on incomes that only increase through repeated negotiations (such as wage earners) will lose the value of their income over time.  The inflationary regime is, in effect, an hidden tax whose primary beneficiaries are corporations.  The hidden tax effect could be eliminated by automatically indexing pensions and wages to inflation.  If that were done, the sole effect would be to deflate money saved by means other than investment, ie, the purported purpose.  The reticence of governments to ensure neutral impact on the poorer part of society through indexation makes me think the hidden subsidy of corporations it implies is an intended effect.

       With regard to economic growth, the answer to two part.  In the first instance, the economy needs to grow at least at the same rate as the population grows or each generation will become poorer.  Second, certain government functions cost a lot of money; and the bigger the economy, the more easilly they are afforded or expanded.  As a prime example, without the large size of the US economy, it would be a second rate power militarily.  On top of that, when the economy is driven by an individual desire for wealth, as in capitalist economies, you need the economy to expand to allow "the winners" in the economy to get richer.

19212. Tom Curtis at 21:10 PM on 2 July 2017
       We are heading for the warmest climate in half a billion years
       

       chriskoz @6, sorry, poor editing on my part.  I initially calculated the difference for 600 million years ago, which is 12 W/m^2.  I then later thought it appropriate to calculate back to 4.5  billion years ago, but put it before the sentence about 12 W/m^2 rather than after it where it belonged.  Sorry for the confusion.

19213. bjchip at 19:31 PM on 2 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       Doug_C "I tend to be a concrete thinker so I usually define money as "the ability to purchase goods and services".

       Yes, but what does that money really represent? How it gets used does not tell us what it is, where it comes from or what it represents.  I do "root cause analysis" for a living - the hard core stuff and I asked myself why economists could not imagine or support a near-zero growth economy.  This answer - "Real money represents work done" sounds simple and  yes, you can use it to buy goods and services.  However it also binds economics inextricably to physics and that changes everything and "simple" disappeared fast.  

       For instance.  There is no limit on debt backed money (the sort we use). As long as you can find people willing to lend to you you can CREATE all the money you can imagine.  Work backed money has very definite limits as to how much can be out there in your society.   That would be one of the simplest differences between the two concepts.  

       I'm trying to write a book to explain. It not appropriate for this forum.   The difference is important however, to our mutual goal. 

19214. chriskoz at 18:44 PM on 2 July 2017
       We are heading for the warmest climate in half a billion years
       

       Sorry for my typo above - I meant TSI (total solar irradiance), "TCI" is meaningless here.

19215. chriskoz at 18:42 PM on 2 July 2017
       We are heading for the warmest climate in half a billion years
       

       Tom@5,

       How did you arrive at the 12 W/m^2 difference in isolation between 4.5Gy ago and now?

       The actual difference of 240 W/m^2 and 180 W/m^2 is rather 60 W/m^2 and that number is for average sphere insolation (1/4 of TCI) and attenuated -30% for Earth  albedo (current TCI is 1370W/m^2). So if I did not miss anything major your number appears to be underestimate by 5 times, and would strengthen your point that the geothermal heat flux had virtualy no impact on Earth's energy budget over its history.

19216. Tom Curtis at 17:57 PM on 2 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26
       

       chriskoz @3, Eli rabbet has an excellent discussion of this concept, including a discussion of how the proceedure worked in a past instance in a non-climate related field.  The upshot is that in past examples, administrations have used this concept as a cover to appoint panels of ideologically driven "experts" who are then used to drive policy in complete disregard to the actual evidence.

19217. Tom Curtis at 17:53 PM on 2 July 2017
       We are heading for the warmest climate in half a billion years
       

       amhartley @4, 0.6 billion years ago, at the start of the phanerozoic, the Sun was approximately 5% less luminous than it currently is.  That is, where it currently provides 240 W/m^2 of energy to the Earth, it then provided 228 W/m^2 assuming the same albedo.  4.5 billion years ago, it was about 75% of current values, or 180 W/m^2.   The difference is 12 W/m^2.  The supply of energy to the Earth's surface currently amounts to approximately 44 TW for the whole of the Earth's surface (or approx 0.1 W/m^2).  The decay of radioactive elements contributes about half of that (20 TW), and contributed about 100 TW in the very distant past:

        

       If we assume that was the primary factor governing the Earth's heat flux, then we would assume that in the distant past, the geothermal flux was about 0.5 W/m^2, or a decrease of about 0.7% of the increase in insolation.

       The story is not so simple, however, as the total surface flux depends on the rate at which heat travels to the surface.  There is substantial evidence that this has changed over time, such that heat flux increased over time until about 2.5 billion years ago, and has been decreasing thereafter.  The upshot is that over the full 4.5 billion years of the Earth's history, surface heat flux has been relatively constant; and that the decrease over the last 2.5 billion years has been several orders of magnitude less than the increase in insolation.

19218. chriskoz at 17:52 PM on 2 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26
       

       T-man (or his chief denier - EPA destroyer - Pruitt) has just invented new nonsense called "red team-blue team" whose job is to question climate sicence. Whatever that silly "team building excercise" may exactly bring, no one has any idea as they did not said any specifics. Remarkable is the fact that all WH officials talk about it in the condition of anonymity - surely if you want to be at least a bit honnest about that silly excercise, you rick being fired from your post. One anonymous EPA official ventured to characterise that excercise accurately:

       "But of course, we already have a process for scrutiny of the science - the peer review process is a much more robust assessment of scientific integrity than a childish colour war."

       Thank you, Mr Anonymous, you took it from my mouth.

19219. Ceist812534 at 17:32 PM on 2 July 2017
       Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
       

       New paper Mears and Wentz of RSS on new v4 

       https://www.carbonbrief.org/major-correction-to-satellite-data-shows-140-faster-warming-since-1998

19220. Doug_C at 15:27 PM on 2 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       @nigelj #9

       I find it very frustrating, with all the technology and understanding through science we've developed in the last century alone and we're still depending on industrial age energy production and pretending that the environment is a bottomless resources bin.

       As for energy density, there is simply nothing that tops nuclear power. And with much safer and abundant alternatives to the uranium fuel cycle like thorium I simply don't understand why we are still investing at all in coal, oil and gas exploitation.

       There is also constant advance in how to use that energy in the most sustainble fashion possible as well as how to have food production and manufacturing in such a way that has much less negative environmental impacts than we now do. But all that requires a systemic approach to replace the current fossil fuel system which itself almost seems to have a mind of its own and a will to survive by any means possible.

       I have a vision in my mind of where we can go to make the changes needed, but in between there are these roadblocks that do seem highly artificial and irrational to say the least. Donald Trump as president and in charge of economic policy let alone how the US will behave in regards to existential issues such as human forced climate change makes no sense to me at all.

       But then again I live in Canada where our PM claims to be fully in support of the Paris Accord and implementing effective policy to mitigate climate change then goes to Houston and tells oilmen that "No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there,"

       Leave 173 billion barrels in the ground

       He is clearly placing economics before the environment and this is the issue I think presents such a danger here, the lack of understanding by far too many people behind policy of what the actual relationship is. I think some of them actually do believe that economic imperatives trump all... and that really applies to Trump.

19221. Doug_C at 15:01 PM on 2 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       @bjchip #8

       I tend to be a concrete thinker so I usually define money as "the ability to purchase goods and services". Which ultimately must come from the environment. If there is no resources available in the environment then there will be no money based economy and there will be no society. The environment can exist totally independent of human society, the opposite does not apply.

       I've come to think of money almost entirely as environmental diversity and robustness, not how much material wealth or abundance of services any society may have. Ultimately it is coral reef systems, rain forests, arctic habitat, the ability of the biosphere to replenish oxygen supplies which are always in transition and recycle fresh water on a continuous cycle, etc...

       So in the end perhaps the best description of money should be a process that serves society in the context of the overall environment, not a static quantity.

       I realize at some level we have to try and place this dynamic in some context that allows societies to function, the challenge is if we keep drawing down the natural bank by converting environmental health to cash we are heading to social and economic failure anyway. Both are entirely dependent on the environment.

19222. amhartley at 11:23 AM on 2 July 2017
       We are heading for the warmest climate in half a billion years
       

       A question from a non-geophysicist: To what extent has the additional heat from the strengthening sun, over the past 4.5 B years, been counterbalanced by the cooling of the earth's core?

19223. chriskoz at 10:58 AM on 2 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       ubrew12@6,

       Your comment is too cryptic. You don't specify what is "bargain" here: Iraq War or AGW mitigation.

       Regardeless how you clarify it, I note that Iraq War cost US taxpayer 2.2 Tera$ according to Brown Uni study, the fact that T-man likely does not know or he denies it like everything inconvenient to his childish mind. However, beforehand, vice-president Dick Cheney estimated the costs, as reported by Wikipedia:

       "every analysis said this war itself would cost about $80 billion, recovery of Baghdad, perhaps of Iraq, about $10 billion per year. We should expect as American citizens that this would cost at least $100 billion for a two-year involvement."

       so the initial cost estimates were $100G/2years which can be extrapolated as $400G for the actual 8 years it took. Therefore Cheney underestimated it 5 times.

       To compare T-man's estimate to Iraq War apples to apples we should look at Cheney's number rather than actual cost from Brown Uni, and Iraq War looks like a bargain here. But obviously, T-man's numbers are worthless (like everything he says) and likely overestimate the actual facts we're going to witness (probably the numbers will be born by other countries while US economy is going to implode under the leadership of a party like GOP and a president like T-man).

19224. michael sweet at 10:45 AM on 2 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26
       

       Gingerbaker,

       The proposal to use olivine to soak up CO2 has been aroud for a while.  Here is a more recent summary of some issues relating to the proposal.  I doubt that the readership of SkS has a consensus on proposals of this type, but I think that it is generally good to look at any possibilities that might help deal with carbon pollution.  

       Most Geoengineering proposals fall over because the amount of CO2 that is emitted is so immense that it is not practical to mine the amount of olivine necessary [or other geoengineering method] to have a significannt effect.  

       A kilogram of olivine is needed to absorb a kilogram of CO2.  The fossil fuel industry is one of the largest industries in the world.  Approximately 30 Gigatons of CO2 are emitted per year.  That is a lot to mine.  You make no money spreading olivine so it must be paid for from general taxes.  Olivine contains some toxic metals that are released as it binds the CO2.  Olivine might help but it is not a magic bullet to cure AGW.

19225. nigelj at 07:50 AM on 2 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       Doug _C, you have made a stream of good points over various posts.

       I agree the climate issue is frustrating, in the whole economic sense. It becomes a partisan debate about costs on the economy and restraints on personal freedom, and nobody can agree on a solution.

       It's like we need a circuit breaker that says we are fundamentally reliant on the environment, and ultimately this is the basis of the economy anyway, so please lets just not wreck it. Lets  take a precautionary approach. I feel the same way. 

       However I have this ominous feeling we can't escape economics. But maybe we can tidy up this aspect.

       Firstly I agree with the other poster above. We have a tragedy of the commons problem and these are usually resolved by environmental rules, penalties, or polluter pays principles, depending on the specific problem and how its best dealt with. Once you do this, its hard to escape quantifying costs. I cant see how the climate issue is basically different.

       Secondly we cannot escape all impacts on the environment, unless we stop mining, building, and agriculture, breathing, living. We therefore always have to ask are our impacts on the environment significantly damaging? Once we do this, we  cant escape weighing costs.

       For climate change this means considering the costs of climate change,and weighing this against the costs of renewable energy etc.

       Obviously I would say because the stakes are high, global and essentially permanent, we better take a precautionary approach. This should be applied to the economics.

       It also requires a sophisticated understanding of economic strategy. Humanity has relied on energy dense oil and its difficult moving away from this on both physical and psychological levels. However take a strategic approach as follows: Renewable energy has already proven itself, so theres no reason not to proceed.The oil is always there if by some unlikely eventuality climate change is not severe. If transition costs become severe (and I dont believe they will) we can re-evaluate the whole thing.

       The point is, we are not locking humanity into any one way path, that would be economically catastrophic. We will always have options.

       About the best we can do overall is aim for a commonsense, practical form of long term sustainability. I'm right behind this sort of plan and it needs to become part of our cultural values, and codified into legislation, but it needs to tread a careful balance between idealism and realism as well.

       We have only got one planet and all that, and colonising other star systems wont be easy. The clear solution is sustainable development.

19226. nigelj at 06:55 AM on 2 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       Ger @13

       Point 1. "More blankets equals more heat? "I took that to mean more heat 'retained'. Maybe you are being pedantic on this one.

       Point 2. "More blankets means warmer inside, cooler outside?" I think you are right, this stretches the analogy a lot to the point of inaccuracy.

       However looking at points one and two another way, all analogies do simplify by their very nature, and its very hard if not impossible to word them in ways beyond all criticism, without making them so complex, they are pointless and no longer analogies. 

       Point 2 on body heat didnt directly relate to a point in the article and doesn't seem a useful analogy for the real greenhouse effect. 

       Point 3. Fair comment, but I took the article to mean that rate didn't matter as much as total quantities in this sense: Simply slowing down rate of emissions so we reach 600ppm (arbitrary example) CO2  in for example two or three centuries rather than one century doesnt really help, because we still reach a certain total level that will have implications for millenia, and this seems a reasonable concern. I think Evan was trying to point out that fiddling with the problem with small changes will not be enough.

       However the article didnt seem too clear on the rate issue, and rate is clearly important in other respects. 

19227. bjchip at 06:20 AM on 2 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       Doug_C -  The reason we concern ourselves with economics is twofold, though not necessarily obvious.    At risk of some significant drift of thread I will essay to respond.

       Unlike the diagrams often provided by environmental activists, the actual relationship is that the Society uses the Economy to determine how much of the environment gets used and how it is used.   The typical diagram has the Economy working through the society to use the environment.   That is wrong.   So

       Society           

       Economy                    

       Environment                          

       
       Given that relationship the importance of any distortion or market failure in the economy is clear.   So the absence of a cost associated with the use of some part of the environment tells the economy to use more of it, and to use it in preference to other ways to accomplish the goals of society.   So yes, we HAVE to talk about economics.  

       The problem however, isn't simply that.  As you observed - Economics isn't exactly a "hard science".   "Nebulous and uncertain" and it is that way because no economist has managed to actually define what money is, yet they (and we) measure everything with it.   The difficulty they have is that if there *is* a definition for money  it will be - "Real money represents work done" where work is precisely the work defined by a physics text.   Vastly more complicated than I can offer here but when every dollar in anyone's pocket represents debt with interest the economy is massively distorted, even without the market failure around CO2.   

       ...and the Economy is how we decide what we do to the Environment.  

       ...and it is multiply, massively distorted.   

       So we sorta have to discuss economics.  :-)

19228. Doug_C at 03:17 AM on 2 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       Why are we even treating something as nebulous and uncertain as economics on the same level as physics anyway?

       What we can say with a high degree of certainty is that by increasing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide the way we have for the last two centuries, it has resulted in much more heat being redirected back to the Earth's surface where it is in the process of creating entirely new conditions that most life will have to adapt to or die.

       Economics on the other is more about trying to assure ourselves that what we've already done makes any kind of sense. And is more than a little a way to justify predatory zero sum game play that is already causing systemic negative impacts even when climate change isn't factored in.

       It's not a coincidence that someone totally dominated by zero sum game mentality - Trump - is now the central focus of the effort to block the assertion of policy based on the best physical based evidence we have in preference to biased based ignorance.

       If the mentality of "If you win I lose" is allowed to prevail any further on this issue and a host of others then we won't have to worry about economic projections or anything else. For we will have destroyed the underpinnings of life on Earth in a mad rush to see who's going to "win".

       Shouldn't it be obvious by now that if we're all dead and gone there are zero winners - the inevitable conclusion of the kind of zero sum games thinking that has brought us climate change denial and human forced climate change itself.

19229. Gingerbaker at 02:28 AM on 2 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26
       

       I recently ran across a very exciting paper purporting to describe a new technique which appears to have the enormous potential.

        This paper is about a technique to remove very large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere very quickly and in a cost-effective way. It describes a way to accelerate the natural process of CO2 sequestration - natural rock weathering. Simply put, it gives evidence that by grinding olivine rocks into a powder, and spreading that powder along river basins, we can quickly sequester enough CO2 to lower atmospheric concentrations back to safe levels while simultaneously addressing ocean acidity issues.

       This paper seems legitimate to me, although I am not scientifically-qualified to judge it properly. What do you all think? :

       [LINK]

       Moderator Response:

       [RH] Shortened link.

19230. ubrew12 at 02:22 AM on 2 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       "The cost to the economy at this time would be close to $3 trillion"  

       So, the cost of the Iraq War?  By comparison, that sounds like a bargain.

19231. One Planet Only Forever at 00:59 AM on 2 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       A potwntial summary of my perevious comment is:

       • There are a large number of people who can perceive 'the need to change ways of living to reduce impacts on Others' as 'A restrtiction of their freedom to believe and do as they please'. Those people will believe that everyone who thinks it is a problem should be the ones to do everything about it, including somehow overcoming the additional damage being done by those who care less (without admitting they care less).
       • There are people who have gambled on continuing to get away with less acceptable behaviour. That includes people locked into fossil fuel extraction plays whose perceived wealth includes the incorrectly assigned value of those opportunites, and people who recently purchased a new inefficient fossil fuel burner because, it was cheaper at the moment, they just like the idea of enjoying it, or to stoke their personal image because they think it impresses or intimidates Others. Those people will claim they deserve compensation for their perceived loss if actions make the fuel more expensive or terminate the buring before maximum reward was obtained from the extraction opportunity.

       The power of manipulative misleading marketing has a long history of successfully fueling the denial of trouble-making damaging industry. And trouble-makers will abuse the above two points no matter how much information is presented about the benefits of the correction of over-development in the wrong direction.

       Climate science efforts must continue to provide better understanding. Leaders in industry and government who actually want a sustainable better future (including wanting their ventures to continue to provide profit, or wanting to continue to get elected), will only Win when more people understand how wrong their developed perceptions were which then results in winning only by activity that is consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals (and any future improvement of those goals for Good Reason).

19232. Bob Loblaw at 00:56 AM on 2 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       Posting problems - took multiple tries, and the pasting in the final try lost the link to the post over at And Then There's Physics:

       https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2017/06/24/heatwaves/

19233. Bob Loblaw at 00:53 AM on 2 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       To be morbid, there is another way that the body can reduce the metabolic production of heat, but I"m sure that nobody here thinks that dying is a solution to overheating. Over at And Then Theres Physics there is a post and discussion on increasing global temperatures, heat stress, and death rates, which includes discussions of how very high temperatures and humidity make it impossible for mammals to remain cool - essentially creating conditions where survival depends on artificial means such as air conditioning (available to humans - not so much to other non-domesticated mammals).

       In the blanket analogy, a set number of blankets will maintain a set body temperature at a set metabolic rate. If the body gets too cold, the body will increase metabolism to produce more heat (e.g. shivering). Or you can get up and move around, or add blankets. Likewise, if it is getting too hot, exercise is not recommended because then the body has to get rid of more metabolic heat. You can get out of the sun, remove blankets, then clothing, but by the time you are naked in the shade then there isn't a lot the body can do but sweat and hope it's not too humid - if the sweat won't evaporate, you're in trouble.

       Body heat doesn't disappear or maintain a constant body temperature through majick - it takes physics.

19234. HK at 23:18 PM on 1 July 2017
       They changed the name from 'global warming' to 'climate change'
       

       thomasleeclark @17:
       If you use 1880-1920 as a base period (average in that period set to 0), the temp anomalies in 2016 were 1.24°C and 1.34°C in the records from NASA and Berkeley Earth, respectively.
       2016 was boosted by a strong El Niño, so comparing that year to the base period will obviously exaggerate the warming. A better method is to plot the linear trend from 1975 to 2016 and use the endpoint of that trend as a measure of the warming since 1880-1920. That gives a warming of 1.06°C and 1.14°C in the two data records, respectively, so it’s reasonable to claim that the global surface temp has warmed about 1.1°C since the base period 1880-1920. It’s also worth noting that about half of that warming has happened after the mid 1980s!

19235. rjmhudson at 23:01 PM on 1 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       It's useful to have good analogies and important to work out their kinks.
       
       To respond to Ger@13's point 1, one could begin with a statement something like "The heat our bodies normally generate is like the solar energy reaching the earth while greenhouse gases are like the blankets you pull over you on a cold winter's night. Like the relative constancy of solar energy flux, our bodies usually can regulate temperature within a narrow range. However, our body parts feel warmer or colder depending on the balance of rates at which they receive and give off energy. Like the poles, our toes are supplied less energy and get cold with too few blankets. As you add blankets, your toes warm up the fastest, just as CO2 warms the poles the fastest." 
       
       The "inside" vs. "outside" language doesn't quite work for me. How about "skin" vs. "blanket top" temperatures?
       
       Changing the temperature in the room really messes with the analogy. How about adding a light electric blanket instead of increasing room temperature to represent changes in solar energy inputs?

       Ger@13 is correct: Your skin won't get any warmer than your core body temperature in this scenario, but chriskoz@14 has a point that the body can only reduce metabolism so far before overheating. 
       
       

19236. John S at 23:00 PM on 1 July 2017
       Dropped stations introduce warming bias
       

       This reminds me of an allegtion I saw on You-tube saying there was no global warming .. it was made by a deputante at some Congressional Hearing and it was that NASA had started to include the ocean data after WWII only because it was higher and without that there would be no warming.  The "evidence" for this was buttressed by satellite data which the deputante alleged was the correct data.  I am aware of the problems with satellite data, but what's the story with NASA alledgedly starting to include ocean data after WW II?  As a suppmentary question I have always been unsure whether the "Ocean" in Global Mean Surface Temperature based on Land and Ocean means the air about a metre above the surface as it does for land, i.e. taken from small islands, buoys and ships, or is it the the temperature of the ocean water at the surface?  I have noticed different graphs showing "Sea Surface Temperature", and am confused about the relationships of all of these.  Some simple clarification by staff would be greatly appreciated.

19237. chriskoz at 17:30 PM on 1 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       Ger@13,

       More blankets means warmer inside, cooler outside? It doesnt cool down outside because you emit less heat into. It's cool down because the cold layer outside is also loosing heat to outside your bedroom. It doesn't heat up as fast as before. Neither will it get any warmer inside than your body temperature.

       (my emphasis)

       Emphasised is the utterly bogus sentence in the context we are considering here. Maybe you think so, because human body inner thermostat (at 36.6degC) seems to you so strong that it can override the thermodynamic laws?

       Or maybe you don't understand this model. The model is: a planet gets energy froma  sun (via visible spectrum where GHG are transparent) just like your body gets energy from food as a rough equivalent. Then the planet glows IR just like your body releases metabolic energy. If you insulated your body completely, you would surely die from overheating. Your internal methabolism can regulate your body temperature only by releasing more heat to the skin, hoping the heat dissipates into the surrounding. It cannot do the opposite. When surrounding is perfectly insulated the body starts overheating because the internal thermal energy cannot simply "disapear". In your own words "the system goes banana's", as on Venus where CO2 insulation is almost perfect. If you do not deny such outcome, why are you at the same time pronouncing bogus statements, such as the emphasised one?

19238. Ger at 15:22 PM on 1 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       1. More blankets == more warmth? The source of heat is yourself, more blankets is a better isolation with less losses, not more warmth. (unless you put the blankets on fire).

       2. More blankets means warmer inside, cooler outside? It doesnt cool down outside because you emit less heat into. It's cool down because the cold layer outside is also loosing heat to outside your bedroom. It doesn't heat up as fast as before. Neither will it get any warmer inside than your body temperature.

       And in point 3. you go 'off the rails' just because you took the analogies from the wrong point of reference (inside instead of outside). Rate is very important in establishing an equilibrium. Especially when the heating/cooling is a cyclic process. No matter how high the amount of CO2 is in the atmosphere, if no equilibrium can be reached the system goes banana's. See other planets with an atmosphere e.g. a Venus.   

19239. One Planet Only Forever at 14:29 PM on 1 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       It is undeniable that many perceived to be wealthy powerful people will Lose because they developed their perceived wealth and power through incorrect unsustainable actions (development in the wrong directions). And it is undeniable that a large number of them are trying to get as much protection as possible for their undeserved perceptions of being Winners. And they Love Winners like Team Trump.

       Those type of winners get their competitive advantage by being willing to try to get away with what is understood to be unacceptable behaviour.

       The current market games ruling human behaviour have been proven to be fatally flawed because of their development of unsustainable and damaging activities, and their development of powerful resistance to correcting those developments that were undeniably in the wrong direction.

       The 1972 Stockholm Conference produced the clear understanding that the burning of fossil fuels would have to be curtailed much more rapidly than the marketplace games would end the activity. The 2015 Sustainable Development Goals and the related Paris Climate Agreement are recent strengthened presentations of Good Reason in the same direction as the 1972 understanding.

       So there is truth to concerns about the Loss that will result from aggressive action to correct incorrectly developed economies. In spite of te admirable actions of many of the members of the USA, collectively the USA contains the Largest Number of Deserving Losers if effective international efforts stop allowing people to get away with creating bigger problems for Others, particularly for future generations.

       Between the time of 1972 Stockholm Conference and the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals/Paris Climate Agreement, the UN published "Our Common Future" (1987). That document included the following stark and stern understanding: "25. Many present efforts to guard and maintain human progress, to meet human needs, and to realize human ambitions are simply unsustainable - in both the rich and poor nations. They draw too heavily, too quickly, on already overdrawn environmental resource accounts to be affordable far into the future without bankrupting those accounts. They may show profit on the balance sheets of our generation, but our children will inherit the losses. We borrow environmental capital from future generations with no intention or prospect of repaying. They may damn us for our spendthrift ways, but they can never collect on our debt to them. We act as we do because we can get away with it: future generations do not vote; they have no political or financial power; they cannot challenge our decisions.
       26. But the results of the present profligacy are rapidly closing the options for future generations. Most of today's decision makers will be dead before the planet feels; the heavier effects of acid precipitation, global warming, ozone depletion, or widespread desertification and species loss. Most of the young voters of today will still be alive. In the Commission's hearings it was the young, those who have the most to lose, who were the harshest critics of the planet's present management."

       And long before that time John Stuart Mill included the following warning in "On Liberty" (1859): “If society lets a considerable number of its members grow up mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame for the consequences.”

       Since 1972 the unacceptability of the pursuits of profit of many already very fortunate humans has been undeniable. The evidence of the disasterous unsustainability of development in the currently structured games of popularity and profitability is undeniable. The changes required have been exposed by climate science, along with all the other changes that are now better understood and presented in the Sustainable Development Goals.

       It will clearly take a while longer for the undeserving perceived Winners to become the actual Losers they deserve to be. What would be unfortunate for humanity is for those undeserving wealthy powerful people to be allowed to shift their wealth and power to other 'eventually to be understood to be unsustainable and damaging' ways of Winning.

       The bottom line is that there are some people who are perceived to be Winners today who undeniably really deserve to be losers and the sooner that reality is developed the better the future for humanity will be. That fundamental understanding needs to be kept in mind when discussing how much benefit will come from changing how humans are allowed to live and obtain personal benefit. Some people can easily understand that they will be the losers because they have refused to change their ways so far, resulting in them being most negatively affected by the required correction (and those type of people would also resist understanding any potential benefit to them, they will focus on their perceived losses like losing the ability to drive around in over-sized over-powered vehicles on land and in the water).

19240. nigelj at 14:16 PM on 1 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       Driving By @10, I wouldn't be surprised. Never understimate the ability of people to hold foolish and contradictory views in their heads at the same time.

       Labelling something leftist or god bashing is a form of "poisoning the well" fallacy. Calling somebody or some group an emotive or insulting name is an attempt to mentally discredit the source of the statements, and anything further they might say. Poisoning the well is a description of this, and a sort of "analogy" for this form of rhetoric.

19241. chriskoz at 13:45 PM on 1 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       I think your wording Evan is good and thank for this article.

       In context of mitigation, it is very clear that we're talking about rate of CO2 increases due to anthropo emissions and changes of said rate would reflect which escenario be realised in the future. Anyone, who wants to understand this aspect of reality, does not need to consider the rates of natural changes in the past, like Milankovic cycles, because they are at least 100s times slower. There is no point worrying about "impending ice age" that would come (if people don't mess up with carbon cycle so much as to prevent it) in some 20-50ky, when civilisation may be wiped out within couple hundred years if no mitigation is undertaken. I don't need to care about the fact that I'm most likely be dead in say 60 years and become depressed & stop eating any food, when my current and most logical worry is not to die from hunger within few days.

19242. Eclectic at 13:32 PM on 1 July 2017
       They changed the name from 'global warming' to 'climate change'
       

       Quite right, Thomasleeclark @17 , it is big rise in geological terms!

       Look at the even more rapid rise in temperature since around 1970.

       Spectacular.  Especially if you compare the huge change in the world, that occurred as a very slow 3 degree rise swept away the recent Glacial Age.  And think about the major changes to the physical world, yet to come from the already-locked-in further rise of another 1 degreeC.  Maybe another 1 or 2 degrees on top of that, if the leading politicians can't get their act together!!

19243. DrivingBy at 13:05 PM on 1 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       I sometimes wonder if the same people who copypaste the usual denier talking points including "there was xyz CO2 % during the Ordivocean" are not the same people who argue elsewhere that the Earth is 6000 years old, and evolution/plate tectonics are leftist god-bashing, or whatever.  

19244. thomasleeclark at 12:46 PM on 1 July 2017
       They changed the name from 'global warming' to 'climate change'
       

       Am I to understand, from the first chart pictured above, that the earth's average global temperature has only increased by 0.9° - 1.0° C since 1890?

19245. Evan at 11:40 AM on 1 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       nigelj@8, what I did for now was to add your comment as a footnote. Your comment is well worded, and it repeats some of the points in a different tone, so is good reinforcement. By putting it as a footnote it does not interrupt the flow of the analogy or make it longer, but it is there for clarification. Perhaps I will have the time later to weave it in to the main body, but I don't want to do a quick edit and make the analogy longer at this point.

       Thanks for you input.

19246. nigelj at 09:39 AM on 1 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       Evan @7, yeah it's impossible to make them totally denier proof. There would be so many qualifications and explanations it would be ridiculous, and loose conciseness and clarity, and all our time would be spent antipating responses rather than thinking about the actual issues. About all we can do is to try to avoid saying things that are obvious huge and easy targets for manipulation.

       So you are not wrong. 

       I would go further. If the science explanations are good, complete and cover all sides of issues as they should anyway (and it doesn't always need lengthy comments  to do this) then its hard for sceptics to manipulate things.

19247. Doug_C at 08:41 AM on 1 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       I've spent a lot of time looking at the alternatives to fossil fuel energy production, especially nuclear. This isn't the place to go into specifics, but it's safe to say that it is possible now to begin a systemic transition to nuclear power in places where that is suitable and with developments like Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, the most serious risk, waste and fuel supply issues are addressed.

       And that's before we get to a very long list of other sustainable alternatives and ways to utilize them that would truly revolutionize how we live and make ourselves a part of a sustainable world. Not force oursevles into a paradigm where we're constantly trying to calculate how much longer we have left with business as usual.

       There's little question in my mind that we already have the technology and understanding of how to use it to implement economic models globally that don't lead ineviatbly to failure. The issue we have is current groups that will clearly have to change or fail in any meaningful transition instead choosing to block a transition to a sustainable economy as long as possible.

       This is all Trump presents, some of the facts indicate that the Paris accord was probably much too conservative to meet the actual needs of mitigation. And that is still too much for the current US president.

       Neither politics nor economics decide how the global environment will respond to what we are doing in regards to fossil fuel use and other ways the radiative balance is being forced. Physics, chemistry and biology do.

       But what importance would that have to someone who bases their entire life on the concept of "fake" news. Anything that doesn't confirm their bias is simply discarded and those presenting the genuine article are censored to the greatest degree possible.

       The time for regressive economic and political policy really does need to be over to do something as complex and revolutionary as changing our relationship to the Earth that we simply can't live without.

19248. Evan at 08:15 AM on 1 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       nigelj @6. Thanks for your comments.

       I consider it impossible to make any analogy or article we are likely to write in SkS denier proof. My focus is to write for people who are really trying to understand. If we nail down every eventuality that a denier might use to attack an article, it is likely to become imcomprehensible to those who genuinely are trying to understand.

       I could be wrong on this, but this is how I see it. But I like your suggestions, and will try to work it in to improve the analogy further. Thanks for your suggetsions.

19249. nigelj at 07:40 AM on 1 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       Evan @6, the comments on rate that you have inserted in the article in italics pretty much clarifies it quite well for me.

       If you wanted to rework the article further, you might say something like " the rapid rates of increase in emissions we are seeing will create huge difficulties in adaptation, but simply slowing rates of growth will not be enough. What counts is total emissions load in the atmosphere that we eventually get to, as this will drive up temperatures for millenia, because the earths system will take considerable time to re-absorb CO2. Then add all the detail etc.

       I'm no expert on the science anyway, but I'm interested in how issues are communicated, and how sceptics respond, and the whole psychology thing. You do pretty well and better than I would, but the point is some sceptics will take anything out of context, and twist it, and its best to minimise chances of this. I could see roughly what you were getting at, and knew you were not dismissing rates, but others would twist it out of context by saying "look he doesn't care about rates".

       It's probably best to explain things pedantically eg, "the rate is important, but theres another aspect as well..... Of course it's sad that we have to do this, but that's the world we are in, full of people on the attack, taking things out of context, putting words in peoples mouths,etc.

19250. nigelj at 07:02 AM on 1 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       Yes exactly. It's fair to say rapid deployment of renewable energy is expensive, but I suggest  by no means unaffordable. My country is small, and a quick calculation shows completely replacing all our electricity generation wiith renewables would cost about $60 billion, which is significantly less than total government spending for just one year. Of course thats without considering all the benefits, and much plant would eventually be replaced anyway, even without the climate issue.

       The real alarmists are people like Trump who cherry pick any old study by anyone. They fail to consider biases in the study, and who funds the study, they fail to critically asses the study, or consider or ask for other studies to compare, and consider both costs and benefits.

       Regarding the quoted study there are vested interests:

       "National Economic Research Associates has done work for front groups for coal companies in the past and this study was at the behest of the American Council for Capital Formation, which counts Exxon Mobil, the American Petroleum Institute and Charles Koch as major donors."

       www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2017/jun/02/presidents-paris-climate-speech-annotated-trumps-claims-analysed

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