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Comments 19401 to 19450:

19401. 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!!

19402. 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.  

19403. 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?

19404. 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.

19405. 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.

19406. 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.

19407. 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.

19408. 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.

19409. 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

19410. Evan at 03:09 AM on 1 July 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       Commenters 1-4, I get your message about the rate. I realize that the rate matters for adaptation (see Analogy 1: Speed Kills). What I was trying to say, and failed to, is the following.

       Whereas everyone has correctly pointed out that the rate challenges us for adaptation, in terms of the final temperature we reach it is not the rate but total CO₂ that matters. Whereas rock weathering removes CO₂ naturally, this process is far to slow to be effective to combat anthropogenic emissions. So for the current state of affairs, rock weathering is negligible for combating our emissions. I was trying to make the point that if we were to cut our emissions by a factor of 10, but still increased the total atmospheric CO₂ loading to 560 ppm (or pick whatever number you want), we would still be in big trouble. In big cities reducing emission rates is effective because outside winds can dilute polluted air to reduce absolute levels, but there is no such mechanism in the atmosphere.

       I will try to rework this analogy, probably using the analogy that when filling a bathtub, to keep it from overflowing (i.e., staying below the 2C limit), it is not the rate at which you fill the tub that matters, but the total amount of water one puts in. We can get embroiled in a discussion of sinks into the ocean, biosphere, etc., but the main point I am trying to make is that whereas auto emission standard matter for local pollution effects, for CO₂, all that really matters on any time scale we care about is the total emissions, and not the emission rate. I think the concept of emissions budgets is new to a lot of people, but is certainly not new to the people commenting here).

       I am open to suggestions for how to best phrase this.

19411. Doug_C at 02:36 AM on 1 July 2017
       Trump fact check: Climate policy benefits vastly exceed costs
       

       Then we get to the biological systems that make complex life itself possible on Earth, what cost do we put on say Coral reef systems, rainforests, or even the healthy balance of plankton in the oceans that provide much of the basis for oxygen and protein on this planet. From what I recall almost half of the condensation nuclei that give us rainfall have their origin with molecules released by microscopic life in the ocean as well.

       Without a stable planetary environment to exist as part of our species let alone our economy is in jeopardy. And forcing something as crucial and complex as the atmospheric radiative balance that determines climate globally into a radically new state in a very small amount of time jeopardizes all of that.

       Any sound economic policy must take into account the unexpected and with human forced climate change we are creating a chaotic global spanning condition that makes any forecasts highly doubtful.

       For instance is there any forecast of the cost of methane clathrates destabilizing much sooner than expected. It seems to me putting economic issues first really is putting the cart in front of the horse, we need to ensure there will even be a stable biosphere to locate a human based economy before we start thinking about what the cost is going to be to people.

       If there is no stable biosphere left in a relatively short time span, then doesn't it logically follow there will be no economy because most if not all people could be gone.

19412. HK at 21:32 PM on 30 June 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #25
       

       Another option is to include all the data until now and then do an "analysis" by drawing a straight line between April 1998 (anomaly 0.8928 K) and May 2017 (0.6267 K) and conclude with a cooling trend of -0.139 K/decade.

       It’s amazing how wishful thinking can override reality whether the topic is global warming or for instance some of the moon landing deniers’ claim that rocket engines don’t work in space!

19413. Daniel Bailey at 20:51 PM on 30 June 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       Those wishing to dismiss current high levels of atmospheric CO2 by comparing them to earlier periods of high levels of atmospheric CO2 need to keep up with current research:

       "The evolution of Earth’s climate on geological timescales is largely driven by variations in the magnitude of total solar irradiance (TSI) and changes in the greenhouse gas content of the atmosphere.

       Here we show that the slow ∼50 Wm−2 increase in TSI over the last ∼420 million years (an increase of ∼9 Wm−2 of radiative forcing) was almost completely negated by a long-term decline in atmospheric CO2. This was likely due to the silicate weathering-negative feedback and the expansion of land plants that together ensured Earth’s long-term habitability.

       Humanity’s fossil-fuel use, if unabated, risks taking us, by the middle of the twenty-first century, to values of CO2 not seen since the early Eocene (50 million years ago).

       If CO2 continues to rise further into the twenty-third century, then the associated large increase in radiative forcing, and how the Earth system would respond, would likely be without geological precedent in the last half a billion years."

       Foster et al 2017 - Future climate forcing potentially without precedent in the last 420 million years

19414. JamesMartin at 11:39 AM on 30 June 2017
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       Eclectic — As I explained in a previous post, which SkepticalScience took down, I checked on Heller's sources and scaling of his graphs, and it turns out that his presentations stand up to scrutiny whereas the those from SkepticalScience don't even make sense.  That's why I have defended Heller in his work.  There is nothing personal about it.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Removed while account investigated.

       [DB] Iterative sock puppet (number 11) of serial spammer cosmoswarrior has been removed from further participation in this venue.  As will all of your future such.  It might profit you better to seek a more amenable village to infest.

19415. JamesMartin at 11:23 AM on 30 June 2017
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       The hangup that SkepticalScience.com has in regard to temperature data is that you are exclusively using datasets at least as current as 2015, all of which are tainted by the 2015 adjustments. No wonder you make statements such as

       "It is very clear that use of the new data sets make almost no difference to the trend."

       If you want to do a fair assessment of the impact that the 2015 corrections had on the historical temperature data, you must dig up those archived datasets recorded before 2015. Otherwise, you just go around in circles claiming that the warming hiatus is over or never was while the corrections "make almost no difference to the trend". Well, if the corrections make no significant difference in the trend, and the current trend is hiatus, then wouldn't we still be in hiatus?

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Removed pending moderation investigation.

       [DB] Posting rights rescinded due to flagrant sock puppetry.

19416. JamesMartin at 11:20 AM on 30 June 2017
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       Tom Curtis — Your ineptness with these graphs never ceases to amaze me. Take another look at the figure below before you delete it again.

       

       Notice that the tick marks of the two horizontal axises align perfectly with each other as I showed with the short green lines connecting them. Similarly, the tick marks of the pair of vertical axises also align perfectly. Therefore, the scaling of both the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the two plots are identical. The reason the decimal points may not align as well has to do with the different font sizes of the plot labels, and NOT the data or scaling. Therefore, Tony Heller's plots and animated .gif file still stand as a fair presentation of how the 2015 "corrections" rewrote temperature data since 1880.

       What happened in the case of this figure is a prime example of your long history of deleting my comments, giving your faulty understanding of what I said, and then trying to discredit me on the basis of your spin on the story instead of what I actually said. Can we say "strawman tactics"?

       At this point, it is quite clear to me that you are either totally incompetent or intentionally deceptive in your position, and in either case, for me to have any sort of intelligent discussion with you is simply not possible.

       BTW, I saved screen snapshots of my postings before you and any "moderators" had a chance to remove them. Therefore, if "push comes to shove", it won't be just your word against mine as to what was said.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] TC is not a moderator. Posts removed because sockpuppet of someone who cannot comprehend comment policy and let alone the science.

       If you wanted to discuss science (which you are apparently incapable) then you needed have heeded the comments policy. No exceptions and no further chances.

       [DB] Posting rights rescinded due to boringly iterative sock puppetry.

19417. villabolo at 10:55 AM on 30 June 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       "Some skeptics refer to a time about 600 million years ago, during the late Ordovician..."

       My understanding is that the Ordovician era was from approximately 488 million to 444 million years ago. :-)

19418. nigelj at 09:15 AM on 30 June 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       Yeah I think paragraphs one and two are excellent. The basic blanket analogy is just so good, simple and clear. I have just recently purchased some thick curtains, and I'm surprised just what a difference those make to temperatures, especially noticeable when I wake up in the mornings.

       Paragraph three sends a slightly mixed message. The total number of blankets is crucial of course, but the rate is very  important in relation to carbon cycles.

       The rate is also important because adpatation becomes harder if rates of change are rapid. It's also just too easy for people to say total quantities will be far in the future, and not our problem. Both rates and total numbers are equally important arent they?

       I agree about the late Ordivocean. This is sceptics cherry picking a period that suits their perspective, and its doubly frustrating because they seem unable or unwilling to grasp the totally plausible explanation you documented. In fact past climate history is very complicated and sometime superficially inconsistent with theory, but only a combination of various factors like solar changes along with greenhouse gases and other geological factors seem to explain everything, including the apparent inconsistencies and oddities. It appears to have been a complex evolving sort of system interracting in numerous ways. 

19419. Tom Curtis at 07:47 AM on 30 June 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #25
       

       HK @2, I am sure that that section of RSS TLT from 1997-2015 will be just as popular as ever.  Of course, it will be mandatory to exclude 2016 because of "the impact of a large El Nino", a reason I have already seen offered and which, oddly, does not seem to provide a reason to exclude 1997/98.

19420. JWRebel at 05:39 AM on 30 June 2017
       SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets
       

       The analogy was doing well up until point 3, the rate of putting on blankets and the Ordovician goes a little far; it's complicated. The rate matters especially with relation to the carbon cycle and weathering. Blankets are not added continuously, and there is no blanket cycle with blankets dissolving. Not to mention positive feedbacks under those blankets!

19421. HK at 23:52 PM on 29 June 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #25
       

       ....and let me have the pleasure to introduce.....RSS TLT v 4.0!

       

       According to their own chart, the trend in the lower troposphere has been 0.184 K/decade since 1979. That’s actually a little more than most surface records!
       I guess RSS team will become even less popular among the climate deniers from now on!

19422. nigelj at 13:48 PM on 29 June 2017
       Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
       

       BJChip says "I do agree it would be good to force the issue regarding truth, but as long as we have a media that is owned by the 0.5% , and news that has to be sold like soap powder, we are just as owned.....  I could not live on the same block as a Pruitt or a Lamar Smith. "

       I agree on both points. 

       Regarding the media, its not just the owners. I have seen a big change in our main newspapers over the last couple of years. They used to be at least moderately balanced, but now print far fewer articles critical of things like fossil fuel interests, food companies, sugar consumption etc and instead have now tended to become almost total corporate apologists. It's possibly fear of losing advertising to social media or other internet media.

       It's reached crisis point, unfortunately right at the wrong time for getting facts out on climate change. I dont know what the answer is, but the mainstream media are turning to trash. It's not fake news in the flawed and ridiculous way Trump claims, its near total corporate capture.

       I'm a very easy going guy who will normally talk to people of all ideologies and classes, but these days I would struggle to socialise with some of these climate denier people. And frankly I dont have to. It's not their beliefs as such, it's the underhanded distortion of so many issues, which I think is largely cynically deliberate.

19423. nigelj at 13:01 PM on 29 June 2017
       Explainer: Dealing with the ‘loss and damage’ caused by climate change
       

       Art Vandelay @26.

       Land area or total population doesn't come into the question of compensation or assistance. Basically high emitters as individual people have caused more of the problem therefore they should pay more to fix the problem. It's like a situation where several parties are polluting a river, well the party causing the most damage should pay the most to fix the problem. Everyone else will pay something but less.

       This is true within countries, but it is also true when applied between countries on a per capita basis. Per capita is the only way of determining the issue. In reality it means rich people owe a duty to poor people as rich people have been the larger emitters in the main. But it doesn't obviate the need for poor people to also reduce emissions.

       I agree with your general assertion that curbing population growth can only help to reduce emissions, and I doubt anyone would seriously disagree. Rates of population growth are falling in many countries anyway, due to the demographic transition. Hopefully countries do what they can to speed up that process. Paris did not stipulate measures to reduce emissions, and this was left to individual countries and there's nothing stopping them considering population growth.

       However changing rates of population growth is such a slow process even under ideal conditions. I just dont see how it is of much benefit to keeping temperatures under 2 degrees. We are almost entirely reliant on changing sources of energy.

19424. One Planet Only Forever at 12:19 PM on 29 June 2017
       Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
       

       bjchip@8,

       It is curious that in the USA and many other nations an advertiser who tries to present actual but unflattering facts about a competitor can be penalized or at least stopped from continuing to do it, and the penalty is worse if they misrepresent the facts about a competitor, yet no such penalties apply to government actions or election campaigns.

       The absence of Good Reason Ethical standards for government activity, and the inconsistent application of things like the advertising penalties (used more to limit public awareness of unacceptably activity than to correct for deliberate unjustifiable wrongs being done), are indications of how incorrectly developed a nation has become.

       The first step to "Getting Better Behaviour" is exposure and increased understanding that the current behaviour is unacceptable. The exposure is growing. Getting acceptance that the bahaviour is unacceptable enough to require effective significant penalties is likely not that far away (and understandably faces fierce opposition).

       The most interesting aspect of this attack on climate science is the way the attackers/deniers appear to be unaware that their actions are shattering illusions/preceptions of special status and admiration for the wealthy and powerful today. It is becoming more apparant to more people that recognition and reward is not owed to someone because of the impression or image they create (their profitability and popularity may or may not be deserved). There actually is a reality that can be understood by everyone, the need to help others and help improve the future for all of humanity. And images or dogmas that are inconsistent with that understandable reality eventually get shattered (or there is no future for humanity).

       Sadly, a lot of damage is usually able to be done before the shattering of unjustified impressions makes deserving losers of the ones who have been the biggest trouble-makers. There are many other exmples of how understandably unacceptable things are gotten away with in pursuit of personal benefit and profit. But climate science has unintentially produced a Huge Unmistakable Bad Example Response that everyone can understand to be Bad, even if they refuse to admit that it is bad.

19425. bjchip at 10:48 AM on 29 June 2017
       Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
       

       As I pointed out on hotwhopper where this was also raised -  what Santer's team did was to effectively validate what Foster & Rahmstorf did earlier.   

       We don't have any ability to actually penalize lying and misrepresentation in the service of the people who think "greed is good".  The penalty is eventually to the society as a whole, which will ultimately disintegrate.   The losers are everyone not in that 0.5% winners circle and the real penalties are going to be rather harsher. 

       Just not on this generation.  

       I do agree it would be good to force the issue regarding truth, but as long as we have a media that is owned by the 0.5% , and news that has to be sold like soap powder,  we are just as owned.    So not happening.  What needs to happen is the effective dissolution of the United States of America and the regions choosing their own paths as to whether to be independent nations and what laws to apply to each.   I could not live on the same block as a Pruitt or a Lamar Smith.  I am lucky that I don't have to.. but I am on the same planet so they aren't far enough away.   

19426. One Planet Only Forever at 09:27 AM on 29 June 2017
       Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
       

       How can presentation of anything that is unjustifiably contrary to 'a fuller better understanding of what is going on and the application of that understanding to help improve the future for all of humanity' become a legally punishable offense, with the presenter and everyone who tries to unjustifiably defend or excuse the misrepresentation of understanding being penalized, with the magnitude of the penalty being based on the severity of the implications of their misrepresentation for the future of humanity, and the penalty including Elected Representatives and Supreme Court members to be removed from their positions (not waiting for the next election or for a replacement Justice to be identified)?

       The real treat of potentially Losing Big League may be the only way to limit the attempts of those who grow up believing they can get away with deliberately trying to get as much advantage as possible from behaving as unacceptably as they can get away with.

19427. scaddenp at 09:17 AM on 29 June 2017
       Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
       

       I should also say looking at straight temperature of any layer in ocean in most certainly not immune to internal variability. However, I do agree that OHC 0-2000m globally averaged is indeed a more stable measure of climate than surface temperature. However, if you look at it:

       

       you see that still quite a lot of variability from ocean-atmosphere exchange. That is where heat from El nino comes from.

19428. nigelj at 08:38 AM on 29 June 2017
       Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
       

       The models diverge from reality after about 2005, but only slightly. This is short term, so is most likely short term natural variation. As you say its not climate sensitivity and could be volcanic activity etc.

       I would add natural variation like enso or pdo cycles could be difficult to 100% accurately incorporate into into models , as it's not perfectly regular, so you cannot read anything much into a divergence of temperatures over relatively short terms up to about 25 years.

       In contrast sea level rise is slightly ahead of model estimates. Nothing from Christie on this. Again there's so much going on its hard to make completely 100% accurate predictions, but things can be more than predicted as well.

       Do we do nothing on climate change because we don't as yet have 100% accuracy? It's like saying lets not treat this very sick patient, because we dont 100% understand how the body works, and can't 100% accurately predict outcomes of surgery or drugs. We would obviously treat the patient.

19429. scaddenp at 08:24 AM on 29 June 2017
       Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
       

       rocketeer - how would extract those ocean temperatures from the modelling grid in a useful way and present compare them? One way is instead to extract global OHC over various depth ranges from models and compare, but I understand that is not trivial and not routine.

       Anyway, data from models available here.

19430. One Planet Only Forever at 07:14 AM on 29 June 2017
       Explainer: Dealing with the ‘loss and damage’ caused by climate change
       

       Art Vandelay@26,

       We are not even close to agreement. To minimize the chance of continued misunderstanding I will make a more complete presentation of my understanding of the required changes for humanity to develop a sustainable better future for the almost limitless future that is possible on this amazing planet (I am open to Real Good Reasons to improve that required objective of human activity - I am not moved by temptations to believe artificial attempts to create alternative beliefs that may temporarily develop popular support for unjustifiable pursuits of profit or job creation or tax collection ...).

       To achieve that objective all of human activity needs to be developed to be of zero-GHG impact (2050 is the target date often discussed for achieving this) with major correction required for over-development that has occurred in the wrong directions. So beyond that time there can be no nation believing it is OK to have GHG generating activity as part of what its population benefit from. So I disagree with your presumption that nations can continue some level of impact, but just limit it based on the size of the land area of their nation. The leadership of all nations need to get all of their population to understand that the end of such activity is going to happen and the sooner the better.

       Further. there must be a limit to the total impact accumulated by the time of finally achieving the development of zero-added-GHG activity. The lower the total impact is the better the future will be. And current day generations in nations need to be accountable for the impacts of their predecessors towards the total accumulated impact, no 'forgetting about the past', especially no excusing what winners/leaders have done since 1972 when a clear awareness of the concern was globally established by the Stockholm Conference. Serious consideration needs to be given to penalizing people for what they have been doing since that time, with steeper penalties for what they did since the more recent reinforcements of that understanding.

       Using hydrocarbon operations process controls terms, the High High High Level Alarm (Imminent Disastrous Consequence Level) that has been internationally agreed by those who rationally consider distant motives (my deliberate paraphrasing of a quote from John Stuart Mill's “On Liberty”) is the accumulation of impacts that has a reasonable likelihood of resulting in 2.0C warming of the surface since pre-industrial values. And the High High Level Alarm (An Emergency Level to be avoided) is 1.5C warming impact. The High Level alarm would be 1.0C but the irresponsibility of our predecessors has already pushed things to that alarm point. And a Normal Operation range would be between 250 and 300 ppm of CO2.

       Those objectives cannot be achieved by any of the highest per-capita impacting people being allowed to continue their preferred ways of benefiting, no matter how big the area of the nation they are living in is. If there are considerations of population limits, the highest per-capita impacting people need to be reduced first.

       The proper way to avoid reaching alarming limits is to have the wealthiest and most influential people prove they deserve to be leaders/winners among global humanity by most rapidly changing their ways to zero-GHG-impact, including not being invested in potential to benefit from any business that pursues profit from activity that will create GHG impacts (That will mean many perceived to be wealthier people will dramatically lose perceptions of wealth, but such corrections would indicate how damaging and worthless their ways of Winning had been, and they should be thankful to not have punitive damages applied for their past transgressions).

       What is becoming undeniable is that the freer actions of people (people freer to believe what they want and do what they please), results in unacceptable unsustainable damaging Winning. The marketplace can be a very useful mechanism for determining what deserves to be discouraged/rewarded, but only if all of the participants are dedicated to pursuing increased awareness and improved understanding to help advance humanity to a sustainable better future for all (all people need to be moved by rational consideration of distant motives - especially those with the largest influence).

       So my understanding of what is required is - the nations whose previous citizens had created the most impact so far need to most aggressively change the behaviour of their richest and most influential people today, all of them, no more 'freedom to believe and do as they please if they can afford it or if they can get popular support for getting away with it and as long as it can't be proven conclusively in a court of law to be against a specifically worded and enacted law' Bad-reason Poor-Excuse Non-sense. No more allowing a portion of the population to get aay with making a bigger problem that another portion of the population is trying to mitigate. No more making or allowing excuses for the “Leaders/Winners” to behave understandably less acceptably in pursuit of profit and popularity.

       That last point is the real better understanding that climate science has unwittingly and unintentionally exposed in a big way. And it is why climate science faces such a vicious and persistent resistance. Many perceived Big Winners really understand that they have A Lot To Lose, and they can even understand that they deserve to lose it.

19431. El_Jairo at 06:59 AM on 29 June 2017
       There is no consensus
       

       I can't edit, so I will rephrase that last sentence. 

       Don't just accept what is presented to you, think critical and challenge the assumptions. 

19432. El_Jairo at 06:55 AM on 29 June 2017
       There is no consensus
       

       I am not going to make the argument again but post 712 sums it up splendidly. 

       TLDR: read the paper by Cook et al and you will see what the consensus is really about. Not that much shocking facts. Human activity is creating greenhouse gas and this impacts the global climate. 

       So basically I would advise any skeptic to read and think for themselves. Don't accept what is pre

19433. rocketeer at 04:09 AM on 29 June 2017
       Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
       

       I don't think I have ever seen a model projection for the upper and intermediate ocean temperatures.  Does one exist?  Since that is where 90% of the heat goes, and it seems rather immune to internal variation and other non-radiative forcings (possibly due to the ginormous mass involved) it would seem like this would be easier to predict.  In general, I think this data should be presented to the public more frequently.

19434. michael sweet at 03:39 AM on 29 June 2017
       We are heading for the warmest climate in half a billion years
       

       Art Vandelay,

       While humans could build structures and survive, what would help all the agricultural animals left in the open?  Not to mention that crops fail at high temperatures.  While people can live in buildings they have to grow food.  

       Many scientists think the dangers of geoengineering exceed the benefits.  Sulfate aerosols, the most common "solution" proposed, causes severe drought.  Does that really solve the problem or just trade one problem for another?   It is much more cost effective and safer to pollute less and reduce AGW than to pollute more and try to use untested technology to get out of a problem.

       You complain elsewhere that people concerned about AGW are "advocates that overstate the effectiveness and avoid mentioning potential down-sides ."  Perhaps you need to look in the mirror and see how much that applies to you.

       Please provide a citation to support your claim that "The risks of geo-engineering may be high but still much lower than doing nothing."  Most of the analysis I have seen is the opposite.

19435. John Hartz at 03:29 AM on 29 June 2017
       Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
       

       Recommended supplemental reading:

       Study: Why troposphere warming differs between models and satellite data by Zeke Hausfather, Carbon Brief, June 21, 2017

19436. michael sweet at 02:50 AM on 29 June 2017
       SkS Analogy 8 - I'll take the specialist
       

       Art Vandelay,

       Billions of dollars are wasted in the USA screening for prostrate cancer.  Doctors make billions of dollars treating the poor souls who screen positive.  Millions of American men have been rendered inpotent or incontinent by this treatment.  Studies show that few deaths are prevented by all this treatment.  In Europe, where the health system focuses on patient outcomes and not the profit of doctors, they have made much less use of the PSA screening test and have better overall health outcomes.  The surgeons do not make as much money.

       The fossil fuel industry has cried wolf many times during my lifetime over environmental regulations causing economic damage. You need to find a new analogy.

19437. ubrew12 at 01:03 AM on 29 June 2017
       Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument
       

       Christy: "the models... would be inappropriate... in predicting future changes in the climate or for related policy decisions."  Compared to what?  Christy's intuition?  Lamar Smith's faith that the future will be unlike the past?  Inhofe's 'God is still up there'?  The models are all policymakers have because the 'other side' of this debate steadfastly refuses to put together any models (or refuses to share the knowledge that they put them together, i.e. Exxon 1980).  You would think an industry with a 22 trillion dollar stake in the outcome of this debate would be able to afford a better pointer to our climate future than James Inhofe's snowball.

19438. peter7723 at 23:07 PM on 28 June 2017
       Electric Cars are the Missing Link to a Zero Carbon Energy Grid
       

       I installed a 3kW Solar PV system and needing a new car, purchased a plug-in hybrid. In my latitude, 38°S, comparing the year before with the year after, I reduced my annual petrol consumption from 1200L to 190L, saving $1,300. The PV system meant that my electrical energy did not increase. As for CO₂ emissions, the PV system displaced 4MWh per annum. The emissions intensity of petrol is about the same as that of the electrical energy generated from brown coal. The oil industry should be worried.

19439. Swayseeker at 22:43 PM on 28 June 2017
       New study confirms the oceans are warming rapidly
       

       If we are going to be hotter and more humid then wet bulb temperatures could reach dangerous levels. One cannot cool oneself down below wet bulb temperatures by means of sweating, so one must reduce temperatures or humidity. One can reduce humidity by having a lot of convectional rain and "Understanding the sky" which can be found on the Internet tells us why the clouds are higher in the tropics than at the poles. Most of the tropical rain is conectional and this has "dried out" the atmosphere a bit, making dew points lower. Using Espy's equation tells us that with lower dewpoints (resulting from lower relative humidity) cloud bases are higher. 125 (T-Tdew) is a larger number if Tdew is smaller. Using solar air heaters on every rooftop can dry out air by continuous  convection and rain. This will lower wet bulb temperatures.

19440. Bob Loblaw at 22:41 PM on 28 June 2017
       Models are unreliable
       

       NorrisM:

       With a legal background, and experience in trying to assess the credibilty of different sources, one thing for you to look for is inconsitencies in a position. Skeptical Science has a summary page listing contradictions in the so-called "skeptical" view of climate change.

       Another issue to keep track of is how often someone expresses complete certainty on something. Generally, you will find that the science of climate change has a lot of "ifs" and "most likelys" - sources of error are discussed at length, and implications of uncertainty are noted. In the so-called "skeptical" view, you will often find very definitive statements (that often contradict other definitive statements). In science, admission of uncertainties is a strength, not a weakness.

19441. Glenn Tamblyn at 19:49 PM on 28 June 2017
       Models are unreliable
       

       NorrisM
       
       Firstly, for you as a lawyer, whose principle skill is the use of language...
       
       "Can we not come up with a less pejorative term than "climate change denier" with all its connotations when literally none of the Curry, Christy et al group deny that the world is getting warmer."
       
       This is standard rhetorical technique which I presume you would be adept at slicing through in a legal context. The term 'climate change denier' covers a range of differing 'denials' and by claiming it is being ascribing to one subset of of this 'population', aren't you are engaging in rhetoric.

        

       Next, the purpose and function of climate models. They are, really, no different from weather models. Used to produce the weather forecast.
       
       Climate models work at a coarser resolution than weather models but essentially attempt to produce differing results. A weather model takes what the weather is today and attempts to determine what the weather will be x days from now. In principle, exactly. Well, sort of...
       
       A climate model, being coarser, has a snowflakes chances in hell of doing this. One run of a climate model will be significantly random. And another run of a climate model, with slightly differing starting conditions will also be significantly random.
       
       What if we do many runs of the climate model, each with slightly differing starting conditions? Each run is different. But what does the average of many runs look like? Well this starts to have a pattern, an order to it.
       
       Although each run differs, their average is much less chaotic. Because the underlying climate does vary in a modestly predictable way. The average has predictability.
       
       But that does not mean that the actual day to day evolution of weather over climate timescales will accurately follow this average trend. Because day-to-day weather is chaos superimposed over an underlying order. And since we can't easily predict the chaotic component, the actual weather data will not ever match the climate exactly.
       
       So we can't expect weather to progress with the regularity that the climate averages suggest.

19442. scaddenp at 19:08 PM on 28 June 2017
       SkS Analogy 8 - I'll take the specialist
       

       "Conversely, cancer treatments also don't have advocates that overstate the effectiveness and avoid mentioning potential down-sides. So it cuts both ways."

       I think you will many to dispute that, but rather offtopic.

       I find your view of humanity depressing. Glad I dont live where you live.

19443. Art Vandelay at 15:22 PM on 28 June 2017
       SkS Analogy 8 - I'll take the specialist
       

       Conversely, cancer treatments also don't have advocates that overstate the effectiveness and avoid mentioning potential down-sides. So it cuts both ways.

       I agree though, with the exception of people in their 20's or younger, most of us will probably avoid the dire consequences of climate change. Speaking only for myself here, but I think the best thing that I can do for my children and future grandchildren is to leave enough money to help them live as comfortably as possible and in the best place possible, though I accept that that's a selfish motivation. But I guess that's my point anyway. Most people will act out of self interest before collective interest, and most people will plan for the short term before they plan for the medium or long term.

19444. scaddenp at 14:42 PM on 28 June 2017
       SkS Analogy 8 - I'll take the specialist
       

       Fortunately most cancer treatments dont have do-nothing advocates exaggerating the cost of the treatment so they dont lose market share. In your brothers case another interesting analogy comes up. Suppose instead it was your 3 year old son. What route would take and whose advice would you trust about likelihood of surviving till a better treatment comes? Mostly we are making decisions about what a future generation would face.

19445. Art Vandelay at 10:11 AM on 28 June 2017
       SkS Analogy 8 - I'll take the specialist
       

       Climate change is more like a cancer than an injury though, taking a long time to present definite symptoms and requiring a variety of invasive treatments over a long period of time.

       There are many cancer sufferers who decide not to undertake the treatments due to the high costs and known painful side-effects, particularly if a successful outcome has a low probability. 

       Similarly, with climate change mitigation, people will only be encouraged to pay for the treatments if there's a high probability that they will cure the disease, and they need to be confident that the treatments themselves don't create many years of misery.  I have a brother with a rare form of Leukemia that could be treated today with highly invasive and high risk treatments, but he's chosen a path of non invasive and low risk measures that will hopefully buy him enough time to still be alive when better and safer treatments that offer a cure are available.   

19446. scaddenp at 09:43 AM on 28 June 2017
       CO2 lags temperature
       

       "Zero" on the graph is not really present day. At no time on that graph does CO2 ppm exceed 300pm. We are now over 400pm. The last time earth was at 400 was in the pliocene when it was too warm for ice age cycles.

       And yes, there are long period cycles at work - the Milankovich cycles. A complex series of feedbacks accompany the ice age cycle. As ice extends down on NH, swamps freeze over, vegetation changes, sea level drops exposing more land for plant colonization, and as temperature of ocean drops, its ability to hold dissolved CO2 increases. All work to reduce CO2 in atmosphere. Works in reverse when orbital forcing changes the other way.

       In summary you cannot change the temperature of the planet without also changing the CO2 concentration the atmosphere which then acts as a feedback to amplify that change (and to make NH driven changes into global changes). However, these are also very slow feedback systems, operating over 100s to 1000s of years (because it takes nearly a 1000 years for ocean to equilibrate). Eventually we will see these feedbacks cut in from our forced change to climate but not in this century to any great deal.

19447. Art Vandelay at 09:21 AM on 28 June 2017
       We are heading for the warmest climate in half a billion years
       

       Humans can adapt in part, such as building climate controlled cities, such as the one proposed in Dubai, but I'm sure that geo-engineering will be implemented if the summer temperatures start to exceed 40C on a regular basis in large mid latitude cities. The risks of geo-engineering may be high but still much lower than doing nothing.    

19448. Tom Curtis at 08:58 AM on 28 June 2017
       Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
       

       Danilushka @309, the most recent plateau in temperature and CO2 level shown in the graph of the Vostock ice core data (which is called the Holocene), has lasted over 10 thousand years.  Over that period, CO2 levels have increased from about 260 ppmv to about 280 ppmv just before the industrial revolution, ie, an average increase of 0.002 ppmv per annum.  Since the industrial revolution, CO2 concentrations have increased by 120 ppmv over approx 270 years, or 0.444 ppmv per year, or 222 times as fast.

       

       Needless to say, over 10 thousand years is "thousands of years".

19449. Danilushka at 08:18 AM on 28 June 2017
       Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
       

       Please reconcile your statement in the first paragraph, "Before the industrial revolution, the CO2 content in the air remained quite steady for thousands of years." with the graph in the article entitled "CO2 lags temperature - what does it mean?" Figure 1: Vostok ice core records for carbon dioxide concentration and temperature change.

       Figure 1's CO2 concentrations don't look quite steady for thousands of years at all. Not even close. Am I missing something?

       https://skepticalscience.com/images/Milankovitch_Cycles_400000.gif

19450. Danilushka at 08:09 AM on 28 June 2017
       CO2 lags temperature
       

       I am just trying to understand this so please bear with me. Looking at the series of temperature changes (3 in all in Figure 1 Vostok ice core records) in the graph of CO2 versus global temperature, there seems to be a long-period cycle at work. Or there was perhaps if man has changed things. It seems the current peak is actually lower than the first, despite man's injection of CO2. It is hard to separate the CO2 from the temperature for this recent peak due to the long period in the graph and large time scale.

       Is there a graph with the same axes covering a shorter period such as the width of the previous cycle?  It would also be interesting to see each of the 3 cycles split out with better resolution to see if this time, as early in the cycle as it is, is different and, if it is, by how much and how it is trending. I suspect this might be available somewhere, but I am new here and not sure how to find it or even ask so please forgive my lack of information on this.

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