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scaddenp at 07:52 AM on 28 June 2017New study confirms the oceans are warming rapidly
So those trying to blame oceans for global warming would appear to be in same boat as those claiming you could reduce deficit and increase government spending while cutting taxes?
Just like money, heat has to come from somewhere.
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nigelj at 06:41 AM on 28 June 2017We are heading for the warmest climate in half a billion years
A swamp like hot, wet climate will be an incubator for all sorts of tropical diseases, just at a point where we are having problems with antibiotics. And dont kid yourself technology will solve this, as new antibiotics will develop the same problems.
Some people argue a warmer climate is a good thing, but it has plenty of downsides. Heatwaves combined with higher humidity doesn't sound like a good combination, and this is costly to adapt to.
My country will get more rainfall, and has already seen an increase in rainfall. The trouble is this is mainly falling in the one geographical location where it's of no use to either electricity generation or agriculture.
This giant, unintended experiment with climate is high risk, and solutions like geoengineering would be high risk, ambulance at the bottom of the cliff approaches. But thats typical of humanity in so many ways, as our record in prevention isn't so great.
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NorrisM at 04:01 AM on 28 June 2017Models are unreliable
Tom Dayton, Eclectic & MA Rodger. I would like to thank all of your for your comments. I think I have to spend more time reading the full thread both for this topic as well as on questions of MWP etc. I think that I will withdraw from any further comments until I have at least read the full thread on this topic (this could be a long time!).
As a lawyer and not a scientist, I find the best way to come to a conclusion is listen to both sides similar to the process in determining any litigation (I am actually a business lawyer not a litigator). For this reason, my plan is to stay on this website and also the Nigel Lawson GWPF site. I actually have never even looked at the Skeptical Science website. I think I can "filter" things sufficiently to read postings on both sites.
The information on Steve Koonin is quite interesting given his statements in the transcript of the APS panel hearing where he professes surprise a number of times on what he was hearing. I thought I was reading the questions of independent physicists who were trying to get at the facts (I just about said "truth"). But I do commend that transcript to all of you, if only to hear how these significant IPCC climatologists respond to the questions.
But one suggestion to the editor of this website. I think that "ad hominen" comments on the persons contributing to this website should be fully deleted and never appear at all on the website. Just "stroking them out" but allowing everyone to read them just encourages those kind of comments to be made. I do find that the proponents of anthropogenic global warming seem to be much more in "attack mode" than the other side. 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 term "fake skeptic" is awfully close to "fake news". Is it recently invented since the advent of Trump?
Having said all of this, the recent post today indicating that Stephen Hawking is onside and part of a new organization gives me a significant degree of comfort. Reading his History of Time was a challenge but I got through it. Unless I have missed another YouTube, I was very disappointed with the Neil DeGrasse Tyson video explaining global warming because it is so simplistic and does not explain any of the challenges in trying to "predict" future changes in the climate. I appreciate why he has done this, reaching for the lowest common denominator amongst the public, but I think scientists do have a responsibility to qualify absolute statements. Otherwise, they move into the political arena which then undermines the confidence the public has in their scientific statements.
In any event, thanks very much for all of your comments. Lots of reading ahead of me.
Moderator Response:[DB] "This term "fake skeptic" is awfully close to "fake news". Is it recently invented since the advent of Trump?"
The term "fake-skeptic" has been used in this venue since at least 2010. The denial of the science by the venues you note is well-established over the years.
[PS] Your "truth search" understandably seems to be about determining the reliability of witnesses. How many bits of GWPF propoganda, misinformation and denial would we have to demonstrate to you before you decided they were unreliable witnesses?
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Art Vandelay at 01:16 AM on 28 June 2017Explainer: Dealing with the ‘loss and damage’ caused by climate change
OPF@25, you say, " I disagree as passionately as is possible in text to the following claim: "Ultimately, it's emisisons per square foot or meter of land that a country will be paying for."
People, not land area, are causing the problem. The accumulation of the per-person impacts of everyone in a nation, through the entire history of that nation, make up that nation's total impact. Land area is irrelevant."
I belive we are actually in agreement. My point was that people (population) is what matters, because it's people that create emissions. A country such as Australia has a relatively small population of big emitters, but if every country in the world had the same population density and emissions per capita as Australia, there would be no global warming problem at all. Conversely, if every country had the same population density and emissions per person as India (2017) there would be a very substantial global warming problem. Ultimately, the world can tolerate some amount of (equivalent) CO2 emissions per square mile or km of land, so in my view it should be the responsibility of each sovereign government to manage their population and emissions per capita within a taget limit based on total land area. This would force countries such as Australia, who want a big population, to become sufficiently CO2 efficient to support it. Likewise , countries with big populations would be encouraged to reduce or stabilise population levels.
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MA Rodger at 20:00 PM on 27 June 2017Models are unreliable
NorrisM @1047,
A big long comment from you setting out a lot of stuff. Can I home in on the things you describe as "what also troubles me in everything that I have read so far on climate change." (As you say it is off topic for the thread but...)
(1) The Mediaeval Warm Period. This you describe as being "at least 200 years in at least Greenland and Northern Europe close to or equal to our present temperature." The temperature at the top of Greenland can be reconstructed from ice cores with some accuracy. GISP2, for instance shows results like this graph and some will take the last few thousand years of this graph as proof that recent warming is trivial when compared with previous centuries, as this SkS post describes. Yet the most recent GISP2 data dates from 1855 and when you graft on modern temperature data things look a whole lot different. The idea that Greenland experienced temperatures "close to or equal to our present temperature" is not borne out by the evidence.
2. "During the 1600's and 1700's there was ... skating on the Thames." We do have the CET Central England Temperature record stretching back into the 1600s, temperatures recorded a few dozen miles up the road from the Thames at London. This shows seriously cold winter month have been occuring occasionally throughout the record with the last occuring in 2010. History tells us that Ice Fairs were rare events and they do coincide (almost always) with these exceptional cold CET months. Ice Fairs stopped not because of a Little Ice Age ending or because of global warming but because the old London Bridge was demolished and the banks of the river were embanked. It's all a bit nerdy, but ancient accounts of the Thames freezing continue back in time and continue through the Mediaeval Warm Period (prior to the bridge being built) and are even found for the centuries called by some the Roman Warm Period.
3. You are on much safer ground suggesting that reconciling the temperature record and climate forcing in the first half of the 20th century is not straightforward but very much less safe with the so-called hiatus. There is a lot of comment on these elsewhere within the SkS site. You do raise the idea that if the hiatus was the product of La Nina sucking the warming from the atmosphere and down into the ocean depths. (It is not controversial to state that the years 2007-13 saw lower global temperatures due to La Nina and withut these years the so-called hiatus is truly a non-event.) From this you speculate whether it was potentially the oceans warming the atmosphere 1975-98. You are not the first with such speculation. Bt if there was such a warming from the oceans, there would be evidence of it in the Ocean Heat Content data as it takes a lot of heat to both warm and keep warm the atmosphere. The level of heat required would certainly have to be evident in the OHC data. It is not evident.
Moderator Response:[PS] Thanks for contribution but it would be more appreciated if you had followed the request to put it on the correct place since MWP is offtopic here.
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Eclectic at 18:15 PM on 27 June 2017Models are unreliable
NorrisM @1047 , if I may add some background to Tom Dayton's posts :-
When considering climate models, it is well to remember that the models are based on the physical realities of this world.
And the most basic of relevant points, is that the natural greenhouse effect from CO2 etc. has been "artificially" (anthropogenically) pushed higher by the addition of fossil-origin CO2 to the atmosphere. The result is that the world is warming up — it is gaining heat at the rate of approx. 2 watts per square meter. (Which may not sound very much : yet if you think it through planetwide and decades-long, then it represents a major problem for this planet.) Also, if you think it through (regarding where that heat is going and how it moves about within the system of the planet) then you will realize that a pause or hiatus is simply not possible until such time as the system eventually reaches equilibrium (in 2 or 3 centuries' time).
Therefore if Koonin says there is a real "Hiatus", then he talks nonsense.
If you are a Black-Letter lawyer, you will wish to examine "fake-skeptic" comments without considering their provenance or any ad-hominem aspects. Yet as a pragmatic man-of-the-world lawyer, you will wish to take into account the background information regarding the four protagonists you mentioned [Koonin, Christy, Curry, Lindzen], when you come to assess their evidence.
And you will be aware of human frailties — particularly that frailty called "Motivated Reasoning" : where even very intelligent people (such as Koonin) do bend their rationality and end up deceiving themselves. And doing so, very staunchly! And with apparently honest demeanor!
Climate science is a large area, where you can educate yourself considerably — and if you do so, you will find yourself in agreement with the extensive and almost unanimous consensus of experts (e.g. the U.S. National Academy of Sciences; the U.K. Royal Society; the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences; and dozens more of peak scientific bodies). All in consensus about Global Warming. Indeed, there is only a score or so of Koonins, Christys, Currys, and Lindzens who hold an outlier position in disagreement with the overwhelming preponderance of scientific experts. And as you yourself gain education in climate science, you will understand that these 4 protagonists, despite their intelligence, have all managed to make a very poor judgment of the actual position. And that, as you look beyond their rhetoric, you will find that their apparently scientific arguments are empty and false.
How is it possible for 4 intelligent people to be so very wrong? It is because their emotions have pushed them into motivated reasoning. Motivated reasoning by Koonin / fundamentalist religious bias from Christy and Lindzen / and something less clear, from Curry [about whom you need ask: Cui Bono ].
In the strictest sense, these four are not being scientists — because they have allowed their emotions to override their dispassionate intellects.
They have muddied the waters and confused your understanding of the significance of models (and of the physical realities).
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Tom Dayton at 12:48 PM on 27 June 2017Models are unreliable
NorrisM, you asked
Is it “solid physics” that:
1. Water vapour will in fact increase as modelled?
2. Water vapour will cause the predicted additional increase in temperature by a factor of 2 to 3 times?Answers: Yes. I assume you are familiar with the concepts of relative and absolute humidity, at least from weather reports you've read and seen your entire life. Perhaps you've noticed that cold air (e.g., winter) is drier than warm air (e.g., summer). For more details, read the Basic and then the Intermediate tabbed panes here.
Moderator Response:[PS]"In addition, water vapor concentrations have increased throughout the troposphere at about 1.2% decade−1 since the ERBE period (Trenberth et al. 2005, 2007b). " from here. Also see Clausius–Clapeyron relation for seriously settled science. Water vapour is not the only feedback.
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Tom Dayton at 12:41 PM on 27 June 2017Models are unreliable
NorrisM, your claim
The models predicted that our temperature would increase on a linear basis. There were no “waves” in the models.
is incorrect.
All the models projected (not "predicted") inconsistent ("wavy") temperature increase. None projected monotonic ("linear") increase. The mean of models usually is shown in graphs, but all the individual model runs that contribute to that mean are "wavy." For ease of viewing, sometimes graphs of climate models show only the models' mean, or show the individual runs' spread as a shaded area. But the actual runs look like spaghetti.
We do not expect the actual temperature to fall exactly on the "ensemble mean" hindcast and forecast, because that mean has far too little variability. In fact, we expect the temperature to have wild ups and downs as you see exemplified by the orange and blue skinny lines in Figure 2 here, because we expect there to be El Ninos and La Ninas, variation in solar radiation, volcanic eruptions, changes in human-produced aerosols due to varying economic activity, and a slew of random and semi-random factors. It would be downright shocking if actual temperature followed the ensemble mean, because that would mean all those variations in forcings and feedbacks were far less variable than we have observed so far. So we judge the match of the real temperature to the projected temperature by whether the real temperature falls within the range of the entire set of individual model runs. Even so, we expect the real temperature to fall within that range only most of the time, not all of the time. The range you see drawn as a shaded area around the ensemble mean usually is the 90% or 95% range, meaning the set of individual model runs falls within that shaded range 90% or 95% of the time. That means, by definition, we fully expect the real temperature to fall outside that range 10% or 5% of the time. So occasional excursions of the real temperature outside that range in no way invalidate the models, when "occasional" means 10% or 5% of the time.
Moderator Response:[PS] An example graphic of real output of models and discussions is here. Realclimate also has a FAQ on models - written by the modellers themselves so not heresay.
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:06 PM on 27 June 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25
New news report in the NYTimes.
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Tom Dayton at 11:40 AM on 27 June 2017Models are unreliable
NorrisM, initially I'm going to assume you are who you claim to be, though the content of your post makes me suspicious--very suspicious--that you are one of SkepticalScience's fake-skeptic, trolling, chronic sock-puppeteers, and one in particular.
Your statement
The APS panel consisted of six (6) arm’s length physicists (with no axe to grind) chaired by Steve Koonin who were asking hard questions of both sides. What actually struck me as very astounding was how honest Koonin was about his previous lack of understanding as to how uncertain climate science is owing to the uncertainties underlying the climate models.
is incorrect. Steve Koonin is a notorious fake skeptic, who has both the background and the subsequent, repeatedly delivered, information to know that most of what he says and writes is factually and drastically incorrect. Christy has and continues to make claims that are factually incorrect, and is motivated primarily by political and religious beliefs. Christy's partner in crime is Roy Spencer, who is a member of the Cornwall Alliance that claims human-caused global warming is impossible because God promised Noah there would not be any more floods. Really. LIndzen's pet theory about the "iris" mechanism that self-regulates the Earth's temperature conclusively and repeatedly has been proven wrong (obviously, since Earth's temperature has varied drastically--Snowball Earth, ice ages,...) but that has had no effect on his opinion, and he very much resents and takes personally the criticisms. Curry once was an adequately productive climate scientist, but for reasons I won't speculate on here, has become quite the opposite.
Moderator Response:[PS] That is uncalled for tone. I know all too well how tiring the denier trolls are but polite and reasonable enquiries are to be encouraged, as are substantive responses.
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NorrisM at 08:59 AM on 27 June 2017Models are unreliable
I would first like to state that I have finally found a website that is balanced on this very emotional issue. I also want to thank SemiChemE and Tom Curtis (along with a few others) who have engaged in a very fascinating discussion on climate models.
My intention is to pose a question on climate models in keeping with this blog, however because this is my first post, I would like to explain my background. I am a lawyer by training and have a very limited base in physics (took Latin in Grade 12 rather than physics) although I always did well in science. I will also disclose that I do have an involvement in the Canadian oil and gas industry notwithstanding that I live in Vancouver, BC.Ever since the issue of global warming came to the fore in the late 1990’s and since, I have to admit that I have tended to accept the “scientific consensus” if only because I had no reason to question it. Climategate shook my confidence in 2009 but if Neil DeGrasse Tyson still believes that the principal causes are anthropogenic then far be it for me to question it. However, it always seemed logical to me that a first step in reducing the effects of CO2 should be to move from oil and coal to natural gas (especially for electrical generation) which puts about one half of the pollutants into the air compared to coal and oil. After spending enough holidays in France, I have also thought that a switch to nuclear energy made more sense than disfiguring our planet with massive wind turbines and great areas of solar panels. Driving from LA to Palm Springs is not a pretty sight. But I do appreciate that there are real concerns relating to disposing of nuclear waste and issues of terrorists getting their hands on nuclear fuel. However, someone as significant as James Hansen believes that we will not achieve our goals without a turn to nuclear energy.
In any event, my recent interest in the causes of global warming really came about because I have two sisters who are just about no longer on speaking terms owing to their disagreements on global warming. When one sister called me asking where I stood on climate change and if I truly believed that this was all a “global conspiracy of the left” to increase taxes and government control over our lives, I promised her that I would buy some books on both sides of the argument and get back to her. Needless to say, I do not believe in conspiracy theories of any sort.
So the two books I located were The Science & Politics of Global Climate Change by Dessler and Parson and Climate Change the Facts edited by Alan Moran.
By the time I was finished with Dessler’s book I was convinced of the science. Then I read the essays in the Moran book and found myself at least questioning some things.I actually then went back and re-read Dessler’s book to see where the gaps were. I have to say that when I found that Mark Steyn had an essay in the Moran book I almost did not read the book because of his extreme views. Just to make my political views clear, I think Donald Trump poses a major threat to liberal democracy in the US and to the world in many ways. But it does look like the US institutions may be able to withstand him and his cohorts. I also follow Sam Harris’s podcasts “religiously”.
Since reading these two books I have largely pursued my research on the web even reading the submissions of the four climatologists on March 25, 2017 to the House Committee on Science Space and Technology.
Based upon Judith Curry’s reference in her submission, this led me to the most fascinating discussion of the topic of climate models by a panel of physicists formed by the American Physical Society (APS) which posed questions to six (6) well-known climatologists having “different perspectives”. Three (3) of them (Collins, Santer and Held) are IPCC climatologists and the other three (3), Curry, Christy and Lindzen are on the other side of the debate. This was the 2014 Workshop sponsored by the APS as part of its 5 year review of its Climate Change Policy Statement.
As a lawyer, I have to admit that if I treated (i) the IPCC 2013 Assessment as an appellate lawyer’s factum, (ii) the Workshop Framework posed as questions from the bench, and (iii) the 600 page transcript of the panel hearing as the “give and take” between the judges and lawyers during the oral argument of the appeal, I would have predicted a “win” for Curry, Lindzen and Christy and a “loss” for Collins, Santer and Held. Both the Workshop Framework questions and the transcript are on the APS.org website. Just search “Climate Change Statement Review”. If anyone has read any legal transcript of a hearing you know it is a simple read so don’t be put off by the “600 pages”.
The APS panel consisted of six (6) arm’s length physicists (with no axe to grind) chaired by Steve Koonin who were asking hard questions of both sides. What actually struck me as very astounding was how honest Koonin was about his previous lack of understanding as to how uncertain climate science is owing to the uncertainties underlying the climate models.
This panel hearing took place in February 2014. By November 2015, the judgment of the Board of Directors of the APS was in. The connection between increases in CO2 and global warming was “compelling”. However, the APS did acknowledge that there were significant uncertainties in the science and urged sustained research in climate science.
Where my comparison with an appellate hearing breaks down is that no appellate court would render a significant judgment without providing its reasons. We do not get any reasons from the panel as to why it recommended to the Board of Directors (as I assume it did) that the APS “stay the course” with its policy statement notwithstanding the serious reservations you could see in Koonin’s and other panel members questions to Collins, Santer and Held and the weak answers provided by them. The IPCC climatologists in effect admitted that Christy’s now famous chart showing how far apart the average predictions of the climate models were from actual observations was “old information” and did in fact represent the existing state of models predictions versus observations. See Santer page 504. The IPCC climatologists effectively said that they could not trust the observations! Koonin’s rhetorical question to Held to this "observational" response earlier was: “So the ability then to reproduce historical data is neither necessary or sufficient to predict the future. Is that what I understand?” See page 453 of the transcript. Held effectively avoids answering the question. See page 454. Read it yourself and see if you disagree with my view of his response.
So here is my question.
From everything that I have read so far, other things being equal, a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere from pre-industrial levels of CO2 of around 280 ppm to 560 ppm will increase the global surface temperature by about 1 to 1.2C and the balance of the predicted range of 1.5C to 4.5C of the IPCC 2013 Assessment is based upon “positive feedbacks” resulting from increased water vapour that is assumed will form arising out of the 1C increase by CO2. I accept (or understand) that the 1C increase is “solid physics” or “hard science”.
Is it “solid physics” that:
1. Water vapour will in fact increase as modelled?
2. Water vapour will cause the predicted additional increase in temperature by a factor of 2 to 3 times?Although this next observation is not specifically focused on the climate models, what also troubles me in everything that I have read so far on climate change is the following:
1. The Mediaeval Warming Period had temperatures for at least 200 years in at least Greenland and Northern Europe close to or equal to our present temperature.
2. During the 1600's and 1700's there was a "Mini-Ice Age" when they were skating on the Thames. We were just coming out of this cold period at the beginning of the American Revolution (good timing).
3. From 1990 to 1940 we experienced about .3C warming; then from 1940 to 1975 there was a levelling off or cooling period; then from 1975 to 1998 we experienced .5C warming; and then there was a levelling off (termed the “hiatus” by the IPCC) of now about 17 plus years that may or may not have ended in 2015 (El Nino event 2015-2016). I appreciate that 1998 was an El Nino year but the IPCC 2013 Assessment recognized the “hiatus” up to that time.
If climatologists cannot explain why these other warming and cooling periods occurred which, other than the 1975-1998 period, were primarily or completely caused by natural climate change, then why can they so confidently claim that this one warming period was primarily caused by the CO2 rise? Just because there was a concomitant rise in CO2? What about the rise of CO2 from 1950 to 1975?
The models predicted that our temperature would increase on a linear basis. There were no “waves” in the models. I guess based upon Michael Mann’s most recent testimony the most recent peer reviewed papers are now suggesting that we will be going up in steps or waves. Can we now expect that the new models with show the steps or waves?So where did the “warming” go during this “hiatus”? If the answer is into the oceans, then why did the “warming” not come from the oceans during the period 1975-1998? Could we have had a cooling period during the “hiatus” that offset the warming from CO2 during this period? What are the impacts of a decrease or increase in low clouds caused by natural factors which impacts the amount of sunlight hitting the earth? Because of computer capacity issues, we can only make “parameterizations” of clouds in the models. These are the kinds of questions that make me question the validity of the models.
When we talk of the difference between weather and climate we say we cannot predict weather but we can predict climate because we know that next July it will be warm. But why do we know that? Not from models, from observation. If observations and models do not correspond, when do we admit that the models do not have sufficient predictive value to be relied upon? It is OK for science to say “we just do not presently understand the science sufficiently to make reasonably accurate predictions”.
On the other hand, here are the major science societies of the world like the APS, the US National Academy of Sciences and the UK Royal Society coming out strongly in support of the proposition that man-made global warming is a serious problem and is going to get worse. My worry is that they got on a band wagon in the early 2000’s before the “hiatus” was apparent and they now find it very difficult to get off even when they see that these models are not predictive.
I apologize for such a long-winded initial blog. If you think I have to reduce it, please advise.
Moderator Response:[PS] Welcome to Sks. We really like to keep things on topic, (see the comments policy) so we would prefer you put your questions about MWP on the appropriate thread after first reading the article. (your questions are pretty well answered in the IPCC WG1 as well). Ditto, other questions not about modelling. Could responders please stick to modelling questions only on this topic? Thank you for your cooperation.
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scaddenp at 08:25 AM on 27 June 2017Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
Arent the low frequency channels used for water vapour not temperature?
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:07 AM on 27 June 2017Explainer: Dealing with the ‘loss and damage’ caused by climate change
Art Vandelay@23,
I disagree as passionately as is possible in text to the following claim: "Ultimately, it's emisisons per square foot or meter of land that a country will be paying for."
People, not land area, are causing the problem. The accumulation of the per-person impacts of everyone in a nation, through the entire history of that nation, make up that nation's total impact. Land area is irrelevant.
However, nations/regions/societies need to get their acts together and correct/penalize those in their populations who are producing the biggest impact. The people who are causing the biggest impact through their personal consumption need to be limited, even if imposing the limits goes against their personal interest in being free to believe and do whatever they please. Popularity and profitability clearly do not justify anything, neither does a claim to the Right to Freedom to Believe and Do whatever you want.
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scaddenp at 07:11 AM on 27 June 2017Explainer: Dealing with the ‘loss and damage’ caused by climate change
Art, what do you mean by soon? If I look at historical contributions (using data from here), and then current emissions, it looks to me like its going to take a while for the difference in emissions between Asia and just USA+EU to catch up that historical gap. Especially when China seems to be actually taking emission reduction seriously.
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Daniel Bailey at 04:49 AM on 27 June 2017Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
A primer on both surface and satellite temperature records:
Satellite-measurements-warming-troposphere-advanced
Primer-Tropospheric-temperature-measurement-Satellite
A-history-of-satellite-measurements-of-global-warming
Why-we-can-trust-the-surface-temperature-record
Assessing-global-surface-temperature-reconstructions
Microsite-influences-on-global-temperature-intermediate
Dropped-stations-introduce-warming-bias-intermediate
James-Taylor-Forbes-UAH-rebuttal
New_Research_Special_Satellites
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Eclectic at 00:34 AM on 27 June 2017Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
Indeed, I speculate/conjecture that the satellite record achieves its "lowermost" layer of tropospheric temperature, by lateral scanning compounded with vertical scanning — such that the horizontal resolution is so poor it has difficulty differentiating very elevated land from near-sea-level land. In other words, T1 channel has low validity.
It would be interesting to hear an expert opinion on the realities of the "lowermost" section of the measurements.
Either way, the satellite recordings (even apart from their manifold problems) have some value in studying the upper atmosphere — but little value in studying surface temperatures. But in providing some distraction from actual surface temperatures [including ocean-warming and ice-melting] they provide a modicum of illusory comfort to climate change deniers.
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Tom Curtis at 23:35 PM on 26 June 2017Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
Eclectic @67, the AMSU comes with a variety of channels. T2 in the diagram below is used for the middle troposphere (TMT) and by some mathematical manipulations relating to the difference in weighting between nadir and limit scanners, also for the lower troposphere (TLT). Channel T1 is not used for any of the standard temperature products, but does indeed peak near the Earth's surface.
I am unaware of why it is not used for a temperature record, but it may not have appeared on all satellites over the satellite era, or the AMSU era, making a continuous record impossible. It may also not be able to handle changes in surface altitude without significant distortion. Somebody more expert on the subject may well be aware of other potential reasons, or indeed, may know the actual reason rather than merely conjecturing.
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Eclectic at 22:47 PM on 26 June 2017Surface Temperature or Satellite Brightness?
Qwertie @38, the peaking "near ground level" is a relative term. Relative to the even higher altitude measurements of the other channels.
It is misleading to make any real equivalence of T1 channel to actual surface temperatures. Humans plants & animals live down at ground-level/sea-level. Not thousands of feet up in the air (where T1 applies). Sadly, the satellite-measured temperatures have little or no relevance to real surface temperatures.
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Eclectic at 22:35 PM on 26 June 2017Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
Qwertie @66 , his "peaking near ground level" description is simply false.
The satellite data (usually quoted by Spencer as the so-called The Lower Troposphere) averages out over much of the height of the troposphere — and with a small amount of stratosphere added to the mixture as well !! [a bias which they attempt to remove]
It could be taken as equivalent to the temperature on top of a very tall mountain. But is he seriously suggesting that way-up-high mountain-peak temperatures are in any way a reasonable representation of the world's ground-level & sea-level temperature? He is pulling your leg (or his own).
Perhaps his next comment will be that we should only look at the warming trend measured at Mt Everest Base Camp ;-)
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DPiepgrass at 22:17 PM on 26 June 2017Surface Temperature or Satellite Brightness?
"Microwaves do not measure the temperature of the surface, where we live. They measure the warm glow from different layers of the atmosphere."
Another article on SkS says that "T1, MSU Channel 1" peaks "near ground level." Is there some reason it could not be used to measure surface temperatures?
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Eclectic at 22:06 PM on 26 June 2017Temp record is unreliable
Serial Sockpuppet (of #416) seems to take very personally the criticism of Mr Heller.
The graphs he alludes to, both demonstrate a skyrocketing of global temperature during the past 2 decades.
— So what on Earth is the point he is trying to make, other than a pointless persistent peevishness?
The world is heating up rapidly: regardless of deniers.
(Moderator, please abridge or delete my post, at need.)
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DPiepgrass at 21:51 PM on 26 June 2017Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
Why is "T1, MSU Channel 1" which is "peaking near ground level" seldom used?
I'm talking to a guy who seems to be claiming the satellites show half or less as much warming as the "land" temperature record. So I would be interested to see a land temperature reconstruction from the satellites to find out if there's any truth to that. Do clouds prevent an accurate reconstruction of ground temperatures by satellites?
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Tom Curtis at 21:36 PM on 26 June 2017Temp record is unreliable
RobJones @416, if you are going to accuse me of lying, it behoves you to use my actual words. I did not talk about a change in scale, but a change in the range of the y-axis. Specifically, I said:
"Heller's giff does not demonstrate any significant change in values. Rather, it exhibits a change in the range of the y-axis from -0.6 to 0.8 for "NASA 2001" to approximately -0.85 to 1 for "NASA 2015". That represents a 32% increase and accounts for nearly all of the apparent change in trend - particlularly post 1980."
Nearly all of the apparent change in trend post 1980 is a result of the warming trend continuing for another 14 years, a fact obscured by Heller's method of presentation. This is evident when you simply overlay the data as in the graph I showed. By changing the range of the y-axis between graphs, Heller creates an optical illusion, without which his case falls to pieces.
As it happens, Heller's scales are also not identical, as is shown by your graph, and as I have independently confirmed. This can be seen by noting that the decimal points of the two graphs are aligned at 0.2 on the y-axis, but not aligned at 0.8. Thus, you have conveniently demonstrated that Heller also changed the scale. The effect, however, is minor and works against his preferred indoctrination, and so can be ignored.
Continuing on, you write:
"I compared these plots with those used by Tony Heller in his .gif animation, and except for scale, they were identical. BTW, these are the datasets I am referring to when I talk about the doubling of warming trends with the "corrections" of 2015. The statement bu Tom Curtis
"It is very clear that use of the new data sets make almost no difference to the trend."
obviously does not apply here as substantial data re-writing was done for the entire 20th century, most of which should not have been touched."
First, thank you for confirming that your current account is a sock puppet by referring to your prior talk about doubling. I note that you talked about a doubling of the trend in the last decades of the 20th century, and clearly there is no doubling of between the lowest and the highest trends among different GISS versions as shown in the graph I show.
Second, the specific changes in methodology detailed @413 are applied across the entire century. More importantly, when additional stations are added, they can have data across any period of the record. Consequently, on both accounts we would expect revisions going as far back as 1880. Once again, if you have a problem with the methods, criticize them.
Finally, I note your hypocrissy in being shocked that I should accuse Heller of lying (even though I didn't); while hapilly defending Heller whose whole career in climate science has been based on claims that climate scientists are lying; a claim you appear to make in your following post ("field of study isn't already riddled with corruption").
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nigelj at 19:55 PM on 26 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
Bvangerven @14, thank's for clarifying that. I totally agree, particularly your comments on some countries relying on encouraging renewable energy as the only real strategy, and hoping this would drive emissions down, and your coffee / tea analogy. This wont really work well enough. I really just meant it's absurd that they are going down that road, as nobody with any sense should be promoting that.
The obvious example is America. I think it has had only very modest results looking at the numbers, and has mainly lead to emissions reductions for electricity generation, but not much uptake of electric cars or things like that.
But go one stage further to Germany. They have mostly relied on cap and trade combined with subsidising wind power etc. This has again reduced emissions from coal fired power (sadly somewhat reversed due to the nuclear issue), but this combination has not been enough to cause much uptake of electric cars. It becomes clear they need specific subsidies for electrtic cars, or maybe it requires a state funded recharging network.
In other words it is fairly clear that subsidies alone are helpful but insufficient, but also that carbon taxes (or cap and trade) alone are useful but insufficient as well. Further even both together only go so far and development of electric transportation needs some form of initial support as well (and it may not require much, this is the important thing). So you need a combinational approach that deals with discouraging fossil fuel use and all elements of renewable energy.
Yes an emissions trading scheme is complex, but a carbon tax will have some complexity, although not quite as much. The biggest problems with emissions trading are that they are opaque schemes where its very hard to get to the bottom of whats going on (and I have tried), perhaps so called commercial sensitivity is part of this. They also rely on globally traded agreements and forestry units, that come form all sorts of countries, and many of these countries dont have terribly reliable or trustworthy commercial practices. By the time we figure outs whats going on the damage is done, and my country has had a specific problem of this kind with imported credits that turned out to be worthless, admitted by our government.
Emissions trading schemes have a form of accounting that also looks to me to be very open to all sorts of abuses. In addition Europe has allowed all sorts of exemptions under their scheme to keep industry competitive against imorted products, but the end result has been a weak scheme. But you probably know all this anyway and, I have only scratched the surface.
In comparison carbon taxes are a pretty visible sort of cost and any exemptions would appear tobe more visible or harder to hide, a benefit of such a scheme. You have less commercial sensitivity problems, or difficult to access contracts with dubious conditions attached.
Emissions tarding schemes do have the virtue of encouraging innovation, but I think more in theory than in practice. And any form of tax or regulation can encourage innovation to at least some extent.
Encouraging energy efficiency is just so obviously desirable. A "no brainer".
The problem is some people want a singular magic answer. People who promote cap and trade see this as the only thing needed. This just isn't convincing.
We need a strategy that combines a number of tools. As I stated above, the most viable and politically plausible is a revenue neutral carbon tax combined with lightly subsidising some aspects of renewable energy and electric cars ( and transport in general), and rules around energy efficiency. This brings all elements close together, and closes the gap. The whole package could be revenue neutral or close to it, if required.
Ultimately a carbon tax may reach its own limits of effectiveness, but that is far off and can be dealt with if it happens.
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bvangerven at 17:47 PM on 26 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
@nigelj,
I don’t think we disagree. I just want to make the point that we should be skeptical about climate policies. In my opinion a climate policy should be engineered, it should be modelled like a climate model to identify all expected and unexpected consequences.
We don’t have much time left, and we only have one opportunity to get it right. If after a couple of decades it turns out we implemented the wrong policy (also the EU ETS comes to mind) we won’t have a second chance.
Regarding my statement that renewable energy may well cause an increase in demand for fossil fuels, you say: "That would only happen if renewable energy was developed and spread widely and was very affordable, and there was no carbon tax or other control on fossil fuels. Nobody is suggesting that scenario."
But … that scenario is the reality is many countries. There are many countries – that signed the Paris agreement ! - that don’t have any policy to discourage the use of fossil fuels, they are just focussing on improving energy efficiency and the deployment of renewable energy.
I just don’t believe you can drive the consumption of fossil fuels to zero that way. It’s the same as trying to stop people drinking coffee by putting tea on the market. People won’t stop drinking coffee. In the best case they’ll drink a little less coffee.
Or to put it another way: there are policies that shift the system’s stable equilibrium point to a low-carbon state. A carbon tax that is high enough does this. An emission trading scheme may perhaps achieve the same results – if it is well designed, and the cap is really a cap, and measures are taken to avoid carbon leakage. But an emission trading scheme is much more complex and hence it’s effect is much more difficult to assess.
And there are other policies that don’t shift the system’s equilibrium point, but these measures will help us to reach the equilibrium point faster and with less disruptions (f.i. improving energy efficiency and rolling out renewable energy).
These two kinds of policies should not be confused. And the second kind cannot replace the first kind.
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RobJones at 17:44 PM on 26 June 2017Temp record is unreliable
(-snip-)
Moderator Response:[DB] Serial sock puppet of serial spammer cosmoswarrior snipped. Please ignore this user.
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bozzza at 15:43 PM on 26 June 2017Factcheck: Grenfell Tower fire and the Daily Mail’s ‘green targets’ claim
Hear, Hear: I can't believe there was no sprinkler system but will expect this to be made publicly/(globally) known as the most glaring mistake in highrise buildings aka dog-boxes.... how did that journalist miss so many elephants?
The people in these apartments are being treated with contempt but such has our society become. It is all of our responsibility to make sure this is never forgotten for the calculated murder it is!!
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Art Vandelay at 14:23 PM on 26 June 2017Explainer: Dealing with the ‘loss and damage’ caused by climate change
Nijelj@1, just to offer the comment in reply, that the west's total contribution to GHG's will soon be overtaken by developing countries in Asia. Yes, per-capita emisisons are higher in the west but a large population naturally incurrs higher emissions. Ultimately, it's emisisons per square foot or meter of land that a country will be paying for.
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Art Vandelay at 14:06 PM on 26 June 2017Explainer: Dealing with the ‘loss and damage’ caused by climate change
bvangerven@3, you ask, "who is going to pay".
Well, let's hope that each country is made responbsible to pay for its emissions over a 200 year time-frame, and let's also hope that emissions also include those associated with land use changes, including deforestation. But there still remains the question of where that money goes and how that money is used to mitigate or adapt to climate change. Also, depending on the rate and severity of the change, geo engineering might actually be the cheapest and best solution over the short to medium term. Sure, there may well be very undesirable side effects, but those would be weighed against the even more severe consequences of 3 or 4 degrees of planetary warming.
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nigelj at 07:35 AM on 26 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
bvangerven @12, I agree the economy is complex, and there can be unintended consequences in various emissions reduction strategies, or negative side effects.
Of course as you would appear to agree this is not a reason to do nothing or try nothing, and we have to simply try to think the issues through as much as we can, and minimise problems through classic harm minimisation strategies, and also accept some "experiments" may not work. That is the price we may for making any form of progress. Given the way renewable energy is plumetting in price, many of these "experiments" have been a spectacular success.
However I agree biofuels have had unintended consequences. I thought they were a dubious idea this from day one, instinctively. I also understand the use of corn or maize for biofuels was driven more from political and farm lobby motives than to reduce climate change, so if the motives are dubious then it's likely the results will be of dubious value as well. However it was possibly still an experiment worth trying, and something viable may come from other forms of biofuels.
However I'm going to disagree in part about your comments on carbon taxes and renewable energy. Even carbon taxes could have unintended consequences or some problems. For example a revenue neutral tax will give money back to people one way or the other, and there's nothing to stop some being spent on fossil fuel products, negating some of the effect of the tax. However both the theoretical modelling and real world evidence suggests much is not spent on petrol, as use of petrol has declined in countries trying these taxes. So the bottom line is a carbon tax is not going to be perfect, but is a very good idea that still ticks all the boxes.
Regarding renewable energy you say "When renewable energy is deployed on a massive scale, this may give a boost to the worldwide economy … resulting in a higher demand for fossil fuels."
That would only happen if renewable energy was developed and spread widely and was very affordable, and there was no carbon tax or other control on fossil fuels. Nobody is suggesting that scenario. If renewable energy becomes cheap, and a huge general boost for the economy, and fossil fules are taxed, demand for fossil fuels will be pretty low.
And it is absolutely senseless having a carbon tax on fossil fuels, if there is no viable alternative, like renewable energy, so this fuel source must be encouraged. A carbon tax will partly do this by making it more attractive to purchase, however I don't think a carbon tax would go far enough to do this, and you also need to subsidise renewable energy to some extent (which happens right now anyway). Or it may be a case of just needing to subsidise things like recharging stations.
I agree the bottom line is the best solution is a carbon tax combined with indirect measures.
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nigelj at 06:41 AM on 26 June 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #25
Some great articles, however the main reason the aral sea has receded is rivers feeding the sea were diverted for agriculture, starting right back in the 1960s (notably before the modern global warming era). If climate change is a factor, it should be stated as a "contributory factor" .
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bvangerven at 06:41 AM on 26 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
The economy is a complex system with multiple interdependencies and feedbacks (in this respect it is much like the climate system).
It often happens that scientists look at a system in a far too reductionistic way – I think it stems from the laboratorium conditions, where it is actually possible to vary one parameter in function of one other parameter and keep all the other parameters constant. In the real world, this isn’t possible. A influences B influences C influences A again … etc.
And this reductionistic vision has resulted in big mistakes before. Take biofuel. Biofuel was supposedly better than fossil fuels because it is carbon-neutral. Except that biofuels go in competition with food crops, lead to deforestation, and several studies have even indicated that biofuels might actually be worse for the climate than fossil fuels.
Another example is the idea that natural gas can be a transition technology towards a low carbon future. It turns out the amount of methane escaping from fracking sites makes natural gas as bad as coal.
In a complex system, you have got to choose carefully WHERE to interact with the system. If you don’t take all interdependencies and feedbacks into account the result of your action may be different from what you anticipated, it may even be the opposite of what you anticipated.
This is the major reason why I am in favor of a carbon tax. It interacts with the system where it matters: at the point where CO2 (or other greenhouse gases) is released into the atmosphere.
All other measures, for instance improving energy efficiency, or encouraging the deployment of renewable energy are indirect attempts at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They may have the hoped result. Or they may have the opposite result.
When energy efficiency is improved, households will spend less money on energy, and hence will have more money in the bank … which they may decide to spend on a holiday by plane …
When renewable energy is deployed on a massive scale, this may give a boost to the worldwide economy … resulting in a higher demand for fossil fuels.
I am not against these indirect measures, but they should be combined with a carbon tax. The carbon tax forces the consumption of fossil fuels down. Other measures make it possible to maintain our living standard while transferring to the low carbon economy. -
Joel_Huberman at 23:58 PM on 25 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
As Dana says in his article, "The proposed policy is similar to that of Citizens’ Climate Lobby, calling for a rising price on carbon pollution with 100% of the revenue being returned to taxpayers via regular rebate checks." I recommend that all readers go to the Citizens' Climate Lobby (CCL) web site and read the information about their "carbon fee and dividend" plan. Nearly every one of the concerns raised in the above discussion is clearly and constructively addressed by CCL. I further recommend that those of you who have not yet done so click on the big red "Join CCL" button at the top right of their main web pages.
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ubrew12 at 18:51 PM on 25 June 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25
For Sat June 24, the link for 'The World is Burning' by IPS News Desk goes to an article 'The 1C milestone' by '...and then there's Physics'.
The National Geographic article 'Antarctica Is Melting, and Giant Ice Cracks Are Just the Start' is really well-written and informative. Highly recommend.
Moderator Response:[JH] Link fixed. Thanks.
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nigelj at 09:22 AM on 25 June 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25
Regarding John Vidals very good article he says "Whether it’s faster than average warming, more vulnerable than average populations, or more severe than average drought, floods and storms, it’s clear that some places are being hit harder than others ... But the bottom line is that climate hotspots intersect, and nowhere will we escape the changes taking place. What happens in the Amazon affects West Africa....."
This physical process is of course already happening, and will continute to happen, and is predicted to accelerate. At precisedly the same time, the world is globalising and becoming ever more inter linked and inter dependent, by free trade, tourism, immigration and international agreements and alliances. It is process is sometimes criticised, but appears inevitable and largely desirable. Therefore severe economic problems and social problems in certain countries caused by climate change, will become eveyones problems.
As some countries are hit harder by climate change, this inevitably affects their economies and internal political stability, etc. This then effects other countries, on trade and economic levels, and all these things are now in a delicate balance. We saw how the financial crash in america rapidly spread globally. Of course global political and economic systems develop some resilency, but there are limits and problems in such systems adapting to fast rates of change generated for whatever reason.
Climate change will also create a refugee problem and this will also become an ethical and moral concern and hard to ignore because in a globalising, inter linked world there are all sorts of consequences if you ignore problems.
In a globalising world it will herefore becomes much harder for individual nation states to insultate themselves. Climate problems are going to become everyones problems, not just on the physical affects, but through economic and political and humanitarian levels as well. It's utterly inevitable, and retreat into isolationism is not a viable option.
Quantifying and predicting this is all but impossible, but it looks like a distinctly damaging problem, and I'm reminded of an old saying "prevention is better than cure".
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nigelj at 06:40 AM on 25 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
Tom Curtis @5, yes true enough a carbon tax may only work up to a certain limit, but then we have other alternatives. I believe its better to do something than nothing, and to start with the most workable and politically plausible solution, even though its not what I personally ideally prefer. I prefer the best technical or theoretical solution, which is sometimes the simplest as well, and zooming straight to that, but sadly politics gets in the way.
I'm also reminded of tobacco taxes. In my country have seen these contribute strongly to a drop in smoking rates from 40% to 15%, which shows the powerful effect of taxes. However getting rates to fall from 20% to 15% required quite significant taxes and things seem to have reached a plateu. A sort of law of diminishing returns has been generated, I assume this is because of we are left with people very highly addicted and / or financially well off.
But "e cigarettes" have been legalised, and may make a difference. There are always alternatives and if smoking gets down to under 10% that may be sufficient anyway as the taxes pay for health costs.
However the tobacco issue isonly a rough anaology to fossil fuels, and even a moderate tax may have larger effects than we think provided renewable energy is attractive. Plus its important to get fossil fuel use as close to zero as possible.
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nigelj at 06:33 AM on 25 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
Driving By @7, yes you are probably right. A telephone tax going back to the Vietnam war. Thats astounding!
I accept only a revenue neutral style of carbon tax is likely to gain traction in America, where there is a strong suspicion of taxes, and a lot of ideological and partisan contoversy on the issue. I was thinking about the issue more from the perpective of what might work in my country. It's all about the art of what is politically possible, sadly to say, and thats how democracy works.
However a revenue neutral carbon tax is without doubt a tremendously good concept on several levels and a viable way forwards out of this mess. You could still deal with other issues in other ways. You could subsidise renewable energy and electric cars, and this has justification in orthodox economic theory, and it could be done out of the existing tax base / government revenue by some small re-prioritising spending, so it could also be revenue neutral if required.
A carbon tax is a good base to build on. Project specific taxes and subsidies can also have time limit clauses in legislation so that they dont get cemented in forever, and need to be renewed by a vote in government of some sort.
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ubrew12 at 06:08 AM on 25 June 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25
The link to "Deadly heatwaves could endanger 74% of mankind by 2100, study says" isn't working for me. It leads to a 'forbidden' page. I got the article separately through a google search.
Moderator Response:[JH] Link fixed. Thanks for bringing this glitch to our attention.
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John Hartz at 04:25 AM on 25 June 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #24
SteveW: Who is making the claim that melting sea ice contributes to sea level rise?
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:59 AM on 25 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
A revenue-neutral carbon tax will "help" make marketplace competition more helpful at achieving the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. But as Tom Curtis points out, the need is to end the human activities that are causing increased GHGs will require other measures.
Additional measures will be needed to compensate people who did not benefit from contributing to the problem (the 'loss and damage' compensation owed by the current generations in nations that had previously 'benefited from activity that increased the current problem').
It needs to be understood that since the 1972 Stockholm Conference no business or government leader/winner (including investors) can claim to not be aware of the unacceptability of trying to expand or prolong their ability to benefit from activity that increased the GHGs. As John Hartz points out, the cheaters are now trying to get 'legal immunity from penalty' by claiming to support carbon-taxes 'if and only if they will be free from potential penalty for the understandably unacceptable things they got away with benefiting from'.
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SteveW at 02:43 AM on 25 June 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #24
As this is your first post, Skeptical Science respectfully reminds you to please follow our comments policy. Thank You!
It doesn't make sense to attribute the, alleged, melting of floating sea ice as contributing to sea level rise. Melting ice does not change sea level if it is already floating.
Moderator Response:[DB] "Melting ice does not change sea level if it is already floating"
The melting ice referenced in the article refers to land-based ice sheets and the loss of the floating ice shelves that buttress them. The loss of those ice shelves mean that the rates of land-based ice sheet mass losses via calving will increase dramatically, raising sea levels around the globe.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:09 AM on 25 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
There are a number of concerns to be aware of. There are the many ways of behaving that people who have previously Won by getting away with behaving understandably less acceptably than others (to get the competitive advantage that doing so provides to those who get away with it) are likely to try to get away with regarding this measure:
- It needs to be a truly transparent revenue-neutral tax on all activities that have an accumulating impact increasing GHG. The cheaters would try to hide what they are doing (claim proprietary business rights protect them from having to disclose information or be monitored). But it practically needs to be limited to the significant activities that are contributing to the problem (like any legal regulatory measure it is not possible to have the rules and monitoring address "everything" - the cheaters will try to limit what gets addressed).
- To block attempts by pursuers of profit to by-pass a national tax system, it needs to be a consistent internationally set value collected and distributed in each nation. That way products exported from high impact nations would "Cost More as a traded commodity" and the extra cost would provide more financial benefit for the least fortunate in the high impacting nation.
- The tax level should start high and rapidly go very high. Since it is revenue-neutral a high tax would only negatively impacts those who live higher-than-average lifestyles (and positively impact those who live lower impact lifestyles. Cheaters will try to argue that the tax needs to start very low. Then they will fight against it being increased.
An internationally applied revenue neutral tax-rebate program could indeed be a good measure to help change the attitudes of people who have not willingly decided to best understand how they can help advance humanity to a sustainable better future as a robust diversity of humanity that fits into a robust regional diversity of other life on this, or any other, amazing planet. But rigorous effort is required to keep those who care less about helping improve the future for all of humanity from being able to believe and do as they wish.
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John Hartz at 00:06 AM on 25 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
Always read the fine print...
"Buried in pages of supposedly 'free market' solutions is new regulation exempting polluters from facing legal consequences for their role in fueling climate change."
Climate Groups: Don't Be Fooled, Industry-Backed Carbon Tax Just Latest Scam by John Queally, Common Dreams, June 20, 2017
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Tom Curtis at 15:19 PM on 24 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
Ogemaniac @1, first, carbon taxes are normally designed to tax CO2eq emissions, and consequently do not ignore emissions other than CO2. Further, given a sufficiently large carbon tax, industry will itself pay for the necessary infrastructure, etc. At least it will if given sufficient time to adapt. The major problem with a carbon tax, other coordination between separate economies, is that as the time span to convert to a carbon free economy contracts, carbon taxes become more and more inefficient. At some point they become less efficient than regulations, but it is certainly not clear that we are at that point yet.
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DrivingBy at 10:29 AM on 24 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
"Secondly I would question whether a carbon tax should be completely revenue neutral...."
In my humble opinion, having a scrupulously, exactly and demonstrably revenue neutral carbon tax is the one way it might suceed. Otherwise, the voter's already slim trust in Lucy...mm, goverment fixes... will go 'poof' and any future proposals from the same quarter will be met with rage. It's already at this point with many taxes; in the USA we have a "temporary" tax on telephone services which was to pay for the Vietnam war. That was about 50 years ago, the tax is still collected. Same for 'temporary' state tax hikes, they are all but permanent.
As for renewables, when the public's income tax is lower they have more to spend, sales of goods increases so business has more ability to invest. At least some will use that for electric delivery trucks, solar hot water, perhaps solar electric, etc. After low-carbon replacements demonstrate success - IF they succeed - then they'll be adopted in bulk. Something's better than nothing.
Personally, I think that as long as the world has 7 billion people, nearly all of whom want refrigeration, TV, cars and meat, we're going to have a degraded environment. You're not going to change the fact that 99% of humanity wants more, not less. If we got to 3 billion instead of 7, this and other issues could be tackled with ease. This is politically a non-starter, of course.
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nigelj at 09:10 AM on 24 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
Ogemaniac @ 1, yes a revenue neutral carbon tax is clearly insufficient as a stand alone scheme to fight climate change. But it doesn't have to be a stand alone scheme.
Firstly a similar tax scheme could be applied to methane emissions in theory, as a tax on animal products, or you could deal with methane emissions in other ways.
Secondly I would question whether a carbon tax should be completely revenue neutral. Part of the money could be given back to the public directly, or with income tax cuts, part could go into things like electric cars, and part could go into the administration costs of a carbon tax scheme anyway.
Thirdly and alternatively have a revenue neutral carbon tax, and the government could just subsidise renewable energy. This is not ideologically incompatible. There are also cases where subsidies make economic sense, because of recognised market failures.
I think we are faced with trying to develop the best possible overall package of measures that is ideologically acceptable but also practical, and we won't ever address all of these perfectly, but can do a reasonable job overall. We probably need a combination of taxes, some mild regulation and subsidies. There are no perfect ideologically pure and pain free options, but a carbon tax of some sort combined with measures to address methane etc and rebewable energy seems the best overall.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:06 AM on 24 June 2017Claiming that Listerine alleviates cold symptoms is false: To repeat or not to repeat the myth during debunking?
nigelj@8,
I am not convinced that media have to state a climate science myth. The reports should simply present a clear and fairly complete understanding of the science and leave it to the recipient to understand how misleading the myth messages are.
What should happen is the media that fails to present Good Reasons for their reporting will be more clearly understood to be providing Poor Excuses.
That does not mean that the Poor Excuses will not be popular. I have mentioned many times that behaving less acceptably affords the Bad Behavers a competitive advantage as long as they can get away with it.
The failure of leaders in business and government to effectively block the pursuits of Winning by the less acceptable behavers, thwarting their attempts until they learn to change their minds, is a failure of the society they are members of no matter what perceptions of prosperity get away with being temporarily created or prolonged. In fact the larger the development in the wrong direction (away from Good Objectives like the sustainable development goals), the bigger the inevitable correction will be. That applies to individuals, businesses, and nations.
Trump told no lie when he said that doing responsible changes to correct for past incorrect development regarding climate impacts will be harder on the callous greedy in the USA and many other nations. But they have no one to blame but themselves and those among their predecessors who were just like them.
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nigelj at 08:11 AM on 24 June 2017New Video: John Cook and the 97 Percent
TC @7, yes I realise all that about the movie! I'm sure most people would understand things can't happen that fast or involving super storms taking up half the plant. I was just trying to say rapid change of some sort is possible. I should have been clearer.
Abrupt climate change on wikipedia is an easy to read account of past periods for lay people, and documents periods of several degrees of cooling or warming in a matter of just a few years, and changes in weather systems although not at the speed or scale of the movie. That would still be bad enough for humanity to adapt to on global or even regional scales.
However no doubt the teflon coated president would somehow escape a cooling event, tucked away down in mar a lago.
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nigelj at 07:53 AM on 24 June 2017Claiming that Listerine alleviates cold symptoms is false: To repeat or not to repeat the myth during debunking?
OPOF @7, what you say makes total sense if you are talking to a friend, or responding on a website. No need to restate the myth, so you just respond on whats really happening with temperatures (and this can also be a valid response to numerous myths)
I think the issue being described above is more relating to the media. It's hard for the media to respond to the latest myth doing the rounds in society, without actually stating what it is, and the logical place is to put the myth as the top of discussion. Avoiding being specific about the myth or burying it in the text is confusing for me.
However I agree about satellite data. A couple of additional things occur to me. If you are just a typical person and not a science expert and look at the UAH satellite data on Roy Spencers website, or over at RSS, the graph looks kind of flat compared to the surface data. This is partly because the vertical scale is simply a bit different I think. When you see the satellite data together with surface data on the same graph, there is much less difference. Of course the satellite data doesnt show as much warming since about 2005, but when seen together with the surface data even that difference is not as huge as it seems.
And the satellite data doesn't measure temperature directly. It extracts temperatures by measuring changes in the molecules that make up the atmosphere, and this is not as reliable as simple surface thermometer readings.
As you undoubtably know satellites also do not actually measure surface temperatures where we live, only the middle of the troposphere. But how many other people realise this?
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nigelj at 07:12 AM on 24 June 2017Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
Carbon taxes have worked quite well in British Columbia as below. They have reduced emissions and fossil fuel use, and ironically because it was set up as revenue neutral, people now have low income tax rates. I wouldn't claim its all perfect, but it is proof of basic viability and potential, and shows the predicted negative problems haven't happened.
www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/the-insidious-truth-about-bcs-carbon-tax-it-works/article19512237/
Not only do carbon taxes incentivise people to reduce carbon use, they provide an income stream that can be given back to the public, or used to subsidise electric cars, or subsidise renewable energy or some combination of these. This seems to make total sense to me in a practical sense.
In my opinion, carbon taxes are transparent and upfront costs with a clear price on carbon underpinning the concept, where cap and trade schemes are harder to comprehend and appear less upfront. A revenue neutral tax overcomes most of the ideological criticisms directed at taxation. We know from history and economic analysis that taxes can influence rates of consumption of products.
Carbon taxes are flexible, and can be combined with government regulation regarding large emitters.
But to be effective carbon taxes do need to set quite a high price on carbon that will raise petrol prices very significantly, so its important that renewable energy alternatives and electric cars and hybrids are made attractive options. The two things must be combined.
Alternatively you can force companies to keep fossil fuels in the ground by simple government regulation. This is simple and almost ideal, but it's unlikely to win industry, political, or public approval and may be perceived as harsh and excessive use of state power. It would be hard on consumers as well.
The other alternative is an emissions trading scheme, sometimes called cap and trade. This is one of those mechanisms that makes total sense confined to a textbook, but I think it has problems when implemented in the real world. For example the scheme in Europe has been only minimally effective, and the whole scheme looks easy for governments and participants to manipulate and rort to me, because of its inherent nature. The public in my country are suspicious of the scheme as it looks like crony capitalism. This may be unfair, but the perception is there.
Cap and trade also looks suspiciously like a neoliberal free market dream, artfully structured to look good, but designed to achieve precisely nothing, but so complex that all this becomes well hidden. Poor results in Europe seem to bear this out.
Carbon taxes seem the best alternative overall.
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