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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 20351 to 20400:

  1. A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

    Tom Curtis @ 69:

    "You have, off course, not actually presented the combined graph here. And certainly the original graphs do not have the same scale."

    Off course I cannot share the graph I made because the software limitations of the site preclude the addition of one's own material.

    Anyhow, here are the two graphs I compared this morning:

    RealClimate, Graph #1 (The NOAA highest projection, Parris, et al, 2012)

    http://www.realclimate.org/images//Horton_SLR_Survey.png

    Colorado, Graph #2 (University of Colorado 2016)

    http://sealevel.colorado.edu/files/2016_rel4/sl_ns_global.png

    Rob Honeycutt @ 70:

    "You must know the key mechanisms at play in order to resolve this."

    I'm afraid that it is more persuasive to present graphs of the data at the same scale. It should be clear that I am talking about measurable sea level rise, not the cause of the rise. You use the colloquial term "squash". I have applied a scalar transformation of the ordinate of Graph #2 to match the ordinate scale of Graph #1. I have no problem with using the colloquial term "squash" if it means, in this case, scalar transformation of the ordinate with the purpose of comparing two graphs at the same scale.

    I have not chosen an indeterminate timeframe, but have limited my analysis of the two charts to the period, 2017 to 2020.

    Graph #1 projects about 4cm of sea level rise in the period from 2017 to 2020. Graph #2 projects about 1cm of sea level rise in the period from 2017 to 2020, according to the trend line.

    If either of these values is observed and measured between 2017 and 2020, would that be incontovertible evidence that the models predict sea level rise correctly?

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Models of sea level do not predict. Rather they forecast what sea level rise will be under a given set of input assumptions about climate forcings and other key factors. Ditto for GCMs.

  2. Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today

    I am writing a book on managing stupid: Here is a key element.

    Unable or unwilling to learn anything new except from an authority figure that you recognize and accept

    note that this definition includes not only those with learning disabilities which puts their IQ in the room temp range, but also people who have IQ's in the mensa range.

    For example, we have Donald Rumsfeld and his stupidity vis-a-vis the Iraq War. We have he Rocket Scientists who were responsible for the destruction of the Columbia, because they failed to learn from the destruction of the Challenger and failed to address the root causes the Explosion.

    And we have After Long Term Capital Management imploded in 1997, and almost took down the world economic system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management Two of the prinnciples of LTCM were Myron Scholes and Robert Merton who won a nobel prize for their economic theories which were the basis of LTCM. So not exactly dummies. Unfortunately, they proved to be unable to see when the environment had changend, and their theories no longer applied.

    CONSERVATIVE:

    adjective

    1.

    holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion.

    synonyms: traditionalist, traditional, conventional, orthodox, old-fashioned, dyed-in-the-wool, hidebound, unadventurous, set in one's ways; More

    noun

    1.

    a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in relation to politics.

    synonyms: right-winger, reactionary, rightist, diehard; More

    I do not know how to fix this. I am fairly certain that the solution lies in putting together a log to psychologists and marketing people, backed with money and working with a principle that I just discovered called MAYA which is used in design. This is Most Advanced Yet Acceptable

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAYA_Design bearing in mind that what is acceptable to a stupid conservative will be -— well limited.

    I can say with a fair amount of certainty that logic and reason will have all the effect of trying to teach algebra to a fish.

  3. Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today

    BBYH @5, apparently Trump is required to have a sea wall at Mar-A-Lago as a result of local ordinances.  I saw no reporting that he was seeking to extend those walls due to fears about sea level rise.  Of course, he probably should take some measures to combat sea level rise at Mar-A-Lago given that sea level rise is likely to face flooding in 210 days per year by mid century, although most of that will be in lower lying parts of the property away from the main buildings:

    What I did find reported is that Trump applied for a permit for a sea wall to protect an Irish golf course he owns, citing increased risk of erosion due to sea level and more frequent storms, both of which are attributed to climate change in the application.  Not too much should be read into that, however, as there is substantial evidence Trump does not read relevant documents submitted in his name and the citation may reflect the activities of an underling executing due dilligence, without reflecting Trump's actual views.

  4. Elevator Pitches - Chapter 02 - Radiative Gases

    OK Tom, now it makes sense to me. Thanks.

  5. Models are unreliable

    David @1039... You appear to misunderstand the nature of medical testing and medical prognostication.

    You pregnancy example misses the point. Pregnancy is unusual in medicine, because it is an almost pefect binary condition - someone cannot usually be "a little bit pregnant" (ambiguous cases can actually occur, but they are rare). And of course, that binary nature partly reflects that pregnancy is not even a disease, but is instead a highly evolved biologically programmed physiological state. With pregnancy, there is little of the conceptual messiness that is usually associated with defining a disease and deciding which cases to lump together under the same categorical label. Pregnancy testing is also unusually accurate compared to nearly any other medical test you could have named.

    Most medical conditions are less well-defined, and cannot be modelled with any accuracy. Although it is often known that, say, treatment A will be more effective than placebo, it is often not even known whether treatment A will be better than treatment B. Moreover, it is rarely the case that the precise disease course for an individual patient can be plotted predictively. For most cancers, for instance, a specialist will often quote an approximate median survival, which is no more than the time interval within which they expect half the patients with that cancer to die. For the individual patient, the actual surivival time is likely to diverge substantially from that median. Other times, the specialist may quote the expected 5-year survival as a percentage, but for an individual patient, 5-year survival will either be 100% or 0%, so the crude 5-year survival model does not apply.

    Insisting on perfect prognostication before acting would be foolish in a medical context. If even one oncologist reported that a lung mass was an early-stage cancer, and that removing it would be associated with greatly improved median survival, then most people would have the mass removed. If a second, third and subsequent opinion is concordant, then it would be crazy to leave the mass in place, refusing to cooperate until the oncologist provides an accurate chart of its projected growth. It would be crazy to wait and confirm that the cancer really was capable of spreading to other organs, etc.

    For climate science, we have the added problem that there is only one planet, and this is the first time that AGW has occurred, so we have to act before fine-tuning the prognostic model.

    Don't confuse uncertainties in the fine points of prognostication with uncertainties in the diagnosis. There is no serious doubt about the planetary diagnosis at this point, and it is obvious what we need to do to fix it.

  6. Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today

    1) I heard that Trump has applied for a permit to build a sea wall at Mar-A-Lago to protect it from rising sea level. Can anyone confirm that? Seems like that would be an important point to use against his policies. It shows that his assertions that he doesn't believe the science to be totally phony.

    2) Trump says he is helping energy workers, but I haven't seen anyone in the media point out that those in the wind and solar industries are also energy workers. Again, this is about politics, not about jobs or the economy or the science.

  7. Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today

    Tom@3,

    I think it's even possible to prove that we are talking about the deceit rather than hypocrisy here.

    In his lawsuit against EPA as reported by Ecowatch:

    Scott Pruitt filed a lawsuit to overturn the endangerment finding, which he and his fellow litigants characterized as "arbitrary and capricious." Believe it or not, Pruitt's primary argument was that the EPA should not have relied upon the multiple reports on climate change issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (established by the United Nations which synthesizes the work of thousands of scientists), the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) (a Bush administration body of 13 federal agencies that issued 21 reports on climate change) and the National Research Council (NRC) (the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences).

    Pruitt's legal brief never quite explains what is wrong with relying upon the world's most prominent experts, but it claimed that the EPA in effect wrongly delegated its decision-making to these bodies.

    (my emphasis)

    Pruitt argued that the decision about about CO2 being declared pollutant cannot be made from the findings of the scientific bodies with highest expertise (IPCC) and highest organisation importance (NAS). At the same time, his statement quoted by this OP "We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis" can only be interpreted as a willful lie because it's in 100% contrast with the intent of the lawsuit where he wanted to e.g. suppress the IPCC analysis as an input to EPA. Of course it's difficult to prove a deceit in a court. In case of Pruitt, he can always claim that he meant the "alternative science" (i.e. denialist organisations such as NIPCC) as debaters in his last statement, and claim ignorance to refute the charges. But it can be argued that at his level, he must understand the reality that the main participants in his "debate" are the ones he wanted to suppress. With just a minimum level of responsibility, one cannot possibly claim that he does not understand such basics.

    Sadly, I think Pruitt would win such lawsuit in US court: just as his boss won the presidency: on the grounds of utter ignorance and disconnection form reality. How sad, how miserable is the state of US politics that led the absurd outcome we're witnessing.

  8. Elevator Pitches - Chapter 02 - Radiative Gases

    Jim Eager @20, the CO2 oscillations that emit or absorb IR photons do so because they generate an oscillating dipole.  If they did not, they would not be able to do so (as is conveniently shown by the symmetric stretching oscillation which generates no dipole, and emits and absorbs no IR photons).  In CO, I suspect that there is only a single oscillation, ie, a stretching oscilation.  Because CO always has a dipole, that stretching oscillation will also generate an oscillating dipole, and hence allow the emission and absorption of IR radiation at a precise frequency.

  9. Elevator Pitches - Chapter 02 - Radiative Gases

    Tom, I understand the CO2 bending and asymmetric stretching modes, but I'm still not quite grasping how CO works. It's not a stretching or bending vibration, it's simply becuse of the electrical charge imbalance?

  10. Rob Honeycutt at 11:21 AM on 1 April 2017
    A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

    John... As for which predictive models is going to best project sea level rise, this is exactly my point. 

    You must know the key mechanisms at play in order to resolve this.

    Current SLR is partly a function of thermal expansion of the oceans and partly a function of ice sheet contributions. The thermal expansion part is reasonably easy to model (for researcher capable of doing that work). Ice sheet contributions are vastly more complex.

    Thus, I will say it one more time, squashing two charts down to the same scale will tell you absolutely nothing about the ice sheet dynamics which will be the primary issue with future sea level rise.

  11. Elevator Pitches - Chapter 02 - Radiative Gases

    Jim Eager @18:

    "How does CO, being a diatomic molecule, act as a greenhouse gas?"

    In order to be a greenhouse gas, the molecule must exhibit a dipole, ie, a spatial difference in electrical charge resulting from one element within the compound attracting electrons more strongly than the other.  In carbon dioxid, and carbon monoxide, the oxygen atom pulls the electrons more closely to itself.  That is neutralized in carbon dioxide because the molecule is linear, and the oxygen atoms at either end of the molecule end with the same electric charge.  Certain vibrations, however, result in a relative change in charge as shown in this image:

    In the assymetric stretch, as the carbon atom approaches closer to one of the oxygen atoms, that side gains a slight positive charge relative the other creating a dipole.  Likewise when the carbon atom moves out of the direct line between the oxygen atoms when bending, that also creates a dipole.

    Carbon monoxide is simpler because it always has a dipole because of the different electrical strengths of the oxygen and carbon atoms. 

  12. A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

    John Fornaro @68:

    "I presented and compared the data from two charts at the same scale. Your characterization of my correct scalar presentation of the data is false."

    I assume you are reffering to your method of comparing the graphs described @56:

    "I pasted the colorado.edu graph mentioned above over the graph @40, squeezed it down to about the right scale at least on the abscissa. The ordinate of the colorado.edu graph should be flattened even more. 1 cm barely registers."

    You have, off course, not actually presented the combined graph here.  And certainly the original graphs do not have the same scale.

     

  13. Elevator Pitches - Chapter 02 - Radiative Gases

    Of course, Tom, I was just trying to simplify by keeping it to CO2 since that is the greenhouse gas that sancho asked about, but there is always a risk of oversimplifying, just as there is a risk of over complicating a concept by mentioning all the caveats. Still, "contribute to" would have been a much better choice than "responsible for."

    Now for a question: How does CO, being a diatomic molecule, act as a greenhouse gas?

  14. Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today

    Scott Pruitt's belongs to an administration that wishes to almost entirely defund climate science.  Consequently, his statement that "We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis" is entirely hypocritical, for while he presents himself as wanting to continue that debate, he is attempting to defund the collection of any data bearing on the debate.  Personally I think that is because he knows what that data shows, and his statement is not just hypocritical, but deceitful.

  15. Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today

    Alpinist @1, Eunice Foote was close.  She observed the differences in rates of increase in, and final temperatures for various gases, noting that moist air and carbonic acid (CO2) achieved higher temperatures than did dry air (or pure hydrogen, or oxygen).  However she attributed that difference to "the thermal action of the rays of light that proceed from the sun".  That is not the greenhouse effect, as proposed by Tyndal, which is a consequence of the reduced ability of thermal energy to escape from the Earth rather than increased absorption of thermal energy from the Sun. 

  16. New podcast Evidence Squared by John Cook & Peter Jacobs

    The ideal way is to subscribe via iTunes because then every time we publish a new episode, you automatically receive the new episode. I have an iPhone so use the Podcasts app - I'd just open the app, go to Search then search for Evidence Squared.

    If you don't use a podcast app, you can listen directly via our website evidencesquared.com. Each blog post features an embedded player at the top of the post where you can play the episode.

    Or you can go straight to the source and view our Soundcloud channel where all our episode mp3s are hosted.

  17. Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today

    An interesting sidelight to John Tyndall's work...Eunice Foote, an American scientist:

    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/09/02/the-woman-who-identified-the-greenhouse-effect-years-before-tyndall/

    Moderator Response:

    [TD] I made your link a link. You can do that yourself when you write the comment.

  18. A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

    Rob Honeycutt @ 64:

    "No, merely squashing a chart down is not — in any way, shape or form — a substitute for real analysis."

    I presented and compared the data from two charts at the same scale. Your characterization of my correct scalar presentation of the data is false.

    I only have time to read at the moment, and I might be back later.

  19. A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

    What is the best predictive model regarding sea level rise?

  20. Rob Honeycutt at 01:24 AM on 1 April 2017
    Models are unreliable

    David... Other's have offered quite a lot, but here's one more element that you might consider:

    With climate science you essentially have one subject on which to perform any experiments or analysis. The subject has a very slow metabolism and a very long lifespan. And, all the relevant physics and effects only occur on or near a very thin surface area on the subject.

    This presents both advantages and disadvantages relative to medical research. But moreover, it merely means the methods that scientists must take to understanding the subject matter has to be approached in very different ways. It's very hard to compare the two in any meaningful manner.

  21. Elevator Pitches - Chapter 02 - Radiative Gases

    Jim Eager @16, very well explained.  I do have to quibble, however, that CO, CH4, NO2, O3 (all four of which have natural and anthropogenic sources), various long chain carbon compounds of anthropogenic origin, and H2O all also contribute to the greenhouse effect.  So also do clouds independently of the contribution of water vapour 

  22. Elevator Pitches - Chapter 02 - Radiative Gases

    Sancho, the key to understanding the power of adding only one molecule per 10,000 (from 3 to 4) is to understand that the other 9,997 N2 and O2 molecules do not absorb IR energy, only the 3 CO2 molecules do, and thus only the 3 are responsible for the greenhouse effect. The other 9,997 molecules might as well not even be there. Thus increasing the CO2 number from 3 to 4 has to increase the power of its greenhouse effect.

    Think of it this way: if the effective dosage of a drug is 3 in 10,000 when disolved in distiled water and you increase the dosage to 4 in 10,000 you have increased the dosage by 33%, which could be fatal in some cases.

    Or another analogy: think about what would happen if you added 3 liters of carbon black to a swimming pool containing 9997 liters of water. You might still see the bottom of the pool at the shallow end, but as you moved toward the deep end at some point you would no longer be able to see the bottom. Now remove a liter of water and add 1 more liter of carbon black. What would happen to the point where you could no longer see bottom?

    As for the increase of 1.5F so far when we haven’t even doubled CO2 yet, remember that a warmer atmosphere will hold more water vapor, and that water vapor is also a greenhouse gas. So, by warming the atmosphere by adding CO2 we have also indirectly added water vapor to the atmosphere, thus increasing the H2O greenhous effect as well.

  23. Models are unreliable

    DavidShawver:

    Something for you to chew on...

    Researcher's 1979 Arctic Model Predicted Current Sea Ice Demise, Holds Lessons for Future

    Study from decades ago proved remarkably accurate in showing how global warming would affect the Arctic's sea ice, currently in steep decline.

    by Sabrina Shankman, Inside Climate News, Feb 20, 2017

    Claire Parkinson, now a senior climate change scientist at NASA, first began studying global warming's impact on Arctic sea ice in 1978, when she was a promising new researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Back then, what she and a colleague found was not only groundbreaking, it pretty accurately predicted what is happening now in the Arctic, as sea ice levels break record low after record low.

    Parkinson's study, which was published in 1979, found that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from preindustrial levels would cause the Arctic to become ice-free in late summer months, probably by the middle of the 21st century. It hasn't been ice-free in more than 100,000 years.

    Although carbon dioxide levels have not yet doubled, the ice is rapidly disappearing. This record melt confirms the outlook from Parkinson's 1979 model.

    "It was one of these landmark papers," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. "She was the first to put together the thermodynamic sea ice model."

  24. Models are unreliable

    DavidS @1039,

    you are overlooking a vitally important point, which is :- global warming is already occurring now in a big way.  There are no Ifs or Buts or Maybes.  The signs (like with an advanced pregnancy) are very obvious, right now.  The higher surface temperatures, the rising sea level, the loss of glaciers and plummeting arctic ice volume, and so on.  All that is very plain and obvious.  And since the known cause (of warming) is still operational and actually increasing — by around around 30 billion tons per year — the warming will continue strongly.

    Even without any model projections for the future, it is clear to the reasonable man [as the lawyers describe him] that action needs to be taken now, rather than postponed for many decades.  In a half-century or less, fossil fuels can be phased out, with little or no real economic cost (bearing in mind the already high price of health costs and other less obvious costs of operating a coal/oil fuelled economy).

    The presence or absence of model projections is a relatively trivial matter, which may be of greater relevance to the lattermost decades of the 21st Century : but has minimal importance in practical terms of what actions we need to take both now and in the near future.

    DavidS, your "pregnancy test" analogy is a very long stretch.

    Perhaps a slightly closer analogy is this :- A young woman reports she has had no periods for 4 months : and her abdomen shows a smooth midline lump reaching almost to her umbilicus.  Plus several other signs are present, indicative of pregnancy.

    Yes, there is a 0.1% chance she is not pregnant.  But the reliabillity and accuracy of a urine pregnancy test is almost moot.  Her real interest and need, is to make decisions about practical things she should do now and in the coming months.  She would be wasting her time if she agonises over whether the urine test kit is 95% or 98% accurate.

    Timely practical decisions are needed, in tackling our rapid global warming.

  25. Models are unreliable

    You also bring up medical test - the idea of what is "effective" is complex and the conclusions from testing can be very murky indeed. However, we dont see joe public (on the whole) thinking they know better than the medical consensus. Judging those results requires considerable domain knowledge, just like climate science. The scientific consensus might be wrong - plenty of cases where it is - but scientific consensus is what should guide public policy.

    Also, treating the models as test of climate science is also are rather dubious assumption. There are numerous direct tests of climate science instead. Models though are limited by computer power, measurement gaps, subscale issues etc and underlying chaotic processes. This is not test of the science. The correct question to ask is "are the models skillful?". The answer is yes. They sure do better than the entrails of chicken or assuming climate is unchanging, and frankly, very very much better. Broecker 1975 practically nailed the 2010 temperature.

  26. New podcast Evidence Squared by John Cook & Peter Jacobs

    Robert - you can also just go to the Evidence Squared website and listen to them from there. On my iPad, I used the iTunes app, searched for the podcasts and downloaded them.

  27. Models are unreliable

    I am not quite sure what you mean by "error rates in prediction"? What do you regard as "error"? Strawman arguments are favourite denier attack - eg . "climate model predict this (cue cooked graph), actual is this, therefore climate science is wrong". The important point to consider is what do climate models actually predict here. The answer is climate, not weather. They have no skill at decadal level prediction and dont pretend to. What they do predict with considerable skill is what 30 year weather averages will do. In the graph at the above comment  you will see the grey area is "weather uncertainity". What this means is that any wriggly line in that grey area is consistant with the climate models. The solid black line is model average. You can see this more clearly on this AR4 graph.

    Every single line is an individual run of the model. Every one of them, a possible climate future. Discussed in more detail here.

    Furthermore, whatever their imperfections, (and modellers would be first to list them), they remain our best predictor for what future climate will look like. Yes, we would very much prefer to know whether climate sensitivity is closer to 2.5   or 4.5, but this is best possible at moment. Dont assume errors will be on the side of least effect. Uncertainity is not your friend.

    "with far-reaching negative economic ramifications". Hmm, sounds like drinking the FF propoganda to me.  Certainly negative for some industry sectors, but what are you using as the basis your assertion on negative consequence? Want to compare them with the costs on doing nothing and even a low sensitivity of say 2.5?

    Also, please dont confuse physical models for predicting the future with statistical models (eg polls). Not a lot in common for functionality.

  28. Rob Honeycutt at 10:54 AM on 31 March 2017
    New podcast Evidence Squared by John Cook & Peter Jacobs

    If you have an iPhone you can just download the Podcasts app and get it there.

  29. New podcast Evidence Squared by John Cook & Peter Jacobs

    I'm sorry but I can't figure out to listen (or are these videos?) these podcasts. I clicked on the link to download itunes and I successfully downloaded and installed itunes.

    Then (I think) I subscribed to the podcasts. But the only links that are available are merely to download itunes. I don't see anyway to see or hear anything other than the promos for podcasts or for itunes.

     

    I give up.

  30. Models are unreliable

    [I noticed a few typos in my previous post, in last paragraph it should read "Therefore it stands to reason that this "test" of climate science"

    In second paragraph should read "What I am questioning is whether *their use in combination with other methods in climate science as it is currently practiced* has ever been demonstrated....]

  31. Models are unreliable

    Skeptical questions from a lay person:  What if the accuracy of climate models does not continue to improve as is claimed, and the current error rates in predictions of global temperature each year continue at their current rate?  Is it possible that the aggregative upshot of serial errors in temperature prediction could lead to a very different result than that which is currently being predicted by the present day models?  And isn't the only relevant question for members of the public whether the climate models can accurately predict what happens in the future?

    I am not denying that the physical science and math and statistics that goes into climate models are not scientifically valid and independently accurate in other applications.  What I am questioning is whether they have ever been demonstrated to have the level of predictive value which would be necessary to project policy 50 years into the future and beyond.  

    An analogy:  In the realm of medicine, prior to a treatment or test being administered it must be shown that the treatment or test is effective.  When we are talking about a particular method which is in essence a test (to predict increased planetary temperature) the test must be capable of predicting what it is meant to predict.  For example, the law does not allow pregnancy tests to be placed on the market, when such tests have not been consistently shown effective at predicting that a woman will eventually have a baby in actual real world clinical trials.

    In my mind, climate science is similar.  Climate science is an amalgum of scientific techniques and human judgments that can be thought of as a particular test (albeit much more complex than a pregnancy test) which is being used in order to predict the planet's future temperature.  The lay people of the world are being asked to make serious policy changes with far-reaching negative economic ramifications on the basis of this particular "test" or methodology.  Therefore it stands to reason that this "test" of climate change must be able to demonstrate that it has a record of being successful in predicting global temperature changes.  Can we really say that?  The discrepancy in the above graph between predicted and actual seems to belie that the "test" is really there yet.  By the way, the same problem of lack of sufficient demonstrated predictive value for the purposes asked also exists in the political world, where everyone was wrong about Trump's chances.

  32. A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

    JohnFornaro @63:

    "Uhhhhh.... wut? I didn't get the meaning of that at all."

    In your comment @56 you wrote:

    "Tom Curtis @55:

    "It will be a decade or two before we can significantly resolve which projection/model combination is most accurate with respect to sea level rise."

    Which is fair on one level, but it is also permission for Congress to say, wait and see. Ten to twenty years is not three years."

    "Waiting and seeing" for an indeterminate period is in fact doing nothing, hence my comment about acting as though the uncertain thing won't happen.  That is not a rational response when there is a certainty of sea level rise, but uncertainty about the amount.  That is particularly the case given that the earlier the policy response, the lower the overall cost of responding to sea level rise, at least if the initial steps are measured as with the two proposals I made.

    "This makes some sense to me too, but is a 'run awaaaayyy' approach."

    You ignored the section where I said:

    "Standards for levies are a bit different as you greatly increase the cost of the response if you do multiple builds. There I suggest they set a standard for levies equivalent to a Katrina level storm surge plus around 1.5 meters. Again, they should commit to decadal review."

    Clearly I was suggesting a two strategy response, with the particular strategy used in particular area dependent or relevant costs.  Therefore your characterization of the strategy is an inaccurate caricature.  I will grant that the different cost structure will favour retreat over the construction of levees, but as the percentage of land effected for any state other than Florida (where levees will not work, in any event) is small, that it likely the most cost effective strategy.

    With regard to phobia, it is the nature of phobias to mistake irrational fears for rational fears.  In this context, that comes from mistaking reasonable regulations for unreasonable.

    With regard to my second preference strategy (the free market solution), it has the effect of placing the cost of adapting to sea level rise specifically on people living in low areas; whereas the cause of the costs are (mostly) the use of fossil fuels.  That is, it accepts as a reasonable policy the existence of a large externality born by a small proportion of the population, but not paid for by the causes of the externality.  To my mind that is irrational, but given the  phobia about rational regulation in the US, I expect only the free market approach has a chance of getting up in the short term.

  33. Trump has launched a blitzkrieg in the wars on science and Earth’s climate

    Sailingfree @13, yes coal can certainly be a killer. Some research came out a couple of years ago showing burning coal is a much bigger cause of heart disease than previously thought as below. 

    www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/coal-is-king-among-pollution-that-causes-heart-disease-study-says/2015/12/01/3fb88194-9840-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html?utm_term=.69377fe060b4

    I remembered this when I read your comments. Of course there are numerous other problems such as bronchitis etc.

  34. Rob Honeycutt at 04:59 AM on 31 March 2017
    A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

    JF... "I would say informally that neither Obama nor Trump are climate science experts, for example."

    Interesting here is the avoidance of the obvious.

    The former listened to and acted upon the advice of leading experts. The latter does not. 

  35. Rob Honeycutt at 04:56 AM on 31 March 2017
    A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

    JF @62... Apparently you chosen to ignore the point I've made. No, merely squashing a chart down is not – in any way, shape or form – a substitute for real analysis. You have to understand the processes at work. You have to understand the data. You have to understand other influences on the data outside of the specifics you're looking at. Tamino does the actual analysis that you're incapable of (here).

    "To better persuade policy makers, climate scientists could present the data at the same scale..."

    You're just not getting it, John. You're asking for something that won't visually show exactly what deniers avoid understanding. And you're not grasping how you're employing a technique that is exactly how people intentionally manufacture doubt about climate science. 

    Look, all the information is there. It's presented over and over in compelling ways that even children can understand. Those who don't understand these things are not failing to grasp it because it's being poorly communicated. They're not understanding it because they don't want to understand it. That's not something that can be changed through anyone's abilities of persuasion. 

    My often used comparison here is Martin Luther King. Dr. King didn't advance the civil rights movement by trying to persuade racists that their ideas were wrong. He did it by forcing our nation to confront the atrocity of our racism.

  36. A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

    Tom Curtis @ 59:

    " it is not a rational response to uncertainty to assume that, with 100% certainty the uncertain thing won't happen."

    Uhhhhh.... wut? I didn't get the meaning of that at all.

    "I would suggest that ... Congress to adopt now, a policy of converting to parkland ... [various low lying areas] ... using eminent domain". This makes some sense to me too, but is a 'run awaaaayyy' approach. [say it like Monty Python] Abandon the flooded areas. Perhaps like New Orleans? Remember that the Low Countries in Europe have been working the high sea level problem for many years with notable success, and that seems to be the approach that the Corps of Engineers is using in New Orleans at the moment.

    But you mentioned "eminent domain". And then you asserted that "phobia about reasonable government regulation". What people actually have is a phobia about UN-reasonable government regulation. From a persuasion standpoint, 'unreasonable government regulation' is an LKS.

    You do offer a free market solution that should be adopted as soon as is practicable, tho: "that buyers do not conceal faults in a [low lying] property they are selling, and that the government not subsidize the insurance, [nor] become the insurer of last resort for people who ignore the reality of sea level rise".

  37. A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

    Rob Honeycutt @ 58:

    "JF... Regarding sea level rise, if you merely squash a chart down you're unlikely to gain any valuable information."

    I have to disagree. I squashed down the Colorado.edu graph to the same ordinate scale as the graph @ 40. The valuable information is that there is no catastrophic sea level rise out to 2020. The comment was made above @ 55 that "if a change of scales defeats a person, they lack that ability" to reason.

    Clearly, getting the graphs at the same scale shows that the sea level rise, at least as predicted by the models of those 'experts', is not something to be alarmed about.

    The prediction of a 1m rise in sea levels is out to the year 2100, and is the extreme level predicted by the highest 'expert' NOAA assessment. You ask,

    "In terms of 'persuasion' what are scientists supposed to do?"

    To better persuade policy makers, climate scientists could present the data at the same scale, project out to the same time, and work harder to refrain from berating the idiotic morons who comprise our government. At least do the first two things.

    "What seems ridiculous to me is that people, such as Adams, have some expectation that if scientists were more clever with their words or graphics..."

    Did I mention scale and timeframe?

    The colorado.edu graph is a flat line on sea level rise over the same time frame that NOAA predicts a 4cm rise. Both graphs cannot be correct.

  38. A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

    Rob Honeycutt @ 57:

    "I'd have to say, that [my comment about how even 'experts' cannot determine the best climate model.] is a non-statement on par with, 'I can neither confirm nor deny... ' "

    If you would drop a line along those lines to to Michael Sweet @ 43?

    I totally agree with you that "persuasion without expertise" can be a dangerous area on many levels. I would say informally that neither Obama nor Trump are climate science experts, for example. You bring up, as an aside, I'm sure, the issue of morality, and this is a very important issue to bring up, since it is the morality of our government as a whole which has led to our involvement, as one example only, in elective war without purpose, since at least Vietnam.

    Discussions about morality suck the air out of a discussion at approximately the same rate as a black hole sucks matter.

    I'm trying to focus on two things only at the moment. Persuasion and sea level rise.  Anyhow...

  39. Nobody really knows: a Trumpworld dreamscape

    Always good advice! But your skepticism was nevertheless appreciated! You later checked things out properly and came to and admitted a different conclusion - an excellent example of the scientific method.

    If only we could accomplish the same with WUWT commenters!

  40. Trump has launched a blitzkrieg in the wars on science and Earth’s climate

    Coal is a killer, independent of its affect on AGW:

    Estimates I have seen of the people dying in the US from coal polution range from 12,000 to 24,000, every year.  Estimates of jobs in coal range from 70,000 for direct miners alone, to twice that if transportation is included.  

    Using the estimates that are weakest for my argument, 144,000 work in coal for a year, and 12,000 people in the US die. Or, 12 people work for a year and 1 dies, or 1 coal worker kills someone else every 12 years.

    It would make more sense to pay the workers not do coal.

    (That is more deaths per worker than deaths per drug dealers.)

  41. Nobody really knows: a Trumpworld dreamscape

    #4 - Me dumb, should have read the whole thing before putting my foot in my mouth. :-)

  42. SingletonEngineer at 22:28 PM on 30 March 2017
    Nobody really knows: a Trumpworld dreamscape

    I'm reading late in the evening.  It makes spookily real sense... it is plausible.

    I hope not to experience that particular dream tonight.

  43. There is no consensus

    Spassapparat @746 ,

    the purpose of science is to discover the truths of our universe.

    And the purpose of surveys such as Cook et al., 2013 , is to discover the truth about what scientists hold to be factual.

    Of course, we should also look for further evidence that may corroborate what the surveys do find (they find that, for expert climate scientists, a percentage figure in the high 90's is holding AGW theory to be factual).

    These survey results are (unsurprisingly) supported by word-of-mouth opinion from expert scientists about their colleagues — and Spassapparat, this is a matter which you can rather easily ascertain for yourself, by questioning some genuine climate-related scientists.  I am confident you will find it difficult, indeed almost impossible, to find any genuine "contrarian" scientist.  And any such, that you can find, will be unable to provide any real evidence to support their contrarian viewpoints.

    For the year 2013, it is reported that over 2000 climate-related scientific papers were published (totalling 9000 authors).  And yet in that period, only one paper made a contrarian claim [i.e. that modern global warming is caused by an alteration of cosmic ray bombardment of the atmosphere].  This single paper was by a Russian astronomer, and was published in a Russian journal of proceedings.  The paper was vaguely-worded; it did not measure the claimed effect; and it failed to dispose of the well-measured and well-understood CO2 mechanism known to produce AGW.  This cosmic ray hypothesis had already been debunked before 2013 : and in addition, since 2013 there has been more evidence (from cloud-chamber experiments by CERN scientists) showing that this cosmic ray hypothesis is false.  In short, the Russian paper was Dreck.

    So in reality, Null out of 2000 papers could support a non-AGW position.  To me this seems excellent corroboration that the "over 97%" Cook et al. study is the correct representation of the truth — and that the Cook 97% figure very much understates the current status.

    In seeking truth, it is our duty to use complete Ehrlichkeit, and to avoid word-games which are unsupported by the general evidence, and to avoid unredlich conclusions (even when these unredlich conclusions are politically fashionable in some quarters).

  44. green tortoise at 16:22 PM on 30 March 2017
    Nobody really knows: a Trumpworld dreamscape

    chriskoz @5:

    I agree with you 200% that this is a social, economic, politic, moral and why not, criminal problem.

    However I was making the case that even in the case that the deniers are right and global warming is not man-made (I insist, it's just a hypothetical scenario to show how absurd the denialist position is) the case against fossil fuels and for renewable energy is still economically and socially very strong.

    FF deplete, causing inflation in the long term. Renewables in the other hand, are abundant, do not deplete, had a near-zero OPEX and a time-decaying CAPEX, causing energy cost deflation, a strong boost for the economy.

    Even without accounting for global warming, millions of people die every year due to aerosol air pollution, and it cost several percent of GDP to remedy all that damage.

    Today argue for FF, and coal in particular, is beyond crazy.

    It's behaving like Stalin during the 1930 5-year plans and Mao during the so-called "Great Leap Forward". Both agro-indutrial plans to boost production ended in the worst famines that affected Russia and China, killing even more people than WW2 and WW1. Only the 1918/AH1N1 avian influenza pandemic killed more people.

  45. Trump has launched a blitzkrieg in the wars on science and Earth’s climate

    Skepty@3,

    Would you rather live 100 years ago or now. People will be saying the same another century from now. As long as Mother Earth allows it.

    If your objective in life is to actually make a positive impact on history, surprisingly many people would like to live 100y ago. For example John Mason the author of the very next SkS post.

    The ignorant attitude displayed in your comment ("Ultimately it doesn't matter") precludes understanding and appreciation of positions of other people like that displayed by John, for whom the historical issues of our times do matter.

  46. One Planet Only Forever at 13:48 PM on 30 March 2017
    Trump has launched a blitzkrieg in the wars on science and Earth’s climate

    Regarding my comment@8: My comparison of Coal burning with CCS to Natural Gas is based on CO2 capture from emissions being near 90%. The Boundary Dam retrofit in Saskatchewan has this level of CO2 capture (along with nearly 100% SO2 capture and low NOx - however not all of the CO2 is properly sequestered since it is injected to enhance oil recovery from nearby oil fields rather than being put into reliable long term storage). The addition of CCS changed the Boundary Dam Unit generation from 145-150MW to 110-115MW.

    Burning natural gas results in about 50% of the CO2 per unit of electricity that burning coal produces.

    So 90% CCS on coal burning would be significantly better than natural gas burning without CCS (as long as the full 90% captured is properly reliably Sequestered - for thousands of years).

    And even coal burning with CCS (or Natural Gas burning with CCS) is still adding to the CO2 problem, just not as quickly. And since the total amount of accumulated CO2 is the concern, CCS is not a solution. It is just a short term action that would reduce the magnitude of the problem being created compared to not adding CCS to existing facilities.

    The reduction of trouble-making needs to be considered to be "Invaluable", meaning the costs to achieve the reduction of trouble-making need to be irrelevant. The only comparison that is relevant is the costs of the different ways that rapidly terminate the creation of the problem. Delaying the termination of the trouble-making because "Doing More Rapid Reduction of trouble-making" is deemed to be "more expensive" or "less profitable/beneficial for some current day people" is not a responsible action, it is an excuse - a very poor excuse that is tragically easy to make very popular in nations with unjustifiably developed perceptions of prosperity and opportunity.

    The developed lack of ethics and morals among leaders is the real problem. Leaders like Scott Pruit should face legal Recall, meaning removal from their assigned responsibility when it can be shown that they are not competent to properly perform the role they have been assigned.

    Excusing bad behaviour can be popular. But ethically and morally it cannot and should not actually Win anything (even if the bad behaviour is totally legal, since laws or lack of laws that develop unethical or immoral results eventually get changed).

  47. Nobody really knows: a Trumpworld dreamscape

    green tortoise@3,


    It [climate change] will not just kill a lot of people (something that by itself would be already the worst thing in human history) but also most of life on Earth.And ironically, solving it will be economically positive, even if global warming is not man-made

    We all know CC is man-made. But if you assume it "is not man-made" (as in your final clause quoted above) then the idea of "solving it" does not make sense. Because AGW problem is not an environmental problem but a social problem, as I've always been saying here. If AGW problem was an environmental problem, it would've been already solved, because the technologies to move away from FF already exist. It's just lack of power and/or courage by politicians to implement the solutions. The reason is that said implementation would change social status quo, because of large vested interests held by large & strong population groups and by large and literally "energy strong" nations on global scale. So there is strong opposition to the solutions, so strong as to resulting in denial by ruling political forces. The more powerful and the more encumbered by their FF donors the forces are (e.g. in English apeaking countires), the stronger and more absurd the denial is. Up to the point of disconnection from reality by the ruling party in the most powerful nation (GOP in US). This gradual strenghtening of denial through political systems culminates in the most powerful leader of the world: a sociopathic moron, the denier-in-chief, who came unsurprisingly from GOP.

    In context of that picture, it is more than obvious that we have a social problem here that we must resolve first. The environmental aspects or AGW is a distant secondary issue that will never be resolved if we do not resolve the social aspect. That's why talking about "solving global warming even if not man-made" does not make sense, or should be prioritised away as a secondary task. E.g. efforts to scrub CO2 from the athmosphere or deploy some other safe geo-engineering cooling methods only address the symptoms and not the cause of a problem we have.

  48. Nobody really knows: a Trumpworld dreamscape

    #1 - dreams have the luxury of being in the future or the past :)

    Although having said which, if I could live a dream it would be to go back ca. 100 years and devise a "how the Planet works" course for all 12-year-olds worldwide and get its teaching implemented!

  49. Elevator Pitches - Chapter 02 - Radiative Gases

    "reflect or refract" isnt a great description of the interaction. A better understanding can be found here. As to effect of raising by 100ppm, you can always try the "shut up and calculate" approach. The interactions are described by radiative transfer equations. You can solve for the atmosphere and compare direct measurements at earths surface or outgoing IR from satellite with the results of the calculation. This thread has some of the results. This paper for an even better direct measurement of the effect of raising CO2.

  50. There is no consensus

    Spassapparat @746, in Cook et al, endorsement or rejection is explicitly stated to be endorsement or rejection of the theory of AGW.  That is, it is endorsement or rejection of a specific theory which states, in part, that anthropogenic factors are responsible for greater than 50% of warming since 1950.  If you interpret the different categories of endorsement (implicit, explicit, and explicit with quantification) as applying to successively stronger theories, you have misinterpreted the paper and misunderstood the methodology in the paper.

    You say (@744):

    "Also, I was wondering about what the paper is actually saying. If we include category 2 and 3, don't we have to dial down what we are saying to what is included in the weakest category (category 3)"

    However, category 3 is not endorsement of a weaker theory, but a less strong endorsement of the same theory.  In category 1, endorsement is explicit, and a quantification is give so there can be no doubt that AGW is endorsed.  In category 3, endorsement is implicit, so while the theory endorsed is the same, the possibility of error in assessing whether or not the paper endorses the theory is greater.

    I am aware that climate "skeptics" reject this understanding of the paper, but it was the understanding of the authors, and it was the understanding of the raters.  More importantly, if the endorsements are not understood in that way, it makes the paper inconsistent.  That means critics are rejecting a consistent understanding of the paper, which was held by the authors and raters, in order that a criticism they have should be valid.  Another way of putting that is that they are raising a straw man.

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