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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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4 Reasons Why the Trump Budget Cuts Won’t Happen by Ed Kilgore, The Daily Intelligencer, New York Magazine, Mar 17, 2017

chriskoz at 11:21 AM on 20 March 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #11

Tom Curtis@4,

Thank you for bringing this budget analysis to my attention. I'm not surprised by its content.

You say:

From appearance, the only federal funding to research, mitigate or adapt climate change if those portions of the proposed budget are passed are those that have escaped the Trump administrations attention.

But I find therein:

One EPA climate program that would likely survive is the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which measures emissions from industries around the country. Congress has mandated this monitoring, and getting rid of it would require legislative changes. So the EPA could still quantify US greenhouse gas emissions — it just couldn’t very much about it.
(emphasis original)

So, it might actually be that those aspects anaffected by this budget simply cannot be affected by the presidential order. No doubt the president would love to scale them back but he cannot. The case of GHG monitoring does not invalidate your point about presidential incompetence though: when he does not mention anything important, it's highly likely because he does not understand it.

nigelj at 10:39 AM on 20 March 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #11

And we can see what Trump and his team is trying to do. It's transparently obvious. He threatens to do totally outrageous things, hoping people will settle on slightly less outrageous compromises, that are still totally destructive.

Don't be sucked in by this crafty ignoramus. I know you guys posting above won't, but many will be tempted.

nigelj at 10:25 AM on 20 March 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #11

"It is also fairly clear that conservatives are enemies of science."

Crystal clear unfortunately. Only 6% of American scientists now identify as republican, according to Pew research

www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/10/only-six-percent-of-scien_n_229382.html

www.salon.com/2013/01/11/scientists_hate_the_gop_for_a_reason/

"One of the great political shifts in the past decade has been the move of scientists toward the Democratic Party, a casualty of the Republican Party’s war on reality. It’s not about politics for scientists, it’s about the fact that only one party accepts scientific findings on everything from global warming to evolutionary theory to what does and doesn’t prevent pregnancy. Only 6 percent of scientists identify as Republican, whereas 55 percent identify as Democratic. In October of 2012, 68 Nobel-winning scientists co-signed a strong endorsement of Obama, saying the President “has delivered on his promise to renew our faith in science-based decision making.”

The latest economic data (refer to this weeks economist journal) show the econimic recovery is increasing in America and globally. Wages are rising. This shows free trade and globalisation delivering benefits and that Obamas stimulation and low interest rates, and quantitative easing are delivering benefits (not that these things are totally without problems).

The so called "administrative state" Trump wants to destroy is clearly also delivering benefits. Recovery is always slow after financial crashes, any economist will tell you this, so it's taken a while to come through.

Trump risks wrecking all this. I know this seems a little off topic, but it puts in context how wrong his thinking is on so many things, and therefore how suspicious you have to be on his environmental matters.

And what on earth are these tweets about accusing Obama of wire tapping, without even the slightest evidence? Not very dignified, more like sandpit behaviour.

Tom Curtis at 09:13 AM on 20 March 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #11

Further to my comment @4, here is a more detailed report of Trump's proposed cuts to science research in general. The picture is grim, only being 'relieved' for some branches of science with extra funding drawn from funding released by cutting climate research.

This is now a distinct pattern. One of the fundamental arguments of deniers is that the science is still uncertain, that we need more research before we do anything. Now, however, the Harper government in Canada cut climate related research, defunded the preservation of data, and placed a gag order on scientists; the Abbot/Turnbull government in Australia defunded the Climate Commission that was supposed to advice it on climate science, and cut CSIRO funding on climate research. And now we have Trump trying to completely gut all climate research in the US, all climate programs in the US and UN, and also placing a gag order on scientists.

The evidence could not be clearer that conservative know that the science is against them, that their claims that it is uncertain are deliberate distractions. Otherwise they would fund more science, not less. It is also fairly clear that conservatives are enemies of science.

It is no surprise. Alternative facts do not fair well under scientific investigation.

Tom Curtis at 08:58 AM on 20 March 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #11

chriskoz @3, Trump's proposed budget cuts in relation to climate change are far more extensive than just his cuts to the EPA. Predictably, he also proposes to cut all funding to UN climate change programs, including funding to help poor nations to transition to a low carbon economy. He also proposes to massively cut climate related research, including at NASA and the Department of Energy. In fact a Trump spokesman has been quoted as saying that there will be no further funding of climate research. Further, climate change adaption programs at NOAA will also be cut.

From appearance, the only federal funding to research, mitigate or adapt climate change if those portions of the proposed budget are passed are those that have escaped the Trump administrations attention. Given their general incompetence, that may still be significant, but I would not count on it.

Nor would I be as sanguine as JH. While I do not expect most of the budget to pass, neutering action on climate change is close to the heart of many Republican members of Congress, and to their most vocal supporters. I do not expect a lot of pushback in that area of the budget.

chriskoz at 08:12 AM on 20 March 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #11

nigelj,

From our point of view as CS communicators & AGW mitigation advocates I consider a blessing that some many chaotic developments (anti-immigrations, anti-helthcare, border wall, racism and fake evesdropping allegations) are preoccupying this administration. Because if not preoccupied my his own-inflicted moronic mess, the president would urely focus on fighting the "chinese hoax". So far 31% EPA cuts are the biggest fight he's undertaken. But rest assured, far more to come, including wfforts to destroy Paris agreement. I only hope the US politicians come to (or are force to) terms with reality and impeach the moronic sociopath before he starts really damaging the environment.

Moderator Response:

[JH] The annual budget proposed by the President is typically "DOA" in the Congress.

nigelj at 06:23 AM on 20 March 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #11

Correction - some of you Americans have elected complete clowns. I realise theres huge division of opinion. And my country is facing many similar issues and debates over how to regulate environmental matters, hence my interest. But all our political parties see at least some place for a central agency.

Moderator Response:

[JH] Perhaps the old adage, "Give a man enough rope and he will surely hang himself." will be played out.

nigelj at 06:15 AM on 20 March 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #11

"Trump's administration on Thursday proposed a 31 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency's budget"

Yes correct, but it goes much further. Matt Gaetz, a republican member of the house of representatives has launched a bill seeking to "completely eliminate" the EPA as below. He wants to leave it to the individual states.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/environmental-protection-agency-bill-drafted-abolish-matt-gaetz-congress-a7556596.html

Part of Geatz"s rhetoric is that environmental rules are allegedly costing jobs. He provides no evidence, and given unemployment has fallen from 11% to about 5% over the last 8 years it's hard to see where his evidence would come from. The EPA has implimented various emissions rules over this period, but unemployment has fallen. I would suggest he would actually find evidence environmenal rules create jobs, given they inevitably lead to development of new technologies.

It hardly needs to be said how senseless it would be to eliminate or cut the EPA. Before the EPA and things like the clean air act, there were all sorts of different rules in different states, and it was inconsistent and confusing, and became a race to the bottom.

Environmentals standards were mostly pretty poor quality back then. Levels of pollution were very high.

You would have another huge problem, with environmental issues decided by individual states. The environment doesn't really have any borders, so it will lead to endless fighting among the states.

These are some of the very reasons regulation by individual states didn't work in the past, and why the EPA emerged. Is Gaetz so stupid he can't work that out?

You Americans have elected complete clowns. We in the rest of the world are just stunned, I cant tell you.

Moderator Response:

[JH] Rest assurred, many, if not most, Americans were also completely stunned by the election of Trump and are totally embarrassed by his antics and actions since he was sworn into office.

Cedders at 18:39 PM on 19 March 2017

We're coming out of the Little Ice Age

The focus of this article is the LIA, so none of the three rebuttals address the Thames Frost Fairs mentioned by David Evans. As Robin at 57 mentions, these fairs were not every winter. BBC article: "between 1309 and 1814, the Thames froze at least 23 times and on five of these occasions -1683-4, 1716, 1739-40, 1789 and 1814 - the ice was thick enough to hold a fair".

As a Londoner, I can say it now seems implausible the Thames would freeze at London Bridge because it has been embanked by Bazalgette, flows fast in both directions, and is navigable and tidal as far as Teddington Lock. However, when it was shallower and slower, flow could become blocked at the Old London Bridge, which was demolished in 1831. There may be research into how important the LIA was as a factor in Thames freezing, but I recall reading how it was mostly down to commercial and architectual changes.

Separately, research published Jan 2017 clarifying the 'pre-industrial' global temperature baseline as mid-eighteenth century rather than 1850-1900 makes a difference of about 0.1 °C, which actually has policy implications related to Paris targets, shaving off a few years of inaction. That seems to give an indication of the order of magnitude of any difference the LIA made at a global scale.

barry1487 at 17:00 PM on 19 March 2017

Ben Santer on Seth Meyer’s Late Show – How Climate Deniers Lie

Apologies for typos.

barry1487 at 16:59 PM on 19 March 2017

Ben Santer on Seth Meyer’s Late Show – How Climate Deniers Lie

At the present time the Earth's ecentricity of it's orbit is near it's minimum. This means that the Earth remains closer to the Sun for the entire year.

IIRC, this has little infuence on the annual average insolation. Average distance to the Sun over a year is very similar at highest and lowest eccentricity, but there are significant (single-digit percentage) differences in distance and insolation at closest and furthest from the sun. At Eccentricity, thus, has an impact on the magnitude and lengths of the seasons. Also, at high eccentricity, velocity of the Earth is fastest the closer it is to the sun. I'm not an expert, though, and I'd wonder if the seasonal timing of eccentricity would make a difference - eg, whether the closest part of the orbit is in Wnter or Summer. But I don't think it's true that "the Earth remains closer to the sun for the entire year" at minimum eccentricity, or, if it does owing to velocity changes, that this would have much impact on annual/decadal/centennial scale temps.

Axial tilt is halfway between it's maximum (which helped end the last ice age) and minimum (which leads to cooling). Minimum will be rached around 11,800 AD.

Northern summers occut at aphelion currently, which should see milder extremes and cooler global temps.

People may be lining up to tell you how mistaken you are owing to you being mistaken.

Earth orbital variations have combined for a slight cooling phase since the Holocene Maximum after the ned of the last ice age, and would either hold pattern or continue to cool for another 23,000-50,000 years, when the next glacial maximu would occur.

Something else worth noting - these orbitally forced changes happen over tens of thousands of years. They have pretty much no impact at centennial scale.

Doug_C at 13:13 PM on 19 March 2017

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

nigelj @36

"Thin Ice" is an excellent book as was "Censoring Science" about the efforts of some in the Bush administration to silence climate scientists working for NASA, NOAA and other government agencies.

I live in the BC Okanagan and changes here have been significant in recent decades. Massive wildfires from droughts and heat waves, rapidly shrinking alpine glaciers that help ensure our rivers maintain flow year round and huge areas of this province are covered in dead and dying pine trees from beetles that are no longer controlled by harsh winters.

Thanks for your comments, it always helps to get a better picture with personal updates from the other side of the planet.

nigelj at 06:45 AM on 19 March 2017

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

Doug C @35

Yes without CO2 the planet would be very different. Too little and it would be much colder, too much and we head towards the extremely hot conditions on Venus.

I read a book ages ago called "Thin Ice" by Mike Bowen. This talked a lot about Lonnie Thompson, I think. You have probably read it, but just in case you haven't I mention it.

Our glaciers in NZ have lost approximately 40% of their ice mass over the last 100 years, and this is too long a period to blame on simple natural variation in my opinion. Photos of this sort of thing were the main thing convincing me we are altering the climate, I guess because it's visible and tangible.

We are probably talked out on these issues for now, but I wanted to mention that book.

Paul D at 21:17 PM on 18 March 2017

How Green is My EV?

Regarding Wake comment.

Fuel cell vehicles use hydrogen, which is an energy carrier, not an energy source. In that respect fuel cells serve the same purpose as batteries, they enable energy storage and transport of energy.
There is also the issue of the production of hydrogen. One day if/when nuclear fusion becomes a practical reality and hydrogen can be produced efficiently with minimum of energy losses. Hydrogen will be more practical.

In any case Na-ion batteries look as if they could be realistic replacements for Li-ion batteries.

http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/web/2017/02/solid-new-approach-sodium-batteries.html

http://www.faradion.co.uk/technology/sodium-ion-technology/

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2017/acs-presspac-february-15-2017/making-sodium-ion-batteries-that-last.html

Tom Curtis at 17:58 PM on 18 March 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #10

Further to my comment @4, the IEA has released its estimate of 2016 energy related emissions, which again show no growth over the prior year:

It also indicates that there are signs of the decoupling of economic growth and emissions growth:

Although that estimate does not include emissions from cement use, agriculture or land use change, which probably combine to result in a overall increase in anthropogenic emissions, still this would be a good sign were it not for the recent election of Donald Trump, which will almost certainly reverse the trend towards minimal emissions growth.

Doug_C at 15:52 PM on 18 March 2017

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

nigelj @34

Not to get too far off topic, but I found the Feynman lectures in book form really helped get better grasp of QM, as Feynman put it, no one really understands how it works, just that the formulas seem to describe what is going on at the smallest level. A lot of the math is over my head as well, but some of the basic principles are very relevant to the climate change issue, such as photons of certain wavelengths being quantized to be absorbed by certain elements and compound due to their atomic structure. Basically these photons when absorbed by elements with the right atomic structure kick electrons to higher orbits which are unstable. When these electrons drop back down to a more stable level they release another photon which is emitted in a random direction. From what I understand, one CO2 molecule can go through a billion such interactions in a second and about half of the photons involved instead of speeding off into space are sent back towards the Earth's surface, this is what makes it such a powerful moderator in the atmosphere. And why such a tiny amount can have such a profound effect on the global climate. The Earth really would be a frozen and mostly lifeless ball if not for the relatively tiny amount of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere.

I've also read a lot of work done by James Hansen and the GISS team. Lonnie Thompson at Ohio State has a lot to add with the ice picture, he's been around the world working on alpine glaciers and has watched as many of those have rapidly retreated in his lifetime. He started out as a climate change sceptic but is now fully convinced of how radical the change we're forcing are.

If someone needs visual evidence of how rapid the changes are, then there's nothing better than James Balog's Extreme Ice Survey which has captured in time lapse photos just how fast we are losing glaciers and ice sheets across the planet.

Philippe Chantreau at 12:27 PM on 18 March 2017

How Green is My EV?

Wake might have been refering to a story debunked by Snopes: www.snopes.com/lithium-mine-oil-sands/

nigelj at 10:33 AM on 18 March 2017

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

Doug C @33, that's all interesting.

I have read a popular style book on quantum science (in the style of Steven Hawking's " a brief history of time"). Well worth I read, I recommend this sort of thing to anyone.

Unfortunately I don't have enough advanced maths or physics to deal with the details, and find textbooks on QM too tough going. I'm semi retired, and have thought of going back to univ. and doing a physics degree. But I do see exactly what you are saying on the issue.

As you say some people don't get how small quantities of CO2 can cause big changes. QM is the full explanation. One simpler analogy is how semi conductors work, where just a few atoms of materal can modulate a very significant current. There are many other examples of small quantities or changes having bigger than anticipated effects. I'm amazed people can't see this, as it's all around us.

I agree the material is all there for people and it just needs some critical thinking, - and an open mind.

But I actually do think it's a shame Al Gores book didn't mention Arrhenius. This was an eye opener for me, when I came across this guys work in some article, that the science went that far back, and his predictions were about right. It was really the first climate model. People need to be aware of this.

Regarding climate impacts, I think we have become complacent. We are used to regular "one in a hundred year" floods, with everything tuned to cope with this and infrastructure designed foir this. When it becomes 1 in 50, or 1 in 20, the costs are bigger than people realise, and it makes forward planning of infrastructure uncertain, expensive, and difficult because we are facing an ever changing, escalating situation.

My city has just had a record flood that's pushed things beyond the limits and caused massive inconvenience. Ironically it has also caused sediment to contaminate our entire water system, and we have been asked to cut our water use quite steeply for weeks on end, until the sediment settles.

Doug_C at 09:09 AM on 18 March 2017

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

nigelj @32

I did go into this topic about as deep as I could, I wanted to understand to the best of my ability what the quantum mechanical basis of global warming was. When I look at the sky now I don't see a relatively passive envelope of gas, I see something very much alive. The air around us is in constant activity absorbing and releasing photons in a very complex balance that is determined by molecular concentration, air temperature and pressure.

Adding even a relatively tiny amount of one of the principle moderators in this balance is significantly altering it. If 280 ppm of carbon dioxde makes the difference between the kind of global environment that allows the existence of tens of millions of species or a perpetual snow ball in space, then rapidly increasing that concentration is going to have a profound effect on the entire system.

This is and has been well commincated to those willing to take the time to learn the facts, which is why it requires such a highly organized and well funded campaign to prevent action being taken.

I look a few tens of millions mile inward to our twin planet in the Solar system and take heed from what Venus is telling us. With it's dense cloudy atmosphere it reflects most of the incoming solar radiation. The little sunlight that gets through is so efficiently trapped by the 96.5% carbon dioxide atmosphere that Venus has the hottest surface of any planetary body in the Solar system. That is the power of CO2 to moderate the radiative balance of a planetary atmosphere and we don't need to get anywhere close to that to create a very hostile to life global environment here.

These facts are easily accessable and using just basic critical thinking skills can readily be placed in the proper context and the information has been there with growing certainty for decades. The first person to calculate climate sensitivty - doubling of CO2 - was Svante Arrhenius in the 1890s, it's so ridiculous to claim that scientists aren't doing a good job of communicating the facts of climate change when it's been a central part of science for over a century.

And the more powerful our tools both theoretical and technical become the more certainty we have of the reality of rapid global warming caused by significantly increasing the concentration of CO2 is and how catastrophic the impacts will be if we take it much further. The impacts are already serious when you consider entire cities being burned as Fort McMurray in Alberta was last year due to an extreme April heat wave. And that is just one claxon going off, things like the rapid loss of corals worldwide and so much more are constant warnings. You really wonder what people like Adams really need to wake up, because all the information anyone needs to be fully alarmed at what we are programming is already out there and has been presented in such a clear and concise manner that it takes the world's most accomplished deceptionists to make sure it isn't acted on.

nigelj at 07:59 AM on 18 March 2017

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

Doug C @31 thank's, and I agree with your comments, mostly anyway.

I can see you have really got into this thing in some depth, probably more than me to be honest although I read a lot on the subject. But it encourages me to look more deeply.

However the average person doesn't need to go into that level of depth and probably won't have the time. There are some good books out there that cover the basics, and both sides of the debate fairly, and then explain why the denialist side is so weak. Those are the ones to hunt out because they are balanced. One is "Poles Apart" by Gareth Morgan ( I have no connection with the author or anything) and there are others.

You say "trying to describe a very complex global system in a period of rapid transition, "

And that sums it up very well in just one sentence. While there's a place for healthy scepticism, scientists need to be respected for the difficult challenge they face figuring this thing out, and trying to provide explanations that lay people can understand.

Regarding your mass media comments, very true. I would add there are lots of groups who present themselves as "ordinary people" , "citizens and tax payers" etc but some of these have been analysed in my country, and they are just fronts for business lobby groups, and sometimes very extreme ones. All this adds up, and distorts everything.

A lot of the money funding denial comes from fossil fuel companies and business interests like the Koch Brothers who are billionaires, and have strongly libertarian leanings and oppose government programmes on principle etc. This article is on the Koch brothers:

www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-deniers/koch-industries/

But these days there are a lot of concealed donations from both large and smaller players. The following article in Scientific American notes "A Drexel University study finds that a large slice of donations to organizations that deny global warming are funneled through third-party pass-through organizations that conceal the original funder"

www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/

Doug_C at 06:39 AM on 18 March 2017

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

nigelj @29

I think that puts it really well, scientists are trying to describe a very complex global system in a period of rapid transition, I think they are doing a very good job in presenting the physical aspects of climate change and the very likely cause. That is the billions of tons of carbon dioxide that us people have added to the natural carbon cycle over the last couple hundred years.

The science backing this up goes back just as far, with the discovery of how much warmer the Earth is due to some unkown factor in the 1820s to the discovery of what was likely creating the warming in 1850s with John Tyndall demonstrating the ability of water vapour and carbon dioxide to trap heat.

You need to learn a broad range of subjects to get a comprehensive picture of what is actually taking place, in my case this has involved learning some quantum mechanics, reading up on ocean circulation, glaciology, geology, paleotology, laser spectroscopy, biology and much more.

All these disciplines are pointing in the same direction in regards to climate change and causation, to claim that the science isn't clear and isn't well communicated is totally inaccurate in my experience. At that time I was living in Edmonton Alberta and although the city has a strong link to the fossil fuel sector the public library system there had extensive materials on this and related topics. The resources are many including this site.

There were also texts that covered the industry sposored disinformation campaign so there's very little doubt in my mind why in 2017 this is still a subject of "doubt". The amounts of money spent to distort the science is staggering as is the money spent lobbying politicians to enact policies that don't reflect the clear science. One figure I remember clearly was over $100 million being spent by Washington DC fossil fuel sector lobbyist in 2009 alone to sway politicians in their interests.

Sure there is psychology at work here that prevents people from coming together in an effective way to assert their long term interests, but a lot of that destructive psychology has been intentionally prgrammed into global culture in the same way many products are sold. On a mass media level there has been a very concerted effort to brand fossil fuels as good and essential and those who threaten their continued use as dangerous.

When if you take the time to look at the facts is almost the opposite from what the evidence says. George Monbiot did a great piece on the roots of the climate change denial movement and its outgrowth from the efforts of the tobacco lobby to deny the evidence of the link of tobacco and serious health risks.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2

Any genuine sceptic would be challenging the true presenters of misinformation of a highly destructive and inaccurate nature in todays world. And that is not coming from climatologists or any authentic researcher in climate change related fields today.

Adams and anyone actually concerned about this issue shoud be directing their ire at the parties that have created such a chaotic global forum of information. The Royal Society of London took the extraordinary step of criticizing Exxon Mobil in 2006 for funding climate change denial but this has not ended the denial campaign. As reported in Scientific American, massive funders of denial have moved to techniques more closely related to things like laundering money for the illegal drug trade. It's hard to even know where the money is coming from to broadcast denial on a global level.

These are the things we should all be deeply concerned about.

michael sweet at 05:31 AM on 18 March 2017

How Green is My EV?

Wake,

According to Consumer reports, the eight cars that have the best (by far) highway milage are all electric cars. Electric cars have double or triple the milage of IC engines. Only the first 6 local cars are electric. I did not bother to see why there was a difference. No-one is surprised to see Wake fail again. As the moderator points out, IC engines are only 25-30% efficient compaareed to 80-90% for electric. Apparently the best engines can reach 35% on the highway. When they are stopped at a light they are 0% efficient while electric engines use no power.

Electric cars have the highest acceleration of any cars on the market and go as fast as the designers wish. In 2007 Al Gore's son was ticketed in California driving a Prius over 100 miles per hour. All electric cars go very fast since they are designed to be aerodynamic. The Hummer is the slowest car on the road.

Lithium is produced by extracting salty water containing lithium, primarily around dry lakes, and evaporating the brine to obtain the lithium. Your claim of tons of ore appears to be related to gold.

JohnFornaro at 05:08 AM on 18 March 2017

Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

Uhhhh.... Thanks for burying me in reading material! :)

Wake at 02:28 AM on 18 March 2017

How Green is My EV?

sauer - good analysis but I didn't see where you were correcting for the fact that most traffic is on Freeways and that EV's are at a distinct disadvantage there having to have the pedal to the floor all the time and hence running at near maximum while ICE (even Prius) are operating in their most fuel effective regions. So I would assume your ratios to be a lot closer to the 92% region.

Another point - lithium is not a common material and the mines from which litium are extracted are hardly environmentally friendly with tons of ore required to obtain ounces of purified lithium.

It seems to be that the EV craze could be supported in large cities with traffic problems, but it is far less supportable in more open country.

Moderator Response:

[RH] Please at least attempt to look up information before making statements here. This is the 21st century and you have the internet at your fingertips. IC engines do not approach 90% efficiency because so much of the energy being produced is heat rather than kinetic. That's why your ICEV has a cooling system.

Patience is running very thin here.

Wake at 02:21 AM on 18 March 2017

How Green is My EV?

Isn't it nothing more than patting one's self on the back and saying "I'm good" for generating less CO2 instead of none? You could always use a fuel cell vehicle which generates zero CO2. So those of you that have the EVs are far off track.

Moderator Response:

[RH] Unsupported claim.

Wake at 02:00 AM on 18 March 2017

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

Tom Curtis - The tests I've seen show VERY high levels of CO2 in enclosed spaces. I have seen reports of 5,000 ppm of CO2 in commercial airliners. Small auditoriums likewise.

I'm told that commercial airliners human response is that some people get a headache though I never have.

Moderator Response:

[RH] Off topic for this thread.

Wake at 01:53 AM on 18 March 2017

Ben Santer on Seth Meyer’s Late Show – How Climate Deniers Lie

At the present time the Earth's ecentricity of it's orbit is near it's minimum. This means that the Earth remains closer to the Sun for the entire year.

The axial tilt is is in the middle of it's range meaning that equator is nearer the sun that at it's limits.

The orbital presension is very near it's winter solstice meaning that while we have slightly cooler summers more importantly we have warmer winters. And the greatest effect of this is on the northern hemisphere and hence the weather patterns that pushed colder air into North America allowed both warmer air into the Arctic and more direct sunlight to have effects on the ice pack.

So I don't know why you are all lining up to tell me how mistaken I am when this is more than common knowledge.

Moderator Response:

[RH] Repeating what you've previously stated and been corrected on is not a rational form of argument. This is called "sloganeering." You need to read what has been presented to you not just blindly reject it. If you believe the other commenter is incorrect, then you need to show the research that shows that. Just repeating the same erroneous statements doesn't fly here.

Wake at 01:36 AM on 18 March 2017

Paced version of Denial101x starting on March 21!

In response to Nigel let me answer:

1. MOST of the people I hear making these comments about global warming and oil companies controlling the world own SUV's. Houawives going to meetings of "save the Earth" are running bicyclists off of the road and accelerating to beat pedestrians to the crosswalk. I think that hypocrites should see themselves for what they are.

2. I quite agree with Nigel that this is a fight about government power. We already have heard from the IPCC that the US now has such low emissions that the real problems are coming from India and China in which we are unlikely to see any real improvements. So giving government agencies extra-governmental powers as the EPA had been given is an attack on our Constitution.

3. Virtually ALL peer-group pressure is on the AGW side. The very term "denier" has been turned into an insult to anyone not willing to bow down to the Great God Global Warming. There is NO proof to support AGW and yet we have identified it as a know fact. Even though "consensus" is a rediculous standard, when one man with the truth trumps 1,000 who are following each other, this has become the standard of truth. And what do we see as proof of "consensus"? That the AMA and the American Horticulturalists of America believe in AGW. That organizations without polling their own members will take the side of NOAA.

4. There WAS no political gridlock. It was Obama's way or the highway. It was agencies whose powers circumvented the Constitutional powers of the government that were telling the US what they WERE going to do.

This is where it stands - most of the people in this country do not believe in it and you and the True Believers do not have the power to order us what to do and how to do it. Ain't Democracy grand?

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BaerbelW at 18:24 PM on 17 March 2017

Paced version of Denial101x starting on March 21!

Nigelj - if you join us in our MOOC (if you haven't already taken it!), you'll see that your theory is fairly close to what is going on. We have a lot of material about the 4 points you mention (and some more), but also some insights into what to do about it and how to tackle it.

nigelj at 15:48 PM on 17 March 2017

Paced version of Denial101x starting on March 21!

Sounds good. Here is my theory of climate change denial, for what it's worth, and it breaks down into a four stage process:

1. Obviously the fossil fuel industry and some other business has vested interests in continuation of fossil fuel use. Vested interests are clearly turning some people into denial of the science.

In fact we all have some degree of vested interests, as we own cars, but some people are more protective of their interests, and worried about impacts on fuel prices, or the reliability of electric cars. Others are more open to accepting change, and inform themselves that the worries are exaggerated.

2. I think there's a political dimension in terms of worries about government rules about reducing emissions, and government power and the right role of government. This is turning into quite a partisan battle between conservatives and liberals. However there are strong justifications for environmental regulations or things like carbon taxes, originating in basic, mainstream economic theory.

3. Then there are a range of psychological factors, such as confirmation bias, human tendencies to think short term, peer group pressures, and being tricked by logical fallacies, and other propoganda and deceptive arguments from denialist campaigns.

4. We also have an element of political grid lock, in terms of politicians being captive to big campaign donors. This is a tough one.

It's all reminiscent of the tobacco issue some years back, but on a much more massive level.

nigelj at 11:34 AM on 17 March 2017

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

Doug C @27

I agree totally, but I think there are two separate issues, and you need to separate them out. There is this frustrating guy Scott Adams and science communication, and then there is climate scepticism (or denialism if you prefer this term).

Firstly Scott Adams is critical of climate scientists for allegedly not communicating things well enough. Personally I think scientists do a pretty good job explaining this stuff. There are plenty of good, clear books on the issue and websites, as you point out, like NASA has some good material, and of course this website. Nobody can plead ignorance.

Scott also complains of various apparent contradictions or problems as he sees them with models not being 100%, or disagreement on climate sensitivity etc. Well the climate issue is complex, as I alluded to above, because we can't put the planet in a laboratory and adjust various knobs on Co2 etc. What we have is a range of different types of evidence, and we have to assess how it all adds up. Evolution is similar in complexity, in that there are gaps in the fossil record that can't ever be filled, because fossils only formed under a few chance, specific geological processes. We have to do the best with the information we have.

Scott needs to understand this and read some of the detail on climate science. There are plety of explanations for frustrating aspects of the science "if" you put in the effort to read up in an open minded way, and they are explanations in plain langauge, and this website has plenty.

I can't work out if he is lazy, or a closet sceptic and fixed in his views. He may have a personality disorder, but that's secondary to me. Others have moaned about science communication.

Could scientists communicate it all better? Well I suppose it's possible for any of us to do better, but you cannot over simplify, and I think they do pretty well. You just have to listen, and google if something seems needing more explanation or amplification!

The simplest way I could put climate science as I understand it as a lay person, with only some basic university science is as follows: We have solid evidence CO2 absorbs heat, and temperatures have increased since CO2 has increased. We have causation and correlation, the two fundamentals of science.

We can exclude other factors like solar changes because causation is weak and correlation is non existent recently. We also have another powerful proof in that models have made generally good predictions. Predictive ability is a good proof.

The trouble is such a chain of factors means there are several things sceptics can attack. But I have some faith most people get the basics, and see the strength of the theory.

Secondly we have climate change scepticism, or denialism if you prefer the term. We have people like Ted Cruz, Donald Trump etc.

(A good book on the healthy, rational form of scepticism is 'Skeptic" by Michael Shermer.)

But regarding climate scepticism, this has turned into denialism, and general craziness with a vast range of deceitful and nonsenscial claims.

I think there are several drivers of climate science denialism: Obviously the fossil fuel industry has vested interests. in fact we all do a little as we own cars, but some people are more protective of their interests, and worried about costs of petrol increasing etc, and others are more open to accepting change. But vested interests are clearly turning some people into denial of the science.

I think there's a political dimension in terms of worries about government rules about reducing emissions, and government power. This is turning into quite a partisan battle between conservatives and liberals. However there are strong justifications for environmental regulations originating in basic, mainstream economic theory.

Then there are a range of psychological factors, such as confirmation bias, tendencies to think short term, peer group pressures, and being tricked by logical fallacies and other propoganda from denialist campaigns.

We also have an element of political grid lock in terms of politicians being captive to big campaign donors.

I'ts all reminiscent of the tobacco issue some years back, but on a whole other level.

Digby Scorgie at 10:53 AM on 17 March 2017

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

Tom Curtis @21

I read about this by following a link to a recent paper. And as you'd expect, I'm damned if I'd be able to find it again! However, the bit that sticks in my mind is that they measured the CO₂ concentration in a room and asked those working there how they felt about (I think) their mental alertness. It seems that they didn't like it when the concentration started to exceed 600 ppm. There was a lot more to the paper but I admit I'm not qualified to say more.

Doug_C at 10:14 AM on 17 March 2017

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

Whatever he is I don't think there is any excuse for anyone to attack scientists and claim there is a deficiency in information available to understand the fundamentals of global warming and climate change.

I have some second year college science courses but no degree so I have some science literacy but I'm definitely not a professional. About a decade ago I got frustrated with being unable to get a clear idea of what was going on with climate change and all the contradictory views and began my own research. I spent many hours reading IPCC reports, articles from climatologists like James Hansen, books by "skeptics" who claim there is no such thing as human forced global warming and books about the extensive denial campaign.

At some point I had a rather unpleasant awakening that some climatologists have described of going through a period of despair when they realized what their research was saying and how no action was being taken to address it. This lasted for several months for me.

There's no question in my mind now that the science supporting anthropogenic global warming is extensive and very well supported. If a person is willing to commit to the time and energy that is required to get a meaningful grasp of this issue it is more than possible with all the information out there now. I think it requires a choice either conscious or unconsious to remain in ignorance about this issue. In one of the books I read by a Scottish scientist - I forget his name - he talked about something he refered to as consensus trance reality where people use a short-hand form of information to deal with the complexities of modern life that prevents them from fully grasping some complex issues like climate change. Maybe group-think is another term that aaplies.

Whatever the case, it's clear that there is some deep psychological factors at work on a wide scale that prevents a lot of people from coming to terms with what is actually happening in the world around them not just with this issue but many others. They follow a mental shorthand that is often written by others against the common interest. I think this is in part what the extensive climate change denial disinformation campaign is targeted to do.

From what I read here Skeptical Science is part of an effort to come to terms with the psychology behind denial which I think is crucial. It seems to me that Adams and his supporters would make good case studies in the dynamics of denial. Instead of informing themselves of the true dimensions of this subject they take the approach of shooting the messenger.

Tom Curtis at 06:46 AM on 17 March 2017

Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

JohnFornaro @, if you look at the increase of atmospheric CO2 concentration during past warming events and use those increases to predict the modern CO2 increase, the maximum increase expected for the current warming is about 10-20 ppmv. This is most obvious in the change between glacial and interglacial shows a change in atmospheric CO2 of 15.8 +/- 0.6 ppmv/^oC (Epica Dome C, 2 StDev confidence interval). Given the current increase of about 1^oC over the preindustrial average, that would lead to an expectation of a 16 ppmv increase in atmospheric CO2.

That is likely an overestimate given that the long intervals involved allow time for slow processes (such as much of the tropical forest turning into open savannah and vice versa) to take place. Comparison with the CO2 increase over the MWP which, globally, was nearly as hot as the 1990s, shows that short term processes such as would have had an influence on 20th century CO2 levels result in even smaller relative increases in CO2 concentration:

That's not the only evidence against the idea that the modern CO2 increase is driven by the temperature increase, but it should be sufficient.

John Hartz at 06:35 AM on 17 March 2017

Ben Santer on Seth Meyer’s Late Show – How Climate Deniers Lie

Chriskoz: I'll stick with "pseudo-science poppycock."

nigelj at 06:02 AM on 17 March 2017

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

Rob Honeycutt @25. You seem sure hes sociopathic. Fair enough, you have interacted with the guy, I have only read a few of his comments.

Perhaps hes a cynical sociopath.

nigelj at 05:41 AM on 17 March 2017

Ben Santer on Seth Meyer’s Late Show – How Climate Deniers Lie

Nick Palmer @17, I like your 4D approach.

I just avoid the term lies, unless I'm very sure. Lies are false statements with deliberate intention to deceive. An intentional untruth. It's hard to be sure people are doing this because its hard to see into their minds and motives.

I have used the terms deceitful and delusional and just plain silly, and I get less kickback as well. It's also much easier to be certain these are reasonable accusations, and easier to back them up.

Lies are different from being deceitful, being misleading, or making a mistake, or being ignorant, or obtuse. It is subtly different from speculating or making things up. Donald Trump does a good deal of all of these things in my opinion, but telling them apart is a challenge. People lump them all together as lies, but it's not strictly accurate to do this.

Mal Adapted at 04:48 AM on 17 March 2017

Ben Santer on Seth Meyer’s Late Show – How Climate Deniers Lie

A recent very fashionable term "fake news", "fake facts" sounds more polite than "denial" or "denialism", maybe we should switch to it here?

Feel free to switch in your own comments, but deniers deny, and while AGW-denial may be understandable it can never be respectable. For the sake of concision if nothing else, I 'll never abandon those words voluntarily.

Tom Dayton at 03:08 AM on 17 March 2017

Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

JohnFornaro, the claim you read that "the minsiscule amount of CO2 that is emitted by mankind is forcing the warming, becasue of a logarithmic relationship... Thus, less and less of a percentage of human emitted CO2 has a greater and greater effect on the climate" is incorrect.

First: As I explained in my previous two replies to you, the CO2 emitted by mankind is not "miniscule," because what matters for warming is that humans are responsible for 100% of the rise in atmospheric total CO2, and the rise in that total has been more than 30% since 1850. CO2 emissions do correlate well with total atmospheric level, and the causal link is provided by the evidence described in the original post at the top of the page you are reading right now. (CO2 measurements are indeed reliable.) It is the increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere that matters, not the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere relative to other gases.

Second: The argument you cited has the logarithmic effect backward. An increase in the absolute amount (number of molecules) of CO2 in the atmosphere has less, not more, of an effect the more CO2 already is in the atmosphere. But scientists always take that into account, by referring to the (nearly) identical amount of warming from the absolute amount of CO2 doubling, regardless of whether the initial (pre-doubling) amount was large or small.

Tom Dayton at 02:46 AM on 17 March 2017

Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

JohnFornaro, for more details, please also read these posts:

bvangerven at 01:24 AM on 17 March 2017

Ben Santer on Seth Meyer’s Late Show – How Climate Deniers Lie

@Wake

According to the Milankovich cycles, the earth should now be slowly cooling.

Besides, greenhouse warming is different from warming by more insolation (the Milankovich cycles cause more or less insolation, based on variations in the earth’s orbit). Greenhouse warming has its specific characteristics: nights warm more than days (if the current warming was due to more insolation, days would heat up more than nights), and winters warm more than summers. Also, the lowest layer of the atmosphere – the troposphere – is warming up while the layer above it – the stratosphere – is even cooling (if the current warming was caused by more insolation, the stratosphere would warm up as well).

Tom Dayton at 00:38 AM on 17 March 2017

Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

JohnFornaro: Your understanding that "the current warming cycle is releasing more naturally sequestered carbon into the atmo than mankind is emitting" is incorrect. As is explained by the post we are commenting on right now, the naturally sequestered carbon (sequestered as "fossilized" substances that we use as fuels) is being released by humans burning those fossil fuels, thereby putting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

The amount we thereby release is not "miniscule" in the context that matters for warming. The amount we release is enough to outstrip the abilities of the natural sinks to absorb it. Consequently, humans are responsible for 100% of the increase in CO2 over at least the past 60 years, and nearly that percent since about 1850.

Please read the Basic tabbed pane at the top of this page, then flip to the Intermediate tabbed pane and read that.

JohnFornaro at 00:24 AM on 17 March 2017

Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

#291 mr_alanng

"Each big tree can absorb 1 ton of carbon dioxide a year."

Very few people would disagree that planting trees is a good idea to ameliorate the effects of burning fossil fuels. Here's a popular telling of the carbon sequestration available in a forest:

"'An approximate value for a 50-year-old oak forest would be 30,000 pounds of carbon dioxide sequestered per acre,' said Timothy J. Fahey, professor of ecology in the department of natural resources at Cornell University. 'The forest would be emitting about 22,000 pounds of oxygen.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/science/how-many-pounds-of-carbon-dioxide-does-our-forest-absorb.html

30,000 pounds is 15 short tons. 15 short tons is 13.6 metric tonnes.

Information on forest density is here:

https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/4580

I'm afraid that your figure is way too high.

JohnFornaro at 00:04 AM on 17 March 2017

Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

Hi all. I've posted hardly at all on this site due to time constraints. However, I have read the first page and the last page very carefully.

My predilection is that AGW is probably happening, but that mankind's affect [effect?] on the climate is not catastrophic.

I would like to point out that there are, in my opinion, three sides to the AGW question as it pertains to CO2 emitted by humans. There are those who believe in the "consensus" that humans are forcing the climate. There are those who deny that the human influence on the climate is large enough to force it.

There is a third group, those people who do not know which side of this matter is correct, and who are looking for truth.

Anyhow... here's the background, followed by my question.

I first started reading up on a related thread here on SkepSci...

https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?p=25&t=1232&&a=18#comments

...on Page 1 of that thread, back in 2007, is the argument that warming is likely to be causing CO2 release. This argument holds, as I understand it, that mankind, while emitting a lot of CO2, is not the major CO2 emitter on the planet, but that the current warming cycle is releasing more naturally sequestered carbon into the atmo than mankind is emitting.

I understand the argument that it is thought that the minsiscule amount of CO2 that is emitted by mankind is forcing the warming, becasue of a logarithmic relationship, but the apparent leverage of that warming has not yet been proven. My understanding is that CO2 on forces the water vapor cycle in some fashion. Thus, less and less of a percentage of human emitted CO2 has a greater and greater effect on the climate.

My question is this: Is this the proper page/thread to discuss the 'Warming is Releasing' argument?

*********************************

BTW, I did notice one comment on page one, even though the comments were made back in 2008.

Mizimi #30: "It's a complex subject, [fraught] with difficulties - but ... deal with overpopoulation and the 'global warming problem' will fade away."

Moderator Response:

[TD] I turned your link into a link; in future please do that yourself with the link tool when you write your comment.

JohnFornaro at 22:48 PM on 16 March 2017

It's the sun

Rob Honeycutt: Thanks.

Nick Palmer at 22:25 PM on 16 March 2017

Ben Santer on Seth Meyer’s Late Show – How Climate Deniers Lie

NigelJ @13 makes a plea for people not to accuse denialists of being liars. While fighting them online, I dropped this all-out assault on their honesty a while back. Nowadays, I use the 4D approach which covers all of the spectrum. 4D stands for deceived, deceitful, deluded or dumb. I think that covers all of them. Oddly enough, I get far less kickback when using all the three or four words than when just describing someone as being a liar or an idiot

averageJon14744 at 16:26 PM on 16 March 2017

Global Surface Temperature: Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 1

It looks like Cliff Harris and Randy Mann decided to fire up Print Shop again and change the year on the 1998 peak to 2016.

The place where the temperature line crosses the baseline in is now somewhere between 2016 and the 2020s.

Is this progress?

http://www.longrangeweather.com/images/gtemps.jpg

Doug_C at 14:34 PM on 16 March 2017

The fossil fuel industry's invisible colonization of academia

I guess my point was there's really no justification for the influence that the fossil fuel sector is effectively buying within academia, just it does the same with policy makers and the public at large with things like the extremely well funded denial campaign.

It can not be claimed that due to limited alternatives we're forced to rely on the fossil fuel sector decades into the future. This self-sustaining paradigm of the fossil fuel sector receiving the bulk of revenues worldwide in the energy market then using a significant portion of that across society to make sure fossil fuels remain the dominant product is highly destructive, something that academia should be focused on dealing with effectively not enabling.

It's going to be a decision between continuing course with fossil fuel use and suffer the inevitable catastrophic impacts or radically change course which will by necessity create a great deal of stranded assets as fossil fuels are phased out. That will include that part of academia that has allowed itself to be influenced this way.

Experts in fossil fuel use better become an anachronism and soon.

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