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nigelj at 18:20 PM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner @26,
The mythbusters experiment was only ever a quick experiment to demonstrate the general principle. Neither it or myself ever claimed it would replicate conditions of planet earth precisely, and I don't see that it could.
That is the issue. We are really mostly reliant on laboratory tests on how much heat CO2 absorbs. We also have paleo climate data on past CO2 concentrations versus temperatures. The combination of the two gives two lines of evidence, as far as I can see, which is very persuasive.
I also can't see anything wrong with what TC is saying, and he has obvious expertise. Unless you have in depth knowledge, and the time to aquire this, you have to trust the experts. And it takes a lot of time. You might have that knowledge, but most people never will have.
Trump sure doesn't, and is too busy 'tweeting' anyway.
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Tom Curtis at 17:04 PM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner @25, the atmosphere does indeed have a larger mass, and hence a larger heat capacity. It does not, however, have a very much larger mass per exposed surface area (m^2). Larger, but not very much larger. Further, given a constant heat source, heat capacity controlls the time it takes to reach the equilibrium temperature, but not what the equilibrium temperature is. Consequently the greater heat capacity means it will take longer to reach equilibrium, not that the equilibrium temperature will represent a substantial increase.
As an aside, I do not think the myth buster experiment is "a correctly modeled experiment". I am pointing out that your conclusions from it (low climate sensitivity) are specious, and based on noting one salient factors while neglecting other equally salient factors.
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Coal Miner at 16:43 PM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
And of course before running the experiment in the video, you'd have to run it with air in all boxes to prove they were the same, etc.
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Coal Miner at 16:42 PM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
22 - Tom
Except the real atmosphere would have a larger mass and similar input energy would give no detectable rise in temperature. You might be able to devise a correctly modeled experiment, but that was not it.
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Coal Miner at 16:37 PM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
23 - Rob
In the video I watched again and you can see the gas man's monitoring panel reading about 7.35% CO2. That was a digital reading. So, unless that part of the video is wrong, the the commenter is correct. There were other comments on other topics that may be valid objections also.
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Rob Honeycutt at 16:11 PM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
CM @21... I'm curious how you determined that the commenter was correct regarding the 73,000ppm figure?
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Tom Curtis at 14:39 PM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner @21, allow a CO2 concentration of 73,000 ppmv, or about 260 times the preindustrial average. We must also allow that the compartments were at most 2 meters deep. It follows that the comparments had the same absorption capability of about 520 meters of atmospheric CO2 at sea level. That's just half a kilometer, when the troposphere is 10 kilometers in depth (albeit with diminishing pressure). The obvious conclusion should be that the compartments had much less capacity to trap heat relative to the atmosphere, despite the higher CO2 concentration.
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Coal Miner at 13:12 PM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
20 - I had seen that video but I watched it again. I think it is well established that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The question is - and it is a very legitimate one and is the crux to many "deniers" - how much difference would it make to go from say 400 to 450 or 500 ppm? I could not tell what the CO2 concentration used was, but I scrolled down to a comment by "Realist" and the CO2 concentration in the video was over 73,000 ppm. Thus, as realist indicates, it gives great evidence that CO2 levels near 400 ppm are not a problem.
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nigelj at 09:14 AM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coalminer, one other thing. The following is a "Mythbusters video" demonstrating carbon dioxide increasing temperatures in an experiment. Regardless of why it increases temperatures, we know with absolute certainty it does increase temperatures. (Or 99.999% certainty given ultimate proofs are not technically possible in science)
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nigelj at 07:05 AM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner @17
You say you want to understand climate science, very thoroughly, before making a decision on whether we are warming the climate or commiting to carbon taxes etc, etc.
Well fair enough in general terms. We should all examine the basics of the greenhouse effect.
But the science is extremely complicated. Nobody can "fully" understand the science unless they have advanced maths and physics degrees. It's totally unrealistic to expect people to have this. I have a generally broad education at university level, including some maths, but a text on quantum mechanics is out of my league. In fact many climate scientists themselves would not know the fine detail about how C02 absorbs heat, as it's a specialist area.
In the end people are better to simply look at the basics and claims from both sides of the argument. It also has to be said the overwhelming majority of climate scientsis say we have a problem. There are numerous polls on this from Cooke, Doran etc as below.
We aren't reliant on just one poll or survey. Theres nothing more we can do in terms of surveying expert views. If you don't peronally have advanced maths or physics, you have to respect the end who do.
I broadly agree with your big list of recommendations on how to tackle climate change in your other post.
Moderator Response:[RH] Shortened link.
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nigelj at 06:40 AM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner @16
Yes I think Americas economy is doing reasonably OK overall. Remember I said America's economy was doing OK. I didn't say it was doing fantastically! And I really do hope things work out well for America under Trump or any future president.
But facts are facts. GDP growth has averaged 2% per year recently and this is reasonably ok. Unemployment has dropped a lot from 2010 regardless of how you measure it. The latest numbers also show wages are finally starting to rise. The data on this is available on financial database websites like Tradingeconomics.com if you want the detail. Given things have been improving during the Obama period, it seems unwise for some totally opposite approach.
Foodstamps have been around before the financial crash. Partly it applies to all sorts of different people on welfare, not just the unemployed.
Food stamps do also prop up the incomes of very low wage people. I agree low wages are a problem, but fixing this is really difficult. Protectionist trade may push up some wages at the lower end, but it will also push up prices. So it could all cancel out.
My country had tariffs in the 1970's and it did keep some wages up, but ended up causing huge inflation in all sorts of goods. We abandoned tariffs for free trade and would be very unlikely to go back. Granted America is a differenet country, but I remain a bit sceptical about protectionism. It possibly had a place in the past more than todays world.
I think it's better to assist low wage people with income support, retraining grants, things like that. I suppose it's a bit socialist, but to me it's pragmatic and justified.
But I do think trumps corporate tax break policies make some sense, as they are internal to America.
America does have high government (public debt) as below.
As you can see from the graph, much of this comes from the Reagon years, GW Bush, and Obama. The current level is considered high by economists, but not catastrophically so. In defence of Obama, he was faced with a huge financial crash and reduced tax take, and borrowed to avoid the sort of cost cutting that would have made the crash worse. I think that was the right move.
But nobody wants a lot of debt. Donald Trump wants to cut taxes and increase spending, but this risks a further increase in debt, just exactly as happened under Reagon, if you look at the graph in the link. Not that Reagon was a bad guy, but he did increase debt.
Bringing back coal does not seem like good climate policy, and nor does it make much economic sense. Trump needs to slow down. He has some valid criticisms of various things, but the solutions are really just not as simplistic as he thinks.
Moderator Response:[RH] Shortened link.
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nigelj at 06:07 AM on 8 February 2017Mail on Sunday launches the first salvo in the latest war against climate scientists
The following article discusses this NOAA temperature adjustment issue. It is very illuminating, and is from Carbon Brief, and is commentary by a scientist from Berkely Earth who are apparently one of the agencies who verified NOAAs work and reached essentially the same conclusions as NOAA by analysing the raw data in their own way. The article also has a discussion of this issue around buoys and ship intakes.
www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-mail-sundays-astonishing-evidence-global-temperature-rise
I suppose it's possible (but as yet entirely unproven) that NOAA hurried publication, but the fact that their results have been verified by several other parties is the more important thing in my opinion.
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Coal Miner at 06:06 AM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
2
Suggestions on how to communicate. I'd tell the truth. That usually works, right? If you don't really understand the quantum physics behind AGW, say I don't understand it myself, but I believe the scientists so I support.......whatever it is you support.
That's what I try to do. I say: I am struggling to understand the physics, still investigating, and I think AGW may be real, but I'm not sure and I'm not willing to sign on to huge tax plans, or other major distruptions to the economy until I understand the science. I do recommend everyone who wants to should do what they can as individuals to reduce FF use, etc, and I think that if all believers did so, it would make a difference. I think coming up with a 24/7/365 reliable electric grid using only renewables will not happen quickly or cheaply and we will be using FF as backup for quite a long time until better technology comes along. I say, I think nations that are wealthy can help the world better than poor nations so I'd like to see the US become more prosperous so we can do that - Bill Gates helps more folks than the average man on the street - works the same with countries.
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Coal Miner at 05:52 AM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
6 - nigelj
Are you sure the econonmy is OK? What do you think the economy would look like if the government had not added 10 trillion to the debt over the past 8 years? Currently there are ~40+ million on food stamps. Trump may add even more debt than O did - time will tell and that's not what we want. One reason some folks voted for T because they don't want to keep adding to the debt - many of them even believe in AGW, but think we need to get our fiscal house in order before we try to save the world.
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Coal Miner at 05:34 AM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Given the reality on the ground: Trump is the president and may not be as friendly to AGW as many would like, which of the following 4 cases would be the better option from a climate perspective?
CASE 1
All Americans who believe in AGW (say 50% of us) elect voluntarily to do the following:
a) If you have the money choose to drive a hybrid or electric car; and use public transport or bike/walk when possible
b) Install PV panels + solar hot water panels at their home (apartment dwellers would be limited in what they can do)
c) Turn down the t-stat in winter and up in summer
d) Plant a tree or 2 in the yard to capture some carbon. And mow the grass with a manual non-motorized mower.
CASE 2
Spend 4 to 8 years complaining about the current president policies and continue with current FF lifestyles.
CASE 3
Get a national carbon tax or similar system which say raises fuel prices for transportation and heating with a resulting say 5-10% decrease in FF usage.
CASE 4
Get your state to enact really aggressive AGW policies whether the US as a whole does it or not. They might pass a big tax to pay for solar and wind farms, provide electric car subsidies, subsidies for installing heat pumps and other efficient technologies, subsidies for solar water heating for domestic water and for space heating, etc.....
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william5331 at 04:25 AM on 8 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Even with Bernie as president and a majority in both houses, it is questionable if he could have reversed the direction we are going fast enough to avoid sudden climate change. At least we would have had a chance or at least some hope. Under Trump our only chance is that, like an innoculation which causes the body to fight back, he will cause such a reaction that we will do much more to mitigate climate change. Not much of a hope, I admit. Perhaps the law of unexpected consequenses will work in our favor for a change but don't hold your breath.
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blatz at 01:59 AM on 8 February 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
Tom Curtis and nigelj, thanks to both of you. I think I have a response to my denier friend.
I agree NOAA needs to be more clear with how they present the data. The smallest bit of doubt results in amatuer criticism like this and before we know it, it's on Fox News.
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chriskoz at 20:15 PM on 7 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
The term "Obamacare" in the caption looks misplaced because the article does not talk about Obamacare at all. It just mentions than by conceiving the two anti-EPA initiatives, REPs are endangering the Health of the nation by degrading the environment. That that has nothing to do with Obamacare per se.
Or maybe REPs did also prepare the initiative to repeal of Obamacare, that Dana wanted to talk about but forgot? The last rumours I've heard about it is: during the transition period, T-man somewhat softened his previous stance and said that Obamacare has some good aspect and that he will keep them.
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nigelj at 14:38 PM on 7 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
One Planet Only Forever @ 12
One other point. You are right globalisation has sort of gone off the rails, in the sense everyone is pushed down to the lowest common denominator of standards, including in western economies as well as your quoted countries. Western countries need to push for political parties that maintain decent rules on employment conditions etc. But that's up to the voters to use some sense.
It's the same with climate change regulations and other mitigation methods. Theres a risk globalisation could push that well down the agenda from an economic viewpoint, as the corporate sector wins the debate over "deregulation" for price efficiency. We have to fight this.
Of course regardless of globalisation, the same thing is now happening within a more isolationist America, sadly to say.
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nigelj at 14:31 PM on 7 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
One Planet Only Forever @12
Globalisation, in the sense of free trade, has actually caused some job losses and general related poverty problems in America. Thats basic economics. The Economist.com calculate 30% of job losses in manufacturing in America come from free trade, 70% from automation.
That's not to say globalisation or free trade are bad things. They are good things, and must be maintained, but more should be done to assist people hurt, like with government retraining or income support. Or maybe a universal basic income (I'm still undecided about this, just mentioning it).
Both Democrats and Republicans ingnored that free trade has had some downsides and they did nothing. This is why Trump gained traction!
I agree there are also other reasons for job losses, and related poverty issues, and you summarise these well.
Another example is coal isn't coming back. Fracking gas has made coal uneconomic regardless of climate issues. Whats Trump going to do about that? He has to face reality.
The solution to coal is to help workers with retraining etc. But the Republicans resent this sort of state assistance. The result is a total disaster and crazy returns to protectionist trade.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:40 PM on 7 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
nigelj@5,
I agree that some people in the USA and the rest of the world have "been left behind". I disgree with the claim that globalization caused many of the people in the USA who feel "Left Behind" to be in the situation they are in today.
I blame the development of unsustainable perceptions of prosperity and opportunity for the circumstances that many have ended up in. And I would add that poverty and inequity existed in the USA before globalization. I also say it because of what has just happened in Alberta.
The surge of activity to expand the rate of extraction of the gooey stuff from the sands of Northern Alberta should have been understood to have no future, to be a chase for benefit that was understandably unacceptable and would have to end sooner than the games of popularity and profitability would end it.
The anger and frustration many in Alberta now express is due to the development of delusions of prosperity and opportunity. They were getting away with it and are angry that others are actually explaining why they should no longer be able to get away with it.
It is a developed perception problem. And it will not be solved by trying to return to continuing the unsustainable unacceptable activity. That will just develop more damaging delusions.
Globalization has generally been a global benefit. However, some people have abused it, producing damaging results for many other people in developed, developing, and "left behind" nations like Haiti.
The shift of work to locations where people can truly live decently at lower cost and produce the same results at lower cost is a great idea. But that is not the way that globalization has developed.
The result has been a failure to ensure that higher standards were pursued and maintained globally. The Winners were the ones who got away with things like: less acceptable treatment of workers, lower standards for quality control, and lower standards for environmental protection, or lower costs for what they bought because of all the above.
In fact, today there is more pressure to reduce the standards for treatment of workers, quality control, and protection of the environment even in the so called advanced nations.
Instead of stepping up the game globally, competition to be better, there is intense competitive pressure to knock down higher Standards by making them compete against lower standards that are allowed in other "percieved to be advanced or advancing" nations. That is a downward spiral of standards and ways of living that has no future, in spite of the popularity of the lower costs and higher short-term profitability (or the unsustainable perceptions of reduction of poverty in the nations where less accaptable activity is being gotten away with).
Solving such a problem requires the admission that it exists. Then a variety of solutions can actually be developed, like requiring every nation to provide all of the requirements of a basic decent life to all of their citizens who may be "left behind" by the socio-economic-political games that are being played, and the expectation that the more fortunate "Earthlings" will thoughtfully change their actions and their interactions with the less fortunate in ways that make truly lasting better lives for the least fortunate, reducing what nations have to provide for the Left Behinders (those who do not really get to benefit from the games people play on this amazing planet, including those who are fooled into damaging unsustainable delusions of being among the ones who will benefit from a Change).
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Haze at 12:57 PM on 7 February 2017Global warming hiatus claims prebunked in 1980s and 1990s
@18 There is a saying "that lies are round the world before truth is even out of bed" The current publicity on the Dr Bates' comments exemplifies what that saying means. Yesterday the Australian published a piece, written by Matt Ridley and first published in the UK Times. The number of people reading that piece both here and in the UK plus those reading the piece by David Rose in the deplorable Daily Mail headlined "Exposed: How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data", far, far exceeds the number that will read the denuciations to which you refer. In consequence these pieces will have far, far more effect on the general public's view of the validity of climate science and the credibility of climate scientists
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nigelj at 12:07 PM on 7 February 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
Blatz @12, my apologies. I miss read that map. My colour vision is not the greatest at the best of times, and I missed that note.
However like I said in my early post above, NOAA are confusing in how they depict data, and you are better to look at the NASA website. Also look at this website as it gives an indication of where weather stations in Africa are located, and no other data to confuse things.
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Tom Curtis at 10:48 AM on 7 February 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
blatz @10 and @12, I have to disagree with nigelj, the grey shaded rectangles do represent no data (as distinct from the white shaded data, which represent "near average" temperature percentiles. That the grey shaded rectangles represent no data is clearly stated on the lower right hand side of the graph:
What Tony Heller purports to show is a contradiction between NOAA's map anomaly temperature for Dec 2016 (shown above), and NOAA's map of temperature percentiles:
The only problem is that the map the anomaly shows almost no data in Africa. In contrast the Land/Ocean version of the anomaly map does:
(All maps source from NOAA.)
Neither anomaly map accurately shows the data actually available. If you go to the GISS temperature analysis, and use the same month (Dec 2016), anomaly period (1981-2010), and the 250 km smoothing radius, it will show data over land only within 250 km of a reporting station. If you do you will see that there is reported data for South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia in the south, and for most of West Africa and East Africa north of the equator, but not for Libya. Tony Heller's map excludes all of that Southern African, and most of the Eastern African, north of the equator, data. The current NOAA map, on the other hand, shows data over far more areas than that, but that is because the land temperatures shown are based on a smoothed product, which deliberately fills in areas having no data using data from nearby sites (and averages across areas with data). In doing this, they use land data over land only.
Further, in the land only anomaly (unsmoothed version), they exclude data which do not have data from sufficient fields around them.
There method for doing this has been publicly available for over 10 years.
Finally, the hot temperatures shown over south, eastern Africa in the Land/Ocean anomaly map (in contradiction to UAH) are probably an artifact of the method. GISS, which smooths the same data using a different algorithm shows temperatures near the 1981-2010 anomaly value over that period, ie, agrees with UAH. That does not mean their global anomaly is out, however, as it is calculated from the unsmoothed data (as I understand it).
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nigelj at 10:06 AM on 7 February 2017A Message to Trump from Climate Scientists
Michael Sweet @ 20,
I think you make quite a good point that we have some costs now in mitigating climate change, but truly vast and ongoing costs in the future if we do nothing. It intrigues me why people can't see that, or don't want to see that. I will get to this below.
In fact climate change denial fascinates me. I'm not going to get into my educational background because that doesn't prove anything I say is correct, but I did do psychology at university in addition to more technical and a few papers in earth science subjects, hence the interest in the climate denial issue, and why and how people react.
In my view there are a variety of reasons for climate denial from people with vested interests, people with ideological concerns about the role of government, etc.
We also have evidence the human brain does not normally prioritise more distant future issues. This is possibly why some people can't grasp the issue. This concern about the future does vary from person to person. This partly explains why some people don't compute what you are saying in your post. However we have to encourage people to think more about the future of humanity and impacts on people over extended time periods.
And GW Bush may have got one thing right. He said "we are addicted to oil" and this probably has more psychological power than we realise. However I have decided to buy an electric car.
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nigelj at 09:39 AM on 7 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
"The term ‘air pollutant’ does not include carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, or sulfur hexafluoride."
This just makes my blood boil, and is such retrograde, reactionary, badly informed decision making. Quite apart from the climate issue,which is bad enough, cars emit nitrous oxides that are hazardous to health. Are we to now give up on trying to improve that situation as well?
Regulations might in some cases have short term costs on business, but they have long term benefits for humanity that count for more which relate to health, quality of life etc. Of course regulations should be carefully considered on scientific evidence of whether risks are significant, but that's what Obama tried to do. Trump is throwing scientific evidence out of the door, and "trusting his gut". Well that is unlikely to end well.
Regulations also arguably stimulate innovation. The automobile industry is an obvious example.
Many Americans, with respect, are often such hypocrites. They preach about their constitution, and how special America is, and it's rights to free speech". Where are Republicans now that Trump is trampling over the free speech of the EPA, and other government bodies?
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nigelj at 09:19 AM on 7 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner @3, short term trends are indeed of little value. But we have had approximately a 45 year warming trend. This is not short term. Climate science recognises that 30 years is the important time frame to determine whether we have a sufficient trend.
Any trend under 30 years could be generated by quite significant natural cycles, as these opeate on 5- 30 year cycles, but once you get over 30 years there are no known natural cycles of such length that have anything like enough power to change the climate by orders of several degrees. There is plenty of research on this.
Just for once understand scientists are not stupid, and the very first thing they explored in regards to climate change was possible natural causes, and you can get much of this in the IPCC reports. Natural causes for the warming since the 1970s have been ruled out by very smart people, who have investigated this in considerable depth. This website has plenty of related articles.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:14 AM on 7 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
uncletimrob,
I have been fairly successful if I start by saying that I want to be sure we (me and whoever I am trying to change the mind of regarding climate change and global warming), have a common basis for the discussion.
- Then I ask what they know about the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Based on how they answer I work to ensure there is an agreement of understanding about the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
- I follow that with a question about why the rapid recent increase of CO2 has occurred. This is where I can usually determine how difficult it will be to change the mind I am dealing with. Helping people understand that actions like burning wood pellets and bio-fuel do not create "New Carbon" is usually required.
- After we agree that excess CO2 is being created by human activity I move on to asking if they understand that future generations will not be able to continue to benefit from activity like burning fossil fuels. I find that twist can set some people onto a tangent about the false claims of peak oil or that you can't live without burning fossil fuels. But I remain focused on establishing the understanding that future generations cannot continue to benefit from that way of living. I even add points about the damage done so far by the activity including vicious fighting over the ability to benefit most from the burning of fossil fuels, including the human tragedies that have been created in places like the Middle East, Africa, Indonesia and Ukraine.
- If I do not get acceptance that the excess CO2 is created by human activity, particularly burning fossil fuels, and do not get acceptance that major past and current day problems are the result of pursuits of benefit from those activities, I make sure there is no doubt about how close-minded and wrong the person is choosing to be. I state how unhelpful people who choose to think that way are.
- If I do get acceptance of the fundamantal unacceptability of a portion of the hopefully eternal history of humanity benefiting from an unsustainable and damaging activity like the burning of fossil fuels I am set for a longer fruitful conversation. I move on to helping them understand the potential changes due to the excess CO2, especially the challenges that will be faced by future generations. I share a main concern of mine as a Structural Engineer, the difficulty of knowing what climate conditions need to be designed for so that a structure can perform successfully into the future. That includes pointing out that rapid rates of climate change make it more difficult to predict exactly what change of climate is to be expected in any location. I then add that as a gardener I appreciate how much more difficult it will be for farmers to figure out what they can most successfuly grow in a coming season. I would really like to start with this fundamental purpose of life point, but find that it is usually best to bring it up after getting a shared understanding of the unacceptability of a political, social or economic desire or pursuit (any of the many unacceptable desires and pursuits work as a basis for bringing up this fundamantal point. I then point out that other efforts by people wanting to be helpful share the objective of advancing humanity to a better future and struggle to overcome the damaging impacts created by those who do not care to responsibly limit what they choose to do, what they try to get away with, what they are unwilling to accept is unacceptable).
Sometimes I have gotten particularly short with a person who is clearly not interested in better understanding this issue or the importance of helping to advance humanity. In those cases I regret questioning "why the person thinks anyone should care about the interests of someone like them who seems determined to believe what they wish and do as they please in pursuit of personal pleasure and benefit without caring to actually understand the potential or likely consequences of their actions, without trying to be helpful rather than harmful." I think that all the time, and generically share that sentiment with people, but I try to not direct it at an individual.
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nigelj at 09:09 AM on 7 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner @5 says:
"Agree that unelected bureaucrats in any department should not be able to make rules and regulations for people. We have how many doing that today? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? It's totally out of control and is destroying our nations economy and jobs."
What are you even saying? Unemployment in America has dropped from 12% at the peak of the financical crash to about 5%, a very low level by global standards. Remember capitalism has a natural rate of unemployment, so is unlikely to get to zero. America has just last month had record job creation, and even Trump has commented on this. So clearly regulations are not the onerous burden you claim. Here is some data and discussion:
www.cnbc.com/2016/07/18/obamas-record-on-jobs-versus-five-other-presidents.html
You can find other economics and job data for America on Trading economics.com a global financial database, so not a partisan body. Its all been good on jobs and economic growth on the whole. Some groups are admittedly not doing so well, but they are in a minority.
Trumps claims of devastation are simply a huge fiction.
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nigelj at 08:59 AM on 7 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
OPOF @1
I do like your basic philosophy of basing our societal and economic and environmental laws and decisions on what is going to be good for the future of humanity. It gives a powerful singular focus. It is also compatible in a practical sense with current generation still having a very good life if only people would think it through. It just requires balance and good sense. It's a big topic and I would love to have the time to explore it more.
However much of the world does accept your premise. Right now America is the state choosing to be different, by turning both backwards and inwards. And we haveTrumps attack on science, and freedom of information and free speech of climate and other organisations. But this will eventually collapse under the weight of reality, and it's inherent logical and evidential absurdidities.
However we should acknowledge some people in America have been left behind by globalisation, and do more to help them. But not in the Trump kind of way, that will not end up really helping them.
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nigelj at 08:32 AM on 7 February 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
Blatz @10,
Just one other comment. December was an unusually hot month more so over the oceans than land. This should be apparent looking at the various NOAA maps. However that was just december, and probably reflects the influence of the tail end of el nino ocean phenomenon, in addition to underlying global warming.
We have another different ocean cycle called the pacific interdecadal oscillation that operates on about 30 year time frames. It has been in a negative phase during the period of the so called"pause" and almost certainly contributed to this slowdown. It is likely to switch to a positive phase over the next 10 years. I have seen an article on this, but don't have time to track it down. This will add to the robust greenhouse gas warming we are seeing. It's not going to be great. This is more important than counting the number of weather stations over Africa.
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uncletimrob at 08:27 AM on 7 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
@3 well of course trends don't mean anything - even I know that. Only long term trends and accumulations/comparisons of data of various kinds that all agree, are the trends are likely to be correct.
I suspect you haven't really any idea what you are talking about, but thank you for your erudite summary of OPOF's and my comments.
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Coal Miner at 08:25 AM on 7 February 2017A Message to Trump from Climate Scientists
Best bet if you don't get what you want from Trump is for ALL AGW believers to stop driving, turn down the winter T-stat to 60 max, don't fly, go to bed when it gets dark, install solar thermal and PV panels, etc. Show the world that you are serious. Walk the talk. Climate summits can be held online - no more flying around the world for those.
Moderator Response:[JH] Sloganeering snipped.
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nigelj at 08:21 AM on 7 February 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
Blatz @10
The grey area on the global land temperatures map does not designate "no data". It designates temperatures slightly lower than the average by a factor of minus 1. Look at the key at the base of the map.
With respect are you seriously telling me you haven't looked at this scale? I will say it again, I see no evidence that Africa has "almost no weather stations" and I have yet to see a shred of proof of this. I do remain open minded.
Regarding giss data, good question. All the maps both from NOAA and Giss use the same pool of raw data, or have access to it. They just select that data slightly differently and present their maps slightly differently. Personally I find NOAA a bit confusing, but it appears technically correct.
The bottom line is december was an abnormally hot month as a global average, and this is clear from any of the global maps we are discussing, there is clearly a lot of variation in this place to place. Big deal, you would expect that due to regional climate influences.
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Coal Miner at 08:17 AM on 7 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
#1 - very biased comment.
#2 - see #1 for how not to communicate. it looks like preaching, not like science.
Short term trends in global temperatures do not mean AGW is real. It might be, but "trends" are not proof of anything. The trend is that a majority of 5 year olds believe in Santa Claus.
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michael sweet at 08:13 AM on 7 February 2017A Message to Trump from Climate Scientists
Coal Miner,
I find it interesting that you "Don't want to rush massive government regulation and economic disruption if it isn't AGW. If it is AGW then we will have to come up with some reasonable plan to change our energy systems."
President Johnson asked the National Academy of Sciences in 1966 if AGW was important and the answer then was Yes it is! How much longer do you propose we should sit on our hands?
I notice that you do not care at all about the distruction to the economy by the various changes caused by AGW. For example, in Florida alone, where I live, over 1 Trillion (thats with a T) dollars of real estate are at risk from sea level rise by the year 2100 data. Even the low scenarios will flood Maimi by 2100. If we continue on business as usual, as you suggest we should, that will be a lot of damage nationwide. We currently see billions of dollars a year damage from extreme climate caused by AGW. Farming will take a huge hit.
If we were to put in a moderate carbon fee (and dividend to keep the money out of government hands), we could start to get AGW under control. If it turned out that the economy was badly affected we could reduce the fee. If AGW was worse than we currenly hope we could increase the fee.
I am constantly amazed by skeptics who are willing to risk trillions of dollars of almost certain future damage but are unwilling to take even a tiny step to limit that risk because it might affect the current economy. The fact that British Columbia has put in a carbon fee and their economy has thrived makes no difference. Germany has built out a lot of green energy and leads the world economically.
The most recent assessment of sea level rise in the USA (linked above) suggests that with BAU, if it turns out bad, we will see severe damage in my lifetime. We can only hope that does not come to pass.
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uncletimrob at 07:57 AM on 7 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
@OPOF, yes I also find it hard to understand the way some people think. Without mentioning any names, a colleague of mine who has a masters degree in Physics - so obiously knows something about the scientific method and the mathematics that supports it - is in complete denial about observable trends in global temperature. I even invited him to process the data himself to which the reply was " why would I want to process dodgy data? ".
I have no idea how to discuss such things with intelligent people who have closed minds. Of course there are also underlying beliefs that obscure the facts for some people, such as a belief in young earth creation "science".
Any suggestions as to how to communicate are welcome!
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Glenn Tamblyn at 06:52 AM on 7 February 2017It's the sun
Largely yes Charlie74.
If the output from the Sun varied significantly then that most certainly would matter. But the Sun's output actually varies to such a small extent over the solar cycle that a reasonable approximation is that it is constant.But the strength of the greenhouse effect then modulates that impact. On Earth the climate is around 30 C warmer than it would be just from the strength of the Suns rays alone. On Venus it is over 500 C warmer than you would expect.
How strong the sunlight is sets the minimum temperature. But the GH effect raises it above that minimum. -
nigelj at 06:33 AM on 7 February 2017A Message to Trump from Climate Scientists
Coal Miner @17, well you say you are still trying to figure out whether we are causing climate change. I have been through the same process, and looked carefully at both sides of the debate. I started as a believer, was briefly a sceptic, but back to a believer.
While I basically lean a lot towards science, and trusting mainstream science, I never take anything for granted. I always read all sides of issues and the "devil is often in the detail".
I have just found overall that the IPCC case for climate change is transparent and upfront, in the main, and the denialist claims are mostly based on highly misleading claims, taking things out of context, etc.
But a couple of things convinced me we are altering the climate. The nature of the warming since 1980 is interesting. Google greenhouse signatures, or greenhouse fingerprints. For example nights are warming at a faster rate than days, (this has been extensively measured) and this is consistent with the greenhouse effect rather than solar activity.
This article from this website discusses these fingerprints or signatures. It is an adavced discussion, but the page has a link to a more basic version if you want. It is well worth a read. It is the best thing you will read all week. Its great! (Im starting to sound like Trump)
www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us-advanced.htm
I agree we need to be reasonably certain before major change of economic direction etc. However I think we do have enough certainty.
I also look at it this way: We will run out of oil eventually anyway, and even if climate change was a fizzer the oil is there if we were to ever decide to use it again.
The cost of renewable energy has also dropped dramatically making concerns about economic change somwhat academic. So if we change our system, and find we didn't really need to, then the worst result is not massively disruptive anyway.
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Charlie74 at 06:16 AM on 7 February 2017It's the sun
'If the sun's energy is decreasing while the Earth is warming, then the sun can't be the main control of the temperature'.
Is this opening comment a suggestion that the sun is not the main control of temperature of the Earth?
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nigelj at 06:13 AM on 7 February 2017A Message to Trump from Climate Scientists
Tom Curtis @15, Fair enough. I wasn't aware of her singapore speech. However it's interesting that we had roughly the same concerns overall.
Just on capitalism, here is a good book on one possible future for capitalism: Post Capitalism, by Paul Mason. He doesn't seem to lean particularly left or right, and it's a thoughtful take on the issue. Coal Miner might also be interested.
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blatz at 06:08 AM on 7 February 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
nigelj @11
Thanks for your response. I'm still a bit confused as to why they show so much grey "no data" area over africa. Does the GHCN not use GISS data? I understand the "realclimatescience" page is a dishonest source. But they haven't doctored those NOAA plots other than the arrow and text. If the plots are using the GISS data (and I believe they do), they should claim that in the "data source" section.
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nigelj at 05:39 AM on 7 February 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
Blatz @10
Please understand you are looking at a climate sceptical website. They have printed a NOAA land Plot of global temperatures, (accurately) but "added" their own annotation claiming theres no data. That is simply their unproven assertion. NOAA do not claim there is no data. Just look at my link to the original NOAA map on their website.
Read my post above, and links provided to a map of weather stations in Africa. There is plenty of data for Africa, although not much for central Africa, but there is still some data here. Where data is limited, they extrapolate between known adjacent data points.
The bottom line is we don't have perfect numbers of weather stations evenly dispersed globally, but we have more than enough to compute a highly reliable global average, and regional averages.
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Coal Miner at 05:06 AM on 7 February 2017A Message to Trump from Climate Scientists
16 - Tom
You may be exactly right on your preferred interpretation. Both articles I mentioned in #8, are only one more piece of evidence in the very long AGW thread of evidence (for both sides). I'm still open minded on AGW - each of us has to decide what is correct and what isn't.
15 -nigelj
I agree the climate has changed since at least ~ 1980. Winters are a lot warmer in Alaska where I used to live back then. May be AGW, may not be, I'm still trying to figure it out. Don't want to rush massive government regulation and economic disruption if it isn't AGW. If it is AGW then we will have to come up with some reasonable plan to change our energy systems. In the mean time, PV panels are cheaper, and I heard a while back that the Israelis are successfully using solar hot water heaters. If your local county government will approve, make the switch today.
http://www.backwoodssolar.com/products/solar-panels?p=1
>
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blatz at 04:42 AM on 7 February 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5
I'm also looking for help debunking this one:
https://realclimatescience.com/2017/02/nasa-noaa-climate-data-is-fake-data/
I think the key question is why is so much of Africa showing "No Data" in the Land Only plot. If that is correct we need a clear explanation for where the Africa land data is coming from. "Interpolated from ocean data" is not going to be good enough for hte denial crowd. Any Help?
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:41 AM on 7 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
This type of policy decision is not being made by people who are unaware of the reality of what is going on, the best explanation for what is going on, and the actions required to improve the future for all of humanity.
There should be very little doubt that the people pushing for this policy change understand what is going on and are deliberately choosing to push for activity that future generations will not be able to continue to benefit from.
They likely Know It All. They likely understand that the pursuits of benefit they push for will only benefit a portion of current day humanity to the detriment of many others, particularly to the detriment of future generations of humanity.
Human made-up games of competition for Popularity and Profitability clearly only produce Good Results for the future of humanity if people who have other interests are kept from being able to Win in the games. Those type of people really need to be kept from playing in the games. However, when they do get away with "Winning", such people need to have their "Undeserved Win" nullified, the sooner the better for the future of humanity.
It is understood that increased knowledge about climate science innoculates people from being tempted to believe claims that are not the best explanation of what can be observed to be going on.
Innoculating people against the temptation to be greedier or less tolerant should help limit the potential for "Winning" by people who are not interested in developing a constantly improved future for all of humanity.
The USA has at times provided genuine global leadership towards a lasting better future for all of humanity. However, it is undeniable that the current gerenation's wealth and power was the result of "winning" through unsustainable and damaging pursuits of benefit (like delaying the reduction of sulfur in diesel, and delaying the termination of coal burning) on top of the benefit of not having any of the battles over global influence being fought on, and setting-back the development of, mainland USA.
The USA leadership has massive military and economic influence which makes it a major factor regarding the future of humanity. It can be the greatest helper or the greatest threat to the future of humanity. It all depends on the type of people who "Win" the leadership.
The Trump Team actions will clearly be another set-back in the history of the advancement of humanity. Even if they fail in their unacceptable pursuits of "Winning" the lack of Better leadership in the USA will be a delay of Good actions, clearly being detrimental to the future of humanity.
A USA First objective of leadership that does not limit its actions to things that will clearly improve the future for all of humanity (and not even sustainably improve things for the least fortunate USA citizens) is clearly a Threat that can be very popular and profitable for some.
The fact that so many USA voters have developed powerfully made-up minds determined to fight to defend or excuse such understandably damaging desires and admire undeserving made-up Images/Impressions is not Good. It is Sadder than Sad! It is Bad!
Hopefully enough of the population can be effectively innoculated against the temptations to be greedier and less tolerant to limit the negative consequences of the action plans of the likes of the Trump Team. And hopefully the portion of the global community that understands the importance of helping to advance humanity will be able to effectively help that portion of the population of the USA (and all other nations) in their efforts to change minds, helping those who have been misled become aware of how to be more helpful than harmful.
Effectively promoting the 'increased awareness and understanding of climate science and the critical importance of applying that understanding to advance all of humanity to a lasting better future for all' is one of the many helpful fronts for innoculating people, increasing the portion of the population that understands how to make their lives meaningfully helpful.
Open admission. I have relatives and aquaintances who I have to admit may be lost causes as far as the future of humanity is concerned. No amount of added understanding seems to change their minds. They really do focus on their personal interests, and continue to make up easily deflated excuses. However, that is probably to be expected. I live in Alberta, a hotbed of the promotion of self-interest.
What is encouraging is that even in Alberta people who are determined to pursue self-interest any way they can get away with are not the majority of the population. The majority are reasonable people who will admit to having been tempted to misunderstand something and are willing to change their mind.
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Tom Dayton at 23:28 PM on 6 February 2017Global warming hiatus claims prebunked in 1980s and 1990s
Haze: Bates's claims are without merit. Eli Rabbett provides context (especially the supposed rushing to publication and lack of archiving) for the detailed rebuttal that was posted by Peter Thorne who (unlike Bates) was directly involved with the people and processes of the actual science-doing.
Variable Variability has a devastating rebuttal of fake journalist David Rose’s even more outlandish accounting of Bates's claims. The Great White Con has more. Also regarding Rose's baselines deception: And Then There's Physics.
Zeke described how the recent study by he and coauthors solidly backed the conclusions of the Karl et al. paper.
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Tom Curtis at 22:40 PM on 6 February 2017A Message to Trump from Climate Scientists
nigelj @15, you are being too kind by far to those who misrepresent Figueres. The false interpretation preferred by Coal Miner requires that Figueres be intending to destroy capitalism, and that she deliberately and knowingly employs fraudulent data inorder to create a climate scare to that end. It requires all three elements underlined above to be true, but provides evidence for none of them. Against that, the context of the quote, suggest not one of the three. Further, her comments elsewhere (response to first question in interview) indicate that she accepts the science of climate change of the basis of the IPCC findings (which is not unusual given that she is a diplomat, not a scientist). Her clear motivation is the risks from climate change as determined by the IPCC (video in the link to the original source of the quote), and she clearly envisions an ongoing role for the private sector (speech in Singapore).
That is all in addition to the fact that accepting Coal Miner's interpretation requires you to be a conspiracy theorist.
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Haze at 21:01 PM on 6 February 2017Global warming hiatus claims prebunked in 1980s and 1990s
The claims by Dr John Bates, a climate scientist (it seems actually a meteorologist) formerly responsible for NOAA’s climate archive, (https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/) do bring a sense of unease about this discussion on "the pause". Dr Bates says this: "The most serious example of a climate scientist not archiving or documenting a critical climate dataset was the study of Tom Karl et al. 2015 (hereafter referred to as the Karl study or K15), purporting to show no ‘hiatus’ in global warming in the 2000s The most serious example of a climate scientist not archiving or documenting a critical climate dataset was the study of Tom Karl et al. 2015 (hereafter referred to as the Karl study or K15), purporting to show no ‘hiatus’ in global warming in the 2000s" Dr Bates goes on to say:
"I questioned another co-author about why they choose to use a 90% confidence threshold for evaluating the statistical significance of surface temperature trends, instead of the standard for significance of 95% — he also expressed reluctance and did not defend the decision. A NOAA NCEI supervisor remarked how it was eye-opening to watch Karl work the co-authors, mostly subtly but sometimes not, pushing choices to emphasize warming. Gradually, in the months after K15 came out, the evidence kept mounting that Tom Karl constantly had his ‘thumb on the scale’—in the documentation, scientific choices, and release of datasets—in an effort to discredit the notion of a global warming hiatus and rush to time the publication of the paper to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy."
Are these comments valid? They seem to be and if so do lead to questions about the veracity of some authors.
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nigelj at 19:34 PM on 6 February 2017A Message to Trump from Climate Scientists
Coal Miner @13.
This UN woman said basically we want to transform the economic development model. We have absolutely no information or idea what she really meant. This is why I didn't speculate.
Toms answer is just an intelligent guess and quite good but we can't be certain. She could also want to sensibly modify capitalism, or be talking about something else to do with the economic system, or she could want to make capitalism more capitalist. We just don't know.
You really need to remember the old saying "innocent until proven guilty".
You also need to stop seeing all criticism of capitalism as an attempt to destroy it. You did say it was good to be a "a sceptic" right? I'm a big fan of private ownership of business, but some aspects of capitalism seem wrong to me, especially when fans of capitalism seem to think business can do what it likes, without regard to our safety or the environment.
The theory of evolution is not just an idea, it is considered very strong science by virtually all scientists, just the same as is the theory of relativity or quantum "theory".
Climate change is complex, but the key facts are the planet is warming since about 1970 in a certain type of way, with certain characteristics, that points at CO2, and not solar influences.
I agree with your last paragraph.
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