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Tom Curtis at 17:53 PM on 7 October 2016Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
TonyLambert @261, the effect of irrigation on temperatures has been studied a number of times. In chronological order we have Boucher, Myhre and Myhre (2004), who find a 0.03-0.1 W/m^2 global greenhouse forcing from irrigation, but a surface cooling of 0.8 K over irrigated lands. That equates a 0.02 K increase in global temperature, assuming a Transient Climate Response of 2 K per doubling of CO2, and weighting the regional cooling by area.
In contrast, Puma and Cook (2010) find an overall cooling effect from irrigation in tropical latitudes (NH winter) and tropical and NH mid-latitudes (NH summer) once all factors are included, but for land surface only:
Boucher et al also show a slight cooling for land surface only according to Puma and Cooks' table 1.
Finally, Vresse, Hagemann and Claussen (2016), which you cite, shows a cooling effect from irrigation both in Asia and Africa, but do not give global figures.
Clearly from the tables in Puma and Cook, this listing is not exhaustive.
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Digby Scorgie at 13:13 PM on 7 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
From all the comments above one can see that we have all the technologies and techniques we need to make a huge dent in our emissions. Some of these technologies are already having an effect — as the article makes clear regarding solar and wind power, LEDs and battery storage. Some techniques have yet to be implemented in any meaningful way — and here I'm thinking particularly of the agricultural sector — but they could have a dramatic effect if they were rolled out world-wide. But is it happening fast enough?
There are various shades of opinion about our winning the race. Some are pessimistic, some are not. I'm more interested in learning if any modelling community has looked into this. I bought a copy of "Limits to growth" over 40 years ago and have been dipping into it more often in recent years. Their standard run predicts a collapse in about mid-century, and as I noted above, the recent reappraisal of "Limits to growth" (with 40 years of data) has us tracking the standard run quite closely.
I have heard of only one similar study and that is by Aled Jones of the Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin University in the UK. Their model is intended for short-term projections for the insurance industry. As I understand it, just for fun (?) they ran the model to 2040 and discovered that it predicts a collapse before this date.
Are there any other modelling communities out there, and have they come up with different outcomes? The specific problem, as I see it, is comparing our rate of emissions reductions with the rate at which the climate is worsening. This was not considered in "Limits to growth". They assumed that climate effects would not be significant before we stabilized the global system, assuming of course that we actually do manage to stabilize the system.
To summarize, it's one thing to have all the building blocks to avoid disaster, it's quite another to use them.
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TonyLambert at 12:54 PM on 7 October 2016Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
This blog states: "The other factor to consider is that water is evaporated from the land and sea and falls as rain or snow all the time. Thus the amount held in the atmosphere as water vapour varies greatly in just hours and days as result of the prevailing weather in any location. So even though water vapour is the greatest greenhouse gas, it is relatively short-lived."
S. Stanley states "Agricultural irrigation is so widespread that it accounts for about 4% of the total evapotranspiration of water from Earth’s surface." (Eos.org: Research Spotlights, August 2016). Further, De Vrese et al [1] show that Asian irrigation causes a large increase in precipitation in East Africa. And Lo et al [2] and others show that California irrigation affects precipitation in the US mid-west. Considering that irrigation is fairly continuous and constitutes a fairly large source of evapotranspiration, the resulting atmospheric water vapour flows might be fairly significant in terms of their effect on atmospheric temperature, even if a particular droplet might be short lived. My question is whether you can point to a study that has quantified the effect of irrigation water vapour flows on the temperature of the atmosphere, including over the last 100 years.
[1] de Vrese, P., S. Hagemann, and M. Claussen (2016), Asian irrigation, African rain: Remote impacts of irrigation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 43, 3737–3745, doi:10.1002/2016GL068146.
[2] Lo, M.-H., and J. S. Famiglietti (2013), Irrigation in California's Central Valley strengthens the southwestern U.S. water cycle, Geophys. Res. Lett., 40, 301–306, doi:10.1002/grl.50108.
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nigelj at 09:05 AM on 7 October 2016Pew survey: Republicans are rejecting reality on climate change
We do indeed have all this evidence of substantial climate change denial among the Republicans. I accept your suggestion that their dislike of taxation and regulation leads to denial of the science.
However The Republicans appear to be strong defenders of property law, so they are not adverse to all regulation. Climate change regulations or taxes, etc, are really just a way of protecting the property of future generations, so should be acceptable to Republicans ideologically. Their opposition is very much a case of not thinking it all through.
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Tom Curtis at 09:03 AM on 7 October 2016The future belongs to clean energy
ianw01 @3, there is no question that some combination of renewable energy, energy storage at a number of time scales, and improved network capacity can completely supply the USA (or any other countries) energy needs. Whether or not that is 'viable' is a different matter, as "viable" is a very vague, indeed, a subjective word. I can well imagine that a commited climate change denier will find no such plan 'viable'; but that that is only an indication of their unwillingness to accept any conversion to renewable energy.
The interesting thing about Jacobsen (2015) is that, for the US, they show a pathway to achieving that end whose calculated costs show a net benefit across the full range of uncertainty (excluding the cost of stranded assets, and health and climate impact benefits). An actual attempt to impliment the scheme may well be less effective than it is on paper (most likely due to political factors), or be more effective (due to improved technology). But, as in any policy issue, it is not known on which side of that equation we will fall, so that means there is no technical reason not to make the attempt. And there is certainly a need to do so.
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michael sweet at 07:00 AM on 7 October 2016The future belongs to clean energy
Ianw01:
A quick search of Google Scholar shows that 42 studies have already cited Jacobson 2015. Most of those support the claims of Jacobson. That is a lot of citations considering the lead time required for a paper to get in a journal. Jacobson 2008 has over 600 citations. Many of those have similar conclusions to Jacobson 2015.
Perhaps if you read more about the subject of renewable energy you will be more supportive. When you limit your reading to a single study it appears that more work is required.
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ianw01 at 05:29 AM on 7 October 2016The future belongs to clean energy
@ 2-ajki: Hah - you had me going there. I thought you were going to say that we need some skepticism about renewables and the risks of relying on someone "talking their book" in that sector. :-P
Even setting aside vested interests, I think I could make the claim that some skepticism is in order about plans to deploy renewables (due to viability rather than motivations).
For example, one study claiming that overbuilding intermittant renewables (albeit with storage and better interconnections) and discontinuing nuclear is a viable plan for the USA is insufficent evidence that that is truly viable. The goal is laudable, the conclusion is appealing, but that does not mean that the authors may have overlooked something. The result needs to be independently analyzed and reproduced to be sure the construction of the investigation was not faulty.
That's probably enough said - I'm sure the slings and arrows are pointed my way already - but please know that I think we owe ourselves a deeper exploration of the engineering challenges to transition to a zero emissions society.
You are saying we should have a list of "myths" debunking criticisms of various CO2 mitigation or avoidance strategies? Perhaps we agree! :-)
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ajki at 18:52 PM on 6 October 2016The future belongs to clean energy
When I look at the massive commenting of the linked article [the known Guardian Blog], I'm thinking (again and again) that there is a need for a new kind of myth list here on SkS. While the "sceptics" lose more and more ground on the scientific basics of climate change, they return freshly and completely unconvinced on all fields of practical avoidance or production changes. The patterns presented in this "newer" discussions reminds me very much of the pointless discussions in the early 2000 wether there are GHG and if there are, why they are not causing any problems and if they would do, why it's not us that produce them and if it is us, then why we could never change this.
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RedBaron at 16:54 PM on 6 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
You guys do know the whole cancer and nobel prize thing was rhetorical right? More specifically which is better? Improving a genome of a corn plant to obtain 10% increased yields? (and you still have to deal with all the issues associated with cropping including soil degradation and pesticide runoff and a positive carbon footprint in your cropping system etc.) Or finding a way to double yields of the final product by not growing corn at all, and making your ethanol and feeding your livestock other ways that don't use pesticides, nor degrade the soil, and have a negative carbon footprint?
This means that switchgrass ethanol delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly 25 percent more energy returned by corn-based ethanol according to the most optimistic studies [1]
So why do we struggle to barely break even or maybe slightly gain a little energy with corn ethanol on a good year? Because the directive from the USDA is specifically to increase corn ethanol, not ethanol from more efficient sources. It is part of the commodity markets buffer stock scheme designed to vastly over-produce corn and other grains by "destroying" the huge surplusses.
Before anyone can make any progress on this, you must first dispell the myth that our system is efficient or required to "feed the world". It couldn't be further from the truth. It is literally designed to be efficient at inefficiency, and it is not designed to "feed the world" it is designed to make a stable price in the commodity markets by "destroying" the surpluses in the most profitable way possible; so we can continue to overproduce without crashing the price below cost to produce.
In a normal economic market, overproduction drives the price down. There is no way the entire world could possibly eat all the corn soy and wheat we produce. So to keep the price up, we must destroy it. However, that also has ethical issues involved with purposely destroying food when there are hungry people on the planet. So to avoid this a myth was created that we are "feeding the world" and all these creative ways to "destroy" the surplus are the most efficient at doing so. They are not. Making corn ethanol or corn fed animals in confinement is only efficient at destroying grain surpluses, not at actually producing final product in terms of yields per acre or energy spent per calorie returned.
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chriskoz at 12:40 PM on 6 October 20162016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #40
Nice quote from Ken. Just replace "little old ladies" with "vulnerable countries" that do not contribute to AGW but bear most of its consequences, and you've got a true picture. Or, in temporal space, replace "little old ladies" with "future generations".
AGW is firstly a social problem, and then environmental problem. The fact that w're dealing with its denial, confirms we have a social problem here. If it was environmental problem only, it'd be far easier to fix.
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Paul W at 10:47 AM on 6 October 2016The future belongs to clean energy
Well its good news that wind is on the up. Don't get me wrong I want wind to "win" very much. When I look at the worlds 2000, 2010 and 2013 total energy and renewable energy its lifeted from 13% renewables in 2000, 13.3% in 2010 to 13.8% in 2013. (Wikipedia World energy consumption)
When I look at the need to end fossil fuel at the current rate our budget runs out in some where between 5 and 15 years if we are to keep the planet to below 1.5 C average temperature increase. Even if renewables continue to grow and I hope they grow very much faster, we are still short of what we need.
An all out war footing is still called for to very greatly increase all sustainables to displace fossil fuels.
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Don Miller at 10:01 AM on 6 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
@Red Baron - re: ".....but what about the the scientist that discovers a way to help avoid getting diabetes or cancer to begin with by identifying an improvement in our food systems that just so happens to sequester carbon and improve soil health too?"
Just such a system is used in a number of countries and is remarkably effective at reducing soil erosion, retaining soil moisture and improving crop production - all the while sequestering carbon. But because it is cheap it is not held in high regard. Nobel Prize? You have to be joking.
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DrivingBy at 07:49 AM on 6 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
Re #5 (this is OT, so it'll be short)
" but what about the the scientist that discovers a way to avoid getting diabetes or cancer to begin with by identifying an improvement in our food systems"
There's no rainbow nor unicorn riding it.
Type I diabetes can't be fixed by 'improvement in our food systems' because one is born with it. Type II is caused by eating too much food, with sugary food having a greater effect. The system improvement to prevent type I is eugenics (ya sure ya want that?), the system to prevent type II lies between one's ears.
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bjchip at 05:54 AM on 6 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
@9 RedBaron
food-per-capita:
current projections are based on current energy availability and pricing as it impacts both the farming community and the shipping of food.
current projections are based on a climate that does NOT change drastically.
With BCCS (note to moderator .NE. Bio-Carbon-Capture and Beijing-Climate-Center ??? ) things can improve markedly but have you ever tried to change a traditional farmer's mind? :-) .
Of course, if we can pay him for the Carbon he pulls down... ;-)
I remain pessimistic because we have German Greens in league with US Republicans in the unwitting effort to pitchfork children of coming generations onto bonfires of delusional thinking. In 15 years the next generation will see the results and the result will be revolt. People blocking action will be peacefully removed from power, or will be forced to flee, or hurled with great force from their obdurate positions.
Yet it will still be far-too-late. The actions required are required now.
When Mother Nature starts smacking mule-headed humans between the eyes with the 2x4 to get their attention, the time is long past for the result to be merely bad.
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John Hartz at 05:40 AM on 6 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
Recommended supplemental readings:
The Cost of Solar Power Has Fallen 25% in Only 5 Months by Dom Galeon, Futurism, Oct 3, 2016
Australia's first local government solar farm reaches milestone by Kylie Bartholomew, ABC News, Oct 5, 2016
Solar-Powered Airports Are Taking Off Worldwide by Zolaikha Strong, Renewable Energy World, Oct 3, 2016
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bjchip at 05:03 AM on 6 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
I remain pessimistic - India will sign in Paris and STILL double its Coal Burning. We've pushed past the point in the 1990's where it would be easy to do. Now we have perhaps 15 years before climate impacts on agriculture and in a very serious way, compels the world to put a price on the CO2 emitted that impairs the economies that are currently investing in such failures... and which by way of afterthought, doubles the cost of shipping and halves the globalized trade. The requirement is to replace transport usage with electricity, and that with its related inefficiencies, gives a demand for clean electricity up to double what we currently provide.
We need every erg of non-CO2-emitting power we can generate. That will be deadly obvious in 2032, but the requirement is so vast that it seems impossible that we will make anything like the changes necessary simply on the basis of commercial replacement at normal economic rates of change. The economics of all of these things are better than they were and still improving, but until CO2 is taxed at a rate commensurate with the real damage it can do to the future the economics won't reach the pace of change required, and quite obviously cannot. What is argued in this piece are first world solutions in first world economies with scant attention to the actual requirements that need to be satisfied. There is not, in this piece, a single evaluation of the global demand for power in the different sectors, or any estimate of the transfer of demand. It is a very determined effort to look at the good things.
Engineers are not trained to be "optimists" of this sort. Scientists neither. We see the shutdown of nuclear plants and the planned closure of dams and "environmentalists" cheering such developments.
Such "environmentalists" are as delusional as any denialist. Hansen has understood it and has confronted it. I am in agreement with him... not with Dana.
The problem is immense and the solutions are out of reach of any but a full on state of emergency starting rignt now.
I don't see that happening. Not anywhere. So we are going to start to suffer the climate impacts before people's attention gets turned to a reality that is more important than the Kardashians or their stock market gaming. It will be vastly too late by then, to avoid the consequences and our ability to change things back will be impacted by the damage from the change we've already locked in.
So all those good things in the article may well be true, and good and useful. They are not by any means... enough.
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jdixon1980 at 01:39 AM on 6 October 2016Obama, Hayhoe, DiCaprio climate discussion
Better is good
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John Hartz at 22:26 PM on 5 October 20162016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #40
Leslie Graham: The cartoon drives home how difficult it has been for the negative consequences of manmade climate change to compete with other events for attention by the media and society.
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RedBaron at 22:25 PM on 5 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
@7 Digby Scorgie,
I have not done the modeling. And my knowledge is only in one of those 5 sectors. What I can tell you though is that the basic premise thay made with regards to food per capita is correct, but the timeline and peak are off pretty significantly. They predicted a crash right about now, and current projections place it in another 50 - 60 years. But even in that 50-60 years, I don't believe it will crash right off. What will likely instead happen is hunger will drive people to expand food production into new areas we wouldn't consider now, like national parks and wilderness areas. That is the doomsday event though. Once the last remaining fertile areas become cultivated, it would pretty likely collapse the biosphere. The tragedy of the commons but worldwide.
The way BCCS in agriculture would effect that graph is by causing it to level off and extend well past the foreseeable future into hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years instead of dropping off.
The difference is that right now we lose about 100 tons of soil for every ton of food produced. If we don't change that, it is inevitable the food system will follow a curve similar to the one they made. BCCS changes that to the more food we produce the more soil we create. Within limits of course, but those limits are much higher and no where even close to being tested yet. So far no one has reached that diminishing returns that would allow us to predict the top limit. Right now in the field what farmers are seeing is the acceleration of soil building over time, not the deceleration. The more soil you build, the more biology it can support, the more food it can produce, the more water and nutrients it can hold, the more carbon it can sequester using BCCS, all of which increase the rate of soil building even faster. We really don't know where it will start leveling off and it shouldn't ever start declining at all except 1 off events like hurricane floods, volcano eruptions and the like.
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Leslie Graham at 22:10 PM on 5 October 20162016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #40
Disapointed in the cartoon this week showing inappropriate levity on a deadly serious subject
The people who force women to wear these disgusting garments are deliberately trying to upset westerners and stir up trouble.
The burkini is not a new swimwear fashion; it’s the transmission of a political project, against society, founded notably upon the subjection of women.
Some people try to portray those who wear them as victims, as though we were calling liberty into question. But there is no liberty to subjugate women. There needs to be far stronger penalties imposed on those who insist on using our family beaches to further their political hatreds. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 21:52 PM on 5 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
Digby.
You might find this reassuring. Not that we will win the race, but that we are in with a shot at it.
The last year or two have seen a total sea change. Renewables have arrived. Which means that a hell of a lot of business people are lining up to make a buck. You want to tear down the big bad businesses, fossil fuel dinosaurs? Let some other big (and mayby bad) businesse see a way of making a buck from tearing them apart. Whether it is Elon Musk, arab sheiks, Google, they exist by breaking old models.
The old players wont let them? The new players wont let them stop it. Pity the poor buyable politician who is being pulled in totally different directions by different industries. ''Hey I am happy to be in someones pocket! uuummm.... whose pocket?' -
Digby Scorgie at 17:58 PM on 5 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
I get the impression people would like to think we'll win this race and transition to a low-carbon global economy before climate change knocks us flat. The reality might be different.
As I understand it, this sort of problem can only be modelled using the techniques of "Limits to growth". I've seen a reappraisal of this that was undertaken at Melbourne University in 2014. (There's a PDF of the report.) It seems we've been tracking the standard run of "Limits to growth" very closely, the result of which is overshoot and collapse.
What I'd like to know is if anyone has done any modelling of the global system that takes into account all these promising technologies that people hope to implement as well as the expected impacts of climate change. The results of such a study would be interesting to compare with "Limits to growth".
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John Hartz at 13:33 PM on 5 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
Recommended supplememtal reading:
Q&A with Jennifer Layke: How to Transform the Global Energy Economy by Jennifer Layke and Hayden Higgins, World Resources Institute (WRI), Sep 29, 2016
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RedBaron at 03:50 AM on 5 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
@3 Digby Scorgie,
Who wins? Well it depends on if it is a cooperative effort or not. Right now it isn't a cooperative effort and we are losing, everyone. Not just the fight against AGW, but soil erosion, polution, dead zones in the waterways and oceans, financial markets, human health, ecosystem loss and extinction rates, natural disaster rates and magnitudes, civil unrest etc... You name it, it's all bad and trending worse. Certain things like medicine technilogical advancement are still advancing, thankfully. But even those things are severely hampered by the rest, and could be even better. Our advancements for example in treating cancer is partly offset by an increasing rate of cancer to start with! Imagine if the basic baseline population's health was better and we had these advancements in healthcare both at the same time? So you could claim the effects are spreading far and wide into every aspect of society, even those seemingly unrelated and seemingly improving.
We give Nobel prizes to the scientists that develop a new cancer or diabetes treatment, but what about the the scientist that discovers a way to help avoid getting diabetes or cancer to begin with by identifying an improvement in our food systems that just so happens to sequester carbon and improve soil health too?
We are so compartmentalized and fractured that the cooperation is very limited.
However, the good news is that with cooperation the problem is actually relatively easy to fix IMHO. The real key is in figuring out how to communicate the need for that cooperation and then actually motivating that cooperation. That IMHO is the real "wicked" problem we probably won't solve in time. Even that we know how to fix, but ironically can't even get cooperation there either! That's why it is a "wicked" problem defying a solution.
So pretty likely who wins? Not us. Maybe a new sane generation though.
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BaerbelW at 00:45 AM on 5 October 2016Mars is warming
Updated links to Geissler 2005 and Szwast 2006.
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michael sweet at 20:06 PM on 4 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
Digby @!,
You can never be sure in life that things will be great in the future. We have to work as hard as we can to achieve the goal (reduction of carbon pollution) and hope that the changes from AGW will not cause too much disruption.
The OP describes technology that might be able to help us achieve that goal. Since wind and solar are now the cheapest form of energy, we can hope that investors put enough money into those energy sources to make the difference we need. Coal is already having difficulty competing, even though most governments have not taken hard positions against it.
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Digby Scorgie at 19:32 PM on 4 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
RedBaron @2
Yes, while transitioning to clean energy, we have to change the way agriculture and various aspects of industry are carried out. All of these transitions have to take place simultaneously. While we're trying to do this, climate change will be making it harder and harder for us. Who wins?
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RedBaron at 14:34 PM on 4 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
In my opinion we can't be sure unless we take a multi pronged approach. Looks like the renewable energy guys are doing their part. Next will be to see if we can get the agricultural sector involved, and construction materials and government sponsored ecological restoration projects. Probably will need to get the financial sector involved as well. Too big a problem to put all your eggs in one basket.
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Digby Scorgie at 14:10 PM on 4 October 2016DOE charts show why climate doom and gloom isn't needed
This technology is all very promising, but I can't help thinking we're in a race against time. The technology has to be implemented all over the world in a very big way. While we're doing that, the effects of climate change are becoming worse and worse. How can we be sure we'll win the race before climate change knocks us flat?
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RedBaron at 07:57 AM on 4 October 2016Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 1
@15 DrivingBy,
Exactly true. This is why athiests, especially atheists that like to wear their atheism on their shirt sleeve, probably would do more harm than good entering into an AGW debate with a religious right holding a deeply held devout religious belief in God. Not all, but a pretty fair % who would listen to someone like Katharine Hayhoe, would instantly become diehard climate change deniers, if they thought believing in AGW requires them to renounce God. You have literally no chance to convince them.
On the other hand, there are literal fire and brimstone consequences for ignoring the "land sabbath". Literally drought famine floods collapse of civilization etc... if that should be ignored. Now an atheist might claim this is a natural result of AGW, and a religious person might claim it is the hand of God dealing out punishment for not being the good steward of the land, but does it really matter? What matters is cooperation between all so this doesn't happen. So an atheist that even hints he might believe AGW is real and that belief is even slightly associated with his belief there is no God, then they would be driving a wedge between instead of cooperating.
On the other hand if the ministers wife tells them
Chronicles 7:14
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
You might be amazed how much more effective that is to get support for any mitigation policies. Rather than fighting against every policy designed to remedy the problem, you would have an army fighting on your side to stop global warming. A very very comitted army that will not stop fighting AGW even until the bitter end.
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Jonbo69 at 07:29 AM on 4 October 2016Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 1
Katherine Hayhoe is a great communicator and very easy to warm to. She needs to be put out there and given as much public exposure as possible, or at least as much as she is comfortable with, in my opinion.
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DrivingBy at 12:24 PM on 3 October 2016Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 1
"They sometimes will not listen to any argument that they feel conflicts with what they think the Bible says."
Most people fundamentally dislike and oppose science, though they'll quickly grab any benefits it provides without crediting the process, much less the people which provided them.
Hmm. Electricity is not is the Bible, It's "only a theory" and therefore does not exist. Perhaps the anti-science crowd should be prohibited from using any substance, object or device which is dependent on or was made with electricity.
Unless they're Amish, they'd be both hungry and thirsty real soon.
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chriskoz at 08:48 AM on 3 October 2016Trump and the Republican Party are doing Big Oil's bidding
At the latest rally in PA(2 Oct, 2016), Trump clarified what his credo for US is about. Ignoring teleprompter, he repeatedly roared highly emmotionally loaded slogans, among others:
"You're unsuspecting," Trump said. "Right now, you say to your wife: 'Let's go to a movie after Trump.' But you won't do that because you'll be so high and so excited that no movie is going to satisfy you. OK? No movie. You know why? Honestly? Because they don't make movies like they used to - is that right?"
and finishing with:
"You have 38 days to make every dream you ever dreamed for your country come true," Trump said. "Do not let this opportunity slip away or be wasted. You will never ever have this chance again. Not going to happen again - You have one magnificent chance."
That's not just ignorance of science we're concerned about here. That's simply ignorance of the reality. A nostalgic appeal to "movies of the past" plus a narcistic "dream" and "magnificent chance" but nothing of substance. He might as wwell say to the crowd: put your head in the sand and dream on.
Pepole like to dream, that's why such speach is liked. Even if reality clearly points out the dream to be pure illusion. IMO, the same mechanism applies in a norrower sense to the problem of burning FF which puts us living closer to the dream of living with boundless energy, be able to fly accrosss the ocean, drive your SUV, etc. Even though the reality tells us very loudly now that such lifestyle is unsustainble.
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John Hartz at 13:16 PM on 2 October 2016Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 1
Katharine Hayhoe is one busy scientist...
Dr. Katharine Hayhoe to Discuss Climate Change with President and Leonardo DiCaprio on Monday by Leslie Adami, KLBK Lubbock, Sep 30, 2016
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Climate Noob at 12:43 PM on 2 October 2016Climate inertia
@Tom Curtis
Thanks for the info. That was a good explanation for a layman like me.
This community is great.
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michael sweet at 11:19 AM on 2 October 2016Sensitivity training
Here is a link to Alan Robock's work. I listened to his AGU talk from 2011. It appears that Pakistan and India would lower global climate about 1.5C. It would also lower precipitation worldwide about 10%. The effects last about 5 years. I imagine the Arctic sea ice would make some recovery but would return to the current state when the climate returned. Overall estimated effects on grain yield range from -25% in China to -15% in the USA. There are a lot of other effects besides lower temperature and less rain, some are nock on effects of lower rain.
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SingletonEngineer at 10:35 AM on 2 October 2016Sensitivity training
This article is much appreciated. It typifies those which make this site so very informative.
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chriskoz at 09:19 AM on 2 October 20162016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #40
Jim Hansen is working on a new paper, where he will claim that
the temperature in 1940 - 45 is exaggerated because of data inhomogeneity in WW II
In the preview BetterGraph he shows the monthly running means smoothing annual & 11y cycles, as well as annual Jan-Dec averages. A very pretty graph indeed, showing the AGW signal at interplay with seasonal, ElNino and solar cycles. I like Jm's (likely Makiko's) pictures that are easy to read and thought me a lot.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:04 AM on 2 October 2016Sensitivity training
Art Vandelay @1,
The amount of moisture in the atmosphere is more likely to be a function of how warm the air is than the wind speed evaporation rate.
As the atmosphere warms up there should be more moisture in the air regardless of the rate that wind evaporation creates it.
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mbryson at 08:25 AM on 2 October 2016Sensitivity training
@DrivingBy: I believe Alan Robock (at Rutgers) has worked on the potential climate impact of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. As I recall, the impact could be substantial.
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nigelj at 08:23 AM on 2 October 2016Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 1
JW Rebel @10, I agree that politics and group identity play a big part in climate change denialism, and that this apples to everyone, religious or otherwise.
I would add the costs of a transition to fossil fuels worries everyone, possibly some people more than others depending on world views and priorities and fears about government impositions. This leads them to attack the science.
However religious conviction is an issue with young earthers and Christian fundamentalists. They see climate change as a threat to some very basic religious convictions as follows. It’s not that they look at the age of the earth as such. Instead, they have a strong conviction that god created the world largely as it is quite recently and that god wouldn’t allow us to substantially change the world. This would make us as powerful as god, which doesn’t fit with the bible as a whole. There are gradations of belief in this, but it sums up a large viewpoint. This is all foreign to me as an atheist who believes in evolution and I don’t understand how they think that way, but they do very deeply.
The best approach may be to argue that humanity has clearly altered the atmosphere with particulate emissions from coal etc, so carbon dioxide is a similar issue, and steer clear of suggesting we have irrevocably altered the climate permanently or interfered with gods plan.
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Dcrickett at 05:51 AM on 2 October 2016Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 1
Many decades ago, my son played football on his HS team, which brought him into contact with people he would/could never meet in the Chess Club, etc. He was amazed to hear from them that virtually none of them "believed" in Evolution; they "believed" in "what the Bible said."
A week or two later, he heard from them enough to convince him that they knew virtually nothing about Evolution. About as much as what they knew about "what the Bible said."
Many years later, with a brand-new PhD in ChE (Yale), he lived in his old area for a few months. His old team mates (and veterans from rival teams) loved to bend elbows, talk old times, and celebrate a Local Boy Who Made Good. In short order they all believed not only in Evolution but also in Climate Trouble.
There are lessons aplenty there.
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DrivingBy at 04:26 AM on 2 October 2016Sensitivity training
Not to be flip, but if Pakistan tries to nuke India and India responds before their command/control is toast, would that put enough smoke into the atmosphere to get ice recovery for a year or two? Would the effect just dissapear into the noise of year-to-year variance, or would it be larger (say, -1C). Would there be a residual cooling beyond, say, one year?
Of course I'm not hoping this will happen(!), mentioning because such speculation has been in the news recently.
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michael sweet at 03:51 AM on 2 October 2016Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 1
JWRebel,
In my experience many young earth believers make religion their first priority in any decision. They sometimes will not listen to any argument that they feel conflicts with what they think the Bible says. If you say it is the hottest it has been in 100,000 years you lose them immediately.
Tom, don't you have experience discussing evolution with this crowd? What do you think?
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JWRebel at 22:11 PM on 1 October 2016Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 1
Fascinating. I would surmise that much of this young earth belief is very thin. It reminds me of youTube videos where they ask Americans at 4th of July parties from whom Independance was declared, etc., and getting no decent answers, not even people teaching at college, until they run into a 70 year old black grandpa from the south who probably never got beyond grade school, and knows the exact story and all the relevant facts. We cannot conclude that all these people do not believe in Independance. Chronology of biblical events is a subject on which no two theologians agree and hardly belongs to some shared core of beliefs. Certainly the murderer on the cross to who Jesus said that he would be in Paradise today was not grilled about any of his mental representations of time lines.
So here's my thesis: I bet there are a lot of these people that can be convinced about atmospheric physics (if you can get them to pay attention) without first having to address "core" beliefs about why paleontology is all about things that do not exist. Their resistance will be more about political and group loyalties than about values they cannot surrender.
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Art Vandelay at 20:55 PM on 1 October 2016Sensitivity training
I foiund an interesting study in Nature a few year's back that adressed the observed phenomenon of a global slow-down in wind speed. Wind speed is important because it governs evaporation rates, so a slow-down due to climate change also represents a potential negative feedback, assuming that the result is less vapour in the atmosphere.
If it's actually possible to accurately measure the total amount of vapour in the atmosphere (troposphere) over time, it should also be possible to calculate climate sensitivity, and additionally, perhaps possible to correct surface or satellite temperature data.
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sauerj at 13:15 PM on 1 October 2016New MIT app: check if your car meets climate targets
Question: Does the chart's CO2/km figures include all the full extent of the manufacturing contributions (with all of the multiple upstream layers of manufacturing) in order to build the vehicle? It would helpful to have a chart with and without the manufacturing contribution included. This way one could determine when it makes sense to replace the existing vehicle in the garage (based on today's improperly priced FF costs).
Of course, all of the unknowns associated with these cost externalities (manufacturing and future operating and future environmental impact) would be put "on the table" and become completely transparent if only we had a carbon fee & dividend system where all economic costs included future environmental externalities would be included. Then, it would be obvious which way to go, and the incentive to go there would be plainly felt and therefore taken.
Since 1990, the US uses 58% less energy per unit GDP. One would expect that carbon emission would therefore be 58% less compared to 1990. Not so, US carbon emission have been a flat line since then. The reduced energy cost (by this improved efficiency) only results in us consuming more stuff, holding FF demand constant. The result is no reduction in carbon emissions. Consider what this means!
Until energy is priced sustainably positive (via a carbon tax, hopefully using the least burdensome carbon fee & dividend approach) everything we do is wrong. In fact, any heroic efforts won't make any positive difference at all; because others will simply use the FF's the hero avoided thanks to their sacrifices helping to keep the price down. Until FF's include external future costs, we will continue down our status quo path. This is because the economy will not be motivated to go down the sustainable path. Subsidies, Command & Control and Cap & Trade will be marginally successful. All are burdensome approaches.
To be effective, I highly recommend others to join the CCL CFD campaign. Join a local CCL chapter today! There is a chapter in every US congressional district. Help get endorsements from local businesses, schools & churches so to help sway your congress person! Make it clear that responsible energy pricing is actually the conservative answer to addressing climate change.
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John Hartz at 13:03 PM on 1 October 2016Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 1
Katharine Hayhoe has her work cut for her...
Four Fifths Of Evangelical Christians Do Not Believe Humans Cause Climate Change by Harry Farley, Christian World, Sep 23, 2016
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michael sweet at 12:36 PM on 1 October 2016Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 1
Tom,
i think the prevalence of Young Earthers illustrates the difficulty that Dr. Hayhoe has reaching her audience. I think it is important to point out this issue to people who read this blog who do not reside in the USA and/or are not aware of how many people have this belief. It is difficult to convince someone who thinks the Earth is only 10,000 years old (or 20,000) that snow records prove that it is warmer now than it has been in the past 700,000 years and that warmth is a problem.
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nigelj at 10:15 AM on 1 October 2016Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 1
I just applaud Katharine Hayhoe’s views, and her ability as a Christian to accept climate science. As a very definite atheist I have my views, but as I have got older I have become less strident and why annoy somebody that is basically promoting the science? This woman is providing some leadership and seems thoroughly pleasant.
She is clearly comfortable with her position and presumably interprets the bible in a way that allows her to do this. Interpretations of the bible vary with a few Christian fundamentalists believing the world was literally created in 6006 BC through to others who simply believe God was a prime mover, and several gradations in between. The message of the New Testament seems to be one of defining greed as a sin, which could be taken to promote environmental conservation.
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