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donl70 at 05:02 AM on 21 April 2016CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
Sorry John..being a skeptic is fine but in this case you're incorrect..I'm not saying only mankind is contributing but I'm saying what they manufacture,since the Industrial revolution has contributed immensly..how could it not?? btw I taught several volunteer FYI college classes at night several years back to mostly adults who had no idea what it was all about....my saying to those who must deny GCC..is "well I guess we'll just have to wait and see"..yep it's moving along a good deal faster than old mother nature had in mind..have a swell day..glad I found and joined this site..ciao
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swampfoxh at 01:46 AM on 21 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
I suppose i could say, "It's all about the money, but maybe I should say, "It's only about the money". I don't think it takes an exhaustive investigation by a sleuth like Sherlock Holmes to find out whether a donor is part of the problem or part of the solution. AGU should just place itself above and beyond reproach, then we wouldn't have to split hairs over whether we are upholding the (apparently former) high ethical standards (of yesteryear?) On the other hand, people (corporations) don't give you money unless they have something to gain. Fossil fuel companies have everything to lose by having to leave their assets "in the ground", so subversion and chicanery by these groups is the only way they can assure themselves of selling us every last drop of the 1.750 trillion barrels of oil (or gas or coal) left in the ground. The solution for AGU is to either ban all "gifts" from industries who profit from the production of fossil fuels, or for the memebrship to jump ship and start a new organization (today).
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chriskoz at 21:11 PM on 20 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
It would be nice to specify all major AGU sponsors along ExxonMobil, along with their contributions (if such data exists). Presumably, we know about ExxonMobil only with its contribution be $35K.
That list would put Kerry's lament about "mockery of [...] a mere $35K" into a good perspective. Without such perspective I cannot know if the lament is reasonable.
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chriskoz at 20:57 PM on 20 April 2016Study: humans have caused all the global warming since 1950
Their statistical model assumes that the temperature influence from several individual forcings will add up to the total temperature influence from all the forcings.
I'm not sure if this is a valid assumption. The fact is, that different forcings are inhomogenous, for example land use and aerosols use are localised to NH where most people live. Further, different forcings have differnt efficacies, for example we know that CH4 has efficacy greater than 1, because of its stratospheric water vapour release.
The matter is discussed in detail by Anders in his blog. Therein, Anders cites (Kummer & Dessler 2014) which was written in response to the "climate sensitivity is low" claims by papers such as (Otto 2013) and others. Kummer & Dessler argued that assuming uniform (efficacy == 1) of all types of forcings, resulted in underestimated TCR (transient climate response) estimates by (Otto 2013) and others.
Same argument should apply here. You cannot just add up all forcings and assume the temperature change observed will reflect that sum. I think such assumption, that the authores have clearly made according to the quote above, is flawed.
I don't know how this flaw influenced the principal outcome of this paper (anthropogenic attribution of forcings). Perhaps not that much, perhaps even downgraded the attribution, because e.g. aerosols, with E > 1, do mask the CO2 influence more than they and (Otto 2013) had thought, but I don't feel confident qualifying it. I hope someone can do that, and confirm or refute my claim above.
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william5331 at 18:38 PM on 20 April 2016El Niño is Earth's rechargeable heat battery
Since water vapour is a green house gas, during an ElNino with increased water vapour, the green house effect should be enhanced.
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Nick Stokes at 09:36 AM on 20 April 2016Study: humans have caused all the global warming since 1950
"humans have caused all the global warming since 1950"
I think talking about "all the warming" is a trap. It implies that "all" is a cap, and the first graph shows that this isn't so. It invites the retort that, if something else also caused some warming, humans can't be responsible for all of it.
The AR5 doesn't say this. As quoted here it says:
"The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period "Clumsy, and I'm sure it can be said better. But more accurate. And yes, they half fell into the trap with "more than half".
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longjohn119 at 05:03 AM on 20 April 2016Factcheck: Are climate models ‘wrong’ on rainfall extremes?
Our model of past climate proves your model of future climate is wrong
Huh?
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longjohn119 at 05:01 AM on 20 April 2016Factcheck: Are climate models ‘wrong’ on rainfall extremes?
For cripes sake a 'reconstruction' is in and of itself a Model ....
That should be obvious
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longjohn119 at 03:29 AM on 20 April 2016Study: humans have caused all the global warming since 1950
What is really problematic here is eventually Nature is going to catch back up as Carbon Stores in the Arctic and other places where frozen tundra is thawing for the first time in several millenia start being massively released into the atmosphere
That's when all Hell with break loose .....
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EdSilha at 00:24 AM on 20 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
Time to send a letter to Margaret Leinen (president of AGU) reminding her that accepting support from ExxonModile and supporting ALEC damage the reputation and credibility of the organization and risk the loss of members. http://about.agu.org/contact/
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link
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r.pauli at 23:42 PM on 19 April 2016World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists
Great report. So much for ethical smarts. AGU failed to take a pricipled stand - so now members must take a stand. I'm not sure the AGU was the optimal organization for climate scientists anyway.. This may be an opportunity for change.
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chriskoz at 17:52 PM on 18 April 20162016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #16
To add to the extents of bleaching events in Australia and the entire world:
Sydney's corals now bleaching in 'pretty shocking' sign of warming waters
This is the very first such event in Sydney. There seem to be no place on the East Coast that was not affected by this monster 2016 ElNino. I wonder how much recovery (if at all) we will witness in couple years from now...
Moderator Response:[JH] Thank you.
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BBHY at 02:12 AM on 18 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
Europe heat wave of 2003: "14,802 heat-related deaths (mostly among the elderly) occurred during the heat wave, according to the French National Institute of Health"
So that was just one single heat wave in one country that was very likely exacerbated by climate change. I don't recall news of any cold spell causing so many deaths. How many thousands died in around Moscow in the Russian heatwave of 2010? How many millions of people died from droughts and famine and floods all exacerbated by climate change?
A comprehensive study would find that there is no comparison to the devastation already being caused by climate change, and that isn't even the really big concern. If atmospheric CO2 keeps increasing and the global average temperature keeps increasing this will get much, much worse.
Lomborg is just completely wrong, as usual.
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MA Rodger at 23:18 PM on 17 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Haze @30.
I don't think we should dwell on this as it is off-topic here. But the Tories were in a coalition government 2010-15 which may have lulled many into a false sense of security with the Tories. And while the Tories did win a small majority in the 2015 elections allowing them to mis-rule alone, they achieved that small majority with a minority of the popular vote (37%) and a minority of the full electorate's support (24%). This may make one-in-four of the population candidates for being branded as 'stupid people' although JS Mill (as quoted @25) is quite definite to suggest not all would be 'stupid people'. I should also mention the FPTP system of voting employed in UK elections may give some of those Tory voters the excuse of not being Tories at all, but having voted tactically.
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Jonas at 06:18 AM on 17 April 20162016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #16
Just some positive feedback, from time to time: this collection was and is one of the most important sources of input for me.
I currently do a port of my garden forum and the garden season starts on monday and there is the paid work and the charity work. But this collection keeps me informed even in times of very sparse time on one of the most important topics of all.
Thank you so much!
Moderator Response:[JH] You're welcome.
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Tom Curtis at 02:58 AM on 17 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
bartverheggen @33, first, and for question 1, the percentage of all respondents that agreed with the IPCC (attribution of 50% plus) was 65.9% +/- 2%. Your claim is that including the unconvinced shifts results by about 3%. As that is larger than the uncertainty margin, the results are biased based on the inclusion of respondents based on their stated opinion rather than merely their publication history. Ergo, the sample is nonrepresentative. The bias is small, but small is not the same as non-existent.
Because that bias exists, and differs in magnitude based on the number of respondents to each question, the effect of removing the bias by considering just that subsample of respondents included on the basis of publication (including overlaps with the unconvinced group) should also have been reported for each question IMO. Failure to do so means you did not clarrify the impact of the bias. I have no major objection to modifying that claim to "insuficiently clarrified the impact of the bias"; but as it stands the inclusion of "unconvinced" introduces a known bias of unkown quantity in the results as reported, so I think the stronger claim is justified.
Have no doubt, I think that failure is a flaw in the paper. It is particularly a flaw given that you must have known heading in to publication that AGW deniers would pick up on the paper and misprepresent it. Limiting that misrepresentation by forcing them to ignore clear statements regarding the impact of the bias, and reporting the result absent that bias for each question inadvertently made that task of misrepresentation easier.
This is a very specific criticism, and should not be misinterpreted as a general criticism of the paper (which I consider well concieved and and excellent addition to the quantification of the consensus on AGW).
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longjohn119 at 00:49 AM on 17 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
This will likely get the axe despite it making an important point that can't be made as effectively any other way ....
If you went to 100 IT Specialists and 97 said you were in danger of being Hacked, 2 said they weren't sure and one said your Security is just fine don't worry, what would you do?
If you are a Republican you'd OBVIOUSLY end up with a hacked computer and an empty bank account ....
If you went to 100 auto mechanics and 97 said your brakes are gone, 2 said they weren't sure and one said don't worry you have plenty of brakes left, what would you do?
If you are a Republican you'd OBVIOUSLY die from a car wreck (and stupidity) because your brakes failed ....
If you went to 100 doctors and 97 said you have Cancer but it's treatable, 2 said they weren't sure and 1 said you are Cancer free don't worry what would you do?
If you are a Republican you'd OBVIOUSLY die from an untreated Cancer (and stupidity)
Moderator Response:[RH] No all caps, please.
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bartverheggen at 23:07 PM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Tom (31),
Contrary to your claim we did clarify in our article how large the impact on the consensus estimate was by including known contrarians:
"As indicated, contrarian viewpoints are likely overrepresented
in our sample (amounting to ∼5% of respondents), about half
of whom have published peer-reviewed articles in the area of
climate. However, this does not fully explain the difference with
the abovementioned studies. Excluding those tagged as
“unconvinced” more closely approximates the methodologies
of earlier studies and increases the level of agreement, for
example, from 84% to 87% based on Q1, excluding undetermined responses."By quantifying the approximate impact of their inclusion and seeing that it's very small, I stand by what I wrote earlier: I don't think it's fair to paint our survey as non-representative because of their inclusion.
Also: Both Cook (2013) and Verheggen (2014) are partly based on the same sample, namely a WoS keyword search for global climate change or global warming. That includes many scientists who study climate impacts or mitigation. Many of them are not climate scientists in the sense of studying the physical climate system. That doesn't invalidate the findings of course, but it does mean that these surveys sample the wider scientific field wo have published on climate issues. In other words, for each survey you have to take into account what sample of articles/persons is being surveyd.
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Wol at 18:23 PM on 16 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
>>“cold kills many more people than heat” and 2) “climate change will reduce the number of cold days” and “that will cut the total number of cold-related deaths.” <<
What on earth has the number of cold related deaths to do with the number of heat related deaths caused by food shortages, sea level rise and all the rest. It's not cherry picking - it's just bring up extraneous issues to confuse.
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Digby Scorgie at 13:27 PM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Haze, RedBaron, denisaf
Our present way of life, at least in the developed world, is healthy neither for us nor the planet. I'm convinced, whether I'm right or not, that mitigation efforts to avoid dangerous warming would entail considerable change — upheaval — in that way of life. We and the planet would be the better for it, but the people fighting such efforts don't see it that way — hence the campaign to bamboozle the general public into thinking scientists are still arguing amongst themselves about the reality or otherwise of climate change.
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Digby Scorgie at 13:02 PM on 16 April 2016After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
OPOF, okay, as I understand it then, it's not so much fossil fuel that has to become increasingly expensive, but the burning thereof.
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Tom Curtis at 12:03 PM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
bartverheggen @26:
"As we explain in the paper (on which John Cook is a coauthor by the way) the fraction of outspoken contrarians (based on the puiblic list by Jim Prall) in our sample is only a few percent, and the level of consensus if this group were excluded would be ~3% higher. But approx half of this group are actually publishing climate scientists, so excluding them wouldn't be entirely fair; only excluding the "non-scientist-contrarians" (if that were possible) would only bring up the consensus level by 1 or 2%. In other words, I don't think it's fair to paint our survey as non-representative because of their inclusion."
Bart, the correct way to ensure the sample is representative is to exclude all members of the "contratrian" grouping who would not also have been included based on the other criterion for respondents. Even just retaining "scientist contrarians" means that they could be included due to publication history in climate science or political statements agains effective policy on climate change. In contrast, non-contrarian scientists could only be included based on publication history. The effect is that including "scientist contrarians" who do not also appear as an author publishing on climate science is to bias the list in favour of contrarian opinions.
Whether or not a group is representative depends on the absence of bias in the selection method for that group. As it happens your selection method did have such bias, and the results are non-representative. That is a different issue to how large is the impact of the bias, something you could have clarrified in your paper but chose not to. Indeed, you have not done so even now in that the effect of the bias would be different when considering all responses compared to when considering only those responses from respondents with 10 or more papers. I assume the 3% and 1-2% figures are related to the latter grouping.
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grindupBaker at 10:57 AM on 16 April 2016Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong
I had thought I was about to disagree with the post but I might only be disagreeing with the myth. Anyway, I disagree with any premise that a computer simulation such as these can have "climate sensitivity" as an input, because it's an output, a result. I've written a computer simulation program. It's more problematic to have a pre-determined output from a computer simulation than it is to compute a trapdoor function in reverse. I think it's impossible. The only way would be iterative simulations, still not an input. You run a few simulations with diverse settings for parameters such as forcings, cloud effects and many others. Then compare the "climate sensitivity" results and there's a technique I've forgotten that I programmed in 1970 (ironically, oil exploration) where the one with least preferred result is discarded and the results are projected from worst to best to yield a set of preferred inputs. And so on iteratively until the desired result is produced, then those inputs are the ones to use. That's the only way that a simulation can produce an output such as "climate sensitivity" as a pre-determined result.
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Roberto Toca at 10:15 AM on 16 April 20162016 SkS Weekly Digest #13
On Toon of the week: Sad but true.
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Haze at 07:48 AM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
MA Rodger@25. Given that the conservatives in the UK have been in power since 2010 and won the last election fairly comfortably, the obvious conclusion from your argument is that most Britons are stupid.
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r.pauli at 03:04 AM on 16 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
Bjorn Lomborg is stuck with his name and reputation. For a great while now, I see his name and associate it with pandering,,, financial and ideological.
Every so often, I check in and read about him, and it only reinforces the validity of the labels. Thanks for checking him again.
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CitizenSmith at 00:33 AM on 16 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
I read both letters. I am not surprised your "Guest Letter" was not published. It was poorly argued and missed a major point that populations can migrate. In fact the original Global Change.gov document was lacking too. While it was much more comprehensive than either of these 2 letters, it was still one sided and neglects to mention any benefits of a warmer climate. There is a term for government documents that provide information of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view: Propaganda.
Moderator Response:[JH} Sloganeering snipped.
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RedBaron at 00:26 AM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
@John #28
Ok. I'll buy that argument. So then the obvious solution is to sever the link in the public mind that AGW mitigation requires payment of a fee/tax of any kind. If what you are saying is true, then it is a flaw in mitigation strategies that needs to be corrected so as not to meet such resistance.
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John Hartz at 00:11 AM on 16 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Why are humans reluctant to wholeheartedly embrace the body of scientific evidence about manmade climate change?
Human psychology influences the decisions we make every day, including unwise ones. Our psychological profile can make us reluctant to pay for services that benefit everyone, including those who don't contribute. It makes us focus on achieving short-term gains and avoiding short-term losses. And, most importantly, it prompts us to engage in rationalization and denial rather than tackle difficult challenges.
Scientists suggest appealing to human psychology to create solutions to climate change by Rosemary Mena-Worth, Stanford News, Apr 13, 2016
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PhilippeChantreau at 23:28 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Ikaika @ 17. The argument is in response to the fake skeptics' contention that there is significant disagreement among scientists, a tactic inherited from the tobacco industry. There is no significant disagreement. That's all the message of these studies.
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bartverheggen at 19:24 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
As already noticed, the survey mentioned at Breitbart is based on a misrepresentation of the survey I undertook while at the Dutch PBL institute. More info about how it's been misrepresented at various places can be found on my blog. Or this post specifically how Rick Santorum misrepresented the survey.
Basically, we found ~90% agreement among respondents with more than 10 climate related peer reviewed publications that recent global warming is for the most part (more than half) caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Notice that we used a much stricter definition of what entails the consensus position than most other studies did. That probably goes a long way to explain why we found a slightly smaller level of consensus than some ither studies.
As we explain in the paper (on which John Cook is a coauthor by the way) the fraction of outspoken contrarians (based on the puiblic list by Jim Prall) in our sample is only a few percent, and the level of consensus if this group were excluded would be ~3% higher. But approx half of this group are actually publishing climate scientists, so excluding them wouldn't be entirely fair; only excluding the "non-scientist-contrarians" (if that were possible) would only bring up the consensus level by 1 or 2%. In other words, I don't think it's fair to paint our survey as non-representative because of their inclusion.
For more questions about or survey, see e.g. this FAQ.
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MA Rodger at 18:10 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Haze @18.
You ask "Why is climate change viewed so differently by Republicans and Democrats?" I am a Brit so here assume the UK political scene is an equivalent to the US version.
I once got into a long interchange on the impacts of and evidence for AGW with Peter Lilley, a right-wing Conservative MP & recently a recruit to the GWPF (Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy). As well as exhibiting all the signs of delusion and denial, the man eulogised the political philosopher JS Mill. This I considered rather strange as JS Mill famously said (and thus I suggest answers your question):-
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
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denisaf at 17:21 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
This is one of those selective arguments that distract from consideration of the holistic problems that society will have to try to cope with. Climate disruption and ocean acidification is one predicament. Others are over population, declining availability of many natural crustal resources, fertile soil and potable water together with irrevocable aging of the infrastructure that society has become so dependent on as well as devastation of the environment and pollution of land, sea, air and us.
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:49 PM on 15 April 2016After COP21: 7 Key Tasks to Implement the Paris Agreement
Digby Scorgie,
The burning of oil is what needs to be restricted. Making that specific action expensive is one way to achieve that required objective. A more important point is that light hydrocarbons like methane, ethane, and propane are better feedstock for making plastic. So burning natural gas is a poor action to address the CO2 problem. Not only does burning natural gas generate 50% as much CO2 as burning coal, which makes carbon capture and storage with coal burning better than natural gas burning without CCS, burning natural gas also burns up the best materials to make plastics from.
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RedBaron at 14:20 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Haze,
Yes you missed something. It was me not Digby Scorge that said that. Presumably that is where your confusion lies.
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Haze at 14:03 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Digby Scorge @21. My apologies if I have missed something but why in your reply do you say "That idea you have that mitigation necessarily requires upheaval in our way of life is not proven at all" Where, in what I have written at 18 and 20, do I say or even give the impresssion, that I have such an idea?
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RedBaron at 12:31 PM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Digby Scorgie,
That is my biggest problem with this whole controversy. That idea you have that mitigation necessarily requires upheaval in our way of life is not proven at all. Depends on the mitigation strategy taken. It can just as easily improve it even more. IMHO actually more likely to do that than anything.
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Haze at 11:42 AM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Digby Scorgie @19 Thanks for the response. Why however is there this significant disconnect between climate scientists and the general population? Surely it can't all be due to manipulation by the media as here in Australia the national broadcaster and the Fairfax press are very ardent advocates for the role humans play in climate change.
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Digby Scorgie at 11:02 AM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Haze @18
Climate change has become a political football because any attempt to avert dangerous warming would entail an upheaval in our way of life. To a lot of people this is anathema. Consequently they fight tooth and nail to sabotage all climate action.
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Haze at 10:34 AM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Why is this 97% or greater consensus not reflected in the attitudes of the wider community? Why is it that political persuasion has an effect on a scientific matter?
A recent survey, January 2016, in the US found that although 70% of Americans believe the climate is changing only, 27% of respondents agreed with the “overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is the main cause of climate change”. (http://tinyurl.com/jn39kns)
There was a significant divide between Democrats and Republicans on the seriousness of climate change in that while 63% of the former saw climate change as a very serious matter only 18% of the latter held that view. The researchers noted that “the data exposes the extent to which this has become a partisan political issue in the U.S. rather than a scientific issue,”
Why is climate change viewed so differently by Republicans and Democrats? Why is there so much politicisation of climate change? It’s the same science and climate is no respecter of persons be they Democrats or Republicans. Is something rather out of kilter in this global debate?
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Ikaika at 08:41 AM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
I understand the concept of suggesting a consensus, but I also think that it becomes an easy taget of attack for contrarians. I would prefer the use of 97% consilience of data to support AGW. This goes to the heart of scientist, who they are and more importantly what they do.
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shoyemore at 07:43 AM on 15 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
Eclectic @15
Bart Verheggen blogs on climate change at My view on climate change
He has a post up on the paper discussed above: Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming
Excellent opportunity for you to pose your questions to him directly.
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RedBaron at 06:04 AM on 15 April 2016More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
@rojojr #243
Not likely to be significant by itself, and very likely to be quickly offset by increased decomposistion and reduction of the O horizon of the soil profile as temperatures warm.
Now what you are talking about is possible via the liquid carbon pathway (LCP). But in today's world that requires careful management by us. It's not just going to happen by itself or by "natural" systems. Primarily because the biomes responcible for the LCP are too degraded to function in that respect. In fact, in my opinion that is 1/2 the problem to start with.
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rojojr at 05:49 AM on 15 April 2016More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
Obviously there are a lot of "could" and "might" statements in the article. But one thing I have not seen is how much more c02 larger plants will remove from the atmosphere. That is assuming that as a whole, plants do grow larger. But if the earth does warm, growing seasons will increase as well which means the amount of time in a year that plants will be using c02 will increase as well. That will likely have a much greater effect at creating an equilibrium in c02 levels, possibly a decrease when combined with reduction of additional c02 from burning fossil fuels as we move toward renewable energy sources.
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ubrew12 at 04:00 AM on 15 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
As the planet warms, it also holds more water vapor. Dry cold air, held still next to the body, will warm rapidly to body temperature due to its low specific heat, but wet cold air will not: so you lose heat faster in wet air. So that works against Lomborg's argument 2 ("climate change will reduce the number of cold days").
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Ian Forrester at 01:48 AM on 15 April 2016Open letter to the Wall Street Journal editor: a scientists’ response to Lomborg's misleading op-ed
Another factor which makes bacterial and viral diseases more prevalent in winter is the lower level of solar radiation. UV light is a very good sterilant but its effect is much reduced in winter so viruses and bacteria will hang around on surfaces much longer and be more readily transferred.
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braintic at 00:11 AM on 15 April 2016Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Crask,
One doesn't need a degree to know that there is no god.
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RedBaron at 23:22 PM on 14 April 2016You can’t rush the oceans (why CO2 emission rates matter)
Very good article, but you missed something very big and very critical. An estimated 695–748 Gt of stable carbon (stable humic substances) is held in the upper 100 cm of the world's soils. This is different than AND IN ADDITION TO the figure you used for the terrestrial biosphere of about 560 GtC, which is living biomass and about 50 GtC which is in flux (rapid decomposition) in the litter layer and about 1500 GtC in the "slow response" soil decompostion pool. The total soil pool is roughly around 2200 PgC +/-. But it matters very much which parts of that pool we are talking about and how they function. Breaking the soil pool down into the rapid responce, slow responce (taken together the active fraction) and stable fractions reveals an important understanding about both the causes and potential solutions to atmospheric CO2 rises. This is because the soil pools are currently highly degraded, but they can be rapidly restored.
Roughly 120 GtC/yr taken out of the atmosphere by terrestrial plant photosynthesis reduced by 60 GtC/yr plant respiration. An equivalent 60 GtC/yr is respired from soil, joining the 60GtC/yr plant respiration to return to the atmosphere. So we have a rough balance. This balance in the active fraction is very difficult to manipulate, because increasing biomass and thus plant photosynthesis is ultimately followed later by increased respiration, both from that increased plant biomass and also increased decomposition in the soil. This is often called the "saturation effect" However, increasing the rate at which stabilization by clay surfaces deep in the soil profile does not have this limitation due to the liquid carbon pathway (LCP).
I estimate approx 20 GtC/year +/- would be the maximum potential long term sequestration into the stable soil fraction via the LCP with a massive ecosystem restoration and change in agriculture. That's roughly 30% of 1/2 the 120 GtC/yr taken out of the atmosphere by terrestrial plants. Some people actually estimate its potential much higher.
So actually to properly restore our soils, we will need that ocean outgassing to happen. Without it, the atmosphere would rapidly loose CO2 thus reducing photosynthesis efficiency long before our soils are restored worldwide.
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Eclectic at 22:22 PM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
If I may be permitted to expand on the Dutch "Environmental Assessment Agency" survey ~ linked to by Tom Curtis @9 [and first raised by Alfalfa] :-
I'm not quite sure of how it is named : possibly "Strengers, Verheggen & Vringer, 2015" . (Published by the Netherlands agency)
It is based on a survey in early 2012 of opinions, requested of a select 6550 persons of whom "around 200" were chosen because of their known contrarian position against the scientific (climate) consensus. There were more than a dozen questions, regarding attribution etc of global warming (if any).
Of the 6550 invitees, there were 29% actual respondents (though down to 24% on some of the subsequent, more detailed questions). The survey authors claim that the known contrarians only constituted around 5% of respondents . . . possibly they mean 1/20th of the 29% .
On the basic question of attribution, the large majority of respondents indicated that 50% to 100+% of global warming since mid-20th century was caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Around 12% opined that up to 50% was from GHG's (of whom a subgroup 7% opined 0-25% GHG attribution).
*** This is a very different picture of scientific opinion, to what Alfalfa/Breitbart were publicizing.
The other remarkable aspect, is the selection process for "invitees" to the survey. The authors mentioned that the names selected for survey, were based variously on an (overlapping) basis of 500 from recent science literature; 2000 from a climate science database; and 6000 from "Web of Science"; and 200 known for their contrarian opinions.
Most interestingly and unusually, the authors mentioned that: "half of whom only published in the gray literature on climate change" . . . and it was far from clear to me, whether they meant the contrarians or all those invited to reply to the survey. Can anyone at SkS enlighten me about the authors' intention ~ and on the meaning of gray literature ?
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Kevin C at 21:45 PM on 14 April 2016It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming
I think there is a reason for this 'consensus is not science' myth.
Consensus is a genuine feature of the scientific method, and it is used in every field of science. However most of the time it is not visible to the outsider, because we don't talk about it. The only reason it has become visible in the case of climate science is because of lay people asking 'how do you know?', which means we have to explain something of how scientific knowledge develops. If lay people were to challenge scientists in other fields, the answer would be the same.
Here's an example from my primary field of X-ray crystallography. As it happens, a Nature paper and a whole load of protein structures have just been retracted: here and here. In the 1980s and 90s we had a significant problem with wrong structures being published, mostly due to rapidly developing methods being misapplied, but a few of them fraudulent.
Scientists looked at how to address this problem, and decided that a paper should not be published unless both the atomic model, and the processed (in climate terms, adjusted and homogenized) X-ray data were deposited. Furthermore the results should be checked by cross-validation (leading to a statistic we call the 'Free-R factor').
Over the course of around 5 years (which was remarkably fast) the community accepted that this was a good approach. It quickly became the norm that a paper would not be accepted without the data and cross validation tests, and eventually became a condition of publication. And as a result we now see a lot fewer wrong structures.
Nowhere in the crystallographic literature will you find the term consensus. However that is what was going on. The community agreed there was a problem, and the community recognized that a particular solution was a good one. Decisions by journal editors and the data archives played a part, but they were in turn informed by the emergence of a consensus among methods developers and users.
But if a lay person was to ask how the change happened, the existence of a consensus would be an important part of the answer. In fact I just did the experiment: I asked a senior figure in the field - an FRS - the question, and she used the term 'consensus' in her answer.
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