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shoyemore at 04:30 AM on 28 January 2016The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
The graphic of proportions Science vs Policy is mind-boggling. It is exactly the opposite of what one expect i.e. that contrarians would be so beaten over the head by the scientific facts they would concede that line of defence and retreat to defend specific policies.
But it also makes sense, too. It is hard to defend policies when the science is against you. So they have to buttress their "front-line". Once it is breached, they have lost the game.
Also, it is surprisingly easy for people whose mentality is anti- or un- scientific to reject science as a procedure for deciding the truth, and view it as some ideological struggle where victory goes, not to the weight of evidence, but to the side with the superior rhetorical and propaganda resources.
But the decline of denial policy arguments is striking, too. Joe Romm pointed out that renewable energy came well out the last US budget, even with a Republican majority in both Houses of Congress..
The Surprising Winner Of Congress’ Budget Deal
And there does seem to be a swing towards environmentally friendly policies in most country, marked by the Paris Agreement. It is politically harder to advance anti-environmentalism as a policy, and what is possible is obscured in many western countries between what is good for the country, and what is good for political donors.
Maybe the chart means that while denial is more shrill and strident against climate science, it is all the time being hollowed-out and impotent at preventing climate-friendly policies? It is a win, sort of.
That would be an optimistic view, and I would not want to be over-optimistic. I always saw this as a war of attrition, anyway, with no single glorious win, but a sequence of small victories, interspersed with setbacks.
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jhoyland at 03:18 AM on 28 January 2016The Little Ape That Could
The rather excellent comic XKCD also has a nice infographic regarding the dominance of humans -
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:40 AM on 28 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
Barry,
In addition to my previous post the misleading marketing related to climate science is not just misrepresentation of the best understanding.
The fight against the developing better understanding of climate science started with efforts to keep the topic from becoming a topic that the general population was aware of. Many powrful wealthy people aware of the issue deliberately did not promote public awareness of the issue.
Another related aspect of misleading marketing related to climate science is attempts to divert attention to other 'human activity that could be blamed'. Population is one of the marketing diversionary tactics I have seen. People claim that the global populaton is the problem. Of course the real problem is the portion of the population with the highest per-capita impact. If the population is reduced without any reduction of the highest impacting portion of the population nothing would be accomplished.
A further misleading activity realted to climate science is efforts to claim that economically the costs faced by a current generation of humanity to stop cuasing challenges for future generations is 'accounted' to be more than the costs incurred by future generations. That economics through the generations is obviously a dihonest way of evaluating acceptability. It is like saying you can do something you believe gives you $1000 of personal benefit as long as the cost to your neighbour, as you figure it, is less than $1000.
Of course, another misleading marketing tactic against climate science awareness and required action is the creation of 'larger issues to be focused on' such as Terrorism. That tactic presumes that multiple issues cannot be concurrently addressed, and it ignores the reality that the socioeconomics and politics that are increasing the climate change problem are also creating a more significant terrorism problem.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:55 AM on 28 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
barry@13,
I am still developing my thoughts on all of this. But basically, I support Skeptical Science remaining focused on the development of more understandable presentations of Climate Science related to Global Warming impacts of human activity.
What is becoming very clear to me is that the real problem to address requires more than just Skeptical (Climate) Science. Other sites similarly Skeptical are required for the other fields of science that are not being effectively developed and understood by the global population because, like climate science, the developing better understanding is undertood to likely be contrary to developed popular, profitable interests and contrary to unsustainable perceptions of prosperity that have developed.
In addition to the variety of Skeptical Science, there needs to be Skeptical Politics and Skeptical Economics.
What all of the Skeptical groups would have in common is the need to address misleading marketing.
Skeptical Marketing would be a common interest of all of the topic specific Skeptical groups. It would develop better awareness and understanding of how 'specific people' among us deliberately abuse misleading marketing to get away with developing and prolonging cheaper and quicker more damaging ways of living and getting what 'they want' even if it is able to be understood to not contribute to developing a lasting improvement for all of humanity.
It is important to get to the root of the problem which is identifying specific people and how they choose to behave. Skeptical Science does this related to climate science.
One of the most distrurbing developments due to the power of misleading marketing is the formation of powerful partnerships of callous greedy and intolerant people who work very hard at getting what they want any way they can get away with, including striving to get just enough electoral influence to get their type of people elected on election day, or to get elected people who dislike them to support their unacceptable desires because of the real fear of not being re-elected (that is the worst result because it can force an elected member to support a decision they understand is unacceptable because it may allow them to 'do other good things', like Democrats elected in Coal regions supporting Coal lobby interests so they can remain elected). And carefully timed effective misleading marketing is a key to the unacceptable success of these groups that likely fully understand the unacceptability of their pursuits.
Misleading Marketing (selective presentation of appealing claims, or totally false claims that will work because of a scientifically understood emotionally trigger) is a very well developed science. Misleading Marketing is far more popular, prevelant and successful than honestly and most fully informing others. And the damaging results of its success are clear, including the way it will produce worse results in a Freer socio-economic environment.
Misleading Marketing Science is the science most deserving of a Skeptical focus.
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Bruce Boyes at 00:53 AM on 28 January 2016The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
Thanks John for this excellent article, and for SkepticalScience. I've long lost count of how many times I've posted your myth page links into emails and discussion threads.
With experience in environmental communications, I have a strong interest in the issues around communication and science denial. I'm
also editor of the new RealKM Magazine, which assists the adoption of evidence-based approaches in the field of knowledge management
through articles discussing recent knowledge management research and also research in related disciplines such as communications,
marketing, psychology, biology, sociology, and management.Further to the findings in your article, from looking at a number of papers, the complexity of climate science and policy is a significant factor in climate science denial. I explore this complexity and potential ways forward in the article The Paris Agreement: knowledge management and climate science denial.
The possible solutions I proposed are based on the considerable success I've had in unpacking such complexity in other areas of environmental management, as I discuss in the article Case Study: How to overcome resistance and denial when engaging stakeholders. I'd like to further explore how the approaches I discuss in that article could be applied to climate science communication. (As an aside, the communication approach I describe in that article was learnt as part of psychology studies at UQ).
Another factor is the extent to which climate science and policy have become intertwined, as Andrew Campbell discusses in this article.
I'm very interested in your thoughts on the perspectives raised in the articles I have linked.
Many thanks,
Bruce Boyes.
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Steeph at 22:49 PM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
@ Tom and Rob, I fully understand what you're putting forward. And from a scientific point of view I can accept it.
But there's a big PR side to this issue. It's a huge difference if, in 10 years time, we state that the 1.5 line has already been crossed (call to more action!) but others will counter with saying we're only at 1.2 or 1.3.
(You all know some parties will use everything to delay things)
Something to be aware of. -
Rob Honeycutt at 22:20 PM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
Steeph and Tom... Per what Tom has stated here, there really isn't a perfectly accurate way to track the 2°C limit. The same goes for global mean temperature as well. Too often people get the idea that surface station data is like an actual thermometer stuck into the ear of the planet. Each data set is, at best, an approximation of global mean temperature with various limitations to each set. So, we have imprecise current data. We have imprecise historical data. And we have an imprecise guardrail. Ultimately that shouldn't make a difference as long as the best effort is being made to quantify each of these.
The 2°C limit is merely a way to generally guage where we are, where we're headed, and about how long it's going to take to get there. Precise numbers aren't necessary in order to comprehend the nature of our challenge. Having that 2°C line in the sand starts to help us force the issue, to help people wake up and pay attention.
The reason I'm posting this number each month is because I think this needs to become like a drum beat. People have to see this figure over and over and over again for it to really take hold. I'm just one guy here, on one small website, beating that drum. Hopefully, over time, others will hear and start to pick up the beat.
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Tom Curtis at 20:20 PM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
Steeph @7, the 2C guard rail on temperatures is not a hard barrier. 2.1 C is only slightly worse than 1.9C. It was selected as a convenient number because, first, it represented a temperature not seen by humans as a climate average since the end of the last glacial; second, because beyond that limit it is reasonably certain that there will be bad consequences from global warming, whereas below it it is reasonably certain the consequences will be managable (despite a significant risk of individual tragedies); and third, because it was a convenient round number.
That being the case, it is not a problem that we cannot exactly say when we cross the 2 C line. We cannot exactly say even if we knew the exact 1721-1750 average in any event, because the guard rail is crossed when the global climate average crosses that value, not when some particularly strong EL Nino takes us to 2 C above the preindustrial average. And plus or minus that value based on the actual 1721-1750 mean makes only a minor difference in net damages.
For these reasons, taking the 1880-1909 value as an approximation is entirely OK, and if some other team preffers the 1861-1880 mean, that is OK also. We just should be aware that each is a relatively arbitrary approximation to the true preindustrial value, and that both approximations if treated as absolutely valid will tend to make us overshoot the target (the latter more than the former).
Put another way, we could simply redefine the guard rail as 2 C above the 1880-1909 (or 1861-1880) mean. However, if we did so it would decrease our certainty that keeping under this newly defined guard rail would keep the harm form AGW reasonably managable. For policy purposes it is important to be aware of that decreased certainty. But having said that, the exact value of the guard rail is inevitably a matter of convention and not something we should worry too much about.
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Steeph at 17:49 PM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
Tom @5 Thanks for your reply. But this means that there is no "official" way we can actually track this. Only an approximation? Which is kinda weird for such an important agreement...
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POJO at 17:26 PM on 27 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Sorry I should point out that my reference to #7 in the above post was to the opening piece statement
7. If an increased greenhouse effect is causing global warming, we should see certain patterns in the warming. For example, the planet should warm faster at night than during the day. This is indeed being observed (Braganza 2004, Alexander 2006).
my bold highlighting
not poster 7 on this thread
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POJO at 17:21 PM on 27 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
#82 Tom,
Sorry Tom, I assumed i had made it clear.
#7 stated that diurnal temperatures should be decreasing.
The first chart supplied for last century shows the decreasing trend of DTR up until the 1980 ish It then shows the deceleration of that trend and then subsequent rise (in my view)
The next chart posted was for your benfit. To remove the noise I did smooth it out more.
I am shocked that you have inferred my intentions were not honest. I refute that.
All I have done is use a 5 year average that NOAA, NASA and even Skepticalscience use when showing charts. I am confused why that is acceptable for them to apply to Crutem4 data but it is not when i apply a 5 year average to the CRUTEM4 data.
So is their an explanation as to why DTR has not decreased. At worst why has it stalled when it clearly should be accellerating in its shrinking of the DTR??
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One Planet Only Forever at 16:06 PM on 27 January 2016The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
An aspect of this issue that would be more difficult to investigate is the actual level of awareness and understanding of the issue by the deniers. A denier can be expected to declare they do not understand the issue. They can even come up with a multitude of cherry-picked bits of 'confusion regarding the issue' from their perspective.
I am personally convinced that the leaders of the denial industry actually have a very thorough understanding of the topic. And they abuse that understanding to create claims with just enough selective facts presented to appeal to others who are inclined to not want to accept climate science.
And powerful motivations for people to resist accepting the developing better understanding of climate science are:
- They understand that the required action is a reduction of 'standard of living' for many of the people at the top of the current 'standard of living pyramid'. The required changes include reduced energy use and more expensive energy. A few among the most fortunate have chosen to significantly reduce the impacts of their lives, but many people at the top have not.
- The most powerful deniers are wealthy people who fully understand that admitting to the climate scinece is also admitting that the Free-Market has been proven to fail to advance humanity (failed to rapidly develop truly sustainable improvements for all of humanity) in response to the developing better understanding of what is going on.
Their fighting against climate science may actually become the global motivation to significantly overhaul the global socio-economic game to end the competitive advantage that can currently be gotten by a person who is willing to try to get away with behaving less acceptably (including selectively drumming up unsustainable popular support for their understood to be unacceptable pursuits ... because popular support is only needed at election time in enough electoral regions to get out the 'desired voters' to win the election of just enough of their desired leaders.
My hope is that these people are so focused on maximizing their personal benefit in the short-term any way they can get away with that they believe they can delay the inevitable end of the game they love getting away with unacceptable behaviour in just long enough for their personal interests.
That would mean that eventually there will be a rapid end of their ability to succeed. Unfortunately, history is full of cases where massive damage was done before humanity mobilized to protect itself from the understood to be unsustainable damaging activity being gotten away with.
There is definitely a lot a stake. That means that the fighting is very unlikely to end just because of more understandable information being developed and presented.
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:10 PM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
In addition to the current ONI tracking very similar to the 1997/98 event, the current SOI monthly values are also currently tracking in a manner that is very similar to the 1997/98 event. The SOI monthly values (since 1876) are here.
December 1997 was a signficantly weaker SOI followed by a very strong SOI average for January 1998 (and Feb, Mar, Apr).
November and December 2015 were significantly weaker SOI values, however the SOI 30 day average shown here is currently at -23.0 with only a few days left in January.
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Tom Curtis at 10:39 AM on 27 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
POJO @81, first, you have missed the point of my comment. You are presenting data that, at least broadly, is in agreement with the peer reviewed assessments cited above as contradicting those assessments. That at least requires some detailed explanation by you as to why you think that data contradicts those assessments. Absent that explanation, you have not point. Indeed, absent that explanation you are at least contradicting the spirit of the comments policy were it states:
"No link or picture only. Any link or picture should be accompanied by text summarizing both the content of the link or picture, and showing how it is relevant to the topic of discussion. Failure to do both of these things will result in the comment being considered off topic."
(Underlinging mine)
Indeed, I would go further, you have taken no effort at all to show "how it is relevant ot the topic of discussion".
When I challenged you on that by asking you, "what was your point" you simply evaded the question. You do not make a point, preffering to set me homework. I pressume that is because you do not have a coherent point at all.
Second, what I make of your second graph is that you have (deliberately) increased the smoothing window, thereby eliminating information and preventing a coherent intepretation of the data. From the first graph over the same period, and by eye, I would suggest that DTR decreases as a result of volcanic erruptions, and also as a result of El Ninos; and that it increases as a result of La Ninas, and that this explains the recent history. I am not firmly committed to that interpretation because my alignments are by eye only. However, if that is the case the recent history of EL Nino's and volcanic erruptions would result in a spurious upward trend in DTR from 1980, despite the fact that the trend is flat. That in turn requires an explanation as to why that spurious trend has been nullified - with Braganza (2004) providing just such an explanation.
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barry1487 at 10:20 AM on 27 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
Slip of the finger:
- Whereas GISS have 2015 at top rank with "94% certainty."
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barry1487 at 10:18 AM on 27 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
I was interested to see if 2015 would be a record year within or without statistical (/structural) uncertainty. The UK Met Office has 2015 as a clear record-breaker even with the 95% uncertainty interval.
www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2016/2015-global-temperature
NOAA also have a clear record-breaker.
www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201513
Whereas GISS have 2014 at top rank with "94% certainty."
www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20160120/
What is the confidence interval for GISS 2015 global?
0.87C +/- (?)
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Tom Curtis at 10:01 AM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
Steeph @4, according to the IPCC AR5 Glossary (Annex 3), "In this report the terms preindustrial
and industrial refer, somewhat arbitrarily, to the periods before and after 1750, respectively." On that basis, I would treat the Preindustrial temperature as the 30 year average temperature 1720-1749. Unfortunately we do not have a global instrumental record extending back that far.In fact, we do not have a global instrumental record extending back prior to 1880, with the temperature record from HadCRUT4 and BEST in those periods conisting of Europe, Eastern US, Argentina, South Eastern Australia, India, and sea routes between those points. NOAA and GISS do not cut of their records at 1880 because they do not have that data, but because they think the data insufficient to reliably indicate global temperatures.
HadCRUT4 publishes the percentage of the Earth covered by their data for each month, and show (prior to 1880), never more than 36% and sometimes as little as 13%. Where that data evenly distributed it would constitute a suitable record, but unfortunately it is not.
The upshot of that poor coverage is that for periods prior to 1880, and certainly prior to 1850, paleotemperature reconstructions are our best indicator of global temperatures:
From them, for the global record (lower right panel), global mean temperatures were about 0.3 C below the 1881-1980 average in 1750, or in turn, about 0.2 C below the 1880-1909 average. Of course, the margin of error is considerable so that the 1990-1909 average is a reasonable approximation, but likely to result in an underestimate of the increase since the pre-industrial.
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Steeph at 09:05 AM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
A couple of months ago I tried to get a fix on the formal definition of "pre-industrial level". The term is used by IPCC and in several agreements of the COPxx (last one being COP21 in Paris).
The thing is, I did not find a formal document (signed/approved by all countries) with a clear definition. So if you find one, please let me know.
However, 2 Dutch co-writers for the latest IPCC report both told me that the definition of pre-industrial should be the average of the years 1861-1880.
Since only Hadcrut has pre 1880 data, I used their series and found that currently we're at +0.996C.
Described in this post:
Tracking the 2 degree global warming target
So, that's 0.2 lower.
Who's right? :-)
This really is an open question. Because I really want to find the agreed upon definition (including some formal documents) of this commonly used statement! -
knaugle at 08:03 AM on 27 January 2016The Little Ape That Could
I think Mal's post #3 hits the nail on the head. LIFE itself has changed the Earth. So it is rather a bit of hubris to claim that HUMANS as the dominant life form in terms of tonnage don't affect the Earth in so very many ways. So why not climate.
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Nate12674 at 06:55 AM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
Don't think there is anything wrong in UAH data (yet) when compared to 1997-1998. Much of the change should be coming this month...
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scttharding5 at 06:19 AM on 27 January 2016There is no consensus
Thanks KR. I knew about the Wikipedia page, but I was hoping someone had already done the counting. Here is the simplified list from Wikipedia of scientific organizations that have endorsed anthropogenic climate change. I hope someone will let me know if I missed any or counted some twice.
1. Inter Academy Council
2. International Council of Academics of Engineering and Technological Sciences.
3. National Science Academy of Australia
4. National Science Academy of Belgium.
5. National Science Academy of Brazil.
6. National Science Academy of Canada
7. National Science Academy of the Caribbean.
8. National Science Academy of China.
9. National Science Academy of France.
10. National Science Academy of Germany.
11. National Science Academy of India.
12. National Science Academy of Indonesia.
13. National Science Academy of Ireland.
14. National Science Academy of Italy.
15. National Science Academy of Malaysia.
16. National Science Academy of New Zealand.
17. National Science Academy of Sweden.
18. National Science Academy of Turkey.
19. National Science Academy of the United Kingdom.
20. National Science Academy of Japan.
21. National Science Academy of Russia.
22. National Science Academy of the United States.
23. National Science Academy of South Africa.
24. National Science Academy of Cameroon.
25. National Science Academy of Ghana.
26. National Science Academy of Kenya.
27. National Science Academy of Madagascar.
28. National Science Academy of Nigeria.
29. National Science Academy of Senegal.
30. National Science Academy of Sudan.
31. National Science Academy of Tanzania.
32. National Science Academy of Uganda.
33. National Science Academy of Zambia.
34. National Science Academy of Zimbabwe.
35. African Academy of Sciences.
36. Polish Academy of Sciences.
37. American Association for the Advancement of Science.
38. Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies.
39. United States National Research Council.
40. European Academy of Sciences and Arts.
41. European Science Foundation.
42. American Chemical Society.
43. American Institute of Physics.
44. American Physical Society.
45. Australian Institute of Physics.
46. European Physical Society.
47. American Geophysical Union.
48. American Society of Agronomy.
49. Crop Science Society of America.
50. Soil Science Society of America.
51. European Federation of Geologists.
52. European Geosciences Union.
53. Geological Society of America
54. Geological Society of London.
55. International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics.
56. National Association of Geoscience Teachers.
57. American Meteorological Society.
58. Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society.
59. Canadian Meteorological Society.
60. Royal Meteorological Society (UK).
61. World Meteorological Organization.
62. Amercian Quaternary Association.
63. International Union for Quaternary Research.
64. American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians.
65. American Institute of Biological Sciences.
66. American Society for Microbiology.
67. Australian Coral Reef Society.
68. Institute of Biology (UK)
69. Society of American Foresters.
70. The Wildlife Society.
71. American Academy of Pediatrics.
72. American College of Preventable Medicine.
73. American Medical Association.
74. American Public Health Association.
75. Australian Medical Association.
76. World Federation of Public Health Associations.
77. World Health Organization.
78. American Astronomical Society.
79. American Statistical Association.
80. Canadian Council of Professional Engineers.
81. The Institution of Engineers Australia.
82. International Association of Great Lakes Research.
83. Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand.
84. The World Federation of Engineering Organizations.
Scientific Bodies Rejecting Anthropogenic Global Warming:
None.
Scientific Bodies With No Official Position.
1. American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
2. American Institute of Professional Geologists.
3. Candadian Federation of Earth Sciences.
4. Geological Society of Australia.
So, if your basketball team had a record of 84-0-4, that would be a pretty good year. If you tell me there is no consensus I would advise you to see a phychiatrist.
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lamont at 05:22 AM on 27 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
On the animated gif, the changing Y-axis for the neutral and el nino years is making my (figurative) neckbeard all incredibly itchy, and I find it visually very distracting.
You shouldn't be changing the scale between graphs.
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PhilippeChantreau at 04:36 AM on 27 January 2016The Quest for CCS
Sharon, you talk about bias, yet use language such as "people down south turning off the oil companies." I'd say that is language more emotionally charged than the "boasting" you mentioned. You indeed live in an environment with features unusual to most others. Some of them seem to be especially adverse to an asthma sufferer. That is not anybody else's fault.
I would not buy without substantiation that the nuclear power plant project was discarded only because one group of people advocated against it. Perhaps the risk/benefit/cost analysis was unfavorable on its own.
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There is no consensus
Wikipedia has a pretty up to date listing of scientific organizations and their position on the climate here. They show four non-commital groups (all geologists, for some reason), with none expressing a group opinion contrary to the current consensus.
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barry1487 at 03:03 AM on 27 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
OPOF,Hence my interest in this site and other groups focused on better understanding what is going on and determined to get the required changes of understanding and action to happen sooner rather than later
Our interests are similar. Communicating the science honestly and effectively is important. If there were a blog dedicated to effectice communication of science I would probably participate. Obviously, it is of considerable interest for the authors here.(Actually, I think a semi-open forum to discuss effective communication of (climate) science is a good idea. Maybe there is one somewhere. The topic comes up on the blogs fairly regularly, including here, but doesn't survive long. How about a dedicated thread, mods?)
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scttharding5 at 03:01 AM on 27 January 2016There is no consensus
I just had a quick question. I know that all but two scientific bodies with national or international standing have endorsed anthropogenic climate change. The two that have not take no official position. I was just wondering exactly how many scientific organizations have national or international standing. Is it hundreds of organizations or scores of organizations?
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tmbtx at 02:41 AM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
Ok I found the article he wrote.
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tmbtx at 02:32 AM on 27 January 2016Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015
I'm failing to find the source because I'm too sick to look at the moment, but what about Mann's point that we're really already at 1.2 above? That the baseline being used here is still too recent?
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barry1487 at 02:29 AM on 27 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
Eclectic, OPOF,
I wasn't asking a question, I was commenting on the flow of argument in the article - on the juxtaposition of two points and selective reference to uncertainty. Perhaps it would have been clearer if I'd referred to the "OP." I'm sure Dana would have got it. I was unsure if feedback is welcome but went ahead anyway.
Unless the readership is only the two climateball tribes, choosing what to omit when summarizing science is a tricky business, especially if you want to be persuasive. As I'm fairly well-informed about climate science and a critical reader, I mentioned two things that jarred for me. Others will not notice or care.
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John Hartz at 01:39 AM on 27 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
Recommended supplementary reading...
Analysis: How much did El Niño boost global temperature in 2015? by Roz Pidcock, Carbon Brief, jan 26, 2016
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bozzza at 01:35 AM on 27 January 2016The Quest for CCS
Sharon,
You are talking about living in an extreme environment and the truth is to live there you are being subsidised by others. This is all tax payers money and the externalities involved have not, it would seem, been fully realised until now.
The world turns.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:19 AM on 27 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
Barry,
I mistated my last sentence. Should have been "... more rapid than during ENSO Neutral or El Nino conditions."
Also, though I started following this subject because of Civil Engineering interest and concern, my concern has grown regarding the mechanisms and motivations behind the denial of the developing better understanding and the changes required (my MBA training). Hence my interest in this site and other groups focused on better understanding what is going on and determined to get the required changes of understanding and action to happen sooner rather than later (it will never be too late, but sooner is clearly better).
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:10 AM on 27 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
barry,
Though your question is unclear I will offer something that may relate to your concern.
There is a connection between the surface temperature and ocean heat content.
I am not a climate scientist. I am science trained as an Civil Engineer with an MBA, but I have only followed this topic out of the need to better understand the potential impacts on my designs such as location specific maximum snow load, maximum wind speed, maximum rain intensity, maximum wave height.
Tha said, my understanding is:
When ocean circulation conditions produce a larger than average cool surface, such as a La Nina condition in the Tropical Pacific or similar conditions in other ocean areas, the interaction of the ocean surface with the atmosphere will keep more heat energy in the ocean than a neutral condition.
When ocean circulation conditions produce a larger than average warm surface, such as a El Nino, the interaction of the ocean surface with the atmosphere will keep less heat energy in the ocean than a neutral condition.
Some of the heat energy from the ocean surface interaction stays in circulation in the lower atmosphere (below the elevation of the typical 25,000 to 50,000 foot elevation zone of satellite temperature evaluation) and spreads around the planet temporarily affecting the global average surface temperature (cooler than neutral state during La Nina, warmer than neutral state during El Nino).
Another thing is going on. The ocean will take a very long time to reach a new heat content balance state with the recently rapidly warming global surface. And when conditions are more predominantly La Nina than El Nino (as they had been since 1998) the global surface temperature would not appear to be warming relative to the spike of 1998. However, during those times the rate of ocean heat capture would be even more rapid than during ENSO Neutral or La Nina conditions.
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POJO at 22:58 PM on 26 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Tom Curtis @ 78
Huh,
It is a very broad history i have shown there. Here is the last 35 years.
Keen to hear an explanation for this apparent diversion.
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Eclectic at 22:49 PM on 26 January 2016The Quest for CCS
SharonK @ #50 , you make a good point about the need for home-heating with oil, for those who are not connected to the electric grid [powered by hydro, nuclear, wind, or solar . . . solar presumably from somewhere south of lattitude 60. ] .
There is no immediate problem in shortage of available oil, for 20 years or more ( I expect) . In the longer run, as coal & petroleum oil are phased out, it would be a logical political decision for households such as yours to receive "privileged priority supply" of petroleum oil, during the tail-end of the phase-out process. Eventually, there would be a reasonable-sized industry producing organic-origin liquid fuel [jetfuel & diesel] for planes and ships and heavy machinery . . . and presumably a fraction of that supply would be allocatable to "special needs" households which are off the grid.
I am unclear about the number of households which it would be uneconomic to supply grid electricity to, in future years. Clearly there are many isolated houses and small townships, to which that might apply, at present. My guess is that they would total a very small fraction of the world's liquid fuel for transport industry requirements. But I am happy to be corrected, and I would be grateful if you could give an authoritative or reasonably close estimate of house numbers which are currently "off-grid" and requiring oil-type heating by absolute necessity (not choice) .
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Eclectic at 22:03 PM on 26 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
barry @ #7 . . . sorry, Barry, but your comments are so brief that they don't make much sense on their own.
Please expand your comments, so that I and other readers can understand whatever the message is (which you wish to convey) .
Also, in passing, perhaps you could mention how you think the "lower trop" [as you quote it] has relevance to the so-called surface air temperatures at ground level & sea-surface level. ( I confess that ) my initial impression is that the "lower trop" as measured by satellites, gives a mass-weighted average roughly at 3 kilometres above ground level ~ something which, like stratosphere temperatures, is interesting yet of tenuous connection with what's happening on land and sea, where we inhabit the planet.
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Sharon Krushel at 19:15 PM on 26 January 2016The Quest for CCS
Andy, I've been reading about these CCS projects, and I find this to be a very thought-provoking article. I'm new to this website. I have a few comments.
I must say, I was a bit put off by the caption under the photo: "Shell boasting about its government-funded Quest CCS project..." The word "boasting" in this context indicates a bias and prepares the reader for a negative spin on the topic rather than scientific objectivity.
You might want to check with some experts in the industry, but I don't know that it's necessary to cause people to question the safety of CCS. I've heard something about layers of salt that work to "heal" cracks and holes and keep the CO2 from escaping. Also, they do check the integrity of cavities before using them. I'm not saying there are no dangers; I don't know that. I'm just saying there is more relevant information available.
Personally, I believe CCS is one of many important innovations in our transition to renewables.
If we "keep the oil in the ground" any time soon, I and my family, and millions of others in the north, will freeze to death before we have a chance to starve to death. We don't have enough sunshine in the winter to heat our homes with solar panels unless we rebuild our homes with huge heat sinks and have a backup heat source. We built a very energy-efficient home in 1983 and used a wood stove, with a gas furnace for back up, but we had to travel far to get the wood for the stove, and the slow burning of wood releases dioxin into the atmosphere. It also caused problems with my asthma.
A nuclear power plant was proposed for our area, but environmentalists objected. A hydro dam is proposed, but environmentalists are objecting as it would flood some very important agricultural land.
Even with global warming, it gets down to -40 Celcius where I live. We're hoping people further south won't divest from and turn off the fossil fuel companies until we figure out how to survive without them. Until that time, I think CCS is a very good thing.
Thank you for your commitment to addressing the problem of global warming and for your work and research and willingness to respond to comments.
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denisaf at 16:59 PM on 26 January 2016The Quest for CCS
These discussions relate to a form of biomimicry, the attempt to use technological systems to emulate what natural systems do. This is not possible for two reasons. Firstly, the technological systems are expected to do at a high rate what nature does at a very slow rate. Secondly, the materials used in natural processes often recycle while most materials used in technological systems cannot be recycled. The hydrocarbons in oil and gas is one prominent example of the inability to recycle. So innovative technological systems can only provide a very weak temporary response to the devastation caused by the installed technological systesm of industrialization.
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Tom Curtis at 16:05 PM on 26 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
POJO @78, if the night times warm faster, then the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures will decrease, as is shown on your graph. Consequently I am not sure what your point is.
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barry1487 at 15:39 PM on 26 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
Talking about ocean heat content directly after saying the temps where we live (surface) are more relevant is a small hiccup in the flow of the argument. Neglecting uncertainty in OHC directly after mentioning that factor to favour the surface records over lower trop also popped out.
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POJO at 14:21 PM on 26 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Forgot to add that data is Crutem4 sourced via KNMI
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POJO at 14:20 PM on 26 January 201610 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Just wondering why in point 7 it states
"If an increased greenhouse effect is causing global warming, we should see certain patterns in the warming. For example, the planet should warm faster at night than during the day. This is indeed being observed (Braganza 2004, Alexander 2006)."
Is not observed in the CRUTEM4 DTR data.
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Tom Curtis at 10:30 AM on 26 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
I should note that in answering Steve L's question @5, I answered by own question @4. The trends are by my calculation:
La Nina years:0.156 C/decade
Neutral years: 0.152 C/decade
El Nino years: 0.163 C/decade
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Tom Curtis at 10:06 AM on 26 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
Steve L @2&3, calculating the trends for La Nina, Neutral and El Nino years seperately on the BEST LOTI (Sea Ice as Air Temperature) since 1966, it turns out that 2015 will be the average temperature for an El Nino year in 2018, for a neutral year in 2023 and for a La Nina year 2028. The precise year estimated will depend on the temperature set used, and the ENSO index used (I just used the classification in Dana's graph below).
That means that within three years, we can expect the average El Nino to match 2015 temperatures, with El Nino's occuring every three to four years on average. Put another way, by 2028 we can expect to have experienced five or so years approximately as hot as 2015, and likely one or two hotter.
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Tom Curtis at 09:17 AM on 26 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
Dana, in the extended section of the OP, it is claimed that El Nino, neutral and La Nina years all have the same trend of 0.16 C per decade. That claim is belied by the graph, however, were the slope of the trend line for neutral years is visibly less than that of El Nino and La Nina years, and where pixel count shows the trend lines for El Nino and La Nina years draw apart, showing the El Nino trend to be greater than the La Nina Trend. Could you note the exact values.
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Steve L at 07:05 AM on 26 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
Ah, I see by following the link to the Guardian, Trenberth indicates it would be 15 years before we could expect to frequently see anomalies such as observed in 2015.
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Steve L at 07:02 AM on 26 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
I like the quote at the end from Trenberth. Perhaps the best way to communicate this result, besides saying it's really warm and this warmth is having big negative consequences, is to predict when this global surface anomaly will become "normal". That is, how many years is this year's anomaly ahead of the long-term trend (say, 1970-2014 ... don't want to cherry-pick a biased end date). At about 0.15 C increase per decade, and 2015 being about 0.14 C warmer than 2010 and 2014 (with 2014 being approximately on the trendline?), then we should expect 2015 temperatures to be "normal" by about 2025.
Is this correct? On average we should expect to see years like 2014-2016 by 2024-2026? I think this also says that it would be abnormal to see another year so warm before then, and it would be really weird to see several more than one of them. Perhaps this kind of messaging to the media would help to avoid wasteful discussion of a new hiatus in the next decade.
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william5331 at 04:41 AM on 26 January 2016A Rough Guide to Rainfall, Run-off and Rivers
Read "Three Against the Wilderness" by Eric Collier; especially toward the end when he describes the flood of 1948 in the Frazer River catchment. This flood descimated the Frazer delta, raising water levels to the first and sometimes the second floor of houses on the delta. It was caused by a huge snow pack and a very late spring that when it happened came on rapidly went straight into summer. The only creek along the Frazer Valley that didn't contribute to this flood was Meldrum Creek. Eric had, along with a very forward looking conservation officer, R.M. Robertson, reintroduced the beaver to the catchment some years earlier and they multiplied and restored the environment and with it, it's water storing capacity. If beavers has been spread throughout the Frazer catchment, the flood never would have happened.
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william5331 at 04:06 AM on 26 January 2016Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming
So because of this El Nino created jump in the temperature,we can expect another "hiatus" starting in 2017. The climate change deniers can have fun with this one. They can now start their graphs in 2015 and at least for a few years explain to us how the climate is cooling. That is, unless we have passed one or more of the tipping points and 2017 turns out to be warmer than 2016.
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Tom Curtis at 00:40 AM on 26 January 2016Wigley and Santer Find the IPCC is too Conservative on AGW
Jsalch @27, the principles used in climate models are not assumptions. Climate models are reiterative calculations of causal relationships relevant to global climate. Thus one part of a model will handle conservation of momentum, requireing that momentum be conserved when are masses move from one cell to another in a model. Another will handle the effects of Boyle's law with regard to vertical motion of gas under convection. Another part again will handle radiative absorption and emission. All of these causal laws that go into a climate model are very well confirmed physical theories from both laboratory and non-laboratory observations.
There is a problem in that the smallest practical resolution of climate models is much larger the resolution of laws applied. Consequently to make the physics work, parameters need to be introduced to handle the approximation. These parameters, however, are justified in detail based on the causal laws - and refined by comparison with real world observations.
The range of physical laws, and hence causal relationships embodied in GCMs ranges through radiative physics, newtonian dynamics, gas laws, laws of evaporation, and on into laws of chemistry.
The output of the models are then tested against both much simpler models and against global observations of a very large number of variables (not just Global Mean Surface Temperature). All GCM's produce earthlike climates with an astonishing verrisimilitude - which is astounding given the number of physical laws embodied in their operation, and the courseness of their grid. Combined they also produce quite accurate predictions of physical values in absolute terms. They are made to look like the perform much worse than they do because values are expressed in relative terms because doing so highlights discrepancies - the better to be able to test and improve the models.
When you summarize this process as "if [assumptions from climatology models], then humans are the problem", it merely demonstrates your complete ignorance on how climate is actually modelled in GCMs.
Curiously, however, there is one class of 'scientist' who only ever present simple, statistical models of climate - ie, whose output could be described as "if assumptions, then results". That class are the AGW deniers. They are so confident in their theories that they never dare model them based on detailed representations of physical law.
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