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Comments 26351 to 26400:

26351. CBDunkerson at 22:35 PM on 17 December 2015
       Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
       

       TonyW, I think whether we hold warming below 1.5C or 2C depends entirely on economics (no change in human behaviour required)... just as the COP21 accord and the US/China deal preceding it never would have happened if the cost of renewable power hadn't fallen enough to make those plans economically viable.

       If new breakthroughs drop the cost of wind/solar power to 20% of current (well below fossil fuels) within five years then I think keeping warming under 1.5C becomes a real possibility. If renewable energy prices stay about where they are currently then even the existing COP21 targets are in danger and we may pass 3C.

       As to needing to peak global emissions by 2020. It is possible last year was the peak. 2014 had a tiny increase over 2013 and estimates for 2015 range from just barely over to slightly under 2014. Either way, peaking by 2020 seems entirely possible.

26352. CBDunkerson at 22:25 PM on 17 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       Sunspot, population growth (and improved standards of living) is factored in to climate projections. Indeed, if not for assumptions that the global population will continue to grow and gain more access to electricity and transportation the climate situation would be a lot less dire.

       That said, the global fertility rate has been falling for decades and is expected to hit a replacement level (i.e. where births = deaths) around 2050... and then drop below replacement for the foreseeable future.

26353. Lionel A at 22:16 PM on 17 December 2015
       December 2015 Floods: a floating postcard from the UK
       

       Oops.

       "...responsibilty on this score by giving hydraulic fracturing the green light despite the platitudes of COP21..."

26354. Lionel A at 22:15 PM on 17 December 2015
       December 2015 Floods: a floating postcard from the UK
       

       Superb narrative encompassing most relevant factors and also the myths. Thank you very much for taking the trouble putting this together.

       Reducing the use of fossil fuels is a very necessary mitigation strategy, what a shame the the Government have decided to abrogate responsibilty on this score by giving hydraulic fracturing the despite the platitudes of COP21, the recognised environmental hazards and dubious economics.

26355. MA Rodger at 21:17 PM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       MarcDivPhoto @373.

       You say "I was not accusing Dr. Mears of being in denial, I was pointing out that he posted data that is easily interpreted one way, and then chose to offer reasons why it should not be interpreted that way. I did not immediately claim he must be wrong, or that there cannot be a warming process going on."

       Is that correct? You said @369 (an unsupported assertion) "Clearly the models are badly flawed, and in science, when your models don't work, you discard them."

       Your position rests solely on this 'easy-interpretation-one-way' idea. As for a justification, this appears to involve two issues. There is the lack of warming issue which Mears does address but which you dismiss because you say it is based on a "belief" that warming is occurring, "not on reasoning." Accusing Mears' position here of depending on "belief" is wrong. He does address the idea of "errors in the fundamental model physics." And he gives his reasons for not giving them more credence. That is he knows of no "convincing evidence of model physics flaws." So which part of this is based on "belief" ?

       The other issue you raise is less easy to understand. You present it @389,373&376 as you first issue indicating some attached importance but your argument is not evident to me. Why should should the "ups&downs of the chart from about 1994 or so make a classic SPC chart that shows a stable process" have any relevance here? I have encountered folk insisting the temperture record has, for instance, all the signs of a random walk (which it doesn't), or perhaps the spin of the Earth's core (which requires some diligent cherry-picking). It's a pretty diverse set, all told. But resemblance to a "classic SPC chart" is a new one on me, and its relevance is not apparent. How so?

26356. michael sweet at 20:56 PM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       MarDivPhoto,

       to address another of your wild claims, Jeff Masters, a national hurricane expert, says here:

       "Typhoon Melor powered into the Central Philippines on Sunday night, December 13 (U.S. EST time) as a Category 3 storm with 125 mph winds. This was slightly below its peak intensity as a Category 4 storm with 135 mph winds at 8 am EST Sunday, when Melor became the record-smashing 26th Northern Hemisphere Category 4 or stronger storm this year (previous record: just 18 such storms in 1997 and 2004,"(my emphasis)

       I was waiting for an end of year summary but your coment is so far off base and without factual support that I had to cite it.  This year crushed all the records for strong hurricanes.  "Unknown natural cycles" does not cut it against these records.  You appear to be in the group that says if the hurricane does not hit your house it did not happen.  Worldwide strong hurricanes are setting records.  

26357. adskankster at 20:09 PM on 17 December 2015
       December 2015 Floods: a floating postcard from the UK
       

       Thanks for the very good article, John.

       One question though, do you know if the trials in Marshall et al, are on going? It might be interesting to see if the effects are increased over longer timescales. The reason I ask is that the soil depths in our local woods seem to augmented by the leaf litter and other woodland detritus, that builds up over time. I would expect that to improve water retention?

       Obviously, in areas of very thin soils, there's only so much mass that can created, but it would also reduce soil erosion - which I imagine has been notable since the hills were originally cleared?

       Finally, there are other benefits from re-foresting the fells, including climate change mitigation ones, so it seems like an obvious part of the adaptation/mitigation strategy - as you point out.

26358. TonyW at 19:58 PM on 17 December 2015
       Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
       

       I think we need to differentiate between what is possible in an ideal world, where humans stop acting irrationally (i.e. stop acting like humans). Such a world doesn't exist and so 1.5C is impossible. 2C? Well, again, it pretty much requires significant declines starting now but the Paris agreement concerns emissions from 2020, so even steeper declines are needed from that point. If the world doesn't prove it's taking this seriously by 2020 (by already having peaked emissions) then 2C will also be impossible.

       From some of the comments and policy decisions I've heard from politicians in a couple of countries, since Paris, I don't think they are taking it seriously.

       IMO, of course.

26359. Tom Curtis at 16:27 PM on 17 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       Further to my comment @30, I should note that again ryland avoids responding to substantive discussion.  The thing we are depriving Indians of, according to his echoing of the Australian's views, is cheap energy, but evidence that the solar energy provided was comparible in cost to the fossil fuel based grid power is simply ignored.  That it was much cheaper than the fossil fuel based alternative which also provided more accessible power was also ignored.

26360. Tom Curtis at 16:20 PM on 17 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       ryland @20, quoting the Australian:

       "In an act of conceit, the developed nations decided others should not follow their path to prosperity built on abundant and cheap energy. No, poor nations should rely on the generosity of the developed world funding expensive and inferior clean and green energy. So people in need of cheap and reliable power — and the jobs, food, shelter, education, health and security it brings — instead would be given solar or wind."

       ryland @20 commenting on the quote from the Australian:

       "As we sit in our airconditioned homes with all the conveniences modern society gives Westerners, many of which are due to stable and reliable electricity supplies, we have the temerity to say to those who can only dream of such amenities, 'you must do without". Yeah right! There are many here who applaud COP21 but here are many many more who will be very disadvantaged indeed. This is not an issue considered relavant by some who comment here but it is one that should not be ignored by respondents to SkS"

       That statement is a very direct endorsement of the sentiments expressed in the first quote.  Given that there are no disclaimer and/or qualifiers on the quoted section of the Australian, the only way it is not an endorsement of the sentiment expressed in the Australian is if it is be deliberately disengenuous, yet now (@29) ryland would have us believe he made no endorsement of the view expressed by the Australian.  Frankly as the entire point of his post @20 was to put the Australian quote before us, and to endorse it (there being no other content to the comment), I would have to call his current disavowal bullshit.

       As to his further claims @29:

       1)  Bias is very much in the eyes of the beholder, and we know which way ryland's eyes are skewed.

       2) Comments on the Australian's editorial stance on related issues is fair comment in assessing to what extent the expressed views in the quote are coherent with those views.  They, patently, are not.

       3) While I have been known to quote Gaurdian articles, that is because they turn up in google searchs (and so are quoted no more frequently than other news sources that similarly turn up in google searches).  Ryland's acumen in assessment my reliance on news sources shows all the acumen of his assessments of global warming and global warming policy.

26361. Tom Curtis at 15:53 PM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       What MarDivPhoto @376 said:

       "If anyone thinks for a millisecond that the world is going to seriously back off burning coal, oil, gas, and wood for that matter, they are indulging in fantasy."

       What the science says:

       "This moderate increase of 2% in 2013 compared to 2012 is a continuation of last year’s trend
       and of the slowdown in the annual emissions growth.  The actual increase of 2012 compared to 2011 was 0.6 Gt or 1.7% (excluding leap year correction) and both are about half the average annual growth rate of 1.1 Gt or 3.8% since 2003 (excluding the 2008–2009 recession years). Note that the average annual emission increase in the 1995–2002 period (after the large decline in energy consumption in the former Soviet Union countries) was about 1.2% or 0.4 Gt CO2 per year. With the global economic growth of 3.4% and 3.1%, in 2012 and 2013 respectively, a further decoupling of the global economic and emission trends can be observed. This decoupling is consistent with the increasing service sector share (growing by 1.5% and 1.8% in 2012 and 2013 on average in middle income countries, including China) to the overall gross domestic product, at the expense of more energyintensive industrial activities."

       Clearly economic growth is already decoupling from carbon emissions, which partly driven by increased relative production of renewable energy.  And contrary to MDP's assertions, Chinese CO2 emissions actually fell in 2014 (ie, the year after that covered by the report above):

       

       Indeed, globally CO2 emissions did not rise in 2014.  This has lead to some, probably premature, speculation that CO2 emissions have reached their peak.  More probably they will tend to rise slowly over the coming decade, but CO2 emmissions are rising far slower than BAU scenarios project.  That is because we are not in a BAU word.  Rather, we are in a Kyoto, and now Paris world in which there are solid commitments by major polluters to reduce CO2 emissions, backed up by actual deeds.

       Again MDPs' claim is based on what they would like to be the case, not on the actual data.

26362. Eclectic at 15:48 PM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       Again, MarDivPhoto [ @ 376 ], you demonstrate a decided deficiency in "total objectivity" in your assessments.

       "Sun and wind will never make up more than a fraction of the energy that modern life desires and demands" [unquote] ~ there indeed you are indulging in fantasy . . . unless you are intending to include as "fraction" some very large fractions like eight-tenths and nine-tenths.

       Yes, fusion power generation of electricity would doubtless be desirable : yet it fails the "practicable alternative" test, in that it is likely many decades away (and trillions of dollars away, probably). Far too much opportunity cost, there, for the next few decades.

       Fission power generation ~ yes, practicable but not so practical on the "soon and large" scale we need. Think of the vast opportunity cost; the slow build and distant commisioning dates; the vulnerability to terrorist assault [kidnap of radioactive material, particularly]; and the vast decommissioning costs.  And sadly, there's always the NIMBY politics.

       So, seeing such a gamut of problems, why would you wish to propose fission power . . . if no AGW problem exists (in your opinion) ??

        

       You yourself claim an absence of "much clearer picture of unmistakeable effects" [of global warming] ~ yet this is a point which almost every climate scientist in the world would disagree with (not to mention every peak scientific body, too).  In effect, they describe your position as lacking objectivity.

       Nevertheless, MarDivPhoto, keeping an open mind (in readers here) about such an important point . . . you sound like you should have little difficulty in stating a short list of cogent criteria which you would see as clear unmistakable clinchers re non-trivial global warming.

       * No, that wasn't a trick question; I'm not trying to play "gotcha"; nor do I wish to play lawyer-type  salami-slicing  logic-chopping games where you get berated over a tenth of a degree here, a half degree there, or a thousand Gigatons of ice plus-or-minus.  No, none of such intellectual dishonesty, in the slightest.

       Though I am sure you realise that you will need to give non-trivial, non-catastrophic replies ~ remembering that such stuff as like: 100cm sea-level rise, zero sea-ice in the arctic summer, or the heat-induced uninhabitability of half of India . . . all those sorts of criteria are ones which I am sure an objective thinker would scorn to give (as being scientifically and morally unconscionable).

       So, MarDivPhoto . . . what say you ?

26363. Tom Curtis at 15:37 PM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       What MarDivPhoto @376 said:

       "The rising sea levels... well, the sea has been rising for a very long time, very slowly."

       What the science says:

       

       Note in particular the flat, and indeed, recently declining sea levels over the last 3000 years in Fig 13.3 a.  That decline reversed itself sharply about 1850 as seen in Fig 13.3 b and e.  Fig 13.3 is assessed in greater detail by SkS here:

       

       The 1901 to 2010 figure is given as 1.7 [1.5-1.9] mm per year by the IPCC, so that the current rate (3.2 mm per year) is nearly twice the twentieth century average.  aClearly MarDivPhoto's claim is simply not based on the data, whether assessed on millenial or centenial time scales.  It is probably based on the common denier meme which averages sea level rise from the Last Glacial Maximum to the current era paying no attention to even thousand year long patterns in the data which clearly show such an average is deceptive rather than informative.

26364. ryland at 15:30 PM on 17 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       @28 Please don't presume what I do and don't appear to do. As I have made no specific mention of coal or gas or oil and certainly wrote nothing that endorsed or did not endorse the attitude of The Australian toward coal. Your use of the word appear shows your comment is pure speculation with no supporting evidence.  The only part of your biased diatribe against The Australian I regarded as worth responding to was your comment on the cartoon.  The comments about Howard and Costello and foreign aid are pure political sloganeering and  did not require a response.  From your comments you appear to be a devotee  of the Guardian with all that that implies.

26365. scaddenp at 14:24 PM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       The models do not attempt to calculate what RSS/UAH measure. A global surface trend is extracted from models. Comparing RSS to model output is not a valid comparison. Furthermore, it is not a way to validation of models. Your attempt to do so would suggest that you are judging climate science without actually reading the WG1 report.

       Models have ENSO-like features but they cannot predict what ENSO will actually do and every model run will produce a different realisation. A proper validation is done when you compare estimates of surface temperature (not troposphere) to the range of model outputs (corrected for actual forcings). Models are doing fine in this comparison.

       "Glaciers are melting, but they always have." Huh? They advanced during LIA. Glaciers are integrators of climate. Climate has changed in the past (when the external forcing change) and glaciers change with them. You seem to be implying that glaciers have made unforced changes  but where is the evidence for that.

       Did you actually look at the OHC graph I pointed to? How do you explain that by unforced natural variation?

       If you look at science on hurricanes, you will see that AGW increases SSTs which fuel hurricanes but also increase upper level shear which hinders development. Which wins? Again you are making claims on climate science which are not actually made. That is a strawman argument and I would expect a scientist to know better.

       I will other bits of your gish gallop to others (or moderators) but you again you are making a bunch wild claims with no supporting evidence in violation of comments policy on this site. Uninformed comment in not welcome on this site. You appear to be simply repeating long debunked claims of sort you hear on Fox news or pseudo-skeptic blogs.

26366. Tom Curtis at 13:37 PM on 17 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       ryland @27, the problem with the solar energy supply is that uptake of the service exceeded capacity.  That is a potential problem for any power supply.  They system supplied is a 100 Kwh system.  For rural domestic, energy limited (60 Watt capacity) unmetered supply in Bihar the rate is 55 rupees per month.  For a 2 kilowatt load rural domestic unmetered supply the charge is 160 rupees per month.  The charge for the solar scheme (70 rupees a month) is competitive with the first of these, and significantly lower than the second.  That being the case, it is economical to expand the system to meet the additional required capacity.  

       As an aside, the failure to mention the relative rates in the Scientific American article is a clear sign of bias.  So also is the failure to mention the 250 rupee/month cost of kerosene for the kerosene lamps that previously provided light in the village, as is the description of the system as a 70 kilowatt system (rather than the 100 kilowatt described elsewhere).

       Finally, I did not just comment on the racism of the cartoon @25.  I also pointed out the hypocrissy and dubious honesty of the argument used for coal by The Australian which you appear to endorse.

26367. MarDivPhoto at 13:14 PM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       I guess I have to repeat the simple observation that the up&down pattern of temperature shown in the Mears graph and the fact that what increase it does show is tremendously less than the models indicate all give ample reason to question the assumption that we are in the midst of a CO2 caused global warming.  People can bring up all the other arguments they like, but until we see a much clearer picture of unmistakeable effects, it is not justified to claim that we absolutely know and understand what is going on.  Glaciers are melting, but they always have.  Greenland was a great deal warmer 800 years ago than is has been since then, and CO2 was low back then.  Artic and Anarctic ice has increased and decreased in the past.  Remember when everyone jumped on Katrina as the first superstorm from AGW?  But we haven't seen a steady procession of them since.  Everyone likes to jump on anecdotal events as long as whatever it is supports what they want to support.  That's not science.

       If anyone thinks for a millisecond that the world is going to seriously back off burning coal, oil, gas, and wood for that matter, they are indulging in fantasy.  And again, we cannot take the CO2 out of the air, so it's not remotely a "either/or" proposition, if the theory is valid, then preparing for it is as basic intelligence as it gets.

       Sun and wind will never make up more than a fraction of the energy that modern life desires and demands.  Planes will only fly by jet engines, and electric cars, trucks, trains, all get their kilowatts from some form of enegy generation, which right now is mostly from burning things.  Logically we should be jumping all over 4th generation nuclear plant designs and funding research into fusion hugely, but somehow most of the people who are enthusiastic about reducing CO2 output reject any such ideas.

       The rising sea levels... well, the sea has been rising for a very long time, very slowly.  So far we haven't seen any of the many low lying islands of the world disappearing, not even the very low sand islands off the coast of my state.  Everyone refers to these events as if half the Antarctic and all the Artic are gone, and the sea is up by a foot or more, but none of that has happened so far.

       When the water in the Mindanao Trench comes up in temperature, then we'll know a lot.  But the mass of the oceans and the heat capacity of water combine to be one heck of a heat sink, so in fact even if energy were being trapped, it would take a very, very long time to have any effect there.

       And someone just had to throw in the "denialist" term again as part of their approach, which tells me that it's time for me to bow out of this exchange.  Apparently there is no escaping the "if you're not with us, you're against us" mentality, that is not part of any truly reasonable thinking, whethere one has studied science or not.  The points I've tried to register were about real science staying open to discussion without rancor and personal attacks, and that there's enough evidence to justify some questioning of the current popular theory about Climate Change.  Clearly such thoughts are not welcome here.

26368. Eclectic at 11:29 AM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       MarDivPhoto [ @373 ] . . . You would considerably improve your "total objectivity" if you looked at the context of the situation you describe.

       ~ Dr Mears has made a number of suggestions on probabilities and possiblities regarding surface temperature short-term variations [ and not including his half-humorous Point No. 4 ].   Remember also, his blog entry was written in September 2014; well before the "warming effect" of the present big El Niño.  [ an El Niño, of great embarrassment to denialists ]

       ~ Also implicit in his comments, is the objective background of the [surface temp]  warming/not-warming question.  We are dealing with a real physical world here . . . not some thought-experiment where coins are tossed / dice are rolled / etcetera.  Thus, we have to deal with the observed couple of watts/m2  of planetary heat gain, which is occurring every day and every month of every year (volcano eruptions excepted!).

       Where has this heat energy gone, and where is it going?  No, it hasn't been teleported onto the Starship Enterprise or been teleported into the nearest Black Hole.  MarDivPhoto, you yourself know [since you deny being a denialist] that this ongoing inflow of heat energy is 90% going into the oceans . . . and so it would be foolish to turn a blind eye on such a large fact.  A fact, which (so to speak) tilts the playing field in favour of long-term surface warming: and which renders it ridiculous to hint that a "hiatus" is equally as likely as a "warming".

       Indeed, ridiculous to suggest a "hiatus" in the sense of a "halt" in AGW.

        

       (off-topic) As to building dikes & levees : of course that is an intelligent move, and sadly necessary . . . but it is far from intelligent to abandon effort to reduce the size of the CO2-caused problem.

       "If AGW exists" . . . is a vacuous phrase, in view of the vast amounts of melting ice, the rising sea-levels, and all the other objective evidence of our global warming problem.  It's a matter of overall context, isn't it !?

26369. ryland at 10:08 AM on 17 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       Michael Sweet @24 

       You ask “why should I believe the report you cite?” That, of course, is entirely up to you. Equally I could ask you the same question with regard to to the piece in an Indian newspaper that you cite. Similarly I could emulate your comment “Can you provide a reference to support the claims that you have referenced?”

       On Indian newspapers here is a link to an Indian newspaper stating the residents of Dhanai did ask for “real electricity”  (Apologies can't get the insert to work.  The URL is http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/bihar-village-dharnai-nitish-kumar-clamours-for-real-electricity/1/375733.html)'  Given your comment on Indian newspapers ("Since the Indians actually live nearby") I'll use this piece from an Indian newspaper to answer your question "Can you provide a reference to support the claims that you have referenced?"

       I'm surprised that on "Googling" (dreadful word) Dhanai you could find no articles to support the piece in Sci Am.  I found several including the article I cite above.  In fairness there were more lauding Greenpeace's efforts in Dhanai, although none mentioned the current problems Greenpeace is having with the Indian government (http://news.mongabay.com/2015/11/indian-government-cancels-greenpeace-indias-registration/).

       Tom Curtis @25.  I agree, the cartoon is racist

26370. Sunspot at 09:57 AM on 17 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       The one topic ignored at COP(out)21 is overpopulation. Unless we stabilize and then humanely reduce the quantity of humans on the planet, we are assured of outgrowing any "solution". So, really, it was all useless. Worse than useless, actually, by giving people the illusion that we can resolve the problem.

26371. scaddenp at 09:52 AM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       " I believe in forming hypotheses and looking for data to confirm them, and that sometimes it will take time and more data to provide either the compelling evidence to support them, or to demonstrate that the reality is somehow different than was thought." And for some reason you think this isnt what is happening in climate science? It also appears that you  are also assuming that slower warming in say RSS is evidence against the AGW hypothesis? For this to be the case, then you need to present the case where climate science would think the current RSS measurements incompatible with theory. I am not aware of such published science. Quite the reverse.

       You are also presenting a false dichotomy of adapt to change or use less energy. A third option is change to non-carbon generation. Studies to date suggest the latter is cheaper than adaptation (though yes, it should have started to happen decades ago). It is also more equitable because richer nations created the problem, and yet many poorer nations will feel the more severe effects and be less able to adapt.

       Proposals have mostly focussed on getting sharp reduction in FF use in developed nations (they are both responsible for most of the damage to climate and most able to afford the transition), while giving poorer nations longer to change. If you want more pressure on China/India etc. then you put border carbon tax on goods created FF-generated energy.

26372. MarDivPhoto at 09:18 AM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       For MA Rodger-

       Ah, the instant attack, how sadly predictable.  No, I was not accusing Dr. Mears of being in denial, I was pointing out that he posted data that is easily interpreted one way, and then chose to offer reasons why it should not be interpreted that way.  I did not immediately claim he must be wrong, or that there cannot be a warming process going on.  I do not accuse those who believe strongly in AGW of being "alarmists" just as I don't think people should talk about "denialists".  I believe in forming hypotheses and looking for data to confirm them, and that sometimes it will take time and more data to provide either the compelling evidence to support them, or to demonstrate that the reality is somehow different than was thought.  After which the scientist goes back to the drawing board, so to speak, and starts thinking anew about how to understand the reality that has so far proven elusive.  Hasn't this happened myriad times in science that we all know about?

       Science in the ideal is practiced with total objectivity, and although we humans are probably incapable of achieving that ideal, as scientists we are supposed to be working really hard at it.  The discussion of Climate Change long ago fell into deep pools of emotion on both sides, which is most unfortunate.  But there should always be room for discussion without rancor among scientists.

       As was pointed out recently at a congressional hearing, in very many areas, including NYC, the intelligent thing to do is to prepare for higher water and more frequent storms, rather than fighting about how to make people use less energy.  After all, assuming AGW is actually valid, since we have no remotely practical ways to remove gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere, then preparation for coming changes is mandatory.  If AGW is valid, then we'll be better off, and if it turns out we don't need the levees, dikes, etc, there really won't be any harm.  Shouldn't that be a focus for leaders all over the world?  Especially since India and China are not about to stop their increase in the use of coal.

26373. Tom Curtis at 08:18 AM on 17 December 2015
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       saileshrao @147:

       1)  Your attempt to avoid the consequences of your misinterpretation and misquotation of the pope by adopting the less parsimonious hypothesis of hypocrissy by the pope is noted.  For what it is worth, the pope (qua orthodox catholic) must believe that you can eat fish and lamb (at least) without sin, for Jesus was without sin according to Christian theology, and he certainly ate lamb at least once a year (passover) and is recorded as eating fish.  For the pope to be claiming what you say he claims, he must also be claiming that Jesus was not without sin.

       2)  Ahimsa is part of your cultural legacy, but your do not have an exclusive mandate for interpreting that legacy.  More importantly, that legacy has clearly been interpretted as permitting ovo/lacto- vegetariansim and even meat eating by a very large number of people sharing that heritage, including (for the former) Ghandi.  Further, the declaration you cite states:

       "Today we call on all Hindus to expand our conception of dharma. We must consider the effects of our actions not just on ourselves and those humans around us, but also on all beings. We have a dharmic duty for each of us to do our part in ensuring that we have a functioning, abundant, and bountiful planet."

       If Hindus are asked to expand their conception of dharma, then clearly the traditional recieved conception is not expanded.  That is, the declaration represents not an exposition of the tradition, but an attempt to reform it.  That in itself is evidence that the tradition does not contain unitary support for your interpretation of Ahimsa.

       The declaration also states:

       "Adopting a plant-based diet is one of the single most powerful acts that a person can take in reducing environmental impact."

       As an aside, I disagree with Red Baron's interpretation of "plant based diet", which need not imply veganism, but must at least imply vegeterianism.  It is, however, irrelevant unless you are of the opinion that a religious document can decide truth on matters of science.

       As a further aside, if it is morally wrong to kill cows for food on the basis that as Hindus you "... revere all life, human, non-human, plant, and animal", then it is equally wrong to kill insects that eat your crops so that you can have crops for food.  It follows that if veganism is a moral duty, it is equally a moral duty to not use insecticides nor even to drive off wild animals from your crops.  That rather calls into question the ability of the world to be fed on a vegan diet.  That is particularly the case as you ban one of the oldest forms of pest control - eating the pests (locusts are delicious by the way).

       3)  What Barnosky said was:

       "Precrash biomass levels were finally reached just before the Industrial Revolution began, then skyrocketed above the precrash baseline as humans augmented the energy available to the global ecosystem by mining fossil fuels."

       Except where plants are 'fed' by electric lighting to allow extended periods of photosynthesis, plants make no use of energy from fossil fuels.   Nor, as animals rely on plant food, does fossil fuel energy end up in plants.  The way fossil fuel energy is used is in supplying limiting factors (soil nitrogen, water), planting, harvesting and transport.  That allows the more efficient use of solar energy by the plants and the ecosystem as a whole.  Barnosky's inference that the large excess of biomass, indeed of food production of any sort is not possible without suitable power, that power can come from renewables or nuclear.

       This is not an issue unique to megafaunal biomass, and has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that domestic megafaunal biomass has increased by coopting food resources from the total range of animal biomass, not just megafauna.  Supression of locusts has contributed to the increase in domestic megafaunal biomass no less than has the reduction in bison numbers.  It follows that a biomass comparison that looks only at mammals is, as I indicated, misleading on the actual cooption of ecological resources.

       4)  You are welcome to stand by your results, but there is no consensus in favour of them, and the consensus possition as assessed by the IPCC shows your position to be an outlier.  Nor is your comment responsive to my point.

26374. Tom Curtis at 07:33 AM on 17 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       ryland @20, the editorial in question is a defense of an obviously racist cartoon by Leak.  The defense fails (comments by Sanderson and draco are particularly apposite).  Further, the underlying claim that "In an act of conceit, the developed nations decided others should not follow their path to prosperity built on abundant and cheap energy" is particularly absurd.  It assumes that those who want India to pursue a renewable future do not want exactly the same thing for their own nations - something demonstrably false.  

       It also assumes that cheap power will rescue people from poverty.  What is in fact the case is those in poverty have not been able to afford the 'cheap' power; and those running the Australian's hypocritical argument have been quite content with that.  You will find no editorial's from the Murdoch press 15 years ago demanding foreign aid funding to build fossil fuel based power infrastructure to rescue people from poverty.  Only now that people are encouraging non-fossil fuel developments have they suddenly discovered this key nexus between fossil fuels and no poverty.  Nor do I recall any editorial's from The Australian excoriating various massive cuts to the aid budget by the Howard and Abbot governments; or demanding that the foreign aid budget be lifted to above the current feeble 0.34% of GDP.

       Their concern for the world's poor seems only to exist when it is a stalking horse for not taking action on climate change. 

26375. scaddenp at 06:40 AM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       I think at the heart of the problem is the question of "what is a good diagnostic for global warming". Neither the tropospheric temperatures (which the satellites attempt to measure) nor the surface temperature record (what actually matters to most to human activity) are particularly great because both are very noisy datasets with short term variations dominated by ENSO. You need long time spans to assess underlying behaviour. Tropospheric measurements (RSS/UAH) are particularly sensitive to ENSO showing much larger responses to La Nina and El Nino events than the surface record. Arguably, OHC is the best diagnostic we have. See here for more detail.

       On top of that, determining ttropospheric temperatures from satellite MSU measurements is a tough problem. MSU isnt only way to measure tropospheric temperature - radiosondes also do it. However, it looks like the measurements systems have started to diverge.

       

       Watch for science being published on this.

26376. michael sweet at 06:38 AM on 17 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       Ryland,

       When I Googled Dharnai I got several hits with your reference.  I also got several links from Indian newspapers like this one which say the program was a success.  None of the additional links described the problems your link cited.  Since the Indians actually live nearby, why should I believe the report you cited?  Can you provide a reference to support the claims that you have referenced?

       Scientific American recently printed an article by the same author claiming that Nuclear is required to provide electricity (with no peer reviewed references) and an op-ed from Matt Ridley, a well known science denier, saying that warming is no problem.  I am skeptical of what they currently publish.

26377. Rob Honeycutt at 06:16 AM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       MarDivPhoto... Dr Mears actually suggests that the satellite data is not so good. On the blog MA Rogers links to he clearly states, "A similar, but stronger case [for model/observations] can be made using surface temperature datasets, which I consider to be more reliable than satellite datasets (they certainly agree with each other better than the various satellite datasets do!)."

       You can't casually discard models when you don't fully understand the accuracy of the observations. It's just as likely, at this point, that models are doing a better than observations are.

26378. MA Rodger at 05:55 AM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

        

       MarDivPhoto @369.

       I assume you refer to the Carl Mears blog post here. You seem to be arguing here that it is Mears who is in denial, not you. That isn't a very good example for the "back & forth of discussions" you describe as being the stuff of science. And in dismissing Mears and his analysis, you replace it with "sunspots, etc." It is all a bit shallow, do you not think?

26379. ryland at 05:36 AM on 17 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       @21 My apologies.  I should also have given the link to the Sci Am article. It is here

26380. ryland at 05:12 AM on 17 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       @21 As requested. The link is here

26381. RedBaron at 04:54 AM on 17 December 2015
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       @saileshrao #147

       point #2) What you have there is a classic example of cherry picking and confirmation bias. You said "my interpretation of Ahimsa, which is part of my cultural legacy". Well your interpretation is not even close to your "cultural heritage". Veganism is an example of removing the individual religious dogma from the cultural heritage context. Nor does your link say what you think it says. From your link:"how we treat other animals" -nothing there about getting rid of the cow, rather about how the cow is treated. "Adopting a plant-based diet" - Plant based is not Vegan any more than "meat eater" is only meat. It mearly describes the bulk of the diet. In fact for those poor that can't afford enriched foods or supplements a Vegan diet is very harmful, or even fatal for the vast majority of people. Thus goes AGAINST the concept of ahimsa. Not to mention the harm to the environment. Also AGAINST the concept of ahimsa.

       If you are actually serious about your new religion, and want a true understanding of the cultural heritage behind it, look here. Explained very well.

       Point #3) Confirmation bias yet again. No where does that paper say getting rid of cows or other livestock, Rather it says, "efficient and sustainable food-production practices" are needed. And it says "means humans, can be sustained only by developing alternative energy resources to replace the dwindling supply of fossil fuels." 

       All of which means in agriculture, we need an efficient alternative to fossil fuel fertilizers. As explained to you multiple times, the most efficient alternative to that is the rumen, but other animals can help to a lessor degree. So efficient is the rumen in fact that it actually is far more efficient than the fossil fuels we typically use now in the Haber process. Managed properly of course.

       point #4) All good you stand behind your work. I also agree we need to reforest. We could do that far more likely by getting rid of the factory farming production model and instead use the livestock to help us in our efforts.

       Another couple quotes from someone who gets it, both the ethical and how livestock can be used for ecosystem regeneration.

       "In our culture we view the pigs as just so much inanimate protoplasmic structure to be manipulated however cleverly hubris can imagine to manipulate it. And I would suggest that a culture that views its plants and animals in that type of disrespectful, arrogant, manipulative standpoint will view its citizens the same way...and other cultures" Joel Salatin

       "The pigs do that work (by rooting in the forest and that creates the temporary disturbance on the ground that allows germination for higher successional species.) And so it allows for those pigs to be not just pork chops, bacon, and that. But now they then become co-conspirators and fellow laborers in this great land healing ministry ... by fully respecting the pigness of the pig." Joel Salatin

       PS Oh and by the way, it doesn't mean you must stop being vegan. Eat whatever you decide. What it means is you must stop blaming the domestic animals for how we mistreat them.

26382. michael sweet at 04:02 AM on 17 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       Ryland:

       Can you provide a link to the op-ed, I did not see it on the Australian site.

26383. saileshrao at 00:53 AM on 17 December 2015
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       Tristan@145:
       
       Please see debunking here.

26384. saileshrao at 00:50 AM on 17 December 2015
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       Tom Curtis@144:
       
       1. Indeed, Pope Francis, being human, does not always do what he says. He consumed steak and lobster in NYC.
       
       2. I stand by my interpretation of Ahimsa, which is part of my cultural legacy. The Hindu Declaration on Climate Change has now explicitly called for the adoption of a plant-based vegan diet.

       3. Prof. Anthony Barnosky of UC Berkeley has stated that the excess human+livestock biomass of megafauna could only be supported with excess energy appropriated from fossil fuels in the industrial era.

       4. Silver et al. reported above ground regrowth measurements for tropical forests. The Integrated Science Assessment Model (ISAM) estimated both above ground and below ground carbon sequestration of all forest bomes at maturity.
       
       We stand by the results that we presented at the AGU Fall Meeting on Monday. For any clarifications on land carbon issues, please feel free to contact my co-author, Prof. Atul Jain, who is a contributor to the IPCC and a land carbon expert at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

26385. ryland at 00:33 AM on 17 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       This comment from the editorial in the Australian of Wednsday 16 December eloquently sums up the attempts to get global action on climate change. Note the editorial refers to a piece in Sci Am a publication not renowned for its scepticism on climate change.

       "In an act of conceit, the developed nations decided others should not follow their path to prosperity built on abundant and cheap energy. No, poor nations should rely on the generosity of the developed world funding expensive and inferior clean and green energy. So people in need of cheap and reliable power — and the jobs, food, shelter, education, health and security it brings — instead would be given solar or wind.

       "The futility of this approach has been detailed in Scientific American, which recounts how the village of Dharnai in India’s Bihar state was outfitted with solar electricity under a Greenpeace initiative. When children found themselves without light for study and families couldn’t use their electric appliances they protested at the official solar launch; the state was forced to relent and connect them to the coal-fired power grid".

       As we sit in our airconditioned homes with all the conveniences modern society gives Westerners, many of which are due to stable and reliable electricity supplies, we have the temerity to say to those who can only dream of such amenities, 'you must do without".  Yeah right!  There are many here who applaud COP21 but here are many many more who will be very disadvantaged indeed.  This is not an issue considered relavant by some who comment here but it is one that should not be ignored by respondents to SkS

26386. RedBaron at 00:31 AM on 17 December 2015
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       @Tristan #145,

       Thanks for the link. I will be bookmarking it for further use.

       I was not aware of the paper, but certainly am aware of the problem. In fact it is my own research field. Even though I work with vegetables and not livestock, I researched the newer methods of each crop and animal husbandry type to find which had suceeded in turning agriculture from an unsustainable emissions source to a carbon sink. Or at least made big improvements over conventional, without losing yields and scalable. There are several. Already mentioned above in several posts are SRI for rice[1], and multi-species MIRG for livestock[2][3], but also you can add pasture cropping [4][5][6] for small grains like wheat and intensive dairy, various no till multi species cover crops [7][8][9] for commodity grains and cotton, integrated MIRG and orchard/vineyards for fruits and nuts.[10]

       Then I looked for the underlying principles in common.[11] All of these improve yields and soil health, while reducung and/or eliminating fossil fuel derived inputs at the same time. But a glaring lack of a proven method also scalable both large or small for most vegetables. Even large scale organic hasn't solved this yet. Though a few small scale permaculture methods have, they are not really easily scalable, too labor intensive. A few people have gotten close.

       So anyway I do believe I have a solution, but still as of yet unproven. I applied for a grant last year to have a case study done reviewed by a third party, but didn't get it. I will keep trying for the grant to document it properly, in the mean time still tweaking it. We will see. I mentioned this only to let you know you are absolutely correct about vegetables, but I personally see no fundamental reason that can't become a carbon sink as well... With a little more research and development. Not just me, but a lot of people are converging on that solution too.

       PS Sorry for the mixture of lay citations and scientific study citations, but some of these methods are so new, people don't even understand what I am talking about. All of these excepting my own research has already good evidence in case studies and/or published papers. And of course as soon as I am able, I will properly document my work as well.

26387. MarDivPhoto at 00:30 AM on 17 December 2015
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       I went looking for whatever set of satellite data were least challengeable, and found the excellent graph by Dr. Mears.  Since he is a firm believer in AGW and would not be somehow trying to manipulate data to make less of any warming trend, that seemed the safest bet.

       However, examining his graph, what I see is that, neglecting the spike at 1998, the ups&downs of the chart from about 1994 or so make a classic SPC chart that shows a stable process.  While the various computer programs predict a 1 to 1.5 increase in the time, the actual level is about 0.3 deg above centerline.  Clearly the models are badly flawed, and in science, when your models don't work, you discard them.  Thus it is not some kind of biased "denial" to take the position that there is no compelling evidence of a warming trend.  Dr. Mears goes into all the reasons why we are seeing a "pause", but this is basically trying to discount what his own data indicate, based on the belief, not reasoning, that there MUST be warming going on.

       The counter arguments of skeptics deserve something more than personal attacks on "denialists".  The very use of such terminology is unworthy of those seeking truth.  In Science the back and forth of discussions is supposed to be the norm up until there is compelling evidence to prove an hypothesis is valid.  There may yet come clearer evidence of warming, or some of the alternative theories about sunspots, etc, may gather more evidence.  Until then it would behoove all of us  (yes, I am a scientist with degrees and long practice) to remain at least tolerant of views other than our own.

26388. CBDunkerson at 22:49 PM on 16 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       Also keep in mind that local laws in some countries will force them to meet the committments they made at COP21. We saw that earlier this year when the Dutch courts forced the government to increase their GHG reduction plans to meet EU standards.

       It really comes down to the US and China. If they keep their committments and improve them every five years as intended then that's a huge chunk of the world's total emissions right there. Any nations NOT doing their share would then also have to deal with the two biggest economic and military superpowers being on their case. In a sense, COP21 is just the world following on to what the US & China did with their agreement last year... and there is no reason to believe that won't continue so long as those two countries keep making progress.

26389. Tom Curtis at 18:18 PM on 16 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       B'wana Finklestein @16, that an agreement is not legally binding does not make it not an agreement.  It does mean the enforcement measures are political and/or diplomatic rather than legal - but that is true of nearly all treaties.  Even those with legal enforcement mechanisms nearly always allow countries to autonomously excempt themselves from those mechanisms.  (As a cynical aside, the only important exceptions to that rule relate to "free trade" mechanisms, which are far more enforcible, and rigourously enforced than, for example, human rights provisions. That mismatch is an indictment of our civilization, and shows clearly where real power lies in our nations.)  Nor does it mean, contrary to Ryland's link, that it is an agreement to increase emissions, although it is certainly not an agreement that guarantees no further increase in emissions. 

26390. ryland at 16:06 PM on 16 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       If you read the reference posted by jsousa @10 you will find a very different take on COP21.  As it is not linked @10 I have reposted a link to that reference here.  After all the hype and ballyhoo all that has been brought forth is a toothless tiger that  has no powers to enforce adherence by anyone to any of the recommendations made.  Whatever COP21 produced it seems much less an agreement and more a bunch of hopeful aspirations.  

26391. B'wana Finklestein at 14:59 PM on 16 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       But isn't that the point TonyW is making Tom... it is not an Agreement...?

26392. Tom Curtis at 14:23 PM on 16 December 2015
       Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
       

       wili @7, high temperatures in 2015 relative to post 2000 values is primarilly due to the strong El Nino, and yes, they will revert to trend.  The trend they will revert to is most probabibly about 15% less than the model predicted trend of 0.2 C per decade.  That trend will increase overtime, but gradually at first so it is not likely to be much above that till after 2030.

26393. Tom Curtis at 14:20 PM on 16 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       TonyW @14, it is not a fraud.  What has been accomplished is that the world's nations have made explicit, testable statements of what they think they can accomplish.  In doing so, they have bet their national, and personal prestige on their doing so.  Further, they fact of the commitments provides genuine political and/or diplomatic leverage against policies which fail to meet commitments.

       That is not very much - but it is something.  Further, it is as much as can be expected at the moment politically and diplomatically.  That it is all that can be expected is a travesty, but it is what it is.  I am certain that COP21 will result in reduced global emissions relative to what would have happened had no agreement been reached.  Just nowhere near the reduction in emissions necessary for avoiding 2 C (ignoring large scale carbon sequestration).

26394. TonyW at 13:56 PM on 16 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       I'm amazed that the agreement has received such a positive response. Actually, James Hansen had one of the most reasonable responses - it's a fraud. As others have noted, there are no actual plans for how even the paltry INDCs will be implemented and no legal means of enforcing them. The language is weak and an aspiration of 1.5C sounds nice but I doubt you'd find any climate scientist that thinks it's possible (apart from the odd contrarian who doesn't think sensitivity is very high). So if they are including an impossible aspiration, then that really drags down the whole thing. We'll see more talk-fests in 2018, 2020 and 2023, whilst GHG concentrations continue to rise (unless we get economic contraction).

       
       Also, fair comment, Wili.

26395. wili at 13:40 PM on 16 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       Forget population and growth: even freakin' fossil fuels were apparently unspeakable in the Paris deal.

       therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15300

       How can we ever actually get anywhere if we can't even use the most basic words that most accurately describe the sources of the problem and the areas that most have to change??

26396. wili at 13:29 PM on 16 December 2015
       Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
       

       Tom, are you trying to say that the increased temperatures this year are due to El Nino and that soon after we will return to the longer-term trend of near linear increases in GW?

       Do you expect that we will see any acceleration of that heating anytime in the coming years and decades?

26397. Tom Curtis at 11:43 AM on 16 December 2015
       Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
       

       ArnotSmith @4, there is also a lagged natural drawdown of CO2 concentration so that if we ceased all emissions, to a first order approximation, temperatures will remain constant.  The gradual increase of temperture to ECS will be balanced out by the gradual drawdown of CO2.  That means that if we could genuinely eliminate all emissions, including all anthropogenic NOX or CH4 emissions, even at 560 ppmv we would have a 50/50 chance of limiting temperature rise to 2 C (470 ppmv for 1.5 C).

       As it happens, with out sequestration, it is impossible to eliminate all emissions, particularly of agricultural CH4 and NO2 so that we would hope to reach zero net emissions of CO2 significantly prior to that.  That is not going to happen on the COP21 agreement.  Therefore our chance of keeping temperatures below 2 C, and certainly for below 1.5 C depend on economically viable, large scale sequestration of atmospheric CO2 in the second half of this century.  Absent that sequestration, we are looking at 2.5-3.5 C for midrange TCR estimates, and must relly on the fortunate fact that the 2 C cutoff is somewhat arbitrary.  Going above 2 C will be worse than staying below it, but incrementally so rather than a dicontinuity resulting on complete catastrophe.  That is, it will be bad, and will result in significant loss of life, but is unlikely to result in the end of civilization. 

26398. ArnotSmith at 11:41 AM on 16 December 2015
       Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
       

       What's more, at 1.0C we are already seeing significant instability in the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets, pointing to up to 10m sea level rise in an uncertain period, even if we stay below 1.5C.

       Can we go back 20 years and try again?

26399. ArnotSmith at 10:57 AM on 16 December 2015
       Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
       

       But - there is a lag. 400ppm CO2 is enough to bring us to around 1.5C increase in equlibrium.  Therefore we can not accept any more CO2 emissions.  Which seems unlikely to happen. :(

26400. Tom Curtis at 09:24 AM on 16 December 2015
       Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
       

       wili @2, trend is relevant when we hit peaks just as much as when we hit troughs.

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