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Comments 26801 to 26850:

26801. rustneversleeps at 07:42 AM on 29 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       michael sweet,

       N₂O has an atmospheric lifetime of about 120 years, and a global warming potential 300x that of CO2 over a 100 year timescale.

       Furthermore, the N₂O emissions do not come from "gasses already in the atmosphere" unless you consider the Haber-Bosch process as doing that. The fact is that we have disrupted and dominate the nitrogen cycle far, far more than we have the carbon cycle.

       Methane, while it does have a shorter atmospheric life, also has a GWP of 34x that of CO₂ at the hundred year timescale. Which is surely germane if we are talking about hittlng the 2C target.

       So I don't think your rejoinder to Tom really holds.

       (N₂O is also a powerful ozone depleting substance, just to ruin our days a bit more...)

26802. MA Rodger at 02:27 AM on 29 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       Leto @11.

       I am inclined to see the 'mugged old lady'analogy as not immediately applying to the full ΔTemperature resulting from AGW. There is obviously no bad stuff (no mugged old ladies) if AGW resulted in ΔT(full)=0.1ºC. So perhaps we should apply it to the ΔT(from now). Or better still apply it to emissions from now. But such meddling probably is too much of a strain on the analogy.

       Howver, I do rather like the idea of David Lewis @13 who likens present AGW policy to the 1939-40 Phoney War. A lot is being done (the UK was re-arming big-time well before Munich) but there is so far no sanction to properly begin doing what is inevitably needed to be done. In the greater public consciousness, the bad stuff has yet to be seen as that bad. Mind, comparing the available perspecive of Nazi malevolence in 1939-40 and the available perspecive of AGW today, playing a Phoney War with AGW is far less excusable.

26803. michael sweet at 21:29 PM on 28 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       Tom,

       Can you post a link to support your claim that agricultural emmisions must be countered by sequestration to keep temperatures stable?

       It seems to me (without citations) that agricultural emissions will not need to be sequestered for two reasons:

       1) Methane and NO2 are shortlived in the atmosphere and after a decade or two decompose into CO2 and harmless gasses.  This is different from carbon dioxide which is essentially permanent once it is emitted.

       2) All agricultural emissions come from gasses already in the atmosphere. Therefore if agriculltural emissions are stable after a period of time the concentration of agricultural methane and NO2 will stabilize. (The resulting CO2 came from the atmosphere so it would not increase CO2).

       Lowering CO2 emissions from deforestation is necessary for long term stability of the atmosphere and may be difficult.  Some sequestration may be necessary but the scale required might not be as large as you suggest.

       This summary reviews many methods of reducing agricultural emissions by altering farm practices.  Greater farm efficiency and choice of crops that emit less greenhouse gases can help.  Managed forrest produces substantial income in many locations as long as enough food is produced.

       The required use of a technology as difficult as sequestration that has not yet been developed at any price is extremely risky.  

       I find it interesting that the IPCC declines to estimate sea level rise from the decline of the great ice sheets because it is not well understood while at the same time relies on unknown technology for sequestration.

26804. denisaf at 13:43 PM on 28 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part One: Feasible Emissions Pathways, Burying our Carbon, and Bioenergy
       

       There are two relevant issues missing from this discussion. Firstly, the greenhouse gas emissions are already causing irreversible ocean acidification and warming, with a consequential deleterious impact on the operation of the marine ecosystem. Secondly there is the fallacious presumption that technological systems can be installed that will rapidly emulate what it has taken natural forces eons to do. Additionally, these techological systems naturally age despite the use of energy and materials for their operation and maintenance. Systems providing negative emissions may turn out to be worthwhile for a while but they cannot possibly offset the positive emissions. In addition, no realistic alternatives to the jet fuel used by the many thousands of aircraft, including airliners, or for the fuel oil used by the many thousands of ships, including cargo vessels, have been identifies despite research over many decades.

26805. Tom Curtis at 11:52 AM on 28 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       The long term maintenance of a stable temperature requires zero net emissions.  Further, to bring emissions down sufficiently for a 2 C target requires western nations to reduce to zero net emission by 2050 or there abouts, even if we do not set national emission quotas on an equal per capita basis (the only truly fair way to tackle climate change).  That presents a major problem.  From 10-20% of total emissions are a direct product of agriculture.  That rises to about 30% if fossil fuel use in agriculture is included.  Of the direct emissions from agriculture, about 50% is in the form of nitrous oxide from fertilization of crops, and an approximately equal amount is from methane production either from rice production or from enteric fermation from cattle.  

       While studies have been undertaken as to how these values can be reduced, it would be foolish to think they can be eliminated.  Nor can we draw down from current levels of agricultural production without guarantteeing a global famine.  Ergo, for the forseeable future (ie, for several centuries down the track) we can expect NO2 and CH4 emissions from agriculture to equal at least 10% or current CO2eq emissions.  That is, absent carbon sequestration CO2 emissions cannot be reduced below approximately 10% of current values.

       Ergo, any viable future pathway must include carbon sequestration of at least 10% of current CO2eq emissions.  That is in addition to any carbon sequestration of continuing standing energy supply from fossil fuels, or from transport (some of which may be impossible to eliminate).

       The key point is that large scale sequestration is going to have to be deployed withing 30-40 years regardless of whether or not total emissions ever go negative or not.  That is, even the emmision reduction curves in the first figure above that "... assume no net-negative emissions technologies deployed ..." must in fact deploy large scale sequestration technologies to deal with agricultural emissions.  That being the case, we cannot consistently argue that we must follow one of those paths or fail to limit warming to a 2 C target.  If we can deploy sequestration technology that compensate for agricultural emissions, than we can deploy 50% more of that technology and generate substantial net negative emissions.

       This is not necessarily an optimistic point.  Such technologies may be unfeasible at large scales, in which case the view is very pessimistic indeed for in that case we will never reach carbon neutrality.  But more probably such technologies are achievable (though potentially with significant difficulty).  In that case the situation is not as cut and dry as Anderson suggests.  It is not, then, that we should not reduce emissions significantly faster than we actually are - but that it is not necessarilly cause for despair if we do not.  There probably will be a plan B, and must be if there is in fact a viable plan A.

26806. billdw at 04:51 AM on 28 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       Leto @9

       The truth is the solution is painful and always has been painful because it requires sacrifice for a future, that one can maybe foresee, but not see.

26807. David Lewis at 04:10 AM on 28 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       When I read Schmidt's critique of Anderson (i.e. "I don’t think that that language is particularly useful, and I don’t think that concept is very helpful to making sensible decisions") I thought of the debate in the runup to WWII as described by historian Dan Todman, in this exerpt from a BBC History podcast produced in Sept 2009.  (I believe the podcast is here):

       "Todman: ...the government believes that the way to end this war is to depose Hitler. And it thinks that can be done without a complete commitment of British wealth, of British power, of British personnel. And the problem is that it is not a limited aim, getting rid of the head of a totalitarian dictatorship, its a total aim. The only way to do it is to smash that dictatorship. So they misjudge how the war is going to be fought. But they're not alone in doing that. I mean that's a widespread misconception amongst the whole population. And the limits on their freedom of action are not just conceptual. Its not that Chamberlain and members of his Cabinet want to continue with business as usual because they are somehow bad people, or that because they believe that always, business must come before national survival. Its really more that they are trapped in a situation, where they can't gain compliance on the part of the population, either on one side because of there's a great belief in voluntarism, both from the left and from the right, there's a strange situation in which you have both the Daily Express complaining about rationing, Beaverbrook launches a campaign against rationing in 1939, and the left also complaining about excessive compulsion.

       So really the Chamberlain government is trapped in a circumstance where it can't generate the national will that's necessary to fight a more total war, even as it gbecomes more and more convinced as it gets into the spring of 1940 that that is what it has to do. and really it is not until the circumstances change, until the fall of France, and this great threat to Britain that emotionally mobilizes the population, that ANY government can start to do that. And it has to be said that even when the Churchill government comes in in 1940 it takes a far more hesitant approach to the mobilization of domestic efforts than is often assumed. May to jUne 1940 is not as great and decisive a shift as we sometimes think in terms of things like rationing, and the conscription of women, those are events that take place much later in the war. And they're very concerned, the Churchill coalition, to stay behind the demand curve, really, they're operating inside the same set of limits as their predecessors, but they're doing so in a drastically changed international circumstance."

       Anderson, in this context, aims to speak the truth as he sees it, without regard to whether anyone is ready to hear it.  

26808. One Planet Only Forever at 03:58 AM on 28 November 2015
       Two-faced Exxon: the misinformation campaign against its own scientists
       

       Tom Curtis,

       I agree that generally is it inappropriate to refer to a person as being 'unacceptable'. However, I believe a person who has a history of deliberately pursuing unacceptable actions deserves the label. If they change their mind the label would no longer apply. As long as they persist in trying to get away with unacceptable actions 'they are unacceptable', or perhaps more correctly 'not deserving of acceptance'.

26809. saileshrao at 01:48 AM on 28 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       Leto @ 9:
       "We could have fixed things with minimal pain two decades ago; now it will take a bit more pain; wait any more and it will be worse."
       
       This statement is valid only if we are focused on the Earth's fever that is climate change, while ignoring the cancer that is our unsustainable economic growth. Such a fix would have continued economic growth using renewable energies, which would have continued with the planet's desertification and biodiversity loss with the rich developed world relatively oblivious of the collateral damage.

26810. Nick Palmer at 22:11 PM on 27 November 2015
       Two-faced Exxon: the misinformation campaign against its own scientists
       

       Tom Curtis @#6
       
       Believe me, I don't want to  go "to easy on "Big Oil", not to mention "Big Coal" and "Big Natural Gas"."  But I also think there is dangers in people going too hard on them. There are plenty of articles over demonising them popping up every day now but I think these often tend to go over the top. I take your point that Big Oil may have been able to find freemarket lobby groups and think tanks that did not support denialism  and obfuscation - but that might have been hard, or impossible.
       
       Realistically, just about all freemarket organisations have varying degrees of right wing ideology "under the hood" and, at least in the US,  that has been strongly associated with denialism and anti climate science propaganda. I don't think there would have been a climate friendly substitute for the likes of ALEC etc to be found.
       
       I envisage that there may have been boardroom battles between the corporate psychopaths and those who care for their grand children and rather than blanket RICO like legal attacks against whole corporations, I would like to see subpoenas and FOI requests for the minutes of, and transcripts of those meetings so any guilty personalities could be outed.

26811. Eclectic at 20:57 PM on 27 November 2015
       Two-faced Exxon: the misinformation campaign against its own scientists
       

       Bozzza @9 : [quote] "The markets obviously reward their endevours [sic] but the palms of industry must be greased and the more intervention into the market ideal means changing the core it's built around is going to get ever more complicated."

       ~ My apologies, Bozzza . . . but owing to my minuscule brain and/or lack of sufficient coffee, it seems your sentence [above] is not making much sense. Please trouble yourself to expand on the ideas you are wishing to present. We are already living in a highly complex as well as highly "complicated"  [  :-)  ] society . . . and we need to do a far better job of navigating somewhere safely between clumsy over-regulation and clumsy "market failure".

       And (as OnePlanetOnly is quick to point out) recent decades of general world-wide deterioration have resulted from an extensive amount of market failure. As he also points out: moral failure leads to market failure. A tendency of human nature, alas.

       [quote] "economies stand up by virtue of fossil fuels" [unquote] . . . is another such comment needing expansion. Perhaps you meant: "economies in the previous century stood up by virtue of fossil fuels" . . . for surely you were not intending to mean that the 21st Century world economy must necessarily and unavoidably "stand up by virtue of fossil fuels" into the foreseeable future ??

26812. Leto at 20:25 PM on 27 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       MA Rodger @10, I take your point, and I was actually impressed with Schmidt in is interview. I did throw in the caveat that the statement was not so much wrong as one that did not stand up well in isolation. (And I didn't mean to cut bits away but rather intended to point to the bit that concerned me, knowing the more complete quotation was still there upthread.)

       My point is not really to criticise Schmidt. I  am sure Schmidt has an excellent understanding of what is required (better than mine, I am sure), but there is still something in the (perhaps unfairly isolated) statement that concerns me.

       Even in the case of mugged little old ladies we don't really, as a society, aim for zero muggings. Rather than putting every able-bodied adult on the street as a police officer to stop muggings, we accept a compromise, knowing that there are other demands on our resources.

       Rather than little old ladies, think of speed limits. Tackling global warmng by 'doing as much as possible' is like tacklng road safety by 'driving as carefully as possible' - rather than by setting explicit speed limits and blood alcohol limits. We shouldn't avoid setting a target for fear of making an arbitrary decision about an artificial threshold, because the alternative is to get lost in vague motherhood statements.

       Similarly, there is no simple image that comes to mind when you or Schmidt say 'do as much as possible'. Do you really expect me to do as much as physically possible to reduce my carbon footprint - give up all fossil fuels right now, today, stop heating the house, quit my job because it is beyond walking distance? You probably mean do as much as is reasonable, given the likely environmental, economic and societal costs of varying degrees of action... which demands some yardstick for reasonableness.

       If climate scientists and economists collectively told me it would cost 10% of my income to keep warming below 2 degrees (assuming others followed suit), I would happily pay that in a carbon tax or some sort of renewable subsidy. If you told me that 10% wouldn't cut it, and we were heading for 4 degrees warming at that sort of cost, I would be keen to pay more, and do more, and I might look at restructuring my job and my life to avoid driving. It's not realistic to ask me to do everything possible, and even if I literally do everything possible, the world as a whole will never 'do everything possible' - it will do the minimum it thinks it can get away with, which is why I think we do need targets. Otherwise, there is a risk of sliding into some sort of vague, luke-warmist approach, which is effectively what the world is doing now.

       Given how much time has been wasted debating the faux pause (not the fault of anyone here, of course), I really don't think this issue is 'mostly a waste of time'.

26813. MA Rodger at 18:11 PM on 27 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       Leto @9.

       I think that is a little unfair on Schmidt. He was actually answering the question of whether a 2ºC target was still relevant. His point involved the analogy of "the number of little old ladies you want to have mugged every year" which is obviously zero. But you wouldn't be discussing it if it was zero or if zero was possible. He says of a target for temperature, it should be as low as possible and of the 2ºC target "Two degrees is not totally out of the question, though I think it is not likely that we will make it." It is only in this context that your quote applies and it did come with an important finale answering the question being asked, a finale quoted @6 but that you cut away. Schmidt is saying we need to do as much as possible so it is the same decisions and same actions for 3ºC as it is for 2ºC or 1.5ºC. Thus the conclusion "So discussion of the target – quite frankly – I think is mostly a waste of time."

26814. bartverheggen at 18:01 PM on 27 November 2015
       So what's really happening in Antarctica?
       

       Glaciologist Jan Wuite also put up an explainer about how this new article by Zwally et al fits in the wider context of Antarctic studies.Complements this one by Bamber nicely.

26815. Leto at 16:40 PM on 27 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       "But any of the decisions that we’re making now, to get us on a path towards reducing emissions, they’re the same decisions we’d be making if the target was 3C, or 2C, or 1.5C. The actual actions that people need to make are the same." [Schmidt]

       As much as I respect Schmidt as a scentist, I think this is not quite correct, or at least it is a statement that does not stand well in isolation. The type of actions required are the same, and the general directions in which we have to head are the same, but the urgency required for different targets is not at all the same.

       This article is a timely reminder that the situation has already become urgent, and it is not enough just to vaguely embrace 'actions that people need to make', such as a slow move to renewables. The actions we needed to take in the 80s and 90s and 00s are not the same as the actions we need to take now, and the more we delay the more drastic the economic upheaval that will be necessary. We could have fixed things with minimal pain two decades ago; now it will take a bit more pain; wait any more and it will be worse.

       Gavin Schmidt is probably right that there is no sudden risk-transition point in the region of 2 degrees, but people need to have the costs of each trajectory spelled out, both envirnomental and economic.

       Frankly, as an Australian who lives on a dry continent prone to bushfires, I find the current ~1 degree of warming is already unacceptable for a number of reasons. The news is full of climate-related woe, not all of it obvious. There is even an argument to be made that droughts in Syria have contributed to the civil war there, and hence to the spread of terrorism. Dangerous climate change is not in the future; it is now. The idea of >2 degrees warming is simply awful.

       My biggest concern about 2 degrees as a target is that it is already too much, especially after allowing for uncertainty in predictions and inertia in our economic and political institutions. But the fight for more aggressive targets should at least begin with the fight to defend the 2 degree target.

26816. bozzza at 15:38 PM on 27 November 2015
       Two-faced Exxon: the misinformation campaign against its own scientists
       

       It's about who's in charge. Fossil fuel providers give the economy a baseline of dependability. They are an institution in more than a few ways.

       The markets obviously reward their endevours but the palms of industry must be greased and the more intervention into the market ideal means changing the core it's built around is going to get ever more complicated.

       Why would an institution argue for its own demise? Governments invited the fossil fuel providers to provide goods and services to the people and apart from being a tax base they also enjoy the baseline of activity- and therefore lack of anarchy- they provide.

       Governments are hamstrung: they can't just let billions of people fall into unemployment; economies stand up by virtue of fossil fuels; and they stand up by being fed incentives.

26817. David Lewis at 14:09 PM on 27 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       Gavin Schmidt, in
       The Carbon Brief interview of Oct 15 2015, discussed those who talk of targets that simply should not be exceeded such as 2C or a set amount of CO2 emission allowed by naming Kevin Anderson in particular.  He said:   "I don’t think that that language is particularly useful, and I don’t think that concept is very helpful to making sensible decisions". 

       According to Schmidt, "Two degrees is not totally out of the question, though I think it is not likely that we will make it. But any of the decisions that we’re making now, to get us on a path towards reducing emissions, they’re the same decisions we’d be making if the target was 3C, or 2C, or 1.5C. The actual actions that people need to make are the same. So discussion of the target – quite frankly – I think is mostly a waste of time."

       Anderson believes there is a some amount of warming civilization could get away with, but if there is some greater amount, civilization as we know it would end.  And, he says, if people thought 2C looked like it was the borderline between these two conditions, as science has advanced, it has dawned on many that 2C is too much. 

       It would be of interest to know if types like Schmidt would argue the opposite, i.e. that increasing scientific knowledge indicates that it will be safe to exceed 2C.  Will 3C, or 4C or 6C be just more of the same but hotter?   No runaway feedbacks in sight?  No dramatically escalating costs of coping?  Civilization keeps humming along?  How confident can anyone be? 

       I think many don't speak as clearly as Anderson because they believe that human beings need to be conned at this point or they will despair and do nothing. 

26818. Ogemaniac at 13:54 PM on 27 November 2015
       Two-faced Exxon: the misinformation campaign against its own scientists
       

       Tom: I didn't mean to imply the Exxon's claims about supporting a carbon tax are genuine - they are not. But claiming to support a "revenue neutral" carbon tax is pretty common among corporations and moderate Republicans. Of course, what they mean by this is that not only does all of the carbon tax revenue get diverted to tax cuts, but in order to garner corporate support, it would have to be focused on tax breaks they prefer, such as corporate rate reductions, lower capital gains, etc.

       A carbon tax is actually a fee, not a tax, as it is something that is charged based on use of a public service or public property. Fees are typically NOT put into the general pool, let alone used for tax cuts. They are used to fund the maintenance and provision of the service or property that generated the fee, or closely related items. Gas "taxes", national park entrance fees, automobile registration fees and patent application fees are all examples of how this works. In principle, all of the carbon tax should be used for mitigation and adaption. There is no reason to connect them to tax cuts at all other than as a concession to the GOP. In that case, however, this should not be your starting position in the negotiation. If you start by backpeddling from your own 20, the other team is going to have a touchdown before you know it.

       What would be just in this case? The punishment of gross polluters and not only a forward-going carbon fee but a retroactive one that forced polluters to compensate for their past activity, with interest and penalty. Start with something strong, and you can end with something more reasonable, like splitting the carbon tax three ways between tax cuts, deficit reduction, and spending on adaption/mitigation, with the tax cuts being a per-capita dividend rather than rate cuts which would effectively give the overwhelming majority of the cuts to a very small number of people, even though they money supporting such cuts was generated by property we all own equally.

       Exxon, I suppose, would go along with a carbon tax in return for a big fat corporate rate cut. But it doesn't deserve one, and we certainly shouldn't be offering one unless we get concessions in return.

26819. One Planet Only Forever at 13:44 PM on 27 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       It is so tragic to have to have effort put into sussing out and presenting the fundamental cause of the tragedy faced today and in the future that had been so clearly stated in the 1987 UN Report "Our Common Future".

       The following pair of statements are presented early in that document.

       "25. Many present efforts to guard and maintain human progress, to meet human needs, and to realize human ambitions are simply unsustainable - in both the rich and poor nations. They draw too heavily, too quickly, on already overdrawn environmental resource accounts to be affordable far into the future without bankrupting those accounts. They may show profit on the balance sheets of our generation, but our children will inherit the losses. We borrow environmental capital from future generations with no intention or prospect of repaying. They may damn us for our spendthrift ways, but they can never collect on our debt to them. We act as we do because we can get away with it: future generations do not vote; they have no political or financial power; they cannot challenge our decisions.
       26. But the results of the present profligacy are rapidly closing the options for future generations. Most of today's decision makers will be dead before the planet feels; the heavier effects of acid precipitation, global warming, ozone depletion, or widespread desertification and species loss. Most of the young voters of today will still be alive. In the Commission's hearings it was the young, those who have the most to lose, who were the harshest critics of the planet's present management."

       That was based on what had been happening prior to writing the report. A much blunter statement would be made today, and no leader (political or in business) should be able to claim they were not aware of this.

       The obvious threat to humanity is the shamelessness of the group of callous powerful wealthy people (undeserving of their wealth or power) pushing for what they want (and what they uderstand is unaccpetable) through fronts like the Tea Party and the House Freedom Caucus (powered by the science of misleading marketing).

       That small group of undeservingly wealthy people understand that their wealth and power is not deserved. And they cannot be expected to care how much damage they cause trying to maintain and expand it.

       They have abused their power in many ways including getting laws established that alow them to have the financial ability to ruin the political future of candidates in just enough regions to maintain their stanglehold on the most powerful nation on the planet (and fair to say also undeserving of its wealth and power) through a few elected representatives (willing to follow orders unflinchingly without consideration of the actual future consequences of their actions - or scarier is the potential that they believe that if they do not follow the orders eternal darkness will decend on the planet).

       The belief that the developed economies are deserving of being maintained (let alone be expanded) is a grand fairy tale that the populations benefiting within them will struggle to free their minds from. And as long as those who do not care about the future can get away with their desired freedom of pursuits (by gathering support from easily impressed people through misleading marketing appeals to greed and intolerance) humanity's future is indeed bleak.

26820. Tom Curtis at 13:23 PM on 27 November 2015
       Two-faced Exxon: the misinformation campaign against its own scientists
       

       OPOF @5:

       "'Exxon' did nothing. Some 'powerful people able to influence Exxon leadership or within Exxon' did many unacceptable things hoping to be disguised within Exxon or otherwise be difficult to 'identify as responsible for the unacceptable actions'."

       There is no such thing as an "unacceptable person".  Only unacceptable actions.  In other respects I entirely agree with your excellent comment.

26821. Tom Curtis at 13:20 PM on 27 November 2015
       Two-faced Exxon: the misinformation campaign against its own scientists
       

       Nick Palmer @4:

       "While acknowledging that those organisations and politicians that Exxon-Mobil sponsored/still sponsors did, and continue to, spread a lot of mis/disinformation about climate science, that's not all those organisations do. They lobby against taxes, increased regulation and for reduced government interference in corporate affairs. All things that business likes. I think it fair to say that Big Oil may have funded them even if there had never been such a thing as climate science denialism just to get, in their view, the best and easiest ride for their corporation and shareholders."

       I think that goes to easy on "Big Oil", not to mention "Big Coal" and "Big Natural Gas".  The reason is that there are sufficiently many think tanks, and they are easy enough to establish, that fossil fuel corporations could easily have funded think tanks that pursued those other ends, while being realists with regard to global warming.  There choice not to do so, therefore, is a choice to fund global warming denialism.  They may not have had a similar choice with regard to the US Chamber of Commerce and other round table lobby groups, but could clearly have articulated a distinct position when the US Chamber of Commerce made remarks depreciating the science of climate change.  They could also have lobbied strenuously internally to such organizations for a realistic (not pragmatic) approach.  Again failure to do so indicates that when such round table lobby groups of which their Corporations were members made statements supporting denialism specifically, of FUD more generally, they spoke for the fossil fuel corporations (ie, the primary beneficiaries of such FUD).

       Note that since 2009 (or 2007?), Exxon gets a pass on the second point - they did clearly articulate a realistic view on climate change regardless of the articulated views of any round table lobby groups of which they were members, but they continued to fund think tanks and politicians who articulated denier viewpoints on climate change when otherwise 'business friendly" alternatives existed.

       The strategy appears to be one of delaying action while taking sufficient action to create plausible deniability that that was their strategy, thereby affording them legal protection.

26822. denisaf at 11:40 AM on 27 November 2015
       G R A P H E N E
       

       The current global fleet of 90000 cargo vessels consumes a high proportion of the oil that is being extracted around the globe by various means. Global trade and so the economies of many countries is very dependent on this unsustainabel transportation process. Focussing on the selected role of graphene does not contribute to tackling this emerging major predicament or to the other ones, over population, unsustainable food and potable water supply, global warming and ocean acidifcation are warming together with replacing the thousands of jet powered aircraft, including airliners.

       It is open to question as to whether the innovative technology described here will have a significant impact on the inevitable powering down of civilization as the predicamnts hit hard in coming decades.

26823. Rob Nicholls at 08:00 AM on 27 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       Thanks for this excellent post, it's exactly the sort of wake up call that I need. It's very easy to lose sight of how urgent the situation is, and to forget that we need urgent decarbonisation of our economic system.

       'The global "political and economic hegemony" in which growth-based economics is taken as a given and the political status quo is assigned the nature of an ineluctable fact, rather than an obstacle that we must overcome'

       ...that's a very good description of our current predicament.

26824. jja at 05:14 AM on 27 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       The rate of warming of planet earth has doubled since 2007 as measured by the change in ocean heat content.  This quarter's new measure will show continued increase in the rate of warming on an annually averaged level.

26825. jja at 05:13 AM on 27 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       The water vapor and Lapse-rate feedbacks take 10 years to reach maximum warming after emissions.  The earth is operating at 2008 levels on this factor.  Aerosol emissions associated with fossil fuel combustion are currently offsetting HALF of the total warming impulse.  As we mitigate emissions these aerosols will be removed rapidly.  The melting polar ice cap produces about 20% of total warming and the ice caps will be gone by mid sept of 2022.  The production of GHG from buring tropical peat (indonesia) the loss of the amazon, the burning of boreal peat and forests are all happening much faster than models predicted.  The models do not include warming from permafrost emissions.

       we are at 1.1 C above pre-industrial and we will shoot over 2C by 2035.
       
       

       Unless we extract billions of tons of CO2 from the earth's atmospher over the next 3 decades (as well as reach net zero emissions by 2025) we will overshoot to 3C by 2055 and 4C by 2080.

26826. One Planet Only Forever at 04:15 AM on 27 November 2015
       Two-faced Exxon: the misinformation campaign against its own scientists
       

       This article, and many other reports of deliberate unacceptable actions that clearly have been taken in the hopes of delaying the global development of the better understanding of what is going on and the required changes, address 'generalized groups' or the 'fronts of the action' because of the difficulty identifying the trouble-makers hiding within such organizations or trying to influence the actions of other 'poster-fronts' like Willie Soon.

       'Exxon' did nothing. Some 'powerful people able to influence Exxon leadership or within Exxon' did many unacceptable things hoping to be disguised within Exxon or otherwise be difficult to 'identify as responsible for the unacceptable actions'.

       The same game is played by those unacceptable people trying to pull the strings of other groups like the Tea Party (which include some 'desirable traits' hoped to mask the unacceptable pursuits attempted to be achieved throughh their disguise).

       The legitimate science funded by Exxon is a completely separate matter that was probably hoped to be able to be abused as a mask for the stench of the easily understood to be unacceptable things that some very undeserving wealthy and powerful people hoped to get away with.

       The potential power of deliberately misleading marketing is clearly the biggest threat to the future of humanity. It is a major factor in the promotion and defense of far more unacceptable people than the ones engaged in trying to unjustifiably maximize their personal benefit from the burning of fossil fuels. It is clear that it is specific people behind the actions of organizations (or of others like Willie Soon) who need to be identified and be kept from any further success (and be penalized for any willful deliberate actions they could understand would eventually be understood to be unacceptable. I believe it is fair to argue that every person in a position of leadership, political or business, has no excuse to be less informed that someone like me is about this matter).

26827. Nick Palmer at 04:07 AM on 27 November 2015
       Two-faced Exxon: the misinformation campaign against its own scientists
       

       Ogemaniac @#1

       What Tom Curtis wrote about the most favoured form of a carbon tax is correct. Such a system is usually called carbon fee and dividend. Barring admin expenses, all the fees are returned to the population evenly divided up per capita. The net effect is that carbon intensive products and services become more expensive and low carbon ones become relatively cheaper. People would vote for the "good stuff" with their feet and wallets without requiring onerous legislation or developing a guilt complex.

       The fee/dividend is a progressive tax because, generalising, high consuming individuals tend to be wealthier and lower consuming individuals tend to be less well off. Those who choose to live a very sustainable low-energy/carbon lifestyle could even find themselves with an income. Because the fee/dividend does not take money out of the economy, it is seen as very much more beneficial than such as cap and trade systems because money does not disappear in to the black hole of government coffers. Even Republicans and other right wingers are more favourably disposed to this system.

       _____________________

       On another tack, I think the facts in the article could support a more nuanced view than simply one of "Big Oil knew the dangers yet deceitfully sponsored disinformation spreading organisations". While acknowledging that those organisations and politicians that Exxon-Mobil sponsored/still sponsors did, and continue to, spread a lot of mis/disinformation about climate science, that's not all those organisations do. They lobby against taxes, increased regulation and for reduced government interference in corporate affairs. All things that business likes. I think it fair to say that Big Oil may have funded them even if there had never been such a thing as climate science denialism just to get, in their view, the best and easiest ride for their corporation and shareholders.

       Choosing my words carefully, I think that, given the known characteristics of some executives at Board level, whilst they realised that climate science was legit they also (in what they may have rationalised as true "scientific scepticism") may have given the views of fringe scientists such as Lindzen, Spencer, Christy etc some credibility because if Lindzen et al's views on climate sensitivity turned out to be more accurate than the mainstream view in the long run, then their shareholders would never forgive them in future for ignoring possible get-out-of-jail-free cards which could have lead to them all avoiding unecessary losses.

       I personally feel that such a corporate attitude, if it went like I have sketched out, was rather psychopathic inasmuch as if one is faced with a situation in the board room where the consequences of being wrong would be dangerous, not only for the world, but also your corporation, choosing what in effect were delaying tactics based on a hope of a low-probability outcome, given that the consilience of evidence was becoming ever stronger, was reckless - to put it mildly.

       I suspect that the reason Big Oil started to distance themselves from the thinktanks and lobbying organisations round about 2007, was that they had received advice from their legal advice teams that if they continued to support those lobbyists as much, they could render themselves liable to the mother of all class action lawsuits in the future, as climate change started to kick in badly. Big Fossil Fuel distanced themselves from the climate denialism and pathological scepticism that parts of those quite large lobbying organisations promulgated, but it is arguable that the Board would still want to have the other services of those organisations to continue to campaign for business freedom and against more Big Government.

26828. wideEyedPupil at 03:36 AM on 27 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       please spare us the thorium salesman routine @Cooper13. It's no panacea, it's been around as a concept and experimental technology almost as long as gen two reactors. if it was so grand we'd have seen progress with it by now. Nuclear power has been on a ocst curve north for the last five decades, by contrast wind, PV and SolarCST with thremal storage have demonstrated impressive learnigns curves, with solar PV doubling in deployment every two years and reducing module cost for every doubling by 20%. As Kurzweil points out, that means our global current energy consumption will be exceeded by the PV capaicty by as soon as in 16 years. At the cost will be almost free. How is a thorium or any other centralised nuclear power indrustry going to compete with ubqiotous and near-free energy?
       
       As Giles Parkinson has pointed out, even if coal fuel were free and emissions were free (no carbon price) it still can't compete with solar behind the meter due to network costs being ~50% of billed energy prices. How will you even get a single thorium reactor (that isn't designed yet) through a planning process in Australia sooner than the next 16 years, let alone built and operational. Nah nucelar power is dead as a dodo. Even nuclear posterboy France is cutting back from 75% to 50% and they found in a major research paper that abandoning the massive sunk cost nuclear fleet and going to 95-100% RE would actually save them money, despite all that state sponsorship of the industry, it still can't compete with RE and storage going forward.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] To Cooper and WEP. The moment someone brings up "nuclear", discussions have a bad tendency to speed off-topic, often with a lot more heat than science. BraveNewClimate is a better forum for such discussions. On this site, the requirements to keep comments on-topic will be strictly enforced.

26829. Cooper13 at 02:24 AM on 27 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       We cannot ignore the opportunities for 'new' nuclear technologies, specifically thorium (molten salt) reactors, which China and India are working to ramp up (I believe Westinghouse may be part of the technology development on this).

       There is far more thorium available than 'normal' uranium nuclear fuels, for several hundred years, and minimal nuclear waste as compared with present reactors.

       Unfortunately, the word 'nuclear' has nuclear political implications to any candidate or party which backs it - this needs to be changed and change can only occur with an educated public on the opportunities we have for these reactors. Safer, cleaner nuclear could provide most, if not all, of the energy needed that solar and wind cannot deliver, and could produce energy to power our cars, etc.

26830. ianw01 at 01:42 AM on 27 November 2015
       The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
       

       Excellent article.  I'd love to know what Anderson thinks of articles like the one in this SkS post that claim that the US can get to 100% renewables for all energy (without using nuclear or fossil fuels) by 2050.

26831. Joel_Huberman at 01:19 AM on 27 November 2015
       Two-faced Exxon: the misinformation campaign against its own scientists
       

       Shi-Ling Hsu's well-written, brief (and occasionally humorous) book, "The Case for a Carbon Tax: Getting Past Our Hang-Ups to Effective Climate Policy" (published 2011, Island Press) provides good reasons why returning the revenue from a carbon tax as a dividend to citizens is a superior policy.

       The international non-partisan volunteer group, Citizens' Climate Lobby, provides much useful information about carbon taxes and their (positive!) effects on emissions, the economy, and public health at its web site.

       One wouldn't be aware of this based on their public statements, but Republican legislators, like Democratic legislators, are becoming increasingly aware of the dangers of climate change and increasingly willing to do something about it. The quiet, informed, behind-the-scenes lobbying done by Citizens' Climate Lobby volunteers in the United States has had a strong influence. I encourage everyone who is able to do so to join Citizens' Climate Lobby and participate in their team efforts. In the United States, this would involve writing letters to editors and Congress people, and visiting Congressional offices. 

26832. Tom Curtis at 21:33 PM on 26 November 2015
       Two-faced Exxon: the misinformation campaign against its own scientists
       

       Ogemaniac @1, this article suggests Exxon began supporting a carbon tax in 2009 rather than 2007.  More importantly it shows that Exxon does not, in fact, support a carbon tax.  Specifically it states that:

       "Exxon’s political action committee gave nearly $1.2 million to political candidates in the past two years, 93 percent of it to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics."

       The Republican's do not support a carbon tax in any form.  In fact, they near universally oppose any action on climate change other than the slandering of, and inquisitions with regard to climate scientists.  Had Exxon supported a carbon tax, their political spend would have gone to Democrats who would have legislated for that carbon tax.  Instead they nominally supported a carbon tax for PR purposes while doing their best, with their political spend, to ensure that no such carbon tax was implimented.

       As to the form a carbon tax takes, the more revenue neutral it is, the higher the tax can be without adverse effects of the economy.  That means ideally that the revenue from a carbon tax should be returned to citizens in the form of a dividend.  It can be returned as a reduction in taxes, but the purpose of a carbon tax is, in th end, to eliminate all carbon pollution.  If we use the tax to replace other revenues, the effect is in the long term we reduce government income and have a political fight to reintroduce the current taxes again as the revenue from the carbon tax delines.  Carbon taxes could be earmarked for specific expenditures, but that will only add to their cost and reduce their effectiveness unless those expenditures are ones we would be making in any event.  In that case, however, you face the same problem of a diminishing revenue stream as the tax becomes more effective.  Earmarking will also potentially create pressures to decrease the tax if revenue exceeds the cost of the earmarked projects.

26833. Ogemaniac at 16:44 PM on 26 November 2015
       Two-faced Exxon: the misinformation campaign against its own scientists
       

       "Finally, I’ll note that we have long – and publicly – supported a revenue-neutral carbon tax"

       As far as I know, their support for this began in 2007, about the same time they slowed down their denier-funding activity. However, saying "We will support a carbon fee if and only if all the money is returned to us in the form of tax cuts" is hardly a huge step forward. It is unclear as to why any of the money raised from these fees should be used for tax cuts, let alone all of it. The most obvious uses for the money is remediation of the damage caused by polluters and adaption in the case where the damage cannot be prevented.

26834. Tom Curtis at 08:24 AM on 26 November 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       MA Rodger @118 even considering Roscoe @7, his primary argument consists of the claim that there is an energy imbalance between incoming solar energy at the surface of Venus and outgoing thermal radiation at the surface of Venus with the later being 122 greater than the former, a gap that "no physical process" could explain in his view.  He maintains this view by, first, not understanding the greenhouse effect, and second, not considering all energy flows at the surface.

       The later point is best illustrated with the Earth's energy flows which are better known:

       

       The equivalent numbers for the Earth are 161 W/m^2 for solar energy at the surface, and 397 W/m^2 outgoing thermal radiation - a significant energy imbalance that creates exactly the same theoretical problems as the imbalance at Venus.  However it is obvious from the full chart once all energy flows are considered, the surface energy balance is close to 0.  From the numbers given it is out by 1 W/m^2 downward, an obvious rounding error from the 0.6 W/m^2, ie, the imbalance at the TOA due to the temperature response to current forcing not yet reaching equilibrium values.

       Given the full equivalent values for Venus, the surface energy balance would sum to zero with the downward thermal radiation consisting of a very large component.  That the energy balance would sum to zero is confirmed by the comparison of the temperature profile of Venus with altitude versus two one dimensional radiative convective models (Tomasko et al 1977):

       

       The solid lines are what is expected from the operation of the greenhouse effect together with convection given two slightly different assumptions about the composition of Venus' atmosphere, and closely match the observed profile.  One dimensional models such as those shown work by maintain energy balance throughout the vertical profile.  It should be noted that the slight difference in the observed lapse rate will be due to a slight difference in from the expected heat capacity of the atmosphere, ie, an error in understanding the variation in the precise chemical composition of the atmosphere with altitude, not with the radiative model.

       Another way of noting the incoherence of Roscoe's argument (ie, the argument from the lack of energy balance when he ignores all components) is to note that by ignoring back radiation, he assumes that there is no greenhouse effect, as you note @119.  That would again make his theory absurd "on the level of geocentrism".  Perhaps more important to this discussion is that none of the above has any bearing on the runaway greenhouse effect, which is a theory about how Venus developed from a (putative) Earth like state to its current greenhouse dominated state with no surface water.

       Roscoe may have a secondary "argument" that does specify the runaway greenhouse effect.  Specifically, he writes:

       "Where does this come from when a University Professor tells me the sutface of Venus receives only 132 W/sq m ?

       I think this is a fair question. If it is from the greenhouse effect how did this develop initially ? 132 W/sq m couldn't possibly do it."

       IMO the most sensible way to interpret this comment is that Roscoe did not distinguish between the runaway greenhouse effect (a process that would have taken tens or even hundreds of thousands of years) and the current Venusian greenhouse effect (an almost static state in quasi equilibrium and with no significant variation on decadal scales).  However, assuming he was correctly referring to the runaway greenhouse effect it should be noted that, first, his argument consists of an argument from personal incredulity; and second, that he falsely assumes the albedo of Venus in the initial, earthlike, state of the runaway greenhouse effect must equal its current albedo.  Without the later assumption he cannot assume that the surface insolation on Venus equaled the current value.

       As a final note, 132 W/m^2 is not the insolation at the surface, contrary to Roscoe's repeated assertions.  Rather it is the insolation at the TOA after adjustment for albedo and averaging over globe.  A flat surface perpendicular to incoming sunlight and at the orbit of Venus would recieve 2625 W/m^2.  Given the bond albedo of 0.9, that means total TOA insolation averages as 66 W/m^2, with only less than 6.6 W/m^2 reaching the surface. 

26835. ribwoods at 04:49 AM on 26 November 2015
       So what's really happening in Antarctica?
       

       bozzza @7:

       "If we knew the snowfall history perfectly then there wouldn’t be any controversy!" is the final sentence of the article's fifth paragraph.

26836. martin3818 at 04:31 AM on 26 November 2015
       So what's really happening in Antarctica?
       

       @Hank + @Sid

       Realclimate is available at this back-up site http://realclimate-backup.org/

       Apparently, 10 years ago, somebody registered the domain for them. The registration has now expired and they don't know how exactly to get it renewed.

        

       Cheers
       Martin

26837. MA Rodger at 01:04 AM on 26 November 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Tom Curtis @118.

       Sorry. When I said "initial", and RomanEmpire @115 said "beginning", this was not the very beginning @3 which is pretty incoherent stuff, but the Rosco comment @7. This fits with the description @115 "What Rosco was saying in the beginning is that Venus surface is far too hot for the current state of the affairs."  I must admit that re-reading #7 I did manage to mis-interprete the comment, somehow reading into it the idea that the sun only heats the outer atmosphere (thus the 250 K limit), an idea which is actually absent. But in my defence, the actual argument/question presented @7 is entirely self-defeating - there is no greenhouse effect (thus temperature is as a black body) so how can there be a greenhouse effect?

26838. Tom Curtis at 23:59 PM on 25 November 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       MA Rodger @117, this is Rosco's original post upthread (@3):

       "Venus is nothing like the earth - it is (-snip-) to claim it is. I have seen claims that the "greenhouse" effect on Venus is responsible for heating the planet by ~500 k. This is clearly impossible given the albedo of Venus reflects most incoming solar radiation.

       If such an effect were possible it could easily solve Earth's energy problems - simply collect all the hot exhaust gases from a coal fired power station and force it into a chamber under 92 bar pressure, add sunlight and the runaway greenhouse would raise the temperature to over 700 K - and we could use this heat to drive turbines and eventually shut down the coal fired power station.

       Yeah right - the whole idea is "beyond absurd"."

       In successive paragraphs he shows repeatedly that he does not think there is any such thing as a greenhouse effect, that he does not know how it works, and (at the end of the second paragraph) that he does not understand the laws of thermodynamics.

       The greenhouse effect is sufficiently well understood, and sufficiently well evidenced that the probability of it not existing is not meaningfully distinguishable from the probability that geocentrism is true.  Ergo, his initial contribution is very much on a level with geocentrism.

       There are things that are reasonably disputable, and even controversial in climate science.  That the origin of the 20th century increase in CO2 is anthropogenic, and that an greenhouse effect and an enhanced greenhouse effect exist are not among them.  Any denial of those facts merely shows an abysmal scientific ignorance.  The lack of a civilized discussion that RomanEmpire points to is a direct consequence of that fact.  It is not possible to have civilized discussion defending the thesis that black is white (or geocentrism; or rejecting the existence of a greenhouse effect) because one participant must lack an essential of civilized discussion in any such case - the desire or ability to be rational.  Those who sheet home the failure of civilized discussion to the rational side of the discourse need to be reminded of this fact in no uncertain terms.

26839. MA Rodger at 23:19 PM on 25 November 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Tom Curtis @116.

       I think it is wrong to characterise the initial position of Rosco up-thread as being "on a level of geocentrism". RomanEmpire @115 is pursuaded that there was something in Rosco's initial position and thus it would be wrong to dismiss it entirely off-handedly.

       The basic idea that seemed to confound Rosco was that he held that the sun (less albedo) should warm the insulating outer atmosphere of Venus to some 250 K and then he was perplexed that the surface temperature of Venus is some 750 K. How could this be? Addressing this point was not helped up-thread as Rosco arrived with a heavy load of misconceptions but let us ignore them. What Rosco simply failed to grasp was that when a planet gains a powerful greenhouse atmosphere, it takes very little energy to raise the temperature at its surface. So the vulcanism within Venus, if it had a similar heat output as Earth (which is likely) would require only a few million years (a mere blink of an eye in the evolution of a planet's climate) to warm its thick lower atmosphere from 250 K to today's 750 K.

26840. MA Rodger at 23:03 PM on 25 November 2015
       So what's really happening in Antarctica?
       

       I thought to consider whether the Zwally contention could require snowfall to be maintained over a shorter period than the whole Holocene. Could it be a more recent increase and thus reduce the impact on sea level? The Vostok ice core gives ice depth and age from 5,679yBP suggesting that it takes half of the length of the Holocene for high Antarctic snow to compact completely into ice. And much of the compaction would occur in a far shorter time.

       But I came away from the Vostok data with more of an appreciation of Zwally's contention. Note in the Vostok data that the annual ice thickness (which Zwally contends is the full cause of surface elevation rise) is 21mm/year thick through the early Holocene but 12mm/year through much of the last ice age (over a 60ky period, 13mm/y over 100ky period so presumably achieving a steady-state condition) providing the sort of additional ice (1cm/year) Zwally is arguing for. So does it not come down to the question of how the multi-kilometre thick ice sheet will react to a multi-millennial increased rate of snowfall. Would the extra snowfall (which the Vostok data suggests has resulted in an extra 120m of ice-equivalent added to the top of the sheet since the LGM) significantly increase the rate of ice flow? Are there other effects at play? Or does Zwally's contention need addressing? Okay it comes with problems for the Holocene SLR record, and the measured elevation change may not be all ice, but with an extra 120m of ice-equivalent on the ice sheet over 18,000y can it be argued that there should be a significant ice component within the measured surface elevation rise?

26841. chriskoz at 19:31 PM on 25 November 2015
       Study drives a sixth nail into the global warming ‘pause’ myth
       

       Anders showed an excellent graph complementing this article

       https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/one-graph-to-rule-them-all

       (pointed by a commenter in TheGuardian)

       Therein, you can see all temp trends starting at all years and see as clearly as ever why 17y is the "magic number" of years required for the significance of any trend.

26842. wili at 16:04 PM on 25 November 2015
       Study drives a sixth nail into the global warming ‘pause’ myth
       

       RealClimate seems to be back up and running again, thankfully.

26843. Tom Curtis at 10:52 AM on 25 November 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       RomanEmpire @115,

       1)  Apart from the obvious point that 1% <10% so that there is no contradiction between Colose's claim and yours, we have the fact that Svedhem et al (2007) says:

       " Less than 10% of the incoming solar radiation penetrates through the atmosphere and heats the surface."

       Apparently a similar claim is made in Titov et al (2006).  Finally we have Tomasko et al (1980) that concludes from the comparison of measurements with models that:

       "Averaged over the planet, about 17 W/m² are absorbed at the ground (some 2.5% of the total solar energy incident on the planet)."

       This is definitely inconsistent with the claim that there "... is no evidence that even 1% of solar radiation reaches Venus surface", which is revealed as hyperbole at best.

       2)  Chris Colose writes above:

       "note Venus may never actually encountered a true runaway, there is still debate over this"

       It follows that when you write "Chris essentially said ... that Venus surface is far too hot for the current state of the affairs ..., so there MUST HAVE BEEN a runaway greenhouse effect..." you are clearly misrepresenting his argument.  His argument is that while the TOA insolation on Venus is sufficient to drive a runaway greenhouse effect, it is not sufficient on Earth.  Venus may have reached its current conditions by either never having cooled down sufficiently from its initial heat of formation (due to a strong greenhouse effect) or to having experienced a runaway greenhouse after cooling down as the Earth did.

       3)  Roscoe espoused absurd theories (on the level of geocentrism).  He refused to either be convinced by clear argument or evidence provided.  Scientists, no matter how respectful, cannot be expected to persuade those who come into the discussion with a closed mind as Roscoe clearly did.  Nor, if you abuse their patience by continuing to espouse nonsense rather than learn something new, can you expect the patience of scientists to persist.

26844. RomanEmpire at 08:29 AM on 25 November 2015
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Sorry for joining this discussion so late. 

       My understanding is that Chris Colose's piece (the origin of this debate) said is not totally inconsistent with what Rosco was saying (Rosco was, unfortunately, mobbed out of this thread; shame on us, scientists, for being unable to conduct a civilized discussion with a well-meaning outsider without patronizing, antagonizing, provoking, name calling, etc.).

       So, Chris essentially said (again, this is my understanding) that Venus surface is far too hot for the current state of the affairs (insolation, albedo, atmosphere composition, etc.), so there MUST HAVE BEEN a runaway greenhouse effect in some (uspecified) past that heated it up, and the current state of the affairs does not let it cool too quickly.

       What Rosco was saying in the beginning is that Venus surface is far too hot for the current state of the affairs. I don't understand why he had to be chased out of this thread for this, even though here Rosco and Chris seem to agree.

       Where I disagree with Chris is when he says that "Less than 10% of the incident solar radiation reaches the surface." There is no evidence that even 1% of solar radiation reaches Venus surface, so dense is the Venusian atmosphere (if we live under an equivalent of 10 m of water - our atmosphere compressed, the  on Venus the equivalent depth is >900 m, and this is without taking into account the dense clouds).  The light observed by the Russian station was likely due to the  lightening that is constantly illuminates the Venusian atmosphere. 

          

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Rosco came to debate with a history of trying the moderator's patience and a strong dislike for either reading or comprehending information that contradicted his/her preconceptions. Please note that moderation complaints are always offtopic.

26845. Rob Painting at 07:57 AM on 25 November 2015
       So what's really happening in Antarctica?
       

       Jimlj - that's a very good point. Ocean volume has been static for the last 4-5000 years - with relative sea level fall occurring in the farfield due to the effect of ocean siphoning. Zwally et al not only contradict the bulk of other Antarctic research, but Holocene sea level research too.   

26846. Lionel A at 22:22 PM on 24 November 2015
       So what's really happening in Antarctica?
       

       As noted at HotWhopper and now DeltoidThe RealClimate difficulty has a, I hope, temporary solution as RC has resorted to a backup server. It may be usefull to update the link in the heading to point to:

       http://www.realclimate-backup.org/

26847. Tom Curtis at 21:19 PM on 24 November 2015
       So what's really happening in Antarctica?
       

       billthefrog @13, as you can see in the video below, the melt of the Laurentide Ice Sheet was essentially over 8 thousand years ago

       It appears the fennoscandian ice sheet also essentially disappeared by 5000 kya.  Further, since about 8 kya, global temperatures have been slightly falling, or constant so that there is no additional sea level rise due to thermal expansion, and possibly some slight fall.  It is not obvious, therefore, that there is a basis to assume compensation for an increase in Antartic ice mass over that period.

26848. billthefrog at 20:47 PM on 24 November 2015
       So what's really happening in Antarctica?
       

       jimlj @ 12

       My background is not in Paleo (although the wife keeps calling me an old git), but the long drawn out retreat of both the Laurentide and Fennoscandian ice sheets would certainly have emptied more than a few gallons into the oceans. 

       One would also have to factor in the delayed effects of thermal expansion. Even the surface layers of the oceans clearly show this, with oceanic temps reaching their annual maximum several months after the relevant hemispheric summer sostice. Think how long it is going to take for the deep ocean to equilibrate following the Last Glacial Maximum of about 20 - 21 kya.

       My limited understanding is that thermosteric effects (i.e. thermal expansion) and eustatic effects (i.e. caused by the addition of extra waters) are currently of comparable magnitude. Taken together, these would account for the sea level rise of around 120+ metres since the LGM. The limked NASA article discusses this effect.

26849. jimlj at 17:34 PM on 24 November 2015
       So what's really happening in Antarctica?
       

       According to Zwally's paper, not only is Antarctica gaining ice now, but as I understand it, has been for the last 10 millenia.  If everything else were equal, that would have meant at least a couple of meters of sea level drop.  But we haven't seen that, so what is the source of the water that has kept sea level relatively constant?

       If I've misunderstood something, or gotten some facts wrong, I'd appreciate learning where I went wrong.

26850. Tom Curtis at 13:18 PM on 24 November 2015
       Tracking the 2C Limit - October 2015
       

       Tor B @1, the indices you reference are simple temperature indices.  That is, they plot the temperature in a small area of the tropical Pacific and use that as an index of ENSO states.  However, because they simply take the temperature of a small region, any increases in temperature due to global warming generates a bias towards stronger and more frequent El Nino states (and weaker and less frequent La Nina states).  Given that, we do not know to what extent the record values are a consequence of a strong El Nino, and to what extent they are directly due to global warming.

       One way of avoiding this problem is to use ENSO indices that either are not direct temperature measurements (the SOI) or which use a variety of different indices so that any purely global warming signal does not bias the result (the Multivariate ENSO Index or MEI).  Here are the recent values of the later compared to other historically strong El Ninos:

       

       As you can see, it is only the third strongest El Nino by the MEI since 1950.  The SOI shows the current ENSO value (-20.2) as  weaker than five months of the 97-98 El Nino (peak at -28.5), and six months of the 82-83 El Nino (peak at -33.3).

       There is no guarantee as to how El Ninos will develop.  The current El Nino may collapse and fall away towards neutral conditions, but current predictions are that it will remain strong for several more months.

       

       If it were to do so, it will not challenge either 97/98 or 83/83 as the strongest El Nino since 1950.  It is however possible that it will strengthen again.  If it does so, it may follow a similar pattern to the 82-83 El Nino and end up as the strongest since 1950.  Or not.  If it did, that would be grim news indeed.

       As it stands, the big news about this El Nino is that it so hot globally relative to 97-98 when the El Nino event is not as strong as 97-98.

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