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Comments 27901 to 27950:

  1. Citi report: slowing global warming would save tens of trillions of dollars

    Ignaz @13, I think you are right to point out the financial interest of Citi group in the issue.  However, you have the sign wrong.  Citi group is an insurer.  That does not mean they are likely to make large profits from tackling climate change.  Rather, it means they are exposed to large losses if we do not tackle climate change.  That is due to the increased rate of climate related natural disasters in a warming world:

    Of course, tackling climate change is no no benefit in reducing insurance losses if climate change does not in fact drive increased natural disasters.  That is, they only have a financial interest in telling us about climate change if climate change is in fact real, and harmful.

  2. Climate change and Hurricane Katrina: what have we learned

    Ignaz,

    This article describes the strength of hurricanes and sea level rise and how heey affect damage.  The levees in New Orleans are not germaine to the discussion.  Your comment is off topic.

    Please provide a citation for your claim that the 1881 hurricane was stronger than Haiyan.  In any case, Haiyan was the strongest hurricane recorded at landfall in the history of carefully recorded data.  You are trying to minimize record strength at landfall.  That is small consolation for the people who have to weather stronger and stronger hurricanes at landfall.  The fact that in the past occasional hurricanes were as strong as current ones does not compensate for the increase, caused by AGW,  in the strongest hurricanes.

  3. Citi report: slowing global warming would save tens of trillions of dollars
    Ignaz: I'm interested in the evidence for your statement '[Citi group] stands to make hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars depending on government policy on this issue'. From the context I presume that you are saying that Citi will *make* money if the decarbonization pathway they are suggesting is adopted. Further, you seem to be suggesting that this is a bad thing, so that presumably the money will be made at the expense of the economy in general, or possibly at the expense of the government, rather than as part of a corresponding benefit to the rest of the economy.I presume part of this is based on a detailed study into Citi's investment portfolio and risk exposure. Could you fill in some of the details for us please?The other part - how Citi benefits at the expense of the economy in general is more obscure. Can you explain where this comes from?
  4. Climate change and Hurricane Katrina: what have we learned

    Katrina came ashore in Louisiana as a Category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of 125 mph, and a two part storm surge that was not particularly impressive (12-16ft). It has been well documented by civil authorities and the Army Corp of Engineers that the hurricane was not the main cause of the devastation visited on New Orleans. The cause of the devastatoin was poor levee design and construction by local and federal government authorities. Although the Army Corp of Engineers initially asserted that the levees would have failed even if the design flaws had not been present, on April 5, 2006, months after independent investigators had demonstrated that levee failures were not caused by natural forces beyond intended design strength, Lieutenant General Carl Strock, Chief of Engineers and Commander of the Corps of Engineers, testified before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Water that "We have now concluded we had problems with the design of the structure." He also testified that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not know of this mechanism of failure prior to August 29, 2005. The claim of ignorance is refuted, however, by the National Science Foundation investigators hired by the Corps of Engineers, who point to a 1986 study by the Corps itself that such breaches were possible in the I-wall design.

    Amazingly, however, the word 'levee' does not even appear once in this post. It's more than a bit disingenuous for Kerry Emanuel to use Katrina, and government incompetence, as an example of AGW effects. 

    In the case of Typhoon Haiyan, it is also well documented that, a) category 5 typoons are not historically unusual in that part of the world, b) the effects of Haiyan were amplified by the fact that it funnelled straight into Leyte Gulf and San Pablo In addition, it was not the most devesating typoon to hit the Philipines. That distinction belongs to a typoon which hit the islands in 1881, well before, pardon the pun, global warming was a gleam in anyone's eye.

  5. Citi report: slowing global warming would save tens of trillions of dollars

    If a study disconfirming your expectations were funded by the fossil fuel industry, I'm sure a howl of protest would rise from this blog - never mind ad hominems. However, a study confirming your thesis comes from an bank, that stands to make hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars depending on government policy on this issue, and it's lapped up unquesiontingly? Not to mention no one seems to question the bank's clairvoyance, guessing what expenditures and costs may or may not turn out to be over a hundred year period, when they couldn't predict the meltdown of 2008 when they had all the data in front of them! Am I the only one that sees a problem with this?

  6. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    .. in summary: FOX won't change its message because its message is merely one of obfuscation that can be morally defended on spurious grounds from the very start.

    It's like a kid asking endless questions who never listens to the answers: it's idiotic and you just have to accept there is no conversation possible.

    We are a specious species...

  7. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    @9, the fake conservatives have always sold stuff and this means constantly entertaining two ideas at once. Nuclear Power has always been flogged as the cure for climate change going back to the 60s....

    "... but, but, but wait: there's more!!"

     

    They just want a captive audience on the hook and only when they get the feedback that the game isn't working will they switch to a new method.

     

    Entertaining the middle postion is always possible: some call it walking both sides of the street at the same time and some call it compromise- it's all in the language and how much the captive audience lets you get away with. The worlds always been run by psychos: such is the role of enterprise.

  8. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    Just wander over to any denialist web site  and you can soon find plenty to play with. Send a letter to the editor  to your local paper demanding action on climate change and you will have local deniers after you in force.

  9. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    Well, not having a denier on hand to experiment with, I'm going to abandon my idea.

    As an old man with no children to fear for, I find myself in the position of an observer monitoring an interesting experiment:  Will the deniers continue to sabotage climate action until it's too late, or will they be overruled in time?

  10. Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup

    1. isn't most of the swallowed CO2 plus the amount of CO2 produced from digestive processes, absorbed by the intestine, therefore by swallowing power plant co2 through cola arnt we sinking CO2 into fat, is all CO2 in human food obtained from organic sources through photosynthesis, if not how much mineral carbon is in our food?

     

    2. If over all human population growth and the resulting increment in food intake translates into a net depletion of the top of the food chain (excluding whales who eat plancton directly) live biosphere in the oceans, wouldnt that translate into an overall increase in CO2 in the atmosphere resulting from incremental of human respiration? pound per pound does human respiration more eficient than fish respiration in terms of oxygen intake vs CO2 outflow?

    3. Humans are getting very close to applying C as a material to very "usefull" purposes, and more that any other technology out there CO2 recapture tech. will be most responsible for it given that it isnt just regular C laying about that is most useful, but rather the one that is excited to very high temperatures. Hopefully we wont depleate the atmosphere of CO2 then. 

     

  11. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    I've tried this Digby and wish you the best of luck. Basing your opinions on data rather than tribal values is not something that humans do naturally and on the whole, I think scientists only do it marginally better than general population. A well-trained, real skeptic confronts questions with "what data would cause me to change my mind?", and checks whether it exists. The normal response is a frantic search for data to back our existing position.

    However, the scientific approach does have value in talking to skeptics if they are not too vested in denial. The commonest response that I have seen is to demand data validating predictions that science doesnt make (eg Tristran point A or that temperatures rise uniformly with CO2). In challenging this, someone engaged is forced to look at what the science actually does say - a massive step forward from Fox news or denialist blogs.

    However, if someone is vested in denial, then they will typically just retreat to safe denialist blogs and disengage from you. Favourite outs are that climate is just too complex too understand so nothing can be known; science cant be trusted as scientists are just chasing money (a wonderful piece of projection), and at worst, that there is global conspiracy for something and any inconvenient data is manufactured by evil scientists bent on world domination. Remember the cardinals that refused to look through Galileo's telescope.

  12. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    Tamino recommended this video which gives a recommendation for a general discussion where you want to change another persons position.  I thought that the points the speaker makes are good and will try to use them in the furute.  He suggests that arguing the facts with a denier (which is mostly what I have done in the past) is ineffective and does not get people to change their views (even when your facts are correct).  He has suggestions for a better way to address the conversation.

  13. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    Digby, in my experience no evidence has ever convinced a denialist to change his position.  What happens is that at some point deniers will not dispute whether global warming is taking place. They will simply say that climate has always changed in the past and therefore whether humans are responsible for the change right now is irrelevant. 

  14. Climate change and Hurricane Katrina: what have we learned

    Ryland, you are confusing saying a) there will be more powerful hurricanes, with b) there will be more hurricanes period. Emanuel does not say the latter, he says the former.

  15. Climate change and Hurricane Katrina: what have we learned

    Re: ryland #2

    To quote the article linked:

    Although Landsea doesn't dispute that humans are causing climate change, he does doubt the assertion that global warming has significantly increased hurricane activity. To explain his doubts, he points to the imperfections in hurricane records.

    Above, Professor Emanuel says:

    Theory and computer models show that the incidence of the strongest hurricanes – those that come closest to achieving their potential intensity – will increase as the climate warms, and there is some indication that this is happening. But these most destructive, high-category storms constitute only around 12% of the world’s tropical cyclones; the great majority do little damage but occur far more often.

    These are not mutually contradictory - Emanuel is saying that there will an increase in the "most destructive, high category" storms, while Landsea is talking about ALL hurricanes.

    If Emanuel is right, we better get ready. If we delay in the hope that Landsea is also correct on extreme storms, and if he is wrong, then we (or a lot of people, somewhere) are screwed.

    Incidentally, if you read father down your link, you will find NASA scientists who support the view of Professor Emanuel's article.

    Storms

  16. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    Digby, you are asking a very tough question.Time is not on your side for an easily recognized, opinion changing event to happen in the next few years.

    IMHO, the answer is: 'when Fox News says so'. I have floated the idea of a 'Fox News Moment', akin to the economic Minsky Moment. Or better yet, the 'Wile E. Coyote Moment' when he realizes he is about to fall to the bottom of the canyon. It is inevitable that the day will come when the ultra wealthy conservative class will realize that they have significant skin in the game and it is in their financial interest to change the agenda. Fox News will be the mechanism. I suspect a healthy number already understand this, but think denial is in their best interest, financially or politically. Cynical, but one reason they are rich is because they think this way. At some point, hopefully in the relatively near future, Fox will change its message.

    I think this will happen before there is any really obvious event that would change the minds of the rank and file denialists. The change will be framed in such a way that it does not compromise the current arguments. i suspect something along the lines of 'conservatives finally got the science right after the liberal, big science parasites screwed it up'.

    As for evidence a bit more tangible, I am afraid how hot is it now and where is sea level at the moment are all that will satisfy some people. Some will never acknowledge a change even if the water is lapping at their doorstep.

    Unfortunately the US east coast has been cooler than normal lately. Since 'how hot I am now' gets extrapolated to the whole world, a significant portion of the US is unaware that this is going to be a very hot year: it's been 123 in Basra, Iraq, but... it's Iraq.

    The 2011 La Nina brought Austin, Texas 99 days of 100 or higher, with 112 being the highest, and this was insufficient to convince Texans that the planet is warming. The previous record was 69 days of 100 or greater. I fear it will take Basra-like temperatures to convince Texans that we are messing with the planet. The next strong La Nina event is going to get interesting for Texas.

  17. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    Tristan, I wouldn't want to confront their denial.  I'd like to get behind it.  If someone tells me global warming is a myth, another way I could perhaps achieve this is to ask "OK, I believe you (says he, lying in his teeth).  If global warming were really to occur, what would you expect to see?"

    I know that there are many people whose worldview excludes the possibility of global warming in our time.  I'd like to nudge them into thinking about a different world (like the PETM maximum) where global warming does occur.  So what if global warming does not occur in their world.  I'd like them to imagine a world where it does occur and then give me a description of it.

  18. Climate change and Hurricane Katrina: what have we learned

    There is another side to the hurricane story that suggests natural variability has a significant effect on hurricanes and may play a bigger role than global warming.  Christopher Landsea, a scientist at the US NAtional Hurricane Center is not as certain as scientific organisations, such as the UK Royal Society and the US National Academies  of Sciences, that climate change is worsening hurricanes.  He considers hurricanes occur in cycles " "The late nineteenth century was a very busy period," he explains. "Then from the 1900s until about 1925, it was very quiet. The late 20s to the 60s were very busy. The 1970s to the mid-90s were quiet again, and then from the late 90s onward, it's been generally very busy.".  (http://tinyurl.com/pnqcdb3)

    The article gives a comprehensive discussion of hurricanes and expresses views some of which  do not entirely support those in the piece by Kerry Emanuel.

  19. The cause of the greatest mass-extinctions of all? Pollution (Part 1)

    dudo39 @26, fairly obviously, a 1% CO2 concentration in respired air will result in an increase in pCO2 in the pulmonary system, and presumably also in the end-tidal CO2 concentration.  That the end-tidal CO2 concentration in breath is around 4% is therefore irrelevant to the result.  In other words, prolonged exposure to just 1% CO2 concentration is physiologically harmful to humans, if mildly so.

    Never-the-less, the concern about anthropogenic CO2 has nothing to do with direct physiological impacts.  It has to do with climate impacts, and the impacts of ocean acidification.  Discussion of physiological impacts (direct toxicity) is raised as a red herring by climate change deniers.  Even on the red herring, however, they get their facts wrong in that levels of CO2 concentration that could be reached in a determined BAU scenario do in fact have negative physiological impacts.  Not impacts worth considering given the other harms that would result from such a high CO2 concentration, but impacts none-the-less.

    Note:  the "background" CO2 concentration you refer to is the end-tidal CO2 concentration in respired air, ie, "the level of (partial pressure of) carbon dioxide released at end of expiration".  It represents the peak CO2 concentration in respired air, not the average concentration.  It is not even the average concentration in the alveoli, which start with a slightly lower level even durring expiration, and are likely to have a substantially lower level of CO2 at the end of inspiration, given that the inspired air has only the atmospheric concentration.

  20. 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #35

    Fixed wili's abbreviated link .. Positive tropical marine low-cloud cover feedback inferred from cloud-controlling factors

  21. The cause of the greatest mass-extinctions of all? Pollution (Part 1)

    Rob Honeycutt @24,

    First lines of my comments 22 & 23 are "actual" questions.

    Tom Curtis @25,

    Thanks for the detailed information. I would then amend my implied statement that CO2 is not toxic, or pollutant, to humans in concentrations lower than about say 45,000 ppm.

    Does your statement "at sustained 1% CO2 concentrations humans buffer against CO2 by loss of bone mass" imply then that us humans  are undergoing loss of bone mass since birth [since it appears that  the background CO2 concentration in our lungs is about 4%]?

  22. Climate change and Hurricane Katrina: what have we learned

    "such a horrendous prospect that otherwise intelligent people rebel against the idea even to the extent of denying the very existence of the risk."

    Whoa...the Christchurch city council is requiring new homes built near the sea to allow for future flooding with other mitigations and are at risk of being sued by outraged home-owners. The pity of it all is that they are pinning their colours to a very conservative sea-level rise estimate that is sure to be exceeded. 

  23. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    Digby, the evidence they ask for can be put into one of three boxes:


    A) Can't realistically happen (temps tracking alongside Hansen's 1988 projection for Scenario A, which never occurred)

    B) WIll happen someday (statistically significant warming trend from both satellite datatsets from 1998+)

    C) Has already happened (evidence global warming is happening, is human caused, and is bad)


    In all cases, should evidence of any of those things occur, the committed denier will simply change their requirement, or find a reason why that evidence is unacceptable.

    This is not a unique feature of climate science denial, but relates to every sort of denial that exists.

  24. Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup

    juan vicini @54 & 55:

    1)  The CO2 in soft drinks is obtained by capturing CO2 from power station exhaust, and then forcing it into the water under high pressure.  Because the CO2 is captured from power station exhaust, the amount of CO2 in that exhaust is reduced by the same amount as the CO2 "emitted" by soft drinks.  In consequence, soft drinks emit no CO2 that was not going to be emitted anyway.  It causes no increase in total CO2 emissions, other than that due to the energy of manufacture.

    2) All human food is either plant life, or processed from plant life (meats).  As such, the CO2 in all human food is obtained from the atmosphere by photosynthesis.  Further, once respired, new food is grown by again taking CO2 from the atmosphere by photosynthesis.  As such, the respired CO2 from humans does not increase overall atmospheric CO2 levels.  It is only possible to imagine that it does by ignoring the photosynthetic half of the equation.  This is all explained very clearly in the original post above, and in the comments afterwards.

  25. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    the YouTube channel for Potholer54 has a wonderful playlist on denialists

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52KLGqDSAjo&list=PL82yk73N8eoX-Xobr_TfHsWPfAIyI7VAP   

    "The main purpose of this channel is to explain in simple terms the conclusions of scientific research, and correct some of the unsourced crap we get fed on the Internet. I am a former science journalist (see the "Who I am" video) with a degree in geology."

    He is Peter Hadfield - I have enjoyed everything he has done. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hadfield_(journalist)

  26. Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup

    I wonder... How much of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from soft drink bubbles?

  27. Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup

    Humans sink Carbon through waste, Humans are producers by means of the increment in aricultural productivity per hectar which we have developed. Fossil fuel burning recycles sunk carbon like volcanoes do every so often. Humans are part of the biosphere increments in our population do increase co2 in the atmosphere through breathing alone. We do not produce all the food we eat, non farmed fish consumed by humans per year amounts to 70 million tons. the question of how much of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from breathing is a valid one. in the end it is not just how much goes up and how much is sunk because we can't expect to keep earth on a permanent temperature indefinately as that would be imposible ue to prescesion of the earths axis. In fact trying to do o would probably harm the biosphere much more than fossil fuel burning. the adecuat balance of CO2 at any given moment in the atmosphere should be monitored as a percetage of total mas of living biosphere and in relation to the amount of C escaping the atmosphere aswell.

  28. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    Um, fellows, I don't think you understand my question.  If someone tells me global warming is a myth, I'd like to ask, "OK, so what would you say would be proper evidence of global warming?"

    I'm past the stage of caring what people think of climate change.  I doubt that any effective action will be taken in the near future.  It will be the planet that will change people's minds — and then it will be too late.

    Nevertheless, I'm still curious about how deniers would answer my question.  While there's curiosity, there's hope?!

  29. Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK

    wideEyedPupil, given that I wrote the article you linked to, I'm not particularly worried about it. 

    Smiley

     

    1. The graphic you're interested in was taken from this source. 
    2. Nuclear power does have it's place, but as one of many wedges, and not the entire busload.
    3. But then, renewables can drive the busload by themselves, as it turns out.
  30. Tracking the 2C Limit - July 2015

    ronald myers @43, HadCRUT4 has 30 years more data, but that data is drawn primarilly from Europe and North America meaning it is limited in extent, and geographically biased.  Because of this, NOAA and GISS decided not to included that data, considering estimates of GMST from that data to be too unreliable (a decision with which I agree).

  31. The cause of the greatest mass-extinctions of all? Pollution (Part 1)

    dudo39 @23:

    1)  CO2 toxicity appears to be a complicated subject.  To begin with, the consequence of CO2 toxicity is not asphyxiation, which requires reducing oxygen concentrations to about 4%, but from increasing acidity in body tissues.  The effects of this increased acidity include hamorrhaging of lungs, spleen, intestines and kidneys.  It also includes loss of body mass, and the mass of various organs, although the rate of loss varies by organ and by species.  Finally, at 15% concentration, it results in the complete loss of spermatogenesis.  15% concentration sustained over several weeks also resulted in the deaths of 30 to 50% of guinea pigs, but not of rats.

    At lower levels of CO2, sustained exposure can be effectively buffered but at a cost.  Specifically, at sustained 1% CO2 concentrations humans buffer against CO2 by loss of bone mass.  This also is associated with replacement of calcium carbonate with calcium bicarbonate in bones as part of the buffering process.  I am not sure what effect this has on the strength or brittlness of bone.  The buffering is not continuous in time, but appears to go through stages.

    The upshot is that while humans cannot increase CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to levels that are immediately fatal, or which will result in permanent sterillity (15%), at the upper limit we can increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations to levels that are toxic and have harmful effects on humans.  Other species, however, are far more susceptible to CO2 concentration, particularly some marine species.

    2)  Yes, atmospheric H2O is replaced by evaporation, but that just means the concentration of H2O is controlled by temperature.  Total human emissions of H2O does not increase the atmospheric concentration appreciably over the concentration due to that evaporation. 

  32. Tracking the 2C Limit - July 2015

    My primary objective was to suggest changes to the first figure in this thread. There were three items. One was that HadCRUT4 has an additional 30 years of temperature record than GISS. The second item was a suggestion to adjust the CO2 so the average of the first 30 years are at 0 and consistent with the alignment of the temperature anomaly. The last was a method to include the CO2 concentrations on the figure and provide a means for the reader to determine the concentrations from the figure. You did bring up an additional suggestion to include other GHG concentrations and scale them in proportion to their forcing level. This would result in a total forcings line which is about 3% higher than just CO2 (based upon the natural log of the total forcing of 485 ppm CO2 equivalent per http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.html Table 2 and projecting 2015 value).

  33. The cause of the greatest mass-extinctions of all? Pollution (Part 1)

    dudo39...  I can't see that you proposed any actual question(s).

  34. The cause of the greatest mass-extinctions of all? Pollution (Part 1)

    To Moderator Response,

    Please tell me what policies did I not comply with?

    My comment about water vapor was in response to the satement "Water vapour quickly cycles back to the surface as rain".

    I did not suggest or imply that CO2 caused extinction by asphyxiation; my question was in response to "Harmful or poisonous effects depend on the physical and chemical properties of any one substance. Substances are widely variable in their toxicity in terms of concentration. Carbon dioxide, essential to photosynthetic plantlife, has other properties which, at higher concentrations, make it dangerous. As a strong greenhouse gas, any substantial increase in its atmospheric levels over a matter of a few centuries make it a pollutant because of the impacts of rapid climate change. At much higher levels it becomes an asphyxiant".

    Please note that National Safety Council's "Fundamentals of Industrial Hygiene" [4th Edition] states in the first paragraph in page 42: "Carbon dioxide is always present in the atmosphere, but the proporetion of carbon dioxide in air exhaled from the lungs is 100 times greater"; thus my statement about the 40,000 ppm of CO2.

  35. Global warming intensified the record floods in Texas and Oklahoma

    Umm, Denis, exactly where do you think those greenhouse gas emitting technological systems came from?  It was we humans who designed and built and use them. Trivial semantics aside, people have been making poor decisions that negatively impact the environment and thereby ourselves since long before we invented indusrialized civilization.

  36. Hockey stick is broken

    David Appell is updating a list of all the hockey sticks anybody can find. He's asking for additions from anybody. It's over three dozen now.

  37. Spoiled ballots, spoiled views: an election snapshot from Powys, Wales, UK

    @Daniel Bailey 28
    You might be aware you first graph comparing avain death by power source ahs been reused various places online like here. I'm wondering where the source for death by nuclear came from. Nuclear advocates often level this myth about wind turbines and it would be nice to have a reliable source to say well, if it's bird deaths your care so much about then you'd advocate replacing nuclear with wind power. Thx Alastair

  38. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    Tom Curtis, true, that is a good point. Still, I feel my point is valid,. People like to idenify with a group, it is a good feeling to be a part of something larger than oneself and for many people that can be a more powerful driver than cold, dry facts.

    To be clear, I'm not suggesting that these people cannot be reached, or even  convinced to change their minds. I only suggest that facts, or as Digby puts it, evidence, presented alone, is not the most effective way to reach them.

    There are many other ways to reach someone, and different personality styles wil respond to different methods. Advertisers understand this well and will produce ads that reach us in different ways on different levels. Naratives, humor, and appeals to emotional, moral and social resonance are just a few. Of course facts should be included as well, but they need to be presented in the proper context to be widely convincing.

    Politicians are naturally skilled at making these kinds of convincing arguments, while the typical scientifically oriented personality is not. There are notable exceptions; Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye for instance. But I think this generally explains why so many people find the arguments of politicians more convincing than those of scientists, even though the scientists may have a far superior backing of evidence.

  39. Northwest passage has been navigated in the past

    MRoscio @6 & 7, the Manhattan was accompanied by an icebreaker, the USCGC Northwind, on its westward passage, and by another icebreaker, the USCGC Staten Island on its eastward passage.  At some unspecified stage, it also had additional assistance by the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent.  This despite having been modified to itself be an icebreaker.   Likewise, the Canmar Explorer II was also accompanied by an icebreaker, the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent.

    Given that multiple commercial ships and hobby craft transit the Northwest Passage every year now, without icebreaker assistance, I am not sure what your point is. 

  40. Northwest passage has been navigated in the past

    I obviously meant "in both directions", East-to-West then West-to-East.  Apologies.

  41. Northwest passage has been navigated in the past

    The first commercial ship to complete the Northwest Passage, in both senses, in the same year, was the US supertanker Manhattan in 1969.

    The second one, as far as I know, was the drilling ship Canmar Explorer II in 1976.

  42. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    BBHY @2, in defense of the aparently illogical Democrats and Republicans in that survey, there are policies I would trust some parties to impliment, but not others, even when the policy is essentially the same at a brief level of description.  Not only is there much devil in the detail that can be a make or break issue on some policies, but even the detail of legislation does not cover the way in which policies are administered which can also make a difference.

  43. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    Digby, for many people logic and facts are not the driver of their views on climate change.

    A recent Washington Post survey found that when Donald Trump proposes a policy, Republicans love it and Democrats hate it. When President Obama proposes a policy Democrats love it and Republicans hate it. This applies even when it is the exact same policy.

    Views on climate change are similar. Many people have their particular view not because of the facts and logic, but because it helps identify them as belonging to their chosen political camp. This is just human nature.

    Personally I prefer facts and logic, but I beleive I may be in the minority in that regard.

  44. Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips

    I have to confess that I've not — yet — read any of the material of this course, but I have a related question that has been bothering me for some time.  If it has already been answered, I beg forgiveness.

    My question concerns deniers who reject the evidence for global warming.  Has anyone asked them what they would consider to be "proper" evidence?  For example, no more ice at the poles would surely be incontrovertible, if rather drastic; how about some intermediate situation, such as an ice-free Arctic Ocean in September?  I would dearly like to know what they would put forward.  It should be very entertaining.

  45. The cause of the greatest mass-extinctions of all? Pollution (Part 1)

    At what level does CO2 become an asphyxiant?

    Please keep in mind that even at 40,000 ppm CO2 is not harmful to humans and probably to mammals.

    Also keep in mind that as water precipitates it is readily replaced by evaporation, and it appears that water vapor varies over a wide range at a given location and time....

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Welcome to Skeptical Science.

    Thank you for taking the time to share with us.  Skeptical Science is a user forum wherein the science of climate change can be discussed from the standpoint of the science itself.  Ideology and politics get checked at the keyboard.

    Please take the time to review the Comments Policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

    In particular, note that comments must be on-topic. No one is suggesting CO2 caused extinction by aphyxiation. Claims about water vapour should be in the appropriate place and backed by references. Unsubstantiated claims are sloganneering and banned.

  46. Global warming intensified the record floods in Texas and Oklahoma

    You're talking nomenclature now: once the lingo is defined you can methodically work out the answer to the half-solved, said and specified problem.

    The trouble becomes: all science is inevitabaly political at some point and what we have here is the tribalistic problem of all tribalistic problems...some make serious money from pollution!

  47. Global warming intensified the record floods in Texas and Oklahoma

    The terminology used leads to gross misunderstanding. Humans do not emit the greenhouse gases that have caused irreversible rapid climate disruption and ocean warming and acidification. It is the technological systems of indusrialized civilization that has done the damage. People can only make decisions, good and bad, about what should be done to adapt to what these systems have done wrong.

  48. Tracking the 2C Limit - July 2015

    Ronald, I am not quite sure what you are trying to achieve here. Climate theory says you expect temperature trends to be correlated to net forcing (with some lag), not just CO2. For an example, see Schmidt and Benestad 2009.

  49. 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #35

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 7/abstract

    Something to include in future digests or maybe even a main post??

    Xin Qu, Alex Hall, Stephen A. Klein and Anthony M. DeAngelis (September 3, 2015), "Positive tropical marine low-cloud cover feedback inferred from cloud-controlling factors", Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/2015GL065627

    This should have an effect on climate sensitivity estimations, I would think.

  50. Global warming intensified the record floods in Texas and Oklahoma

    So does anyone predict that now citizens of these states will rise up and demand that their representatives do something about climate change...

    I don't expect them to, and if they don't it is yet more proof that events themselves, even extreme and devastating events that can clearly be connected to GW, are not enough by themselves to change minds of even those directly effected by said extreme events.

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