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Eric Grimsrud at 23:28 PM on 25 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
@26 and 28
Bozzza, Perhaps I was not clear enough. We know why sea levels have risen since 20,000 years ago - it is due to a transition from a glacial to an interglacial period.
My question is why Christy would claim that sea level would continue to rise today and into the future due to natural causes. We are now well out of an interglacial period and, I thought, in a stable interglacial period with no or very little change in sea levels. If any natural change would be in the works for the future I thought sea levels might actually be decreasing somewhat in the immediate future as we begin to head back towards the next glacial period.
So I still don't understand why Christy would claim that sea levels will be rising due to natural causes in the future. The only explanation I can think of is that Christy suspects that sea levels will indeed rise due to Man's effect on the GHGs and, therefore, is claiming natural forces will do the same - but has no good reason to make that claim.Thus, if there is such a reason for Christy's claim, perhaps someone could point out what that is. Otherwise, it would appear that he is misinforming the members of this congressional hearing.
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Art Vandelay at 20:41 PM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
"In other words, those who don't embrace new solar/battery technogoly and stay behind, will continue to "fund" the dying FF infrastructure."
In the unlikely event of such an outcome, governments would simply raise taxes elsewhere to subsidize the grid.
Consider the plight of hundreds of thousands of poeple who are forced to rent properties because they're not earing enough to pay a million+ dallar mortgages in the big cities, and ask what percentage of landlords are going to fund expensive PV solar systems for them.
Also, the cost of housing is pushing more and more people into appartments and estates where PV solar and power storage would required strata approval and in many cases it may not be viable anyway due to insufficient surface area.
Personally, I would love to install a PV solar and storage system too but I'm currently unable to lawfully clear the trees (and a good thing too) that currently shade my entire foof area for much of the year.
It's my hope that future large scale solar and wind farms will be publically floated, affording mum and dad investors the oportunity to investment and share the rewards.
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TonyW at 16:56 PM on 25 May 2015Seeds of Time - preserving food resources in a hot future climate
"Many of the seeds can be stored for thousands of years in this site."
Mmm, I think that's only if industrial civilisation lasts that long. The cooling does rely on chillers to get down to the temperatures required for that long term cooling. And will the seeds be accessible if some catastrophe does happen (which is why it was built, after all)?
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chriskoz at 14:05 PM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
SkepticalinCanada@13,
I think ryland's claim is correct in noting the smh (in fact Grattan Institute) reported (among other things) wasted money:
"Lavish government subsidies plus the structure of electricity network tariffs means the cost of solar PV take-up has outweighed the benefits by more than $9 billion."
I, on the other hand, don't understand the very misleading headline of the article I quoted @13: "Billions wasted on solar subsidy, says report", which is vey inaccurate and does not repfect its contents and may have resulted ryland's misunderstanding of the complex issue of energy transition from FF to solar/renewables.
Further, I don't know how the benefits (presumabl $5 billions) of the subsidies in question have been calculated: what was for example the prize of the emissions saved, how the emission savings have been calculated, for the lifetime of the subsidised solar installations or for the perior 2008-2020 in question, etc. So what was the reason for "failed subsidies" that gave science deniers further ammunition? One more familiar with the Grattan Institute report might want to answer that question.
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chriskoz at 13:09 PM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
Tom Curtis@11,
The braoder extent of the Grattan Institute report in question have been described in this smh article. It turns out, the report considered not only unfair feed-in tariffs and essentially flat charges at peak demand times and at low demand times. They have also looked at what may happen with over-invested, "gold-plated" power network once improved storage technology prompts people to move away from the networks:
Rising power charges is encouraging more users to consider "unplugging" from the power grid, which would then push up power prices for those staying on the grid. Unplugging may make sense only for some large users in remoter locations, the study found. [...]
As a result, fears that the tens of billions of dollars invested by state governments and superannuation funds in power networks would be hit by a "death spiral" as users desert from the power network will not occur. [...]
As part of this, government must also clarify who will pay to shut down the parts of the power network no longer needed as new technology and declining demand reduce network revenues.
Under present regulations, the networks can raise prices to offset revenue declines so that a declining number of users would be called upon to fund an unnecessary network, the report found.
In other words, those who don't embrace new solar/battery technogoly and stay behind, will continue to "fund" the dying FF infrastructure.
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scaddenp at 12:12 PM on 25 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
What Curry actually publishes in the scientific realm may be of value but her misinformation in the public arena is not. What information sources are you trusting in your evaluation of what is an "extreme position". Do you regard the IPCC position (the scientific consensus) of ECS in range 1.5 to 4.5 extreme?
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bozzza at 11:38 AM on 25 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
Cowpuncher: how about doing some reading so you can bring something to the table?!!?
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Cowpuncher at 11:25 AM on 25 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
scaddenp - there is far too much personal denigration and ad hominem attacking in the wider AGW debate fro me to add to it. Curry is a highly accomplished scientist with a wealth of published material and she seems to via away from any extreme positions. I am also sure she will be wrong on some issues but she is making a contribution to the search for a fuller understanding of climate.
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bozzza at 10:44 AM on 25 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
@ 26, the answer is because we are coming out of an ice-age!
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Tom Curtis at 10:43 AM on 25 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
Cowpuncher @24, Judith Curry's question is not so much interesting, as poorly framed. Specifically, it tacitly assumes that there are not costs from AGW after 2050. As it happens, because of the slow response rate to forcing, a reduction in emissions now will not appreciably effect temperatures until about 10 years later. Further, because we must decrease emissions gradually, an 80% reduction will not be fully implimented (if it is) until 2050. Consequently most of the temperature effect of such a reduction will occur after 2050.
As it happens, RCP2.6 shows an approximate 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050:
We can therefore use its temperature predictions to look at the claim:
At 2050 it only amoutns to 0.75 C between RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 (no mitigation). By 2100 that difference increases to 3.2 C, and by 2200 to 6 C. With costs increasing more than linearly with increased temperature, Curry is attempting to exclude more than 90% of the cost differential from the equation. Indeed, with RCP8.5 tempertures rising to levels where parts of the tropics may be seasonally uninhabitable by 2050, ignoring long term costs amounts to tackling climate change by putting your head in the sand.
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Eric Grimsrud at 10:33 AM on 25 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
In his testimony, Christy says that sea levels have risen for the last 20,000 years (OK) but the says that sea levels will continue to rise in the future.
I don't understand what he is trying to say and am wondering if someone did.
If man is not overpoweriing the natural Milinkovitch cycles (as he claims), why would he think sea levels will continue to rise? They will be rising, of course, due to Man's effects, and without man's effects they would be going down, right?
Is Christy simply trying to avoid the use of sea level directional change as a proof of Man's effect? If so why might sea levels possibly rise due to natural causes. Don't understand where he is going with that one.
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SkepticalinCanada at 10:32 AM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
@12 Thank, Tom. I did find that particular article, and was still puzzled by ryland's claim about the cost if that article was the basis for his claim. Saying that their costs have outweighed their benefits is, in my opinon, significant misrepresentation of that article and in fact other articles at the SMH.
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bozzza at 10:07 AM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
@9, still interesting information so cheers!
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Tom Curtis at 09:46 AM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
SkepticalinCanada @5, with reference to solar panels, Ryland is probably refering to this article, which does say:
"Feed-in tariffs had to be paid for. The businesses that run the networks were allowed to pass on these costs to other electricity consumers through their energy bills. Essentially, governments arranged it so that money went from people without solar to people with solar.
By the time premium feed-in tariffs end - Queensland's scheme runs until 2028 - Australians without solar will have paid about $5 billion extra on their electricity bills. They have paid a further $5 billion as a result of federal government subsidies to solar from the Renewable Energy Target. Add a third subsidy that is embedded in the structure of network tariffs, and people without solar PV have spent $14 billion subsidising those who have."
That is 14 billion over twenty years. The excessively high feed in tariffs do in fact represent a problem, not least because they encourage people using solar panels to shape their energy use so that their peak energy use is at night when they are drawing energy from the grid, and hence primarilly CO2 emitting sources.
However, if that is the article to which he refers, he has again misrepresented its contents. The article is primarilly about the potential revolution in solar power from the introduction of relatively cheap, convenient batteries:
"Yet change is on the way and if it is managed properly, solar PV will finally become a major player in Australia's power system. In concert with home batteries, solar panels will change people's relationship with the grid, giving them the ability to store and manage the electricity their solar panels produce, and reducing their electricity costs.
These changes will benefit not only solar PV owners but everyone. Battery owners will use the grid less at peak times, placing less strain on the network and reducing the need for costly investment in new infrastructure. Reducing network costs will push down electricity prices."
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Tom Curtis at 09:31 AM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
ryland @4, on January 11th, 2011 I described the Queensland floods saying:
"Of course, and even larger perspective is needed. In March, 2010, Queensland experienced record breaking floods, with many towns experiencing record flood depths, and the greatest area flooded ever reported for Queensland. It was reported that the flood effected area in March was larger than Victoria (area: 240,000 square kilometers, or 92,000 square miles). In the week after Christmas, that record was broken, with a reported flooded extent greater in area than New South Wales (810,000 square kilometers or 313,000 square miles). That is an area about the size of the five largest contiguous US states either under water or cut off, or with crops rotting in the ground two weeks before harvest.
In the last week of December, the floods were mostly confined to the interior behind Rockhampton and Bundaberg (also flooded) and to the Darling Downs and interior. There was minor flooding in Brisbane, and in the north of the state (where at least one woman lost her life). Since then the floods have moved south, flooding Gympie, Maryborough, and of course, Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley (and soon to be Ipswich and Brisbane). Dalby deserves a special mention, having experience five flood peaks in two weeks."
The post was in connection to the Toowoomba floods, described at the time as an "inland tsunami":
The Toowoomba floods were astonishing in that Toowoomba is literally at the crest of the Great Dividing Range west of Brisbane. Toowoomba's catchment area lies entirely inside the city limits.
Shortly after the Toowoomba flood, Murphy's Creek was hit by a wall of water, with the water level rising "... about 12 metres in 12 minutes" (Source).
(Source)
That was less surprising in that Murphy's Creek lies at the bottom of the range, hard up against the edge of the Lockyer Valley. Any flash flood coming down the range would have had no time to disperse before hitting Murhpy's Creek.
Further downstream from Murhpy's Creek (and downstream of the confluence of Murhpy's and Lockyer Creek, on which Helidon sits), at Helidon, the water level rose 8 meters in thirty minutes, with 4 meters of that rise being in ten minutes. Helidon is downstream of three other streams in addition to Murhpy's Creek. The rapidity of the water rise at Helidon is astonishing given the relative distance from the valley walls (and hence time and distance for the flood peak to disperse).
Downstream of Helidon (and of Flagstone Creek) lies Grantham. Further downstream again is Gatton where flood levels 20 meters above Davey's Bridge were recorded:
(Source, see here for video of after flood levels at the same location)
I run through all this to illustrate just how deceptive is your comment @4 that "it is heartening to read in the SMH (May 24 2015) pieces noting the 2011 floods in Queensland were not due to climate change but to human error". It is deceptive because the 2011 Queensland floods were not restricted to a flood in Grantham. Nor is the SMH report about the "Queensland floods", but the rather about the floods in "Grantham, Queensland", something made very clear in the article. It is further deceptive because Grantham certainly would have flooded in any event on January 10th, as is made clear from the generalized flooding both upstream and downstream of Grantham. Indeed, Grantham had already flooded on Jan 9th, and would do so again in a further flood on Jan 11th when the Grantham water gauge ceased operating at 14 meters (source).
What is at issue in the SMH is whether the collapse of an earth wall in a local quarry made the flood worse in Grantham than it would otherwise have been. It has no bearing at all on the causes of the flood. Further, the story is known to be inaccurate (and essentially a beat up by Channel Nine). The Channel Nine Chopper did not record the "wall of water" through Grantham. It did not even record the peak of flooding in Grantham, video of which did not emerge until March 18th. Rather, it responded to reports of the flood which had already peaked by the time it was airbourne. The "new evidence" on the Sixty Minutes report was not relevant evidence at all.
Even the reports account of what the prior inquiry said is inaccurate. Channel Nine claims the inquiry "...determined the flood hit the town at 3.15pm". The SMH reports that as:
"The commission concluded that a wall of flood water hit Grantham between 3.15 and 3.30pm, which fit the timeline of events that suggested the overflowing river upstream was the cause of the devastation."
The inquiry actually found that:
"While it accepts the submitters’ contention that the road from Gatton to Grantham was clear shortly after 3.00 pm (a conclusion consistent with the Commission’s finding in its interim report that the Grantham flooding occurred between 3.20 pm and 4.00 pm), it does not consider that there is any basis to reject the SES controller’s account as given in his statement referred to in the interim report. It is supported by statements from the group leader of the Gatton SES unit and members of the SES group which set out to perform the doorknocking task, as well as by the contemporary record in the form of the Gatton SES attendance log."
IMO it is very difficult to mistake 3:20 to 4:00 for 3:15 to 3:30; so Channel Nine and the SMH have directly misrepresented the Commission to beat up a story. So the "missing hour" is manufactured by dishonest reporting by Channel Nine (and possibly lazy reporting by the SMH).
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scaddenp at 09:20 AM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
Not my area of expertize, but you can find levelized cost for different energy production in US here. None of this includes accounting for externalities (ie damage to environment from use of fossil fuel). This is much more difficult calculation. I understand that internally, Shell uses a $40 per ton costing which I guess is what they think a carbon tax might be.
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bozzza at 08:55 AM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
What would the economics of fossil fuels be if you payed full price for it?
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scaddenp at 08:13 AM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
Ryland, I should also say that if you want to primarily discuss political comment around climate change, then have a look at thinkprogress. This SkepSci site is primarily about the science of climate change and debunking pseudo-skeptic nonsense associated with it.
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scaddenp at 07:43 AM on 25 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
Cowpuncher, the IPCC WG1 show results for different carbon pathways (RCPs). I see you worried about reduction costs but have you also looked at future costs if you dont? I am reasonably amazed at your "level headed" assessment of JC given these statements and her (non) standing in the research community. How did you make that assessment?
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scaddenp at 07:37 AM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
Ryland, what would the economics of solar power be if you actually paid the full price for it? Even removing the subsidies on fossil fuel makes a big difference to the cost equation. How skeptical have you been of the claims made by the opinion piece compared to the skepticism you have expressed here about peer-reviewed science?
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Cowpuncher at 07:29 AM on 25 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
Judith Curry who seems to be quite level-headed raises an interesting question about the Congress hearings and Presient Obama's speech. She questions what the anticipated reduction in temperature will be against the climate models assessments as a result of an 80% reduction in CO2 by 2050. I am struggling to find information on this. It is an important issue given the costs involved of an 80% reduction. Can someone help, please?
Moderator Response:[JH] Suggest that you pose your question directly to Judith Curry on her website.
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SkepticalinCanada at 06:41 AM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
@4. Where exactly does the article note precisely that the floods were not due to climate change? And please provide the link to the solar panel item, as I can't seem to find it. Thanks.
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HowardW at 05:46 AM on 25 May 2015Upcoming MOOC makes sense of climate science denial
Does this course discuss the value of presenting solutions to climate change such as Cap & Trade or Fee and Dividend (as proposed here www.ccl.org.au) when describing the problem?
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ryland at 03:39 AM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
I posted a comment addressing the prejudices of the Guardian and the SMH which has not appeared perhaps because I was critical of these two papers. That said it is heartening to read in the SMH (May 24 2015) pieces noting the 2011 floods in Queensland were not due to climate change but to human error and that the cost to households of solar panels has outwibghed their benefits
Moderator Response:[JH] Your prior post was deleted because it was nothng more than nonsensical sloganeering.
Sloganeering is prohibited by the SKS Comments Policy.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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sgbotsford at 03:11 AM on 25 May 2015Seeds of Time - preserving food resources in a hot future climate
The norway project is a good way to preserve the actual genes. However we need to take a mass scale to do the same with food. E.g. Store several year's grain supply.
This goes against the whole "Just in Time" system in industry. Look instead to collecting pools of resources that can be used later. Inventory, instead of being a liability should be an asset — subject to re-valuation as times change.
If you are going to store 7 years grain supply, you need massive silos, good pest control, and possibly controlled atmosphere conditions. All costs money. On the other hand, companies that do this are in a position to gain on the arbitrage between bounty years and lean years.
Probably quite doable with minor changes to tax laws — make it easier to write off storage costs, including lost revenue for tied up capital.
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PhilippeChantreau at 02:18 AM on 25 May 2015Climate's changed before
RoamerNZ, I find your post rather offensive. You confessed earlier having limited knowledge and understanding of the subject at hand, yet you address pretty much all contributors here with such thing as "have you informed yourself about this data?" without specifying what such data is or providing any useable reference. People participating to this forum are usually very well informed about climate science. Many of the contributors/moderators here have published papers in reputable journals. Since you are, by your own admission, the one rather less informed about the whole field, your condescending tone is unwarranted.
References are needed for many of your assertions, especially the ones that are more specific or mention numbers:
"But for every yay sayer there is an opposite." The various consensus studies so far indicate that, in fact, the "opposites" are outnumbered by approximately 97 to 3. There are more appropriate threads to discuss this, if you want to provide credible evidence to the contrary.
This part here: "In fact earth cooled a whopping 4 degrees from 1450 to 1850 in fact earth has warmed up to 4 degrees 4 times in the last 450 thousand years a fairly regular cycle at that of about 100 thousand years.. We enter the fifth cycle now" That requires some serious backing by real scientific work, the kind published in well established science journals. I'm waiting to see it before taking it seriously. If it is an attempt to refer to the alternance of glacial/interglacial periods, the subject is well studied, consistent with the consensus model of Earth climate, and you should go to the appropriate threads.
"It's all to do with Jupiter apparently." This was one the very first pieces of nonsense that I personally debunked on SkS during the early years of the site. Some cited also Mars, and even Pluto, which took us to the height of stupidity. It is complete nonsense. But by all means, cite scientific evidence on the proper thread if you have any.
On SkS, you don't get to make up stuff or equate opinion with evidence. The preponderance of scientific evidence is what is considered. It takes some work to determine in which direction that points, but it's worth doing that work, because that is most likely where reality resides. If you're unwilling to do that work, you essentially give up and rationalize your choice of opinion with unfounded ideas of competing theories and competing experts of equal value, which couldn't be farther from reality. Not everything is a matter of opinion, especially in the physical world.
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SkepticalinCanada at 00:57 AM on 25 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
Now, if only those 25 newspapers would also team up to make sure that their online comments sections were about the science of human-caused global warming as well. Clicking on almost any of the links to their articles and then going to their comments sections brings up a disgusting repetition of personal attacks, unscientific nonsense, the usual memes from the deniosphere's script, and so on. I'm not saying cut off one particular point of view when it comes to the science, but how about raising the bar a bit and turning them into real discussions? Kudos to Skeptical Science for leading the way on that.
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Roger D at 00:55 AM on 25 May 2015Climate's changed before
by 'nformation above', I meant this Sks page
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Roger D at 00:54 AM on 25 May 2015Climate's changed before
Roamernz,
You seem to be trying to advance the idea that people seeking to determine who to believe regarding the likely impacts of antrhopogenic influences on the atmosphere just cannot figure it out because a) climate changes on various timescales for varioius reasons, and b) one can find experts and supposed experts that disagree on causes and whether warming or cooling is more likely.
This information above addresses well a). On b), simply put, you simply need to have apropriate descretion to weed out quacks. Wikipedia nots that Abdussamatov, who you apparantly give as an example of why we just can't determine whether we will warm or cool in the future,"holds that Earth's atmosphere does not produce a greenhouse effect."
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Roamernz at 23:36 PM on 24 May 2015Climate's changed before
Tristan .. I did not say they were my interpretations.. It is an opinion formed after listening to climatologist. Yes some are of a different persuasion than the one you proclaim., And they are compelling.
Each of us must form our own opinion there is no "carte Blanche" to be filled with your version.
i also did did not say anything about you or any one else not knowing why.the heating is taking place. What I am not buying into is that we are solely responsible especially in the light that this happens over and over on this planet long before the blink of an eyelid that we have been here.
i would also never presume or assume to give insight to any true scientist.. I was merely expressing an opinion.. Based on what I believe to be plausible and for you this is a problem as I am not convinced otherwise.
Because of the wiggle.. We are heating up.. But you seem to say because of the current conditions the planet cannot do anything but.. I presume by conditions you mean human activity.
And you can categorically guarantee that if all human co2 emissions stopped today .. The heating up would stop permanently? I find that impossible to believe knowing what we know of earth and her idiosyncratic movements. It's akin to saying if humans stop moving around ..the magnetic polar shift won't happen again.
Michael.. Sure, deniers at the time did not see the warming as alarmingly large.. Since they now have irrefutable evidence it is heating.. The question then came.. Why? And this is where argument is. (Btw the deniers aren't necessarily the same people). And what is wrong with the argument .. It's happened before? .. It has.. Many times!
Yes predictions for global warming happened 120 years ago.. But for every yay sayer there is an opposite.. In 1837 louis agazzi presented the opinion the planet had cooled and then warmed only to cool again with a new ice age on the horizon. (In fact earth cooled a whopping 4 degrees from 1450 to 1850 in fact earth has warmed up to 4 degrees 4 times in the last 450 thousand years a fairly regular cycle at that of about 100 thousand years.. We enter the fifth cycle now) .. This concept was met by skepticism only to later be accepted. Many papers have been produced predicting severe cooling 2042 onwards one such scientist is russian astrophysics habibullo abussamatov
so you see some one is predicting cooling when it is now warming.. Opposite to your point. But as bozza would say.. These are joining issues and the warming is the precursor for cooling even the possibility of a "snowball" earth.. as it once was and may happen again Have you informed yourself about this data?
the earth is heating and will cool again.. But it has nothing to do with our activities.. It will do it regardless as it has for billions of years. It's all to do with Jupiter apparently
Im glad you'll be looking after me bozza .. very comforting :)
Moderator Response:[JH] Personal opinion carries very little weight on this site. Please provide appropriate scientific documentation of your assertions in your future posts.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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MA Rodger at 22:55 PM on 24 May 2015The climate 'hiatus' doesn’t take the heat off global warming
dcpetterson @33.
You ask for comment on your blog post.
You are correct that a regression for the full period covered in all three of Mad Monckton of Brentchley analyses would provide a positive trend but it would be very very small (I make it +0.05ºC/century) and statistically insignificant.
His Lordship's delicate adjustments of the period being examined are purely so he can get a big fat zero in trend. Different choices of start & end points during this short period allow him to achieve this as the wobbles in RSS data (which are larger than the wobbles in surface temperature records) continue to bounce along just over and occasioanally under zero. Your primary finding and your accusation of cherry-picking his time-intervals as presented in your blog post is thus no great revelation.You are correct in pointing to Monckton's dodgy choice of temperature record. RSS TLT attempts to measure a weighted temperature from surface to stratosphere. The weightings of the TLT measurements does give a lower average altittude than TMT but the descriptor "lower" is otherwise less than accurate and RSS TLT is certainly no substitute for surface measurements.
And your criticism that the period chosen by Mad Monckton is too short is also correct. He effectively is arguing using the contrarian 'escalator'.
As this woodfortrees plot demonstrates, the Viscount has managed to magic away most of the temperature increase shown in the RSS data.
My own analysis for the length of the 'pause' using RSS data show that the accumulating RSS data gives a steepening rate of warming up to mid-2004. (For surface temperature records the steepening continues into 2007.) That means RSS TLT temperatures were accelerating up to 2004 which is entirely incompatable with a 'pause' in temperature rise starting in 1996. And plotting the trend of surface temperature measurements and including more recent data demonstrates that since last autumn surface temperature records are again showing a steepening trend in global temperature rise. That surely means the 'pause' (if we were to call it that) has at the least 'paused'. -
fpjohn at 22:19 PM on 24 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
"Cutting warming to 1.5°C could endanger food supply" and "Limiting global warming to 1.5C is still possible, say scientists" refer to a common source, a Nature Climate Change article
Rogelj, J. et al, (2015) Energy system transformations for limiting end-of-century warming to below 1.5 °C
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE2572
yours
Frank Johnston
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HK at 21:50 PM on 24 May 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21B
NOAA has updated its global ocean heat content. It seems that they will soon have to expand their y-axis – again!
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Yves at 20:23 PM on 24 May 2015Hotspot Found Again: Warming of the Tropical Troposphere Confirms Climate Model Prediction
Complements from previous comment (#12): To be fair, the 0.55 K/decade cooling trend given by Chriskoz concerns 50 hPa, which should be compared with the C10 channel centered at 20 km height. There, the 1999-2013 trend is still cooling but at a lower rate: 0.24 K/decade, cf. http://images.remss.com/msu/msu_time_series.html
But:
(1) considering the short period and the noise of both time series, this figure doesn't show unequivocally an inflexion of the previous trend;
(2) comparing the different channels (C10,11,12,13,14 at respectively 20,25,30,35 and 40 km heights), the 1999-2013 cooling trends are increasing with height from 0.24 to 0.76 K/decade. As for the synthetical C25 data which emulate the SSU time series, they show a 0.40 K/decade trend for the same period. -
Yves at 13:49 PM on 24 May 2015Hotspot Found Again: Warming of the Tropical Troposphere Confirms Climate Model Prediction
@Chriskoz (#10):
The lower stratosphere might have stopped cooling because of the beginning of the recovery of the ozone hole. But the middle stratosphere is still cooling, according to RSS analyses, about 0.5 K/decade from 1999 to 2013 (see AMSU channel C13), very close to the 0.55 K/decade you cited for 1960-2010.
Cf. http://www.remss.com/measurements/upper-air-temperature -
bozzza at 08:43 AM on 24 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
Also, no: I do not dislike government intervention- I understand better than most that Government helps farmers to even grow a marketable product let alone provide standards that stop people dying in the workplace in all manner ways: I'm not a dumb lib... simply just trying to put forward a fair view of the world worthy of discussion rather than circular back-patting!
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bozzza at 08:41 AM on 24 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
I accept the argument is not strong. I read OPOFs comments(just seconds ago infact,... well minutes because I did ponder it to make sure i understood it and not fly off on a tangent like I can do as it was written well enough to show he knows a few things) and conclude that business certainly can be a very dark world. I wasn't disputing that but perhaps I should digress from sticking up for its shennanigans.. yes I understand you are saying these are not simply business shennanigans we are talking about but rather complete deception for no purpose.
I'm a greens/labor voter but I still try and justify how the world works...as we all do of course.
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nigelj at 08:28 AM on 24 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
Bozzza, you appear to be basically using your dislike of government input into markets as some weak excuse to try to justify people opposed to this stooping to dishonesty. You constantly make excuses for dishonesty or other unethical behaviour. I doubt that you are really playing devils advocate, and your argument doesn't even pass first base.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:14 AM on 24 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
Bozza,
My MBA and life experience has helped me understand that what many refer to as 'market-forces' are just artificial motivations of human attitudes and actions based on a set of artificial rules put in place by humans. And the current rules have been significantly developed through the influence of people who knowingly will pursue unacceptable ways of personally benefiting as much as they are able to get away with.
References to 'government interference' come from a perspective of someone inclined to believe that all people free to do as they please will naturally produce a lasting constantly improving better future for all. The actual facts of the matter clearly contradict that belief. Potential profitability and popularity of actions that can be understood to be unacceptable leads many people to fight for 'freedom from any and all restrictions'. And those pushing for such freedom are also very likely to be the ones wanting more rules and enforcement, but only selectively applied and focused on the things they do not personally like others to have the freedom to do. Their main purpose for such actions and policy is to protect their opportunity to get away with unacceptable pursuits of personal benefit because they are 'deemed to not be illegal or their actions are selectively not monitored and penalized'. They will even use their influence to promote the waging of war (in other nations), to 'protect their personal interests and deaires'. -
funglestrumpet at 00:51 AM on 24 May 2015Seeds of Time - preserving food resources in a hot future climate
With the Cold War slowly coming out of hibernation, I hope these vaults have some warming provision to ensure that the conditions remain above freezing point for those seeds that would be susceptible to a nuclear winter should the worst come to the worst.
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bozzza at 22:21 PM on 23 May 2015Climate's changed before
Dear Roamernz,
Have you ever heard of joining issues? It means you are dealing with a complex system you are defeated by !! Luckily there are other people to take care of you!!!
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michael sweet at 21:34 PM on 23 May 2015Climate's changed before
RoamerNZ,
You have forgotten that as little as 5 years ago the deniers consistently said that it was not warming. It is only when warming became obvious to everyone that they have shifted their argument to "it has warmed before".
In addition to Tristans points, you need to consider that the currrent warming was predicted 120 years ago by Arhennius. How could this rapid warming be natural when it was predicted decades in advance? The globe was actually cooling when Arhennius predicted warming and correctly estimated the amount of warming we would get. Try to inform yourself about the data. When you do not know what the facts are it is easy to be confused.
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bozzza at 21:20 PM on 23 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
Of course, yet what I am saying is business being business means shennanigans must played in order to secure the advantage of meaningful fact....I am referring to the rich maintaining their share and if they are entrepreneural it is shades of grey as to whether they deserve respect or not because let us face facts: market forces- however diluted by government interference- are charged with supplying goods and services to the largest of degrees....!!
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Tristan at 21:16 PM on 23 May 2015Climate's changed before
RoamerNZ, if, as you say, you are a layperson, why would you trust your own interpretation of the facts more than you'd trust the interpretations of those who spend their lives reading and performing climate science?
Why would you assume that your commentary contains insight that they haven't examined themselves?
When you say 'there is absolutely no way to prove this', are you informing climate scientists of something? Have you read, and understood, many paleoclimatology papers?
Why do you think we don't understand what causes the planet to warm and cool? It's not just a mysterious variable that wiggles up and down every so often. Climate has physical causes and physicial constraints. Our expectation that the world will keep warming is not because we look at the wiggle and say 'It's gonna keep wiggling up', it's because, physically speaking, it is actually impossible for the world to not keep warming, given current conditions. -
Roamernz at 18:30 PM on 23 May 2015Climate's changed before
there are many learned fellows on this site much more educated about this issue than a layman like me.. But there are some basic issues that I have an "issue" with (and let's face it unless laymen like me are convinced either way there won't be any action anywhere. It's great to see all the point scoring and technical data etc.. But (I am in the skeptical camp for now).. There are some irrefutable facts .. Things are heating up.. And.. It's happened many times before. There are also a lot of emotional stuff being thrown around.
Things have heated before.. scary camp say "yes but this time it's much faster" there is absolutely no way to prove this as we are only talking about less than a 200 years.. And many many times we can see shifts from hot to cold millions perhaps billions of years ago.. But no way we can prove the speed of that heating or cooling within only 100 years or so. Perhaps it is a rapid increase that then wane off .. A natural occurrence .. Can we really do something about it.. Unlikely.. Even if we could .. How? We can't stop the entire world from its day to day use in the next 10 years .. Let alone in the next 100.. So it is what it is. Between humans, volcanoes.. Farting sheep and cows, Position to the sun and how many plants grow at any given time on the planet.. It's probably fair to say whatever is about to happen .. Will happen anyway..
even IF.. Humans were totally responsible (which simply .. We aren't) there is no way.. No way at all .. ever.. You will be able to stop 8 billion people doing whatever they are doing.
so let's agree it's happening.. It's happened before slower or faster ..it will still happen .. Wether due to us or nature and universe or all of the above .. we can't stop it no matter what! Let's just ride it out the best we can.
Moderator Response:[Rob P] - See the No.1 climate myth on Skeptical Science - Climate's changed before.
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dcpetterson at 16:24 PM on 23 May 2015The climate 'hiatus' doesn’t take the heat off global warming
I hope this is a good thread for this. If not, feel free to delete this comment, (I know that is a dumb thing to say, because moderators always have that freedom!)
I looked at the graphs from wattsupwiththat, and I realized, in order to keep the "pause" going, denialists have to keep changing the starting date of the faux pause.
In March of 2014, they said global warming stopped in Augist of 1996. By April of 2015, they said global warming stopped in December of 1996. They had to change the start date, because even in the cherry-picked dataset they use (RSS), the Earth keeps warming.
The whole "pause" idea is a fraud.
I wrote a blog post about what I saw. If someone with better math skills than I have would falsify it, that would be useful.
The blog post is here.
If my post is nonsense, I would not be offended to learn that.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:41 PM on 23 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
bozzza,
People who think outside of the norms of a society, people who see things from a novel perspective, are indeed the sparks of ingenuity. However, the people mentioned in the article, the likes of Christy and the ones who invite him to speak, are almost certain to be aware of the deliberate deceptions they create and disseminate.
These are not "outsiders" unaware of what the mainstream is aware of or thinking about explanations for all the observations/information available from a different perspective. These are people who are fully aware of vast amounts of information who deliberate focus on bits of information and deliberately try to create claims that will sound convincing to someone who is willing to be easily impressed, someone inclined to want to hear and believe the fantastical unbelievable tall tales they tell.
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rockytom at 12:42 PM on 23 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
I would like to know how much one of these congressional committee hearings cost the U.S. taxpayer considering all costs,i.e., salaries of congressmen, senators, and their staffs, witnesses salaries and expenses and the expenses for everyone and everything associated with these hearings. House republicans have voted to kill "Obamacare" over 60 times. Cost? Astronomical! These hearings that pay deniers to lie must stop. There are penalties for lying to congress and they should be inforced. The U.S. taxpayers have got to stop sending these idiots to Washington who call these witnesses.
BTW, the 97% of climate scientists who support anthropogenic global warming should be updated to 99.9%. One would be hard pressed to find 3% of climate scientists who do not support AGW. 0.1% maybe.
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SkepticalinCanada at 12:17 PM on 23 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
@7 &15. I believe that the people to whom you are referring actually better fit the checklist criteria for psychopathy - often compared to the DSM IV diagnostic criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder, but many practitioners distinguish psychopathy separately. But, since we're into labels, despite his past and his credentials, I prefer to call Christy a "scientist" or simply a denier, as a truly skeptical scientist would not be uttering such antiscientific nonsense.
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bozzza at 11:53 AM on 23 May 2015Congress manufactures doubt and denial in climate change hearing
As for sociopaths: I can't really argue towards their usefulness(who would want to) yet they do say the genius of the human species is in accepting the mentaly ill within society as(going back to de bonos lateral thinking definition of allowing yourself to be wrong) they still provide ideas of which we can all learn from. If the imagined elite and the proles make up 10% then the masses make up 90% and it is a spark from the masses on which we all depend, generally speaking.
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