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Rob Painting at 17:39 PM on 6 January 2015Not pHraud but pHoolishness
Nice try, but NOAA isn't culpable for Mike Wallaces' ignorance.
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Rob Painting at 16:52 PM on 6 January 2015Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
Rob - the plot is indeed of the lower troposphere, and it was created by Carl Mears. See here. So it is genuine.
Some of the issues are that:
1. The CMIP5 collection of climate model simulations use observations up to 2005 and projected forcings thereafter.
2. Recent observations indicate that the greenhouse gas forcing in the 21st century was smaller mainly due to increased light-blocking volcanic sulfates and a weaker-than-expected solar cycle.
3. Climate models cannot accurately predict the timing of natural variation, especially the multidecadal variation associated with the warm and cool phases of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). The IPO has been negative (cool surface temps) since 1999/2000 even though the ocean has been soaking up heat. The strong warming of the subsurface ocean is a testament to this.
So the issues are the same as surface temperature observation versus naive projections of the near-future forcings. When these are accounted for, the climate models are seen to be doing a very good job of simulating recent surface temperatures - within their obvious limitations.
Clearly RSS has some additional problems, as UAH and the surface temperature data sets are broadly in agreement, even though they are not measuring the same thing (radiative brightness of oxygen in the lower atmosphere vs surface temperature measured by thermometers).
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william11409 at 16:37 PM on 6 January 2015Not pHraud but pHoolishness
If the data are so dodgy why did NOAA put them on its website without warning that the data were unreliable?
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:56 PM on 6 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Cocoa Jackson@65,
Noam Chomsky also provides many throughly detailed cases of wealthy powerful people deliberately doing unacceptable things to become even wealthier and more powerful. But reading Noam's published work is definitely tougher than reading Naomi's.
And reflecting more on this issue, I would propose that the term 'developed' is an inaccurate or inappropriate term for societies and economies. Thinking back to the SkS article presenting the case that Climate Disruption is a more descriptive term than Cimate Change because it highlights that something disruptive is occurring, not just the ever changing climate, prompts me to consider using the term 'Advanced' as the proper way of evaluating a society or economy. And a more advanced society or economy would be more sustainable including having developed sustainable more improved circumstances for the least fortunate.
That fits with the accurate suggestions that the least developed nations could be most rapidly 'advanced' by adopting sustainable actions rather than transitioning to them through the damaging unsustainable development that the 'developed' societies and economies seem to be stuck in. And those 'developed' societies are stuck because once an unsustainable or damaging activity becomes popular it will be profitable and that combination makes it an anchor against 'advancement' of the society or economy.
If China can actually snap out of fossil fuel addiction soon enough, before it has become too popular or profitable to fight against changing, they could easily leap-frog past the 'developed' nations.
The sad part is that there have been many amazing 'advancements' created within the developed economies that were stifled rather than being encouraged to grow into the better future that could have been developed. And sadder is that some people may point to something impressive that was developed as proof of the 'advancement' of the society without admitting that as amazing as the development was it failed to be popular because less amazing things that were actually very damaging and ultimately unsustainable were able to continue to be more profitable.
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:13 PM on 6 January 2015Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
MEJ... For one, the 33 models in the upper panel are not (to my knowledge) models of TLT. The heavy black line is, the blue-green lines are modeled surface temps.
Next, Dr. Mears does a fine job of answering your questions in the article you linked to.
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:00 PM on 6 January 2015Not pHraud but pHoolishness
I'm curious how Wallace proposes that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have been rising and yet ocean is not becoming more acidic.
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MEJ at 11:54 AM on 6 January 2015Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
Hi
I hope I can get some help understanding the conflict in RSS TLT data.
The satellite data from RSS seems to fall well below all 33 IPCC data models for Temperature Lower Troposphere (TLT). As can be observed below. The thick Black line is the averaged RSS satellite data and the light blue lines are the 33 IPCC (TLT) models.
I understand SKS has the Troposphere graph but I would expect the RSS Green line to be well under the Direct Measurement models. As is shown in the RSS website graph above.
The actual response from RSS doesn't seem to nail the exact problem of the lack of correlation.
RSS report on data discrepency
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. -
Jim Eager at 10:44 AM on 6 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
The Japan Meteorological Agency has officially called it:
2014 was by far the hottest year in more than 120 years of record-keeping.
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/ann_wld.html
The "pause" is dead. Long live the "pause.
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Ian Forrester at 10:13 AM on 6 January 2015Not pHraud but pHoolishness
This nonsense by Wallace reminds me of the CO2 rubbish of Ernst Beck. I suspect that Wallace will follow Beck and publish in E & E.
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Slioch at 10:11 AM on 6 January 2015Not pHraud but pHoolishness
Even without knowing the means whereby "20th Century Ocean pH" was derived, Wallace's graph immediately raises concern in that the pH values he gives vary widely on an annual basis before about 1975, whereas thereafter that variation is small. This is reminiscent of claims of large variability of global atmospheric CO2 prior to 1959, for example by Beck.In both cases, the huge changes in concentration claimed from one year to the next without any plausible mechanism to cause them should immediately suggest the falseness of the reported data.
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Cocoa Jackson at 09:55 AM on 6 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
William[34] wrote: '...[undeveloped]...countries argue that they should not be expected to forgo fossil fuel exploitation, which is what the...[developed economies]...asks of them, as the development of the West was largely facilitated by the burning of fossil fuels.'
That perspective is interesting and understandable.Which raises the obvious question: Where did anyone read or hear emerging economies demand carbon based fuel explotation?
From this perspective this has been a strategy used by reactionary thinkers to maintain the status quo, what is reality in the recent past and currently is a completely different scenario however.
Multiantional corporations headquartered in developed nations are the ones who wish to expoit these countries and are the ecosystems greatest threat. As they have a history of using local nepotism and corruption of poor public policy due to undeveloped govenace to gain commercial dominace of the carbon energy resources.
It is true undeveloped economies may in the some projected future demand our energy intensive goods and increasingly luxurious lifestyle. And to explot vast resources of fossil fuel. But largely they are happy to get lights, energy for cooking, and the ability to pump clean healthy water. The real world scenario is undeveloped countries have a take up rate of innovative alternative technology that is running at enviable rate.Where there are individual solar power units on homes, businesses are even creating local small grids and other clean alternative energy sources for power production. They are in the position of being ahead of the developed nations with the clean technology ratio when directly compared to the developed economies.
Our challenge in developed economies is those same using the same corporate culture to lobby against individual power units in local small to large business, homes, schools, and social capital services; creating micro grids for small groups, towns and suburbs. Because the economic leverage of energy monopolies would suffer a poor return on efficiencies due to atrophy in their consumer base and subsequent hit to their yearly profit. While enabling individuals and small business with cheap clean energy.
Realistically undeveloped countries have a distinct and increasing advantage over the developed countries who are still chained to the carbon economy. Left on their own the undeveloped countries will continue to seek current technology that is flexible and affordable. As most importantly clean solar power units to give them cheap power for lights, energy for cooking and pumping clean water. Not only that but the exponential growth in cheap alternative energy in these countries will continue to challenge developed economies for goods production. Most noticeably when sophistication in systems develops even further with automation.
In all probability the emerging undeveloped economies will be even more competitive and then their alternative energy technology uptake rate compared to developed nations will really be seen as clever.Our best chance is modelling alternative clean and cheap energy sources, setting a better example toward a dominant alternative energy ratio. While at the same time encouraging international regulation of multinational corporations and the partners with the rule of law to put our ecosystem before ROI or yearly profit.
What are the probabilities this will happen though?
My guess for what it's worth is:
The probabilities are the same as carbon energy corporations not attacking the scientific consensus on acidification and warming of oceans.
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dklyer at 07:15 AM on 6 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
That science denial goes along with other hot-button conservative issues seems pretty obvious. I think to those individuals all educated people are pencil neck geeks or effete, intellectual snobs. They hold to the western myth that the book educated feller is pretty worthless around the ranch. Their world view effectively isolates them from any logical argument. We shouldn’t have to concern ourselves with them except they vote.
The anti-science tone of conservative platforms grew out of an organized campaign to push back against environmental regulations. This started with a group called Sage Brush Rebellion that was embraced by Reagan. Reagan’s in-your-face attitude toward the EPA and the environment didn’t go over well. The anti-environmentalists had to be more subtle. Sage Brush Rebellion became Wise Use. The movement got a huge boost when they were joined by the Christian right. Pat Robertson decided that environmentalists were a greater threat than communists. Eventually we got Gingrich, DeLay, Bush and an industry policy of subverting the EPA from within. No EPA actions were brought against any industrial polluter during Bush’s administration. See Robert Kennedy Jr’s book “Crimes Against Nature”.
Cocoa J, there has indeed been an organized attempt to cast doubt on science since the tobacco/cancer thing. It went beyond lobbyists. There is a core group of scientists who used money from Phillip Morris to found a conservative organization dedicated to disputing the science. I have not read “Merchants of Doubt” but I may have to buy a copy and donate it to the local library. The scientists involved don’t see themselves as evil. Two were physicists and one a soil scientist. They are very conservative and consider government regulation as evil. They had a playbook of how to sow doubt and a list of scientists who would take money to say just about anything. The original reason for this was a fear of personal injury suits against tobacco companies. Once the pieces were in place, they were used to claim acid rain was natural, CFC’s were not causing the ozone hole and DDT was harmless (as Tom DeLay said, safer than table salt). These are the same individuals now responsible for most of the denial propaganda and their techniques include pretty vile personal attacks against sincere researchers and journalists.
So now to the main point of this comment---ubrew’s mention of a free market, anti-tax faith. I think that is more germane to the other posts than has been discussed. There is a movement advocating an extreme form of laissez-faire capitalism as envisioned by Milton Friedman. The precepts of this are no government regulation, whatsoever, no taxes on corporations, no public service sector, privatization of all public held property, no restrictions on open markets and no wage protections. Friedman’s Chicago school of economics ran computer simulations showing that an extreme form of pure capitalism would solve all the world’s problems including unemployment. Their simulations were a bit naïve to say the least.
After military coups had opened up markets in Brazil and Indonesia, the Chicago school trained Chilean economists and attempted to reverse the leftward movement of Chile. At the time western industrialists were concerned about a tendency of South American countries to nationalize industries such as the Chilean copper mines. Getting a democratic country to voluntarily adopt their extreme form of capitalism turned out to not be practical so the Chicago boys in Chile worked with Pinochet and developed an economic plan to be implemented after a military coup. The economic plan was an abysmal failure. Friedman, in correspondence and personal visits, told Pinochet to keep pushing and that the system would work but it hadn’t been taken far enough. The result, of course, was high unemployment, half of the population pushed below the poverty line and tremendous wealth for a few at the very top. This was followed by similar free market experiments, following military coups, in Argentina and Uruguay. They had the same effect.
We have now seen the failure of extreme free market ideals in Poland and Russia and seen an example of extreme capitalism in the world’s biggest authoritarian regime---China. As the global market is increasingly controlled by an extreme free market ideology, it becomes apparent that the success of the system is measured by healthy corporate profits and a robust stock market and not by the well being of populations or the health of the planet.
I have not begun to read my copy of Naomi Klein’s “This Changes Everything” (the stuff about Friedman and the Southern Cone policies are from her book “Shock Doctrine”) but I believe her point is that climate change is a game changer. The corporations who have thought they won the battle for a global free market realize that addressing the issue of warming will require government regulation. We won’t fix the problem with a global system of dictatorship by wealthy corporations. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the corporate mentality views the coming disruptions as economic opportunities.
I think we will have to have a paradigm shift to a completely new type of economics that does not depend on ever expanding markets. Even reasonable Keynesian economics, applied country by country with international rules guaranteeing similar environmental and worker protections for all countries, probably won't work over the long haul. It would be a good place to start, however.
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Sea level rise is exaggerated
Earthling - Long term observations show continuing acceleration of SLR, with shorter term (including multidecadal) variation superimposed. For example, IPCC AR5 Chapter 13, which states from observations:
When a 60-year oscillation is modelled along with an acceleration term, the estimated acceleration in GMSL (twice the quadratic term) computed over 1900–2010 ranges from 0.000 [–0.002 to 0.002] mm yr–2 in the Ray and Douglas (2011) record, to 0.013 [0.007 to 0.019] mm yr–2 in the Jevrejeva et al. (2008) record, and 0.012 [0.009 to 0.015] mm yr–2 in the Church and White (2011) record. For comparison, Church and White (2011) estimated the acceleration term to be 0.009 [0.004 to 0.014] mm yr–2 over the 1880–2009 time span when the 60-year cycle is not considered.
Even with variations the current rise rate is considerably higher than the numbers you posted:
You seem to be emphasizing (or selecting) short term variations over longer term trends. That's of little use over longer periods, as variations will regress to the mean trend. And I'm still seeing no support for your "sensible adjustments".
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Earthling at 06:30 AM on 6 January 2015Sea level rise is exaggerated
(DB) & KR - The meaning of sensible adjustments should be obvious, especially as SLR has slowed to around 2.54 mm/yr, as opposed to "accelerating."
ARGO + GRACE finds sea levels rising at 2.31 mm/yr.
Even the up adjusted from 1.59 mm/yr ENVISO rate is 2.96 mm/yr.
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Tom Curtis at 05:22 AM on 6 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
JH inline at 59. What makes science trustworthy is not that individual scientists have uncommon sense. Rather it is that it relies on a method in which puts claims to a rigorous test both by requiring that the be submitted before people who are very well informed on the topic for criticism (thus ensuring simple gaffes are quickly noticed and corrected) and by making empirical data the standard against which theories must be tested. Individual scientists need not have uncommon sense at all. Newton, for example, although brilliant enough to present us with the laws of motion and gravity, had his gaffes (acceptance of alchemy) weeded out so that the former survive while the latter is scarcely known and not acted on.
One common feature of gac73's "common sense science" is that its practitioners put their views before the general public (who lack the specialist knowledge to detect gaffes) in preference to publishing in the peer reviewed literature. The reason is that they do not want critical review of their ideas, probably because they realize at least subconsiously that it will not stand up to such review.
Moderator Response:[JH] My comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Your response is spot on.
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scaddenp at 05:18 AM on 6 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
gac73 - why would accept as true the ramblings from a utterly wrong source rather than from peer-reviewed science? You are trying to make a case by claiming things that are not true. That you chose to belief such nonsense without any apparent skepticism is fairly concerning. Science is about being informed by data not by values. Being highly skeptical about peer-reviewed science which sits uncomfortably with your preferences while being unskeptical about nonsense which conforms to your desires is just pseudo-skepticism.
Think like a scientist - what data/observations would change your mind?
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Tom Curtis at 05:15 AM on 6 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
I have responded to gac73's claims about CO2 at a more appropriate location. The short skinny is that his source misrepresents the units of data, presenting emissions during singular eruption events as ongoing emissions, and argues that volcanic CO2 can account for the reduced C13 in the atmosphere because volcanoes are depleted in C13 relative to the reference standard, even though they are typically enriched in C13 relative to the atmosphere.
What I want to note is that a common pattern is emerging in gac73's examples of "common sense science". The common feature is that "common sense scientists" leave out, or misrepresent inconvenient data. At least, that has been the case in every example he has presented to date. Given this, my distrust of "common sense science" seems well based. It is merely a name pseudoscientists give to their activities as a means of persuasive definition.
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Tom Curtis at 05:08 AM on 6 January 2015Climate Change Cluedo: Anthropogenic CO2
Elsewhere gac73 has linked to some pseudoscientific drivel as an example of "common sense" science. An example of the author (Timothy Casey) of the drivel style is shown by his table of emmissions per annum from various volcanoes. Unfortunately for him, one of his sources (Shinohara, 2008) is available free online. Consulting that work we find that Shinohara lists total emissions for an erruption event, not emissions per annum (see table 3, and discussion in text). While erruptions typically take less than a year to occur, they do not represent ongoing emissions and presenting them as such distorts his source.
One further misrepresentation (among a host) is Casey's is in his discussion of C13 where he suggests volcanic CO2 could account for the the modern rise in CO2. In fact, volcanic CO2 is C13 depleted relative to the Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite Standard having a d13C of -4 in most cases, but up to -12 at convergent plate boundaries. For comparison, fossil fuels have a d13C of -27, and the atmosphere has a d13C of -8. That is right. The atmosphere is C13 depleted relative to the standard, and the vast majority of volcanoes are not depleted relative to the atmosphere, ie, volcanic eruptions typically enrich the atmosphere with C13. Casey creates the opposite impression by only noting the C13 depletion relative to the standard reference case, but leaving that technical detail unclear.
(Sources of data for the C13 discussion are noted at my Notes for the OP here, found on my blog.)
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Tom Curtis at 04:30 AM on 6 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
PhillipeChantreau @57, Casey's interest in "Expanding Earth Theory" is to refute it, which his hardly discreditable. If we accept rebuting nonsense is a reason to dismiss peoples views, then we are self condemned.
Having said that, Casey has stunningly "shown" that there is no greenhouse effect, and what is more, no need to supose one by. The former he manages by completely misrepresenting the science of thermodynamics, and the later by first assuming that the Earth has no albedo and then proposing the novel theory that radiative temperature balances are achieved with the "at the centre of heat capacity" rather than the temperature of the source of the outgoing radiation (as is actually required by thermodynamics). That firmly places him into flat Earth society level kookiness, even if his views on CO2 did not.
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DSL at 03:24 AM on 6 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Common sense is why critical thinking exists as a concept. Critical thinking is the act of systematically testing common sense.
In this case, anyone who brings up 'common sense' is doing so in error. The key word here is 'common': most people don't know enough about the composition or mechanics of the atmosphere to develop common sense. The common sense approach to climate is "it's cold outside; therefore, global warming is wrong."
Any sort of actual critical thinking on volcanic emissions needs to reconcile the following.
1. human emissions exceed volcanic emissions by between 30x and 100x.
2. Atmospheric CO2 has been stable around 280ppm for the last several thousand years.
3. Atmospheric CO2 has bounced between 180ppm and 300ppm for the last several hundred thousand years.
4. Atmospheric CO2 hasn't risen at the current rate of increase in at least 300 million years.
5. Parallel increases in other volcanic gases have not occurred.
6. The trend in atmospheric C isotope ratio parallels the increase in human emissions.
Guessing the behavior of extremely complex, highly-integrated systems by using simple heuristics is a sure method for being wrong.
Moderator Response:[JH] Perhaps we rely on experts such as climate scientists because they have "uncommon sense." I certainly do that with my personal Physician.
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wili at 01:31 AM on 6 January 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #1
The 3.4 area of the equatorial Pacific has been at or above the + 0.5 C anomaly threshold for 12 weeks now, so we should be seeing an official declaration of El Nino state any time now from NOAA. The Japanese has arleady called it, and as you point out here, there are already El Nino-like effects being felt in various locations.
Thanks for your ongoing coverage of this event. Any predictions on where things will go from here wrt El Nino??
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Things I thought were obvious!
Sorry, the Search tool is on the upper left, not upper right, of the SkS web page.
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PhilippeChantreau at 00:37 AM on 6 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Following gac73's link goes to a site by one Timoty Casey, who holds a bachelor of science in geology and, among other things, a senior first aid certificate, or something similar. One of his areas of interet includes the expanding earth theory, for which he finds there is less supporting evidence than for continental drift (phew!). Anyone with nothing better to do can go hack at his volcanic ramblings; unfortunately, my own time is already in short supply for much more rewarding activities.
Moderator Response:[Rob P] - Please note that gac73's comment was off-topic and that further distracting comments and replies have been deleted. No more in that vein please.
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Things I thought were obvious!
gac73 - There is no reason to think that volcanic activity (at roughly 1% of anthropogenic emissions) is responsible for recent CO2 rise. This is well understood, here is an article from the US Geological Survey on the topic.
Richard Telford has an excellent article on this, noting that there is no recent increase in volcanic activity, and that total volcanic emissions are well constrained by observed helium/CO2 ratios.
You appear to be grasping at (unsupportable) straws here, gac73 - this volcanic claim is nonsense. If you wish to discuss it further, I suggest using the Search tool on the upper right to find the correct thread, such as Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans. The same goes for CO2 was higher in the late Ordovician, and for your issues with renewable energy - these are myths, and have been discussed in some detail.
They are off-topic in this thread, which is rather a meta-discussion on motivations for action.
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gac73 at 23:08 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
I don't see why at thos stage first world tax payers should be paying for third world renewable energy infrastructure and particularly compensation for climate change to underdeveloped and or at risk countries predicted to be impacted by climate change.
There is too little known regarding AGW to warrant compensation. For instance at <carbon-budget.geologist-1011.net> research findings reasonably suggest that anthropregenic c02 cannot currently be finger printed merely by interpretation using the Suess effect alone - the depletion of particular carbon isotopes that is currently used to identify anthropregenic c02. It is suggested in research listed that volcanogenic c02 is depleted in the same isotopes as anthroprogenic c02. Research listed also suggests that tonnage of volcanogenic c02 may have been greatly underestimated and in fact may be the dominant contributor to current rises in atmospheric c02 depleted in 13c and 14c. It requires further research in methods to differentiate anthroprogenic c02 from volcanogenic c02.
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william11409 at 20:51 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
John Brookes@52 Yes, you're right, I am. But I don't think the majority of first world citizens hold this view.
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dagold at 16:55 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Yes OnePlanet - folks sometimes ask me why I am so interested in climate change in particular (I write climate articles for HUffington Post and Common Dreams) when there are so many human induced examples of suffering. I think it's because, to me, climate change is simply the inexorable result of so many of the "ingredients" that have manifested such suffering along the way: Finally, our peculiar propensities toward short-sightedness, self-centeredness and partisanship are tipping the very life-sustaining systems of the biosphere out of balance. It is increasingly awful and sad and in an impossible-to-look-away-from sense....stunningly fascinating.
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John Brookes at 16:54 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
William will no doubt be a strong supporter of the proposal that rich nations give poor nations money to help with the transition to a low carbon world.
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Tom Curtis at 16:29 PM on 5 January 2015A Relentless Rise in Global Sea Level
Rob @16, XKCD illustrates it best:
Note the insets of Mauna Loa and the Marianas Trench with "accurate" horizontal scale (= same scale for horizontal and vertical).
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Rob Honeycutt at 15:14 PM on 5 January 2015A Relentless Rise in Global Sea Level
Michael Whittemore... Think of the oceans this way: The Pacific Ocean is averages about 3 miles deep, but it's about 8000 miles wide. If the Pacific were a sheet of writing paper the depth of ocean would roughly be the thickness of the paper.
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:06 PM on 5 January 20152014 SkS News Bulletin #7: LIMA COP20 / CMP10
wili,
Here is a Rolling Stone article that points out reasons to hopeful about the Lima meetings.
Inside the Lima Climate Change Summit: 5 Reasons to Be Hopeful
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:23 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
dagold@49,
What you mention is similar to what others have pointed out in a very important way.
The action that needs to be taken is to be taken by current day people. And there is no doubt that the result of the required action being taken will be 'at the expense of the opportunity for more benefit by current day people'. The current fatally flawed socioeconomic game has developed many unsustainable damaging activities that have popular support for their unjustified profitability (all those 'externalized costs', consequences that do not have to be paid for by the person benefiting).
Concerns about consequences others in the future face does not enter the personal accounting of many minds. In fact, the way that slave labour has 'developed' in most 'developing nations' to produce cheaper more profitable products to be consumed by people in more developed nations (where people cannot be employed at living wages doing those jobs because that would be less profitable), makes it clear that many people will not even attempt to investigate and account for concerns regarding consequences faced by other people in the same time period, let alone those future ones.
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Jim Eager at 13:39 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Knowingly or unkowling, William is just here peddling the Lomborg, Tol and Breakthrough crowd party line that Eli is currently discussing over at Rabett Run. Maybe he should take it over there.
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dagold at 12:58 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
I am guessing that most agree that we humans are not very acute when it comes to envisioning non-linear change... I am puzzled when (as is often the case) the possibilities of climate-change fueled human extinction are fairly blithely dismissed as they are in this article. Yes, we are an adaptable lot and will likely figure out how to survive in the climate of a 4C or so world if it comes to that. But there are over 400 nuclear sites (this is not including actualy nuclear weaponry) on our globe and some are in highly fragile geo-political areas (India, Pakistan, Israel). How can we possibly assume that the extremely complex and continuous monitoring required will survive in the, not unlikely, mass breakdowns of a 2C, 3C or 4C and beyond world? We can't.
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ubrew12 at 12:14 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
gac78@46: "It's common sense to avoid statistical noise and... to respect error margins in data." But that applies as well (and perhaps more forcefully) to economics than to hard science. The (perhaps unnecessary) cost of Climate Change mitigation is variously estimated to be 0.5% to 5% of annual GDP (analysis easily found here at skeptical science). Rough, but hardly earth-shaking. Meanwhile, the cost of inaction starts at 5%, and continues out to 100%. (to quote this article about just sea level rise: "If governments fail to take any action, the annual cost of damage stands to reach... as high as $100 trillion"). So, when you wrap your error bars around that, its quite obvious what our course of action should be, regardless of hurt feelings among the Saudi's and Russians (aye, but 'there's the rub', isn't it?).
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michael sweet at 12:09 PM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
GAC73,
At last you are making sense! The denial side of the AGW debate almost never respects error margins and rarely avoids statistical noise. For example, this RealClimate post details deceptive graphing, deliberate selecting the most error prone data to hide the increase and shows no error margins in a popular denier widget. On the other hand, virtually every claim in the IPCC report has detailed error margins and claims are backed by statistical evaluations. It is good that you agree with us on that.
Now that that issue is resolved, what else do you want to discuss?
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gac73 at 11:31 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
@mancan18
If you haven't read the post correctly, nor have reading the clarification post above, then I'll not bother making a point regarding your post that states "there is no common sense science"
What I will say however, is that William didn't use any words remotely resembling the words "common" , "sense" or "science". I'm hoping that merely because I am the view that he stated regarding fossil fuel use in the third world, that you haven't just assumed he has used the same terminology on a completely different train of thought, that I used above?
And by the way - despite the clarification above, there sure is a thing called common sense science. It's common sense to avoid statistical noise and it's common sense to respect error margins in data. This is something that I see regurlarly missing from claims made by particular people from a particular side of the AGW arguement.
When claims made upon data that fails to respect common sense in science, you can't expect common sense people to buy it.
Moderator Response:[JH] You are skating on the thin ice of sloganeering which 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.
[PS] Gac73 - you are making vague illusions to problems that you perceive with the science that without any supporting evidence so this comes across as mere sloganneering. Things that are "believed" as common knowledge in denier community often do not bear close examination. If you have points to make it would be better to illustrate with specific examples and support your assertions with references. Eg you seem to be claiming climate science is ignoring error limits and statistical noise. A specific example of this problem would avoid the charge of sloganeering.
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2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #1B
This link didn't work for me -
Top 10 Misguided Climate Deniers’ Quotes of 2014
Moderator Response:[JH] Link fixed. Thank you for pointing out this glitch.
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scaddenp at 09:06 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Actually I would like a clear statement from William on whether he accepts that FF have uncosted externalities which would substantially change the price if costed. If William does not accept this, then why not?
Would he accept an alternative principle that future adaptation costs (starting immediately) resulting from climate change (especially those resulting in agriculture loss due to salt invasion from rising sealevel, land loss, and water cycle changes) be apportioned to countries in proportion to their cumulative contribution to change in climate forcing? Countries could chose whether to simply accept migrants and settle them, or pay for irrigation, desalination, flood protection, sea walls etc that would allow agriculture at pre-2010 levels.
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Andy Skuce at 09:04 AM on 5 January 2015A Relentless Rise in Global Sea Level
There was a poster at the 2014 AGU meeting that calculated the effect on albedo of flooding of coastal areas. Because the sea tends to be darker than the land, this leads to a (very) slight positive feedback.
"We find that the feedback is positive, but very weak. While the spatial pattern of sea-level rise is varying strongly with temperature, we find that the strength of the feedback is relatively independent of the temperature change, and around 0.8±0.1 %; i.e., an external forcing of 1 W/m2 will result in 1.008 W/m2 change of the energy balance."
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michael sweet at 08:50 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Rob,
While I am sure that you and many of the other posters at SkS care about Bangladesh (I am partial to Tuvalu also), it is my experience that most deniers in the USA do not care about other countries. Since there are so many examples of people in trouble from climate change I use examples from Florida (where I live). Students in my class care more about sea level rise affecting Miami than the much greater number of people affected in Bangladesh.
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Tom Curtis at 08:35 AM on 5 January 2015A Relentless Rise in Global Sea Level
Michaele Whittemore @11&12, the length of the worlds coast line has been quoted as being 1.635 million kilometers long (the longest estimate I could find, although a smaller scale would result in a longer estimate). The world's oceans have an area of 361.162 million km^2. So, even if 2 meters of sea level rise flooded an average of a kilometer back from the shore around the world, it would only flood 0.5% of the ocean surface area. In percentage terms, that is well below the observational error for measuring sea level rise, and can be neglected.
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Tom Curtis at 08:10 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
william @34:
"These countries argue that they should not be expected to forgo fossil fuel exploitation, which is what the West asks of them, as the development of the West was largely facilitated by the burning of fossil fuels."
It is odd. I have a very considerable familly connection to Africa (dating from 1671), grew up partially in Africa, have close familly involvement in Africa both politically and developmentally, and am in regular indirect communication with Africans (I act as my mother's secretary in her direct communications). Never-the-less I would not be so arrogant, as William is, to pretend I can speak for Africans, or tell the world what Africans are saying without direct quotation.
When I do try to find out what the Africans are saying, I find that they are saying that "... with 96 per cent of African agriculture dependent on rainfall and 50 per cent of fisheries related jobs estimated to be lost by 2050, climate change poses unimaginable consequences to livelihoods in Africa. Thus, the ministers were forthright in calling for a new climate regime that is legally binding and which addresses the continent’s needs after the current regime- the Kyoto protocol expires in 2015." (Source) I also find their negotiating position to be that they should urgently shift to renewable energy, but require funding assistance to do so (source, details of proposed scheme).
Neither of these positions looks anything like the unsourced opinion William ascribes to them. Indeed, what appears to be happening here is that a particular privileged westerner, ie, William, is seeking to put his views into the mouths of the third world rather than taking the care to find out what the people of the third world are themselves saying (which, I am sure, is a host of different and contradictory things just as in the West, but the informed and official positions seem quite clear).
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Dcrickett at 07:48 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Several commenters have discussed the variety of types of people who are «Deniers». Regarding people who deny science matters other than CO₂ emissions, I know a young person who denies Evolution; is a passionate partisan of Young-World Creationism; is a climate activist; and is also a ΦΒΚ graduate, currently a grad student. Obviously not a person to be scorned. Also and just as obviously, a person outside the 3σ range.
Moderator Response:Fixed
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scaddenp at 07:46 AM on 5 January 2015A Relentless Rise in Global Sea Level
I appreciate the diagram, but the on the scale of world oceans, the expansion of the basin surface area associated with the rise is pretty tiny, especially compared to ocean depth.
For GRACE, the expansion of ocean due to rising sea level is impossibly tiny at that resolution. The bigger issue is changes in the freshwater storage on land.
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longjohn119 at 07:21 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
You say Common Sense and I say Myths and Old Wives Tales
Tomāto ....Tomăto .....
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ubrew12 at 07:08 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
william@39 said "the view point of the "poor nations" is why should they forgo the economic advantage that the West enjoyed by [exploiting fossil fuels]?" I don't think that actually IS their viewpoint. In any case, since developed nations built their development on the back of inexpensive fossils, its incumbent upon them to spurt the development of inexpensive non-fossils, and they are doing just that (not quickly enough, but still). And what is inexpensive in Australia is now also inexpensive in India.
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william11409 at 05:40 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Rob Painting @ 36 and 37. From your cosseted Western Worldview point It may well be "extraordinarily daft" to ecourage poor nations to expand fossil fuel consumption but the view point of the "poor nations" is why should they forgo the economic advantage that the West enjoyed by doing just that? This comment may, again, be viewed as trolling by commenters here but if so, perhaps any such commenter may like to look at the comments from these countries at Copenhage, Cancun and Lima. Not sure if you're in Australia, I think you are, but here people are reluctant to move, say, from NSW to WA or vice versa to get work.. That doesn't really gel with your comment that rich people can move. They may have the ability to do so but that certainly doesn't translate to motivation.
Moderator Response:[JH] Pratter designed to antagonize other commenters is not welcome on this website. Either comply with the SkS Comments Policy or relinquish your privilege of posting comments.
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MA Rodger at 05:23 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
william @34.
Concerning trolls, your stance here does not appear constructive or come-hitherly, just like a troll's stance. I don't see where your pushing this developing world argument is going other than to present a contrary position. And you set your argument so poorly that it does not appear genuine to me.
Concerning the replacing of Kyoto, it is wrong to suggest that such a follow-on to Kyoto was unobtainable because "the West" insisted that developing countries "forgo fossil fuel exploitation" which developing countries then refused to do. Rather, it was the US in particular that has struggled with making commitments to emissions cuts when developing countries had not been asked to make such commitments. Or perhaps it is more correct that the US has struggled to make any commitment whatever towards reducing its emissions. Such a stance is difficult to countenance when the US is arguably the number-one emissions offender. And it was after all the US that failed even to ratify Kyoto.
This argument you make on behalf of developing countries, are you then arguing that extra emissions to 'facilitate' economic development should be added to the allowable emissions from such countries? How many GtC did you have in mind to budget for such an allowance?
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Rob Painting at 05:05 AM on 5 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
"Why worry about Bangladesh when there are so many problems in the USA (or Australia if you live there)"
Rich people can move. Poor people not so much.
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