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Daniel Bailey at 07:50 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
"I can never help to wonder if I am to be part of people when one mentions insulting people's intelligence"
...my usual inclination is to reply,
"then stop saying stupid things when the subject of climate change comes up"
Which is generally unproductive in terms of eliciting a positive dialogue.
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ubrew12 at 07:35 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
jenna@12: perhaps, as this article suggests, you could 'turn' your skeptical friends by referring to risk. As in, 'what is the consequence of your being wrong versus the consequence of my being wrong?'.
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Dean at 06:34 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Regarding the "This isn’t about survival of the species, but survival of our civilisations" there was an Oxford expert survey on Global Catastrophic Risks. But perhaps somewhat suprisingly climate change was not in the top list of existential threats to humanity.
However, I think this survey missed that different problems interact with each other. Even if a couple of meters sea level rise is not an existential threat to humanity, the greatest risk with climate change may well be that it risks starting conflicts including use of nuclear and future molecular nanotech weapons. This could also very well be the main risk for humanity.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:00 AM on 4 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
What michael sweet said @17: I should have said "Dr. Inferno", not "Dr. Doom" @9.
As for why Dr. Inferno hasn't posted anything recently? - perhaps it's just too hard to come up with new parody that can still be distinguished from the worst of the bat-crap crazy denier sites that take themselves seriously. Dr. Inferno definitely has a skill... Read through the comments over at DenialDepot - there are readers there that take a bit to realize it's parody.
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jenna at 05:41 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Since this evolving into a 'socio/political' discussion (to borrow gac's phrase) I'll offer my .02 cents, for whatever it's worth....
I am part a close group of 20 or so friends, age range late 20's to mid 30's. As you can imagine, we have many lively discussions on a wide range of topics that directly affect our lives (jobs, healthcare, family planning, etc). We are a very diverse group, and not particularly Conservative, and don't hold back with our opinions.
When we do talk about Climate issues (which is not very often) there is a distinct shift in the 'atmosphere' (pun intended). There are usually 3 sides involved, the side (most of my friends) just roll their eyes and lose interest, then there is me with my strong arguments for action to stop Climate Change and finally a very vocal 2 or 3 friends that oppose any such action for all the usuall reasons.
I say all this because I hope this will represent what I think is really happening in the Climate discussion these days. I don't think there are many that avoid the discussion because they don't want to deal with the consequences, they don't care because they are suffering from media fatigue on this issue and could care less. The few that do argue have been following things at least as long as I have, more that 5 years, and are well equipped to defend their point of view. These few make it very hard for me to gather support, the follow the growing list of exceptions to the main stream pov. That is why I read SKS, in hopes of countering their arguments, it doesn't always work though! :(
I guess what I'm saying is that the reasons a large percentage of Americans don't care about Climate issues are many; apathy, studied skepticism, laziness, whatever. Let's not paint them all with one big brush.
Jen
Moderator Response:[Rob P] - I suspect your friends are likely to be in a comfortable space. It's easy to reject reality when it is not yet impinging on your lifestyle. That comfort will not persist given our current trajectory of fossil fuel emissions. Their two main choices will be to either accept the gravity of our predicament, and do something to help turn the ship around, or retreat further into their fantasy world.
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John Hartz at 05:20 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Is "uncommon sense" the opposite of "common sense"?
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John Hartz at 05:17 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Philippe: Like beauty, "common sense" is in the eye of the beholder.
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PhilippeChantreau at 03:06 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
I can never help to wonder if I am to be part of people when one mentions insulting people's intelligence. And then there is that newfangled "common sense science", a concept begging for definition if I ever saw one. Are there degrees in it? Like a scale following the sensibility of the common sense according to how many beers have been consumed before exercising it? I wonder...
Common sense would be to ask oneself the following question: what would happen to all the life currently existing if conditions were suddenly (say, no hurry, over 500 years) to become what they were during the Cambrian explosion? Interesting thought experiment that is. One could say that we really don't know what could happen, but that there was such a thing as the Cambrian explosion so it couldn't be all that bad, right? So we might as well party on, right?
Common sense, for sure...
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Jim Eager at 02:58 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Re gac73: The problem with citing "common sense science" is that it often doesn't really make sense of the real world.
Take gac's example of the Cambrian Explosion during CO2 levels of 2,000ppm to 8,000ppm. Notice that gac did not make any mention of how CO2 got that high, or the timescale involved, e.g. how long it took to reach that high a CO2 level during a period of Snowball Earth glaciation, and how long it took to fall to a lower level through the formation of cap-carbonate sediments during the Cambrian.
Time during which, as Tom Curtis pointed out, silicate rock weathering produced sufficient CaCO3 to both mitigate ocean acidification and to reduce atmospheric CO2; time during which marine life evolved to deal with a more, then less acidic ocean. Nor did he mention the fact that the sun was several percent dimmer in the Cambrian than it is today, which means it took a higher level of CO2 to produce the same increase in greenhouse warming than it does today.
It seems gac's "common sense science" doesn't take any of these factors into account, only the simple fact that CO2 was much higher during the Cambrian than it is today. And from that gac concludes that all was fine. Well, it was, but Earth was not quite the same planet that we live on today, was it? Nor was it inhabeted by the same species it is today.
So much for "common sense science," but then gac does lace his drive-by comment with the phrases "self interested politicians and gravy train riders" and "anthroprogenic catastrophic runaway greenhouse", even as he decries the socio/political nature of this post, so it's clear gac isn't really interested in the science anyway.
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r.pauli at 02:42 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Thank you SO much for this important prologue. This is key, and yes often overlooked.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:37 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
gac73@3,
The description of the purpose of this site makes it clear to me that it is about developing a better understanding of what is going on regarding climate science and is specifically striving to address the deliberate unjustified attempts to discredit climate science or fool people regarding what is understood regarding climate science.Regarding your comment about the certainty of climate science (and not specifically a reply to you but more an observation of beliefs that are 'out there'), shouldn't people who want to benefit from an activity be required to prove with certainty that there will be no harmful consequence to other life and that the entire human population could develop to enjoy that activity if they choose to rather than fighting to maintain the ability to benefit more than others can? And shouldn't the measure of improved ways of living be the ability for humanity to continue living that way into the distant future? And if an unsustainable and damaging activity is allowed to be done shouldn't it be cutrtailed as soon as possible with the vast majority of the benefit being the development of a sustainable better future for all with no one who already has their basic needs met benefiting from the activity? Why is there an expectation that more certainty is required regarding the unacceptability of the clearly unsustainable and clearly damaging burning of buried hydrocarbons? Again I am not referring to you personally. I am referring to what can clearly be seen to be going on around this amazing planet we all should share the joy of life on.
What is clear is that a few, far from the majority, put their self interest so high above the development of a better future for everyone that they have deliberately been playing a deceptive public relations gambit to delay the development of, and broader acceptance of, the better understanding of what is going on. Those people have a lot to lose if effective measures get put in place that would limit their ability to continue to unacceptably benefit.
The most powerful and wealthy who do that are unlikely to change their mind. It is quite certain that they know how unacceptable what they do is. And they also know how to temporarily tempt other people into sharing deliberately fabricated and completely unjustified beliefs regarding issues like climate science and the harm of burning dug up hydrocarbons (and the harm of tobacco and alcohol, and the dangers of overuse of chemicals to kill forms of life that are inconvenient for humans, and the unsustainability of making plastic things, and so much more profitable damaging activity that can be made temporarily popular in spite of the developing better understanding regarding their unacceptability).
Globally, it is appears that the majority actually want 'everyone' to have to behave better. And it is clear that the biggest trouble makers have the most to lose if they are effectively forced to behave better and care to share, hence their motivation to try to get away with unacceptable misleading marketing to prolong their ability to benefit from unacceptable behaviour. Winning one election in a nation any way they can get away with gives them 4 or 5 years of regionally unrestrained ability to try to do as much damage as possible (restarined only by things like public protests that effectively change public perception and civil disobendiance that effectively blocks what they try to get away with). Thankfully those types currently holding the reigns of power in Canada and Australia and having significant influence in the USA have not got the global power to keep meetings like Lima and Paris from happening. All they can do is try to make those meetings as unsuccessful as possible.
I believe it is possible for everyone to better understand what is going on. There really is not that much of a mystery behind the temporary successes of the people who currently mask who they really are by hiding behind the political Conservative banner around the world. Most of them carefully appeal for the temporary support of people who may be inclined to not want to accept climate science or any other developing better understanding that is contrary to their personal pursuit of what they want to get away with.
Success in climate science can be seen to be constantly developing the better understanding of what is going on even if that is challenged by the fact that it highlights the biggest trouble makers among us as the damaging people they actually are. Many of them do not care about reducing the global harm done by human activity or want the development of a sustainable better future for all because being wilfully uncaring was a competitive advantage that allowed them to become wealthier and more powerful. And that way of being is what they hope to continue getting away with. They simply need to be seen for the damaging uncaring people they are. And the type of people they actually are is being made clearer by the continued improved understanding of climate science and so many other issues that are contrary to their interests.
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Dcrickett at 01:47 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
I suspect many people reject «the science» (maybe I should refer to it as «emerging awareness of reality») when they feel uncomfortable, for whatever reason, with its consequences. An example: in the 1950’s, when I was a teenager, on several occasions I heard adult White people say words to the effect of “If I am no better than [derogatory work for Black people], then who am I better than? My dog?” I do not refer only to unintelligent, uneducated, or bad people. Many years later most of these same people were far less uncomfortable (if not altogether comfortable) with folks of a swarthier persuasion.
Some attitudes changed due to reason, or to religious awakening, or to experience. In all cases it involved coming to comprehend that manifestly different folks offered no real threat.
It is interesting to note that many anti-climate demagogues couch their propaganda in terms of climate scientists and others intending to change society into what they hold to be unappealing forms. They advise paying attention to pronouncements that they say provide no discomfort. Like Paul Simon’s reference to Comfort Words in «The Boxer»: “All lies and just; still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest…”
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Tom Curtis at 00:54 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
gac73 @3, the problem not that so much of climate science disagrees with "common sense science". Typically when experts disagree with "common sense" the normal reaction has been to trust the experts. There is a simple reason for that - the experts know so much more than we do about the subject. For example, they know that the ocean acidifies in the face of rapidly rising CO2 because the CaCO3 washed into the ocean from chemical weathering of rocks is used up. Over long periods, with increased CO2, there is increased warmth and hence increased precipitation so that more CaCO3 is washed into the ocean. So, high CO2 is perfectly compatible with relatively lower ocean acidity than is current - but rapidly rising CO2 will still cause an ocean acidification problem.
We recognize, as I previously suggested, that "common sense science" is based on very limited knowledge. That those who relly on it don't know enough to know that the scientists are wrong; and what is worse, don't even know that they don't know enough (which represents a stunning sort of arrogance IMO). But when we are invested in the scentists theory being wrong - whether because it challenges our love of motor sports, or our adherence to an extreme free market ideology, or calls into question just how much good we in fact handed onto our grand children after a long life of productive contribution to the community, or some other reason - we suddenly think our ignorance gives us enough knowledge to know better than the scientists.
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Tom Curtis at 00:30 AM on 4 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
With regard to chriskoz's substantial point @15, all glaciers by their nature must have an extent above the snow line (the accumulation zone) where by definition temperatures are on average below freezing. Further, with rare exceptions, most glaciers will extend below the snowline were by definition temperatures are on average above freezing (the ablation zone):
(Source)
Because of this, most glaciers will have sections affected by both temperature patterns mentioned by chriskoz, so while the difference in effect on accumulation and ablation zones is a relevant factor in the variation of glacial behaviour, I suspect the causes of differences in change is far more complex than that.
This can be seen in the different patterns in change of glacial length between the Findelen,
which has an initially slow decline which has become precipitate in crecent years, and the Gries
which, although it has a similar length reduction over the twentieth century, has had a far steadier decline.
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gac73 at 00:24 AM on 4 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Is this a science disussion forum website or a socio/political website?
The problem isn't people being self interested. The problem is that anthroprogenic catastrophic runaway greenhouse has not sufficiently made it's case. People will never accept the theory when there exists so much accepted common sense science that refutes what self interested politicians and gravy train riders bleat out to people with no respect for the people's intelligence.
For example - the oceans will gradually acidify when atmospheric c02 continues to rise. So why did the Cambrian Explosion happen when c02 was between 2,000ppm and 8,000ppm. That's just something you can't make disappear from common knowledge. These are the simple reasons why anthroprogenic catastrophic runaway greenhouse will never take in the minds of the majority.
Branding the majority of humans as being predominantly self interested economically above their own planet is misinterpreting the data - if I can put it that way.
Moderator Response:[PS] Please read and comply with the comments policy. It would also help if you studied some of the material here (eg "CO2 was higher in the past")
[Rob P] - "So why did the Cambrian Explosion happen when c02 was between 2,000ppm and 8,000ppm"
This is a frequent problem, people who think they understand a particular aspect of science when in fact they don't. You cannot acquire the prerequisite knowledge by reading spoof science sites like WUWT or Climate etc. Of course you could prove me wrong by informing readers what the carbonate saturation state (i.e. corrosiveness) of the ancient oceans was back then. I'll be waiting......
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John Hartz at 00:19 AM on 4 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
As documented in the below article, personal observations in New Zealand, Peru, and Greenland also support the underlying message of MarkR's OP.
New Zealand Glaciers Ebb and Tour Guides Play Catch-Up by Mike Ives, New York Times, Jan 2, 2015
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Tom Curtis at 00:07 AM on 4 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
chriskoz @16:
"Big variations are visible in Swiss glaciers on Fig3: Gries has melted twice (34m) the global average while while Findelen has barely thinned by 2m."
The third figure can easilly mislead, and evidently has. Records of glacial thickness are more recent and fewer in number than records of glacial length. The earliest glacial thickness records start circa 1945, hence the initial point in the x-axis of that graph. For each glacier, its first year of record is then the first year for which the WGMS has a glacial thickness record. For Findelen and Silvretta, that happens to be 1959, so Silvretta lost 14 meters from 1959-2009* (below the global average). In contrast Findelen lost 32 meters from 1959 to 2009. That turns out to be 0.63 meters per year, compared to the 17.5 meters from 1980-2014 in the global average shown in the second figure, ie, 0.5 meters per year. Ergo, it loss was above average by about 25%, but the periods are not strictly comparable.
At the other end of the scale we have Gries with a loss of only two meters from 2004-2009, ie, the period of observations for Gries. That turns out to be 0.33 meters per year, or 34% below the global average but again over a not strictly comparable period. It is, however, faster than the average rate of loss for Silvretta (0.28 meters per year) over not comparable periods, and over two short a period to be statistically significant. Over strictly comparable periods (2004-2009) Silvretta lost 5 meters and Findelen lost 7 meters. The global average dropped about 4 meters over the same period. (Figures eyeballed from the graphs, so not exact.)
* The caption says the data extends to the 2010-11 season, but on the graph it definitely ends in 2009. I assume that it was the 2010-11 report, which was only up to date to 2009.
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michael sweet at 22:38 PM on 3 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
Alun,
I teach High School abd College Chemistry. One of the few ways to always lose points on labs is to make a graph that does not fill the page. There must be a reason to make a graph that does not fill the page. Deniers frequently use this tactic to hide the slope of graphs they do not like. Read the article referenced above by Dr. Inferno (labeled Dr. Doom) in post 9.
Does anyone know why Dr. Inferno has stopped posting?
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chriskoz at 21:01 PM on 3 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
Speaking of individual glacier melt variations.
Big variations are visible in Swiss glaciers on Fig3: Gries has melted twice (34m) the global average while while Findelen has barely thinned by 2m.
It is well known that ambient warming (that can be deduced from nearby T records) does not have proportional influence on the melting. In fact, the ambient warming can sometimes result in growing ice! E.g. in the most extreme case: warming from -40C to say -30C at high altitude on the glacir top with increased moisure in the air results in more snow precipitation & the glacier gains more ice on top than it loses through sublimation and melting/sliding at the warmer bottom. That's why, East Antarctic IS is currently gaining ice. The very simple glacial melt models that I played with, do show that process.
So, the talk about glaciers becoming thinner but "there is substantial individual variation... a very necessary caveat" per Tom Curtis@15, is a necessarily incomplete picture. I think the individual variations could easily be explained by the differences in altitude, precipitation patterns, absolute ambient temperature (yes, absolute value is important here), slope gradient. For example, would I guess right if I said that said Gries glacier lies at much higher elevation than said Findelen? It Gries' ambient temp during precipitation season increased from say -10C to -5C then snow is falling on it and keeping it healthy. On the other hand if Findelen's ambient temp increased from say -2C to +2C, then rain started falling on it instead of snow, with obvious consequences.
Does Marzeion et al. (2014) talk about this obvious point or just does not bother? I think any study which tries to measure individual glacier melt variations should at least mention it. I'd be also interested in a more comprehensive study that would try to explain the variations in question, rather than blindly concluding that global warming resuls in accelerated glacier melt.
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Michael Whittemore at 15:49 PM on 3 January 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #1A
Thank you for both of the links. It would seem with all the heat in the southern ocean and the lack of sea level rise, there might be a good chance the paper that found no significant warming in the abyss was right. Even though they used huge error margins.
Moderator Response:[Rob P] - the warming, or lack of warming, of the abyssal ocean is only a tiny proportion of the thermal component of global sea level rise (SLR) and is not likely to influence the rate of SLR, but the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) and it large influence on multidecadal-scale precipitation and continental water storage certainly would. See:
Balancing the sea level budget - Leuliette & Willis (2011)
and
A Relentless Rise in Global Sea Level
Like many others, I'm looking forward to an explanation for the lower-than-expected rate of SLR. Perhaps the effects of cabbelling, and the large changes in ocean circulation associated with the IPO, are involved? I would, however, point out that the greater southern ocean warming demonstrated in Durack (2014), prior to the Argo roll-out, would reduce the expected rate of SLR.
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Tom Curtis at 14:34 PM on 3 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
Alun @14:
1) Dismissing information with a pat phrase ("Gee Whiz Curve") is, unlike the graphs above, always an attempt to evade thought about the information thus dismissed. I would be far more suspicious of the motives of somebody introducing such phrases into the discussion than of somebody introducing the graphs above. Especially if that person failed to note the standard use of graphs truncated such that the data occupies the entire space was standard in all sciences, and (come to that) in economics but rather cherry picked for mention their use by marketers and political advocates. (Given the cherry picking involved in that, it is rather ironic.)
2) It is never the case of any graph that it can be fully interpreted without referenence to the axis, and a clear description of the contents of the graph. Suggesting that graphs can be so interpreted, and that it is a desiderata that they be designed to be so interpretted is simply to invite the use of graphs as political or marketing props rather than as conveyors of actual information.
3) You have failed to specify the universal depth of all glaciers that we would need to provide the information in percentage terms; or failing that, why it is interesting that some glaciers have only lost 15% of their depth (because they were initially very thick) while others have lost 100% of their depth (because they were initially very thin) is a matter of particular significance such that the average of all those percentage terms would be in any way meaningfull (see my comment @7).
In contrast, knowing that the worlds glaciers are on average 18 meters thinner than in 1980 (and that consequently, glaciers originally thinner than 18 meters have typically now vanished) is usefull information. Still more so if we are aware (as the third figure above indicates) that there is substantial individual variation even within small regions, and still more so globally (a very necessary caveat).
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:38 PM on 3 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
One thing I believe is obvious and understood by everyone, but is never admited by those opposed to the developing better understanding of this issue is:
"Many people are simply not interested in limiting the benefit they can personally get for themslves in their lifetime. They will argue against any understanding that would constrain their freedom to do as they please no matter how clearly unacceptable what they want to do may be."
That simple unacceptable attitude applies to many matters, not just climate science. Some people deliberately refuse to better understand things that are 'not in their interest'. Those people will never be convinced to care about consequences someone else will face. And the current socio-economic-political system of deceptive creation of temporary popularity and profitability encourages people to choose to develop and hold on to that unacceotable attitude.
The power of misleading marketing and the ability to create unjustifiable impressions is a serious problem. Susan Cain pointed to some of the changes of attitude that occurred in the 1800s in her book "Quiet: The Power of Intorverts ...". She pointed to a transition of society from admiration of substantive credibility to adoration of image.
So a major challenge to helping others better understand an issue like climate change is to find out if the person is even willing to better understand the issue. If they are not you might try to challenge them regarding their resistance, but perhaps the better use of your effort would be to move on to someone more receptive to better understanding the issue.
Everyone does not need to accept the better understanding of what is going on. Those who will not willingly limit what they do just need to face imposed limits on their behaviour, no matter how wealthy they are at the moment.
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Alun at 12:33 PM on 3 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
I think this discussion misses the point. This type of graphs is called a 'Gee Whiz Curve' for a reason. Much admired of marketers and political advocates. The factual, numeric content isn't the point. It is the visual representation. A steep decline across the width of chart is wonderfuly impressive. Telling people to look at the axes and labels doesn't help.
From a factual point of view the graph shows the actual loss of ice which is fine. In the context of the debate, however, the issue is also about how important this loss is. This needs to be demonstrated in the context of the actual thickness of the glaciers. Looking at the labels doesn't provide this context so the chart is just a Gee Whiz.The chart does however provide the evidence for the comment that the deniers got it wrong so for that it is fine.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 07:35 AM on 3 January 2015Antarctica is gaining ice
CBDunkerson
I have heart similar and in the Arctic it seems true. However one of the team at RealClimate commented on that reccently that because most of the melt in the Antarctic, particularly West Antarctica flows under the ice sheet it emerges at the sea floor not the surface. So it is too far down to impact salinity in a way that influences freezing at the surface.But it can freeze in situ when it hits the slightly colder, saline water at depth. -
ubrew12 at 05:14 AM on 3 January 2015Things I thought were obvious!
Climate denial can't be separated from gun ownership, free-market anti-tax faith, gated communities, redistricting, libertarianism, and the US Supreme Courts Citizens United decision. All of these social movements suggest a mindset that can, in fact, ignore the commons, with enough wealth and power. "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you" comes with its own logic in a World of 7 billion people and an unspoken but deeply held belief that everyone else should just go away. Powerful news agencies now preach this idea that everything would be OK if people would just keep the nose to the grindstone and mind their own business. Hence, although I think there's going to be an unacknowledged general push to transition the economy toward non-fossil sources (with everybody acting in the interests of their own self-preservation), arguing for it, celebrating it, advocating for it, is going to be subject to knee-jerk reactionariism, as people trained to 'read between the lines' (i.e. insert Faux News bias into your mouth) continue to find clues in such talk of a 'deeper threat to the union'. So, I guess what I'm saying is that if you're waiting for the lowest-common-denominator to recognise the logic of your (plainly reasonable) arguments above, its not going to happen. Continued general improvements will have to move forward steadily and broadly, victories celebrated quietly, so as not to arouse the passions of a public stoked into fury over 'Green is the new Red' preaching. For some time into the future, this is going to remain 'the crisis which cannot be named'.
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MarkR at 02:08 AM on 3 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
sgbotsford:
Working out how best to present data is really important. In this case, I think that the WGMS have done it right.
Firstly, it's common to cover as much of the graph as possible to see changes and how big they are. This is taught in university physics and meteorology courses as a valid way of presenting data in many situations.
Secondly, anyone who can read a graph looks at the axis scales, and although the units in this case are a little opaque, I tried to make this as clear as possible in the caption.
Thirdly, it's not easy to work out the zero point here. Some glaciers like Chacaltaya are 100% gone. Others are much thicker, so much less is gone.
Finally, as others have pointed out, it's often misleading to use true zeroes, as the wonderful DenialDepot posts show.
The WGMS graph is a report on the mass balance of glaciers, and that graph is a clear and fair way of showing that. I agree that there is a risk that some people will misinterpret the graph, but that is true of almost any way of presenting data. The way this graph is presented is clear to anyone who has any experience of reading graphs and I'm pretty sure that any other way of presenting it would be much more misleading.
I agree though, that it's not able to answer every question and it doesn't clearly say much about impacts. That's why we have lots of other research!
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Michael Whittemore at 01:52 AM on 3 January 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #1A
Happy New Year everyone.
I hope you this is the right places to ask but I wanted to know if anyone had some information about the heat that was found in the Southern Ocean.
Its from this paper "Quantifying underestimates of long-term upper-ocean warming" (http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n11/full/nclimate2389.html)
Moderator Response:[JH] See Rob Painting's article,
[Rob P] - try this one instead:
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Tom Curtis at 01:14 AM on 3 January 2015Time is running out on climate denial
OPOF @12, I certainly agree that energy politics has been a significant (though not only) factor in sparking the crisis in the Ukraine. I am not sure how you would assess whether the failure to switch to a more renewable economy (which would have decreased European dependence on Russian gas) or a desire to restrict emissions (driving a European prefference for gas over oil or coal for power generation) is more significant in that, so I do not think we can say how climate change politics contributed to the crisis, and doubt climate change itself contributed directly. On the other hand, as climate change continues, that will creat even more crises of a similar nature. (Arguably it has already contributed to the Syrian crisis.) So as a more general point, I certainly agree that tackling climate change reduces the long term risk of wars, civil wars, and consequently of nuclear exchanges.
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Tom Curtis at 01:05 AM on 3 January 2015Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?
dvaytw @52, the first thing to notice is that if you do a like with like comparison, AR5 only gets a 90% rather than the 95%. Here are the two relevant statements from the two reports:
IPCC AR4 Chapt 9, Executive Summary:
"Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years. This conclusion takes into account observational and forcing uncertainty, and the possibility that the response to solar forcing could be underestimated by climate models. It is also robust to the use of different climate models, different methods for estimating the responses to external forcing and variations in the analysis technique."
IPCC AR5 Chapt 10, Executive Summary:
"More than half of the observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) from 1951 to 2010 is very likely1 due to the observed anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations. The consistency of observed and modeled changes across the climate system, including warming of the atmosphere and ocean, sea level rise, ocean acidification and changes in the water cycle, the cryosphere and climate extremes points to a large-scale warming resulting primarily from anthropogenic increases in GHG concentrations. Solar forcing is the only known natural forcing acting to warm the climate over this period but it has increased much less than GHG forcing, and the observed pattern of long-term tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling is not consistent with the expected response to solar irradiance variations. The Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) could be a confounding influence but studies that find a significant role for the AMO show that this does not project strongly onto 1951–2010 temperature trends. {10.3.1, Table 10.1}"
(My emphasis in both quotes)
So, both reports indicate that it is "very likely" that greenhouse gases have caused more than half of the warming since 1950. AR5 gives a stronger result, but only by extending the duration of the finding forward to 2010 (ie, about 5 years).
The 95% figure is for a different value. AR5 (Chapt 10, Executive Summary) states:
"It is extremely likely that human activities caused more than half of the observed increase in GMST from 1951 to 2010. This assessment is supported by robust evidence from multiple studies using different methods. Observational uncertainty has been explored much more thoroughly than previously and the assessment now considers observations from the first decade of the 21st century and simulations from a new generation of climate models whose ability to simulate historical climate has improved in many respects relative to the previous generation of models considered in AR4. Uncertainties in forcings and in climate models’ temperature responses to individual forcings and difficulty in distinguishing the patterns of temperature response due to GHGs and other anthropogenic forcings prevent a more precise quantification of the temperature changes attributable to GHGs."
(My emphasis)
The key difference to the prior statement is that this assesses the combined likelihood of all anthropogenic factors. Critically, the likely (66%) range of contribution of temperature increase of non-greenhouse anthropogenic contributions is assessed as being between -0.6 to 0.1 C, while the likely range for GHG is 0.5 to 1.3 C of a total 0.6 C increase. Because the total increase is known, it is also known that high GHG contributions must be correlated with low (negative) other anthro contributions, and that conversely if the GHG contribution is actually at the low end of the range, then the other anthro contribution must by only slightly negative, or even positive. That relation increases the certainty of the total anthro attribution.
There is no similar statement in AR4 with which to compare this statement in AR5 about total anthro contribution.
Finally, the actual numbers given are based on the values underlying Fig 10.5:
From this it is possible to generate the Probability Density Functions (strictly likelihood density functions) of the various values. I have done so below, plotting against the contribution to the total (0.6 C) temperture rise:
Looking up the spreadsheet on which I plotted that graph, I find that the probability of at least 50% contribution for GHG alone (blue) is 91.2%, while that for total anthro (orange) is 99.94%. That validates both claims made in the exective summary, but also shows that they were being conservative relative to their data for the total anthro assessment.
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CBDunkerson at 00:20 AM on 3 January 2015Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?
dvaytw, those values come from statistical math.
Basically, they are calculating the mathematical likelihood that the observed data could have occured due to random variation as opposed to some underlying trend. The calculations are similar to those used to determine the +/- ranges you see on polls or uncertainty bands on graphs, but in this case they are looking for a 'true/false' likelihood rather than a range.
The posts below discuss issues around interpreting statistical significance in relation to the recent atmospheric warming trend;
On Statistical Significance and Confidence
If you want to look at the actual math, the simplest version of this kind of test would be;
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CBDunkerson at 22:28 PM on 2 January 2015Antarctica is gaining ice
vincentfladk, the idea that Antarctic land ice falling into the ocean could be causing increased Antarctic sea ice has actually been floated and examined before. However, as Tom Curtis explains, in this case the situation is quite a bit more complicated.
That said, I have seen some suggestion that the decreased salinity of ocean water caused by melting land ice leads to a higher freezing point and thus some increase in sea ice formation. However, the prevailing theory seems to be that most of the Antarctic sea ice increase is caused by changes in wind patterns and/or the ozone hole.
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wili at 20:27 PM on 2 January 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #1A
I'd like to join Alpinist in well wishes to the intrepid SkS crew.
Here's one of the most important speeches of the year, imho, putting GW and mass extinction in a larger historical, political and literary context :
Chris Hedges - "The Myth of Human Progress and the Collapse of Complex Societies" - Full Speech
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dvaytw at 18:23 PM on 2 January 2015Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?
Can anyone give me a rough idea of how they get a number like, say, 95% as opposed to 90%
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:03 PM on 2 January 2015Time is running out on climate denial
Tom Curtis@11,
I support your assessment regarding the potential merit of the comment by doskachess.
I suggest that earlier effective action to address global warming and climate change - the rapid reduction of the benefit the most fortunate could obtain from the burning of fossil fuels - may have reduced the motivations that created the Ukraine crisis.
However, it is likely that many wealthy powerful people who had been deliberately trying to get away with maximum personal benefit, even if their pursuits are clearly understood to be damaging and would ultimately be unsustainable, would become even more vicious and destructive if faced with more effective global action that would clearly limit their ability to maximize their wealth in the ways they were gambling on being able to get away with.
However, the potential for angry responses from people who want to get as wealthy and powerful as possible through damaging and unsustainable actions would be a poor excuse to not act in the required fashion regarding the threat of climate change. Those type of people simply have to be kept from succeeding in the future or there really will be no decent future for humanity.
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Daniel Bailey at 12:59 PM on 2 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
Based on current trends, glacier recession models predict that by 2030, Glacier National Park will be without glaciers.
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Andy Skuce at 12:16 PM on 2 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
There are percentage graphs of projected glacier loss, by region, in a paper by Marzeion et al 2012 (open access). I extracted a few examples for my piece on the Athabasca Glacier.
Most temperate and tropical glaciers will be mostly gone by the end of this century.
In the Marzeion et al paper there are graphs of historical glacier loss by region and globally in their figures 17 and 18.
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Tom Curtis at 11:40 AM on 2 January 2015Antarctica is gaining ice
vincentfladk @377, the rate of sea level rise is approx 3 mm per year. I will assume that all of it comes from melting ice (in fact a significant amount comes from thermal expansion). The specific heat of water is 4.2 KJ/(Kg K). That is, it takes 4,200 Joules to raise one Kilogram of water by one degree K. The latent heat of fusion of water is 334 KJ/Kg. That is, it takes 334,000 Joules to melt one Kg of ice. Ergo, melting a Kg of ice takes approximately the same amount of energy as raising the temperature of that water by 80 degrees K.
Assume for the sake of argument, that the average temperature of the Ice was - 15 C prior to being melted, and that it is raised to the global average temperature of 15 C. The total energy involved in melting the ice and raising sea level on this assumption, therefore, is approximately equivalent to the energy required to raise 3 mm of sea water across the worlds ocean by 80 C. However, because of strong mixing due to surface winds, the top 50 meters (very conservatively) of sea water has essentially the same temperature. To cool the ocean surface, therefore, we need to cool that top 50 meters. That 3 mm of sea level rise, therefore must cool 16,667 times as much water as it holds. Averaging the heat over that depth, it means we have 80/16667 degrees C temperature decrease, or approximately 0.005 C decrease to small to be noticed.
In this calculation, I have made a number of assumptions that were generous (to say the least) to your theory. Even so, it does not hold water (pun intended). This is one of the things that distinguishes science from theology (or most of philosophy, ie, my own native discipline) is the use of mathematics to filter out those theories that seem plausible when not expressed with enough precission. It is also why newcomers very rarely see things that have not been considered and rejected as implausible by the actual scientific experts.
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vincentfladk at 10:12 AM on 2 January 2015Antarctica is gaining ice
Sometimes a newcomer to a discussion or even to a science may see something the experienced conversationalists overlook. Seventy four years of age, I was trained as a theologian and then switched to Bible studies more narrowly understood. After reading all the comments, I realized to my horror, that three things noticed by comment but not put together by anybody, might abundantly confirm our worst fears about the ice and snow of Antarctica and global warming generally. It would go this way. The land ice is sliding into the ocean faster and faster. Thus there is more sea ice! AND THUS and thus please kindly excuse the capital letters THE SURFACE OF THE WORLD'S OCEANS IS COOLING SLIGHTLY the surface of the world's oceans is cooling slightly. It naturally would if fresh water from the melt of land ice were spreading widely! So that a cooler ocean, if only on the surface, would be wrongly reassuring to those of us who would like to continue to live on a planet wearing a cap of ice and ice boots, on which we have desported ourselves for forty milllion years.
Moderator Response:[JH] The use of "all caps" constitutes shouting and is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.
[Rob P] - Global sea surface temperatures exhibit a long-term warming trend:
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sidd at 10:10 AM on 2 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
If that Mernild paper were to be read as an exponential rate, the doubling time is slitely greater than 20 yr. -
Tom Curtis at 09:27 AM on 2 January 2015Time is running out on climate denial
chriskoz @10, I partially disagree.
Partially because doskachess' comment was of very low quality, and they were suitably warned for sloganeering. But only partially because, with a bit more care doskachess could have made a relevant point and concievable counter to Greg Craven's argument. To see the later, consider that:
1) A full nuclear exchange* between the US and Russia will very likely end civilization as we know it and possibly (but is unlikely to) cause the extinction of the human species. It is a threat, therefore, whose consequences are at least on a par with those of global warming, and likely (but not certainly) worse than global warming.
2) The civil war in the Ukraine was triggered by an unconstitutional change** of government backed by the US and Europe, and switched the government position in the Ukraine from a pro Russian to a Pro Western position, despite the Ukraine being vital to Russia's economic interests (because of the gas pipeline) and definitely within what Russia would consider its sphere of influence. It has lead to a civil war in which the pro Russian forces definitely have Russian assistance, assistance which threatens to become overt support. If that occurs, NATO nations will be under very strong domestic political pressure to intervene in favour of the Pro Western Ukraine Government.
3) If such intervention eventuates, the risk of nuclear exchange would have to be considered as comparable to that during the Cuban missile crisis.
Taken together, these constitute an imminent and plausible risk comparable to and possibly greater than that from global warming. Following Craven's proceedure, we should analyze this risk by setting up two rows, one for the possiblity the risk is real, and one for if it isn't. Further, we should treat the risk as maximal, ie, an actual extinction event for the human species (the worst plausible outcome from a full nuclear exchange).
Given this partial matrix, doskachess can now argue that the fact that we purportedly ignore this threat shows we do not accept Craven's reasoning afterall. If we did accept his reasoning, we would be doing all that we could to avoid this threat. Instead, we spend our time on a "lesser" threat of global warming (which is true, regardless of our opinion of the risk of the nuclear threat).
So constructed, doskachess's "argument" is at least a germain response to the OP. The problem is that there is no full matrix. I do not know of anything that I could do to reduce this risk. I could right a letter to Obama urguing caution (I guess), but I am not a US citizen and he is already showing plenty of caution on this issue. I am certain I cannot give him better advise than his existing policy advisors who are certainly live to this threat, and better informed. Nor his this a threat were it is relevant to shift public opinion over a matter of years and (hopefully sooner, but also) decades such as we are attempting here on SkS for global warming.
So, my tacit matrix for this problem is to fret pointlessly, or to find a better, more constructive use of my time. The outcomes are the same for both columns of the matrix, so the nuclear threat can have no bearing on my choice. In contrast, the threat from global warming strongly indicates that I should take column b, ie, spend my time more usefully by helping people better understand the science of global warming.
So, I think I have a counter to doskachess's implicit argument in better form. I may be wrong. All doskachess needs to do is to show there are in fact two columns, in one of which I can take effective action to prevent a full nuclear exchange. Doskachess, however, has not even properly drawn the analogy to Craven's argument to begin with, however. Indeed, rather than constructively doing so, they lept reflectively to the cheap insult showing they are at best, all about column a (respond to the nuclear threat by fretting pointlessly), and more probably that the mention of nuclear threats was just a cheap shot at anybody concerned about climate threats.
* There are other threats of limited nuclear exchanges, most notably with North Korea. Limited nuclear exchanges, however, are not threats to civilization, still less the species, and are not relevant to the discussion. They are, of course tragic, and horrifying beyond description.
** I think the change definitely reflected the democratic will of the Ukrainian people. That does not mean, however, that it followed proper constitutional form.
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chriskoz at 08:01 AM on 2 January 2015Time is running out on climate denial
Wh8le concurring with Tom Curtis, I also note that doskachess@6 comment is of such low intellectual quality that I long haven't seen such SkS comment to stand. The way it stands now (first and only post) indicate it's a drive by.
By sad coinsidence, it's the first post in 2015 (SkS time which is AET no daylight savings). This is bad because this site does not deserve to be marked by such a primitive troll, I suggest to eradicatre it.
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Sea level rise is exaggerated
Earthling - Yes, there is indeed continuing agreement that sea level rise continues, and over the longer term is accelerating, as per basic physics and observational data. Note that a five year period ("since 2009") is a _very_ short time given year to year variations.
What kind of "sensible adjustments" do you have in mind? And are they backed by any kind of data?
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Earthling at 03:04 AM on 2 January 2015Sea level rise is exaggerated
Is there still "close agreement" that SLR is "steadily accelerating" as per the 2009 claim, or have some sensible adjustments been made since then?
Moderator Response:[DB] Please provide your definition of "sensible adjustments".
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Alpinist at 02:57 AM on 2 January 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #1A
Happy New Year to the SkS crew! We appreciate all the work/research you do!
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Bob Loblaw at 10:28 AM on 1 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
It would appear that sgbotsford as been taking Dr. Doom seriously. For a full description of how to cook a graph, look here. The description over at Dr. Doom's uses sea ice, but it would also work well for glacier ice - how to adjust the scales to make the change disappear.
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Daniel Bailey at 09:12 AM on 1 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
Related:
"The cumulative glaciers and ice caps (GIC) surface mass balance (SMB) was negative for all regions. The SMB contribution to sea level rise was largest from Alaska and smallest from the Caucasus. On average, the contribution to sea level rise was 0.51 ± 0.16 mm sea level equivalent (SLE) yr−1 for 1979–2009 and ~40% higher (0.71 ± 0.15 mm SLE yr−1) for the last decade, 1999–2009."
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Tom Curtis at 08:34 AM on 1 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
sgbotsford @3, the two graphs showing cumulative mass balance are both scaled in mm water equivalent, which the article makes plane equates to a loss average thickness of the glacier. Intuitively, with warming, a 50 meter thick glacier* and a 20 meter thick glacier would both lose equivalent amounts of ice, all else being equal. That is, if temperatures rose enough for one to become 1 meter thinner, then we would expect the other to be one meter thinner also, all else being equal. All else is, of course, never equal, so our expectations would be in terms of averages over many glaciers but the point remains.
What we would not expect is that if a glacier just 5 meters thick melted away completely, glaciers 200 meters thick would also melt away completely. Yet that is the expectation encoded in your "non triksy" scaling. Percentage loss is only a meaningful comparison across the world's glaciers if we would expect thick glaciers to take no longer to melt away, and to melt away as completely for small temperature rises, as we would for thin glaciers. Is that really your expectation? If so, what is its basis in physics?
Regardless of your (likely) uninformed expectations, however, the world's glaciologists appear to have the former expectation - born out by years of observation - as is shown by their use of the same scale as is used in the graph above. That being the observed experience, switching to a percentage graph would be tricksy indeed.
* Glaciers are, of course, not of uniform thickness so these thicknesses, but for this discussion, and only to illustrate a logical point, it is convenient to simplify and treat them as though they are.
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Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
sgbotsford - The standard with graphs is to plot them with the data of interest filling the chart. Since the graphs you are complaining about are entitled Change in mass they are indeed plotted correctly.
Choosing an expanded scale (as you suggest) is often done to be deceptive. One of my favorite pseudo-skeptic graphs of this type displayed global temperature changes in degrees Kelvin, with the axes extending to 0K, or -273.15C. That was indeed tricksy. And, yes, deceptive.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:15 AM on 1 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
sgbotsford,
The scale of the graphs is not biased. And their presnetation is not deceptive.
All of the data fits. And the change of rate of ice loss, becoming steeper, is evident. A deceptive presentation would have been to use something like a log scale in a way that appeared to indicate even more rapid more recent ice loss.
The point is that glacier ice mass is declining and the graphs present that without bias, especially when looked at as part of the reading of the article, which is what was intended.
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MP3CE at 08:09 AM on 1 January 2015Another year and glaciers are another metre thinner
@mspelto: I had some trouble with your link. Is this one correct ?
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