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Joel_Huberman at 22:37 PM on 18 May 201475% of Americans want to see climate change taught in schools, and four more graphs
Tom Curtis @ 3: Many thanks for your helpful, interesting explanation. I should have thought of referring to the IPCC AR5 report. But the uncertainty in, and low magnitude of, the IPCC's estimate of the stratospheric ozone RF suggest that the "correct" response to the question in the poll (discussed in the article by Ros Donald above) should have been either "a little", "not at all", or "don't know". It's good to see that 39% of Americans responded correctly (in my view) to this tricky question. In other words, I quibble with Donald's statement that 73% responded incorrectly.
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wili at 21:18 PM on 18 May 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #20
I'm not sure whether in rises to the level of "Weekly News," but robbertscribbler has a nice summary of where we are now sitting wrt El Nino predictions, including an interesting video interview with Kevin Trenberth.
http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/deep-ocean-warming-is-coming-back-to-haunt-us-record-warmth-for-2014-likely-as-equatorial-heat-rises/
Trenberth predicts a permanent rise in global temperatures of up to .3 degrees C from the event and from a likely flip in Pacific Decadal Oscilation (PDO) from cool to warm. That would put us well above the 1 C above pre-industrial temperatures mark and on our way to 2.
Moderator Response:[JH] Thanks for bringing Robert Scribbler's excellent post to our attention. I have incorporated it into the OP.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 19:06 PM on 18 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
An additional point to add wrt pollution in China. A significant part of the 'pollution' around Beijing is dust. Beijing and its surrounds are very prone to dust storms coming in from the Gobi desert.
Further south, towards Nanjing & Shanghai you start to get interactions between pollution and humidity. Lots of 'sfog' - mists and fogs where pollution provides condensation nuclei for water vapour.
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chriskoz at 16:37 PM on 18 May 2014The passing of a climate giant, Tom Crowley
I honestly haven't heard of Tom Crowley before. However I'm learning now that the ice ages "trigger" theory (that I've attributed to David Archer and his "jumper" model), in fact comes from Tom... The comment@1 by David Karoly confirms my appreciation. We should do better job recognising those people on whose shoulders our science stands. Tom should have his place in the Interacive history of climate science button on the left.
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chriskoz at 16:09 PM on 18 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
Klapper@27,
In addition to Tom Curtis' response, please note that China is not isolated from the rest of the world. The heat (or negative change in heat in this case resulting from scatering of incoming shortwave radiation) is transported by the atmospheric circulation and can result in warming in other place. Therefore, before you start mounting nitpicky claims from the comparison of Tom's images, e.g. "Beijing area, where the pollution levels are the highest, is actually one of the warmest", you need to at least find the GCM models confirm the Cinese aerosol forcings indeed influence local weather, for your claim to be meaningful.
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scaddenp at 14:32 PM on 18 May 2014The passing of a climate giant, Tom Crowley
Very sad. His visit to our institute some years ago was very stimulating and I hope other colleagues will be continuing to work with some of his ideas.
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peter prewett at 14:30 PM on 18 May 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #20
David Suzuki - Suzuki tells Moyers link at the bottom does not work.
Peter
Moderator Response:[DB] Fixed. Thanks to all who helped point this out.
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Tom Curtis at 12:38 PM on 18 May 201475% of Americans want to see climate change taught in schools, and four more graphs
Joel_Huberman @2, the reduction in stratospheric ozone mostly results in ultraviolet light (shortwave radiation) that would have been absorbed higher in the stratosphere being absorbed lower in the stratosphere, although some does get through to the troposphere. That does indeed have a warming effect. However, it also cools the stratosphere. The stratosphere reradiates the energy absorbed from UV light as IR radiation (longwave radiation). This is mostly reradiated by CO2, H2O and O3 (ozone). Reducing the temperature of the stratosphere by removing O3 also reduces the amount of IR radiation radiated from the stratosphere to the troposphere - a cooling effect. Further, reducing they O3 reduces that radiation directly by reducing the proportion of the atmosophere that can re-radiate the IR radiation downward (also a cooling effect). The question then becomes which of these effects dominates - the warming effect from increased UV, or the cooling effect from reduced IR.
The IPCC AR5 says this:
"The decreases in stratospheric ozone due to anthropogenic emissions of ODSs have a positive RF in the shortwave (increasing the flux into the troposphere) and a negative RF in the longwave. This leaves a residual forcing that is the difference of two larger terms. In the lower stratosphere the longwave effect tends to be larger, whereas in the upper stratosphere the shortwave dominates. Thus whether strat- ospheric ozone depletion has contributed an overall net positive or negative forcing depends on the vertical profile of the change (Forster and Shine, 1997). WMO (2011) assessed the RF from 1979 to 2005 from observed ozone changes (Randel and Wu, 2007) and results from 16 models for the 1970s average to 2004. The observed and modelled mean ozone changes gave RF values of different signs (see Table 8.3). Negative net RFs arise from models with ozone decline in the lower- most stratosphere, particularly at or near the tropopause."
(Chapter 8, section 8.3.3.2)
So by the best judgement of the IPCC, your reasoning is good, but incomplete. The result is that you have probably made a small error. (Probabily because a positive forcing is still within the error bounds.)
Here is the historical forcings for both tropospheric and stratospheric ozones from AR5 (Figure 8.7):
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Joel_Huberman at 11:47 AM on 18 May 201475% of Americans want to see climate change taught in schools, and four more graphs
I am one of the 73% of Americans who--incorrectly according to this article--think the ozone hole probably contributes at least a small amount to global warming. Here's my reasoning. Stratospheric ozone absorbs ultraviolet light (UL), preventing it from reaching the surface of the Earth. The ozone hole permits more UL to reach the Earth's surface. To balance that increased incoming solar radiation, the Earth's surface temperature would need to increase. So the ozone hole would be expected to increase global warming. Is my reasoning incorrect?
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Tom Curtis at 07:38 AM on 18 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
Klapper @27, China is a big place. It's air pollution problems are not uniform, and neither are its temperature trends. In fact, the temperature trends are highest in the unindustrialized North of the country:
In contrast, the air pollution (aerosols) are to be found predominantly in the South East of the country, and around Beijing:
The correlation between lower temperature trends and higher aerosol polution in China is noticable (though not perfect). If you want to mount the argument that China's temperature trends prove aerosol pollution is a positive forcing, you are going to need a far more detailed analysis than merely mentioning national average trends.
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Klapper at 01:02 AM on 18 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
@Chriskoz #26:
I see my post #26 is missing in action. Your 2nd sentence is only valid if you believe that the net effect of anthropogenic aerosols is negative. Tom's post #11 indicates the range of AR5 estimates for aerosols forcing extends into the positive. As I pointed out in my original post #26, the fact that China has experienced both a faster than global SAT warming rate and extremely high local aerosol forcing is reason to question the "anthropogenic aerosols are a negative forcing" assumption.
Moderator Response:[PS] Not moderating here, but you need to back assertions with evidence/references and skip the pointless remarks (eg pink unicorns) if dont want to be moderated for sloganeering. Try again with backing data.
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mlyle at 00:50 AM on 18 May 2014The passing of a climate giant, Tom Crowley
All of us in paleoclimate will miss him. I had wondered why had been relatively quiet over the last couple of years.
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chriskoz at 23:11 PM on 17 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
Klapper@26,
I agree with your general point. Kummer 2014 can be used as a rebuttal to the claim "climate sensitivity from 20th century observations is low", because they showed with very simple math that observational estimates should not assume human aerosol efficacy of 1. We can be quite confident that said efficacy is > 1, therefore the feedback factor lambda becomes smaller, yielding ECS values higher than claimed before. But the uncertainties are so high (if you look at the last column of their Table 1) that talking about a meaningful value of ECS thus obtained is pointless. I do much prefer the methods that accually measure (via proxies in paleo methods) the dT in equilibrium, according to the definition of the term.
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austrartsua at 14:13 PM on 17 May 2014We're heading into an ice age
How is Figure 4 determined?
(-snip-).
Moderator Response:[DB] Figure 4 is based directly on Figure 3 from Archer 2005.
Sloganeering and arguments from personal incredulity snipped.
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dkaroly at 13:20 PM on 17 May 2014The passing of a climate giant, Tom Crowley
John and Dana, Thanks for helping people better understand the very important role that Tom played in building links between the palaeoclimate community and the climate modelling and modern climate communities. He was indeed a giant of a scientist, and it is by standing on the shoulders of giants that we can see and influence the future. Tom was also a gentle and welcoming giant, who cooked a mean steak on the barbecue. He will be missed!
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Tom Curtis at 11:20 AM on 17 May 201497% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven
tlitb1 @20, sorry, my computer ate my long response, so you will have to make do with the short.
1) I agree with you about Lai et al (2005), which I would rate as (6) "explicitly rejects but does not quantify".
2) From the full rating data, which has been released by John Cook, it can be determined that there is an initial rating error rate between "endorsement levels" of 12.9% on average, which results in an expected error rate between levels after dispute resolution of 4.7%. Given that distinctions between "implicit" and "explicit" are graduated rather than binary (things can be more, or less explicit) such an error rate is unsurprising. It is also overstated in that it treats a large number of ratings of "0" (= uncertain) as errors, which is not the case.
3) The error rate between endorsing or rejecting AGW falls to a low 0.04%. That is because the vast majority of errors are between categories just one level apart, and because nearly all errors (98%) for initial ratings of (4) involve mistakenly identifying an implicitly endorsing abstract as being neutral. Overall, adjusting for errors based on internal data appears to slightly increase the endorsement percentage. (That is a provisional result using simplifying assumptions. More accurate results may change teh sing of the result but will not significantly change the magnitude which is less than 1%. Note that Richard Tol's claim that this adjustment makes a large increase in the "dissensus rate" depends on the false assumption that the error rate and distribution for all rating values is the same.)
4) Despite the low overall error rates, the sheer number of endorsing abstracts means a small fraction will have been incorrectly rated, ie, should have been rated as rejecting the consensus. On the figures above, we would in fact expect two such abstracts. Those figures show only internally detectable errors, however, so the number may by slightly larger.
5) Because we expect some such errors as a matter of course, no amount of highlighting single abstracts being correctly rated will show the Cook et al results to be false. That is because such anecdotal evidence does not provide a basis for statistical analysis. At most the response required is to adjust the values reported for endorsement and rejection in Cook et al by the number of individual abstracts found to be in error. Thus, you have found two abstracts in error. Therefore we would adjust the Cook et al figures of 3896 endorsing and 78 rejecting to 3894 endorsing and 80 rejecting, which changes the percentages (as a percentage of papers endorsing or rejecting) to 97.99% endorsing, down from 98.04%. Even that ignores the probable existence of papers with errors in the other direction, and makes no difference worth mentioning. Even if you were to find a net error of 100 abstracts in favour of endorsement, after correction you still have an endorsement rate of 95.52%, which again is not a challenge to the Cook et al result.
6) Because of this, the only valid method to challenge Cook et al is to do another survey yourself, of at least 2000 abstracts (and prefferably more). Make sure you state your classification criterion clearly. You will find either a result within 5% of the Cook et al value, or your classification criteria will be transparently tendentious.
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Tom Curtis at 10:41 AM on 17 May 2014Climate's changed before
wcgulick @410, I'm sorry, you are simply boring and arrogant. Arrogant because you assume that because you certainly do not know something, scientists do not know it either. Boring because your position if adopted consistently would cause you to reject all science, not merely climate science. There is no scientific subject about which we know everything. Never-the-less there are many scientific subjects about which we know much, including climate science. I am more than willing to work through the details of climate science with those who are willing to discuss it rationally. I am, however, totally disinclined to waste time discussing it with those who hold their ignorance to them as a shield against learning.
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wcgulick at 09:25 AM on 17 May 2014Climate's changed before
Tom Curtis @ 409:
What I mean is that I still see serious problems with "stating as a fact" that the planet is warming due to human activity.
To wit:
The people doing this reseach are working with an incomplete data set. This is the largest kinetics problem anyone has ever tried to solve and it's not solveable unless you know the inputs and outputs of the overall system, which we don't.
Related to this problem is a second one, where people are making a series of assumptions based on said incomplete data set. The real cold (no pun intended), hard truth is that no one really knows if things like water vapor in the atmosphere, which is present at levels orders of magnitude greater than carbon dioxide, create a positive or negative feedback loop or any feedback loop at all. It could produce a slow (or rapid) occilation. As I said, no one knows.
On top of that, with a system as complex as the climate, data on prior occurances is not necessarily predicitive of future occurances. Simply put, we don't know exactly what was happening to all inputs and outputs when this occured.
On top of that there is no way that anyone can argue in a situation like this that the researchers don't bring their own biases to their research. This isn't something you can prove or disprove rapidly in a chemistry lab, in fact there are no experiments being done at all (so it's not science, it's research). Therefore, unlike real hard science where experiments can prove or disprove a hypthoisis, we have no way of controlling for biases that may be introduced by the researchers themselves.
Long story short, my real issue here is that the data set is incomplete and there is absoultely no way to know how all of the variables (including researcher bias) are acting at any given time in the past. Therefore, any conclusions we draw from the data are, IMHO, unreliable at best.
Moderator Response:[TD] You need to post comments on relevant threads. You must read the original post for the relevant thread, and if you comment, address that original post. Many posts have Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced tabbed panes; read all three before commenting.
For your "incomplete data" claim, see "Are Surface Temperature Records Reliable," among other posts.
For water vapor, see "Explaining How the Water Vapor Greenhouse Effect Works."
Projecting future climate is not done merely by extrapolating from past trends; climate models are physical models, not statistical ones. In any case, the proof is in the pudding. See "How Reliable Are Climate Models?" That same post addresses your incorrect and inappropriate claim that researchers' biases cannot be controlled; the empirical data have and continue to validate the theoretical projections that have been made for over 150 years.
All your claims are incorrect. You are most welcome to make claims on Skeptical Science as long as you do so on the relevant threads, as long as you specifically address the original posts of those threads, and you respond to other commenters with specific data rather than merely your opinions.
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tlitb1 at 08:39 AM on 17 May 201497% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven
@Tom Curtis at 16:39 PM on 15 May, 2014
I'm glad you agree with me about the Shaviv assessement. My attention was only drawn to Shaviv because I had just for the first time read the Schulte paper, which itemises 6 papers (including Shaviv) as examples rejecting the consensus, and I picked Shaviv to compare first.
I've now had a look at the remaining 5 papers picked out by Schulte as rejecting the consensus - with an aim to see how they stack up against Cook et al. - and found: 2 dont appear in Cook et al, 2 agree, and I think have found one other paper, Lai et al. (2005), which Cook et al rates as supporting the consensus but seems actually to be rejecting it. IMO the abstract certainly is not clearly stating a position on anthropogenic contribution being >50%
Global warming and the mining of oceanic methane hydrate Chung-Chieng A. Lai, David E. Dietrich, Malcolm J. Bowman
http://www.skepticalscience.com/tcp.php?t=search&s=&a=dietrich&c=&e=&yf=&yt
If you look at the abstract I think you will see there is nothing that puts it in the consensus. If I am wrong I would love to know what I missed. In fact I think these two statements alone
"However, the extent to which anthropogenic factors are the main cause of global warming is still being debated."
and
"we propose a new hypothesis for global warming."
by rights should be enough to define this abstract as *not* being in the consensus.
I think the statement "we propose a new hypothesis for global warming" is as near enough to saying 'this paper is not in the consensus' as you can get! ;)
The Shaviv paper just happens to be one of the demonstrably small number of mistakes in classification in Cook et al. It is silly to think that a project like the Consensus Project would be mistake free.
I certainly wouldn't expect Cook et al to be mistake free but I have to say finding a disagreement between 2 of the 4 overlapping examples here in the Schulte paper, a paper which Cook et al itself draws attention to, is quite interesting; interesting because I think the two examples also indicate an insight as to why they were mis-rated, and why more papers could be too.
I think the mis-rating of Lai et al. (2005) could be explained if the raters were slavishly only looking for quantification, and not really parsing any deeper, then at a push I could see it being put in the neutral category, however its being rated in the endorse category still seems wrong.
And again with Shaviv, there is some dispute about the 'wording' indicated in the article above, as if it wasn't playing by the rules, i.e. as Dana Nuccitelli implies above, "he worded the text in a way to slip it past the journal reviewers and editors" . But surely if Shaviv did not lie in his abstract, no matter how it was 'worded' , Cook et al's methodology should have been robust to correctly rate it?
It clearly seems not in this case, could that have happened in more cases?
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Tom Curtis at 08:18 AM on 17 May 2014Climate's changed before
wcgulick @408, we can hardly help you with so vague a criticism. I suggest that you start reading the basics, eg, here or here, and raise any specific concerns you have with that aspect the theory on those pages. If you have no concerns at that level, we can then move on to other relevant pages and discuss them there.
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Tom Curtis at 08:12 AM on 17 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Have the moderators taken a holiday?
On this thread cool breeze has continuously violated the rule against sloganeering, and by now must surely also be violating the rule against excessive repetition. He is patently simply a troll, interested only in getting his views published and having no regard to either evidence or rebutal.
Meanwhile on the "water vapour" thread, Arthur is making repeated accusations of malpractise without any basis.
Moderator Response:[DB] There are no holidays for moderators. Life, however, does impede sometimes. Moderation implemented.
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wcgulick at 08:10 AM on 17 May 2014Climate's changed before
Interesting website. A lot more data that most sites which just say something and offer no evidence to back it up.
That said, I'm still somewhat skeptical of the overarching theory.
Moderator Response:[TD] Your comment violates the Skeptical Science comment policy, by being devoid of substance and therefore being sloganeering. Future content-free comments will be deleted without warning. Please carefully read the original post above this comment thread, and if you want to complain about lack of evidence, then describe specifically what of that evidence in that post you believe is inadequate, and why.
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scaddenp at 07:14 AM on 17 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Coolbreeze, ignoring the flippancy, I think there is an important principle missing. If your farming stuffs a waterway, then it is local in effect. Your nation makes the mess, it has to deal with the consequences.
The negatives of CO2 emissions however are global. The idea that is it okay for one group of people to enjoy all the benefits of something while another group of people pay the price is I would suggest a rather "unAmerican" attitude? In particular the rich countries are getting to enjoy the benefits you point out of cheap FF while non-emitters in very poor countries pay a disproportiate amount of price through the effects of climate change.
It largely comes down to problem that what you pay for FF does not reflect the actual full cost of using it. Its cheapness leads to poor usage of the resource and false pricing compared to other forms of generation.
Substition is possible. So is using less. Average energy use for USA is 250kWh per person per day. Europe and Japan are around 120 while here in NZ it is 90. I strongly suspect that US citizens could lead rich, useful and meaningful lives with rather less energy use.
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grindupBaker at 07:08 AM on 17 May 2014We can't count on plants to slow down global warming
"Rising CO2 levels threaten human nutrition, study says" CBC News. "Iron and zinc levels were found to be much lower in some vital crops grown under future carbon dioxide scenarios". I've forgottern whether I only heard this on CBC or whether I also read it here on some post and I'm just repeating it back to you. Crops for nutrition and sequestering of carbon in vegetation are distinct topics of course, but somewhat related. I'd never thought of this nutritional content aspect.
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grindupBaker at 04:54 AM on 17 May 201475% of Americans want to see climate change taught in schools, and four more graphs
2. "The sun" should have been asked as "Changes in the sun". Otherwise it looks interesting about what Americans think about this science topic, especially surprising that American-type humans think anything about petrol. I'm testing that when I cross the border this summer weekends.
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Composer99 at 03:18 AM on 17 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Coolbreeze:
even when the IPCC reminds us that the global temperature has warmed a whopping 0.85 degrees celsius in a span of over 140 [130/whatever] years.
I must say that this kind of comment is one of my pet peeves. Small changes in global mean temperature have large, far-reaching consequences. I do not feel this is a terribly difficult concept to grasp.
I mean, it's only a 4-6°C drop from now to the depths of the last glacial period. You'd hardly notice that change in an afternoon, but in terms of global mean temperature it's the difference between what we have now and mile-high ice sheets covering large portions of the northern hemisphere.
So I strongly encourage you to look at the evidence of current impacts (e.g. impacts as described in IPCC WG2, US National Climate Assessment, etc.), rather than apparently dismissing global mean temperature changes to date just because the number looks small.
Like pretty much anyone alive, I will gladly choose some climate impacts over starvation
As far as I can see, one of the things that others have been trying to get at in this thread is that, owing to chronic reductions in crop yield, acute crises from droughts or flooding, and (in the case of ocean acidification) reduced productivity of ocean biomes exploited for food sources, starvation is a potential (if not yet 100% certain) climate impact, especially in tropical/subtropical regions.
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DSL at 02:51 AM on 17 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
There's also the statement released by the publisher of the journal Bengtsson submitted his work to.
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Phil at 02:45 AM on 17 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Arthur123 @184
With respect to your comment on Bengtsson, you might like to read through this which includes this comment by one of Bengtsson's peers on the reasons for the rejection of his paper
“What counts are the reasons the editor gave for rejection. They were because the paper contained important errors and didn’t add enough that was new to warrant publication. Indeed, looking at all the comments by the reviewer they suggested how the paper might be rewritten in the future to make it a solid contribution to science. That’s not suppressing a dissenting view, it’s what scientists call peer review.*
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Coolbreeze at 02:25 AM on 17 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
"... many of the negative consequences of climate change on the developing countries are related to agriculture."
... as well as contributing other environmental impacts like excess nitrogen and phosphorous contribution to water, etc. All of that that gets weighed against the benefits of agriculture feeding people en masse. I will be the first to admit that I survive and thrive on the products of agriculture. Like pretty much anyone alive, I will gladly choose some climate impacts over starvation: even when the IPCC reminds us that the global temperature has warmed a whopping 0.85 degrees celsius in a span of over 130 years.
Moderator Response:[DB] Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit repetitive, sloganeering or off-topic posts, as you have done. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion. If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.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.
Fixed text.
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DSL at 02:16 AM on 17 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Arthur, if you vomit unsubstantiated claims, your vomit will be deleted. If you really believe what you say, and you have evidence, then take your arguments to the appropriate threads and present the evidence. That's all anyone here is asking--well, that and that you argue in good faith (i.e., you recognize evidence given by others).
It's easy to "win" arguments if you get to define what is "truth."
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Stephen Baines at 01:34 AM on 17 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Also,
Sea level rise will have little effect pre se on CO2 absorption. I addition to CBDs discussion about effects of temp on absorption of CO2 by the ocean. To avoid going to far off topic, I would suggest reviewing the "OA is not OK" series. That outlines the chemistry that links most of the storage of inorganic carbon in the ocean to the amount of base cations (Ca, Mg, ) in ocean water. That amount is not tied to either expansion of seawater by heating, or affected by inputs of freshwater from melting ice.
The post on the "CO2 is plant food" myth is relevant to your discussion of the effects of CO2 on agriculture. I would discuss those issues there. It's worth noting that many of the expected negative consequences of climate change on the developing coutries are related to agriculture.
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Dikran Marsupial at 01:15 AM on 17 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
arthur, I'll take that as a "no" then. Sorry, I have better things to do than answer questions from those that are not interested in any answer other than the one they started out with (especially if they are going to be needlessly insulting).
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Stephen Baines at 01:12 AM on 17 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Coolbreeze,
I'm having a hard time getting my head around your arguments.
No one is suggesting that Bangkok farmers immediately shift to zero carbon technologies to move their crops. Even though they use trucks that run on petroleum, countries like Thailand and Myanmar still emit far less CO2 per person than the US, Canada, Australia, Europe do. We have the economic power and technological ability to change that for ourselves. Those truck drivers are not the problem.
It seems you are arguing against a sudden shift to alternative, zero-carbon energy sources that must be complete and immediate. That is a straw man. No one thinks that is a realistic solution and no one who is actually informed about the situation argues for it. No one thinks we should subject people to abject poverty to prepare for a carbon free energy system in the future. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to continuing to improve market share of renewable energy sources, or developing technologies to make that happen, or that can be used by those very Bangkok farmers. There is no reason to think that can't happen.
Speaking from a self-interested position that you seem to prefer as most realistic, we (the developed world) should do this because, frankly, it will have to happen regardless. Petroleum and gas reserves will decline or become a lot more expensive to obtain. Climate change impacts will become impossible to ignore. If we don't develop renewable energy someone else will come in and do it for us eventually. Then the transport driven by soccer moms and Bangkok farmers will be made by "someone else" and we may become economically irrelevant. The Bagnkok farmers should support that effort too, because, in the end, they will suffer less serious consequences.
Also, no one here (as far as I know) is arguing that petroleum has not done well by us economically — thank you great oil reserves of the earth! The future is the problem. Should we be happy to suffer future consequences of continuing dependence on fossil fuels simply out of an emotional attachment to what an inert resource has done for us in the past?
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Arthur123 at 00:58 AM on 17 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
D Marsupial,
TThere are many documented cases already illustrating the tampering of historical climate data on the web site “WattsUpWithThat” and other similar sites. Just because you can download data off government web sites doesn’t mean it wasn’t tampered with previously. I just go over there at “WattsUpwiththat” and read them. There was a recent posting on Reykjavik, Iceland’s data tampering. The US data is constantly being adjusted by GISS. If I downloaded data 10 years ago at one meteorological site and compared it to a download today there is a better than 50 percent change some portions of the historical time line were adjusted.
Some of you paid AGW ”schlemiels” were just attacking me because I was saying the evaporation process in itself is a COOLING process. And this is a fact. As far as people like Trenberth is concerned he is running out of explanations as to why the earth is not heating up like he wants. Now he says the heat is "hiding" in the deep ocean. Cold salt water is denser and has greater salinity than warm ocean water, therefore it will sink. If anything ocean temperatures below 2,000 meters depth is likely significantly lower than the first 2000 meters, but because there are no monitoring systems at those depths guys like Trenberth can make wild guesses where the heat has gone. Complete nonsense!
By the way I am a meteorologist, graduated from CCNY back in the late 1970's and have been watching this whole AGW madness/scam unfold over the years and now I see its end nearing. Look recently what happened to Professor Lennart Bengtsson, who was a member of Global Warming Policy Foundation. He had to resign because he expressed his personal views that he was no longer sure he could support the anthropogenic global warming theory, because of the 17 year global temperature pause and the inability of global GCM models to reliability predict the pause. What happened to scientific freedom and inquiry???
Scientist by their very nature should always take the opposing view on any theory such as “AGW” especially since the real metrological data does not support run away temperatures in the first place.
The last Ice Age peaked approximately 18,000 years ago. Let’s see if any reasonable AWG proponent can explain to me how 2-3 mile thick (10,000 to 15,000 feet) solid glacial ice melted completely away in such a short geological time span. CO2 levels in those days were lower than today. What melted 15,000 feet of solid ice that was covering most of the Northern Hemisphere including the NYC area??? The Atlantic Ocean was so much lower that the east coast of the USA was 60 miles further out. For sure, climate change does happen but is a natural process that happens on a scale many more times higher in magnitude than anything caused by small changes in CO2. Imagine ice that was 10 times the height of the Empire State Building all gone today. 18,000 years ago is a blink of the eye in the earth’s life. No GCM model can model that for sure. What melted all that ice???Moderator Response:[TD] Your comment violates the comment policy at the very least by being off topic. Post your comments on the relevant threads, or your comments will be deleted without warning in the future. Here are some suggestions; many of these have Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced tabbed panes, so be sure to read all of those, in that order:
Your first paragraph: Temperature Record Is Unreliable
"The evaporation process in itself is a cooling process": (Do not use all caps; use bold or italic instead.) Evaporation cannot remove energy from the total Earth system (i.e., to space), so evaporation cannot cool the total Earth system, which is the system that global warming is all about. There are lots of places to learn about this, but you might start with "A Rough Guide to the Components of the Earth's Climate System."
Regarding the slower surface heating in the past few years than in the previous few: That is only slightly mysterious and most certainly not surprising. There are many posts about that, such as "Global Cooling - Is Global Warming Still Happening?," and "Climate Models Show Remarkable Agreement With Recent Surface Warming."
You are incorrect that that cold ocean water must immediately and permanently sink below warm water; there are long-understood mechanisms by which cold deeper water is pushed/pulled above warmer water. Also read "Correction to Curry's Erroneous Comments on Ocean Heating."
AGW does not mean runaway warming; you misunderstand what "positive feedback" means.
Regarding the last ice age (i.e., glacial period), the root-causal orbital variations are called Milankovitch Cycles. The other contributors, which are triggered by those orbital variations, actually are very well modeled.
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Coolbreeze at 00:40 AM on 17 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Thanks CB.
1. I look forward to continued advancements such as these in solar tech.
That being said, I am glad petroleum power is in place to get food and other goods transported efficiently. When the social costs and benefits are weighed, people choose to support fossil fuel technology time and time again. Take for instance the Thailand-Myanmar border area, where I was based last fall. As I would walk to the nearest village, I would see truckload after truckload hauling produce south towards Bangkok. I was grateful there was petroleum to move those trucks, so that people in Bangkok could receive large quantities of food in a timely manner. Imagine how un-lucrative it would be for those rural farmers to move their produce to Bangkok with zero emission technology. The people of Bangkok and other large urban areas around the world will understandably choose the climate change impacts of greenhouse emissions over starvation. Maybe in the future, electric vehicles (charged by solar panels) will kick ass at hauling large loads like petroleum does. That would be splendid.
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CBDunkerson at 21:26 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Coolbreeze, responses to your various 'arguments';
1: Solar requires rare earth metals and harms the environment - Nothing is absolutely zero impact, but arguing that this means we shouldn't go with things that have a vastly lower impact is taking 'false equivalency' to ridiculous levels. Also, not all forms of solar power require rare earth metals. The most promising recent advancements in solar PV have been with panels made of tin perovskites. Hardly a rare or toxic substance.
2: Oceans absorb CO2 so sea level rise is good - Not when most of the sea level rise is due to thermal expansion and the rate of CO2 absorption decreases as temperature increases. That is, sea levels are rising primarily because the oceans are getting warmer (matter expands when heated)... and warmer water absorbs less CO2. You are also again using the 'false equivalency' fallacy... pretending that the (erroneous) benefit of rising sea levels absorbing more CO2 completely offsets the harm caused by sea level rise.
3: CO2 boosts crop yields - Yes and no. In a controlled environment higher CO2 levels boost crop yields up to a certain point. In the open atmosphere higher CO2 levels boost some crop yields and lower others through increased heat, drought, flooding, and spread of species harmful to the crops. Recent studies suggest that the balance of these effects has already turned negative (i.e. total crop yields are down), and there is no question that significant further warming will result in greatly decreased agricultural output.
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Coolbreeze at 15:48 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
@ scaddenp: People have impacts to the environment whether they use FF's or not.
Take solar panels, for instance. Totally, angelically impact free: right? Not when one considers the rare earth metals involved. The extraction mining for these could be done on U.S. soil, turning streams to acid here. Or, the mining could be done in the third world, where laborers will work in conditions bordering on slavery, and some other country gets the environmental toll.
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scaddenp at 15:31 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
I doubt you will either but giving up on coal (more important than petroleum) will significantly reduce their exposure to climate change.
The most significant way (perhaps only meaningful way) is stop CO2 emissions. That is what is needed. If you emit, then you need to take responsibility for the damage you will do to others. How many Bangladeshis will Oregon take?
The oceans are actually more significant than trees for breathable air, but perhaps you should ask instead how much CO2 is being sequestered by your tree planting compared to the amount emitted. I would guess from other figures that one year's effort would offset maybe a few seconds of emissions. That is not meaningful.
If you dont like the guilt traps than we have to stop behaving in ways that impacts others. Getting off fossil fuel. It might cost you more your energy (until you remove subsidies on FF, then who knows), but that is the price you pay instead of others.
" But, I will reiterate that when the sales force states that those contributing the least emissions get the brunt, it does not build the attractiveness of the product!" That remains the most warped logic I have heard in a while. They are saying reducing your emissions give you the opportunity to help those who are taking the cost of using FF but arent contributing to the problem.
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Coolbreeze at 15:06 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Perhaps it is out of the power of the typical petroleum-burning American to get Bangladeshi farmers out of hardship. I doubt that giving up petroleum will change that: don't you?
But we contribute how we can. And like it or not, everybody has an impact on the environment in some way: everybody: with or without the luxuries owed to fossil fuels.
The trees we plant here in Oregon are not meaningless, by the way. They actually help keep the air as breathable as it is. The automobiles emit CO2; the trees take in CO2 and emit oxygen. I won't even bother citing a study on that, because it is so established in science.
The riparian zone restorations in urban areas have filtered mucho automobile run-off. Ongoing efforts at cleaning rivers have made a dramatic difference in the water quality of the Willamette and Tualatin Rivers in the Portland metro area, etc, etc., etc. Oregonians have chosen to put a lot of effort into these very meaningful efforts that significantly mitigate pollution, rather than giving up fossil fuels altogether. And we will keep having the guilt trips thrown at us about 3rd world farmers.
You know what else Oregonians do that you may or may not consider meaningful? We supplement our energy with wind and solar. But, I will reiterate that when the sales force states that those contributing the least emissions get the brunt, it does not build the attractiveness of the product!
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scaddenp at 14:40 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
"I will gladly continue pointing out how attached people are (in my nation of the U.S. at least) to the luxuries that fossil fuels bring."
Will you just as gladly tell me how me those people living that lifestyle are taking responsibility for the damage their lifestyle will do to other which lack those choices?
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scaddenp at 14:35 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Not what fossil fuel bring - but what energy brings and FF aren't the only way to do it.
I would applaud efforts to improve the environment, but an ounce of restoration does not offset a pound of damage. It might salve a conscience but is meaningless in the larger picture of future impacts.
Good for you if you can get Bangladeshi farmers out of poverty - where are they going to live? Frankly this is fine words with no meaningful action. Back your assertion with some actual studies. You will find plenty of more somber studies to the contrary in the IPCC AR2.
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scaddenp at 14:24 PM on 16 May 2014There's no tropospheric hot spot
This is kind of getting a bit old. There are numerous other predictions from climate models where the observer system isn't to validation; I wonder why this one was picked on.
Anyway, observation systems are improving and it would appear hot spot does exist. eg here or here.
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Terranova at 14:20 PM on 16 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
Mods, I have posted twice and it has disappeared. Am I doing something incorrect (-snip-)? Please explain.
Moderator Response:[DB] Your comments were sloganeering and off-topic for this thread. Note the thread guidance given you above by commenter scaddenp.
Moderation complaints snipped.
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Coolbreeze at 14:17 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
I love Tesla roadsters; I saw one in Portland. I would have paid into the waiting list for one a few years back, if only I had the clams to do it.
F.Y.I.: I didn't say that the behavior of subsidence farmers was bad. I did mention good behavior, in reference to a low emission lifestyle.
Being poor is not immoral, and I would not imply such a thing. But being wealthy is certainly advantageous, and I encourage wealth. I tell people that the way to help those vulnerable to climate change is to extend opportunity to the poor; wealth puts people in the position to do so.
We all know that there is an environmental impact to burning fossil fuels. But my concern about that is limited, particularly when people of high-impact lifestyles are making significant contributions back to humanity. One way people give back here in the state of Oregon is participating in habitat restorations. Another way is by helping the poor. Getting out of poverty makes people more resilient to climate change (an ongoing phenomenon which was occurring even before fossil fuels came about).
I will gladly continue pointing out how attached people are (in my nation of the U.S. at least) to the luxuries that fossil fuels bring.
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austrartsua at 14:04 PM on 16 May 2014There's no tropospheric hot spot
What is the significance of the hot spot signal? The hot spot is predicted by GCMs which predict strong net positive feedbacks in the climate response. This is why a doubling of Co2, which would all things being equal, cause 1.2C warming, can, via positive feedbacks purportedly lead to much more warming. Where is the hot spot? "Conversely, the data isn't conclusive enough to unequivocally say there is no hot spot." The burden of proof lies with those looking for the hot spot, not with the null hypothesis.
"Does this mean the greenhouse effect causes the hot spot? Not directly". If the climate system is highly sensitive to increases in Co2 radiative forcing, it must be fairly sensitivite to all forcing. The feedbacks are enacted more or less the same no matter what causes the warming right?
There does not seem to be strong evidence that the (long term?) hot spot exists. This is a problem for climate models which predict it. Of course more observations might reveal it, or they might not. For now, the evidence is not there.
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scaddenp at 13:51 PM on 16 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
I am disappointed in you Terranova. The cyclical change is due to a cyclical forcing which climate responds to. It completely calculable, currently going negative. Hardly an example of unforced change. The size of the milankovich forcing per century at 65N is about a 1/10 the size of global forcing from anthropogenic CO2. This is all heavily covered in scientific literature, including the paleoclimate chapter of IPCC. Note also how slow the change due to milankovich forcing is compared to temperature rise in past 100 years. See this article and comments for papers and more complete discussion. Discuss further over there.
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Tom Curtis at 13:35 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
CoolBreeze @20, when they are trying to persuade others, people try to use the points that they think the others will find persuasive. Thus we can deduce from the Apollo Alliance's sales pitch that they think their customers will be motivated by basic notions of equity, and will consider a situation in which they are profiting at the expense of others (ie, by using fossil fuels, the greatest harms of which will afflict the poorest globally) undesirable. Apollo Alliance's sales team seem to assume that the knowledge of that unfair situation will motivate its customers to do what they can to reduce the unfairness of the situation, at least to the extent of buying their products. They are probably right about most of their potential customers, though certainly not all of them. I would be greatly saddened to learn that aspect of the sales pitch was counter-productive overall because it would indicate wide spread lack of concern with equity in their marketplace.
As I have provided clear reasons to not treat the fact that the globally poorest will suffer most from climate change as a reason to not reduce fossil fuel use, we are now only discussing whether or not mentioning the disproportionate impact of global warming on the poor is more or less likely to persuade people to modify their behaviour and reduce emissions. If we do not consider you as an example of people who would be dissuaded from reducing emissions (with the corrollary that you have limitted interest in basic fairness), then what we have is a discussion about whether you or Apollo Alliance have best gauged the motivations of your fellow citizens. As you present no evidence on the topic (unless you wish to present yourself as an anecdotal counter example), you have no case to argue. Possibly neither do Apollo Alliance, but companies tend to very carefully examine the effectiveness of their sales pitches so that their belief is at least likely to be empirically based.
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scaddenp at 13:33 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
This topic is to some extent about your or my actions. The Myth is:
"Curbing emissions will hurt the poor". Hurting the poor is assumed to be morally bad; ergo curbing emssions is immoral. This argument only matters to be people whose actions are guided by morally.
The article points out the premise is false; not curbing emissions will hurt the poor more.
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scaddenp at 13:03 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Sorry - "It does not really sell people on good behavior." What is that supposed to mean? Low emitters that are likely to be disproportionately affected by climate change are subsidence farmers like on the great river deltas (Eg Ganges, Niger, Mekong etc). In what way is their behaviour bad and why is reducing your emissions so they dont suffer uninspiring to you? You seem to be implying that poor is immoral.
I am sure people got comfortable lives from their asbestos and tobacco shares too. Doesnt mean they should. Fortunately, Tesla and other are showing the way for you to continue energy-extravagant lifestyles without petroleum.
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Coolbreeze at 12:45 PM on 16 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
A lot of good input, Tom Curtis.
Scaddenp: You are correct that poverty would more likely cause low fossil fuel use, rather than the other way around. It is still not inspiring to me, however, for a representative of Apollo Alliance to state that those emitting the least suffer the most, and that they are poor too. It does not really sell people on good behavior.And KR. I am aware, by the way, that solar and wind are growing markets, although they still don't drive the economy on the scale of petroleum.
When I watch the automobile traffic, I think of how petroleum is enabling soccer moms to quickly transport kids in three different directions in the afternoon. When I buy parts for my bicycle, I know that petroleum powered vehicles got those bike parts distributed efficiently to stores near me. And I see the comfortable life my brother and his wife provide for their kids from their petroleum company salaries.
In the future, more people may be drawing the big bucks from wind and solar too. That would be great. But the sales force for wind and solar should consider leaving out statements about those emitting the least getting the brunt of it.
And I notice, KR, that you mention my self interests and actions and throw in the word irresponsible. Careful! This forum is not about my actions or yours; you are unfamiliar with my life anyway.
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