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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 39901 to 39950:

  1. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    This is a good thread for this forum because it introduces factors other than technical, which otherwise dominates most threads.

    What we are seeing and feeling (in the world around us) is the rapid rise of a "paradigm shift"  in how we so-called individual personages should/will/must relate to the Earth.  Some will learn through hard experience: others may be angry at the depridations to "The Earth" perpetrated by us all:  some may become "enlightened" by other ways of which we can only speculate.

    Eventually,every person will become a rabid environmentalist:  hopefully in time to effectively respond to "what is required."

    This site is a wonderful resource, and more than once I've said to a recalcitrant nay-sayer..

    "Since you don't believe ME, take your arguments to "Skeptical Science", and see how your ideas hold up..."

    ===============

    Anyway, there is at least a vision for how we (life on the planet) can mitigate this situation, located at

    "www.EarthThrive.net".

    I need to learn how to finish the website, but the "story" part is ther, but not the support documentation.  It's "benign global engineering" , and totally do-able.

    I'd like to put it up here for comments, but.. don't know how.

    It does address the ocean acidification within 50 years, I estimate.

    Regards.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Hotlinked URL; extraneous line spaces deleted.

  2. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Rob@24

    it's an anecdotal observation

    Based on what? Is this your observation?
    How can an English language program broadcast on a subscription cable network reach the audience you are suggesting? And did you not suggest that it is this audience that Cameron is trying to reach?

    I have come to expect sources and citations not hyperbole and anecdote; maybe that is the reason for my confusion over the tone and subject of the op

    .

  3. Media failure on Iraq War repeated in climate change coverage

    I have no idea what has happened here...

    First we went non-science AGW issues, now we have left AGW completely...

    Should  we expect sports chat soon?

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Put a lid on it!

  4. Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise

    I would have said that disruption to the hydrological cycle is by far the biggest threat posed by climate change. The implications of Dai 2010 are scary but dont seem grab attention the way sealevel rise does.

  5. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Sometimes I see people edit their comments after they've posted them, and was wondering how to do that?  I see in my ocean acidification comment that I did actually make a remark that sounded like I think anoxia is likely, when what I actually meant to say is that if the layers stop mixing completely, then it seems likely that it would happen.  To me it seems really unlikely that mixing will completely stop any time soon.

    Moderator Response:

    [TD] Moderators can edit anyone's comments, including their own.  We try to refrain from editing our own, but speaking for myself, if I notice I made a typo and my comment has not been up long enough for many people to see it, sometimes I succumb to temptation and fix it.

  6. Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise

    lennartvdl @13, I highly recommend that you spend some time playing with a sea level rise mapper such as the one at flood.firetreen.net  If you do, you will notice several things.

    1)  Even with 60 meters of sea level rise, only a very small fraction of the Earth's land surface is flooded.  Bear in mind that the map simply shades all land under a given elevation, so that it shows extensive flooding north of the Caspian sea in Russia and Khazakstan where sea level is a function of rainfall and irrigation in the area rather than the melting of ice caps, and hence will never show flooding to that extent.  Indeed, the Caspian Sea is likely to show a decline in sea level as the area becomes more arid.

    Because only a small fraction of the Earth's land area is affected, even by such large sea level rises, sea level rise is a major problem almost exclusively for some low lying coastal areas (Bangladesh, Florida, Denmark) and for small island states whose islands are coral atolls rather than volcanic.

    2)  Even for those areas which have a major problem, they represent just a small portion of the Earth's population (2.2% for Bangladesh, probably around 5% altogether).  So, even if the problem areas need to be abandoned entirely, while that will cause significant short term suffering, within a generation they will be just as other residents in the land to which they emigrate and the problem will cease as a distinct problem.  Of course, the sea level rise is likely to be slow meaning the problems arising from emigration will continue in the long term, but be far smaller and easier to cope with at any given time.

    3)  If you look at a 4 meter map, you will sea that even at 4 meters - double the highest one century estimate shown above for BAU, and nearly four times the median estimate - Dahka remains unflooded, as does the majority of Bangladesh.  Sea level rise at any reasonable estimate, therefore, is not a threat that will destroy even Bangladesh in a century; although it will increase harm in Bangladesh from riverine flooding and cyclones. 

    4)  Moving on from the map, Dutch land reclamation from the sea began in the thirteenth century.  That makes it clear that protecting land from the sea does not need massive, modern technology and nor need it be beyond the means of even the relatively poor.  Indeed, all else being equal, deltas will naturally be reclaimed from the effects of sea level rise by the deposition of additional sediment from the rivers that formed them.  All else is not equal, of course, and changes in flow patterns in the hramaputra and Ganges rivers due to glacial melt, and potential greater aridity may be more of a threat to Bangladesh than sea level rise.  But that Bangladesh will lose land to sea level rise is not a foregone conclusion by any means, and significant efforts to prevent that can be achieved just by local labour.  The same can be said of most other delta areas.  (Some, however, have porous soils that prevent protection of the land by sea walls so not all land can be saved.  I believe Florida to be in this situation, but don't quote me on that.)

    5)  For those areas where land has a moderate slope from the shoreline, sea level rise will involved moving a part of their infrastructure back from the sea on a periodic basis, but a a slow rate relative to the pace of infrastructure construction in many parts of the world.  It represents an additional cost, but not a large additional cost relative to normal production.

    All of this is not to say that sea level rise will not have costs (it will); or to say that it will not cause significant suffering for some people (it will).  It will not, however, cause the sorts of costs and suffering that are likely to bring a civilization to its knees.  Its costs will be far less, in relative terms, than those of WWII or the cold war; and massively less in proportion to disasters that have previously struck our civilization such as the Black Death.  As a threat to our civilization, sea level rise ranks significantly behind overfishing, and well behind some of the other potential, but not certain consequences of global warming including ocean acidification, ocean annoxia, and reduced food yield.

  7. How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?

    @Michael Sweet and Poster: It's time that the two of you cease and desist the Punch & Judy show.

  8. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Thanks for the aerosol info Rob...very useful.  FWIW, got another climate article published today in Huffington Post:  www.huffingtonpost.com/davidgoldstein/the-insanity-of-climate-c_b_4393750.html?utm_hp_ref=climate-change    More psychologically than 'sciencey' oriented.

  9. How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?

    Michael Sweet will you please read what I wrote not what you think I wrote.  I clearly stated that I am referring to the piece pointed to by John Hartz.  I am not referring to anything or anyone else at all.  My claim is not as you seem to believe "that no meteorologists are deniers..." but that this is not stated in the piece I read.  No more than that.

  10. How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?

    Poster,

    The key thing is that, as Tom Dayton's list proves, is that your statement:

    " I note that nowhere in that piece (as far as I could see) does it say that some meteorologists deny global warming. What it does say is that some meteorologists are not convinced of human input into global warming, which isn't quite the same thing:

    which I read to claim that there are no meterologists that deny global warming, is incorrect.  As I pointed out, meterologists who deny global warming are so common that it is unnecessary for John Hartz to provide examples.  

    As I asked before: I find your apparent claim that no meteorologists are deniers strange.  What is your point?  

  11. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    This Scripps Institute FAQ is useful in putting the oxygen question in perspective, which shows a loss of ~ 0.03% between 1992 and 2009, hardly something worth staying up at night over.

    scrippso2.ucsd.edu/faq

    (I'm not saying I think a massive anoxia event is about to happen, just so that's clear, though I'm no expert...)  The whole ocean acidification thing does worry me though.

  12. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Climate Lurker - I'll stick to what the research implies. Public claims of ocean anoxia are generally exaggerated. Yes, it is very much a problem for apex predators in the ocean because their musculature demands a great deal of oxygen, and well-oxygenated waters in the upper ocean are declining. See Stramma (2012) in Nature Climate Change. It's a long way from that to large-scale ocean anoxia though.

    I don't want to give readers the impression that our atmosphere will run out of oxygen because of human activity either - which I've seen suggested elsewhere. The de-oxygenation of the oceans is a problem though, and could favor jellyfish which are less dependent on well-oxygenated surface waters. 

  13. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Dagold #28. Good on you for commenting in the media on the research debunking the pause. I agree scientific comment in the newspaper media is often lacking in nuance. Frankly it can be at a poor standard although clearly your article is very good. I would like to see more climate scientists commenting directly in the daily media as guests, and combating the key sceptical arguments. This would get some respect.

    Of course the media sometimes dont want to dig too deep and have their biases. They like things to remain controversial to create an ongoing story, and digging into the pause may be seen as ending the controversy on recent temperature records. One can only hope they put important science first and the future of humanity first, and comment more on this pause in terms of the generating factors and research suggesting its minimal.

    Certainly the pause is minimal and is likely to end quite soon as the el nino / la nina cycle changes, but sceptics have used uncertainty and deliberately clouded the issue, to delay doing anything. Which I find very frustrating.

  14. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Hansen's Faustian Bargain still holds. Industrial sulfate pollution generally stays in the lower atmosphere where clouds form. They serve as 'seed' particles around which water vapor can condense to form clouds. Therefore they either settle out, or get rained out of the atmosphere rather quickly. The Faustian Bargain remains only because industrial sulfate pollution continues to be pumped out around the clock. If it were to ever stop, 'payment' would become due within several weeks, not years.

    Strong volcanic eruptions are different, the strong uplift from violent eruptions in the tropics get entrained into the upper atmosphere (above the level at which clouds typically form). The strong uplift near the equator as part of the large-scale atmospheric circulation, combined with the general absence of cloud formation, ensures that volcanic sulfate emissions can remain aloft in the upper atmosphere for up to several years in the case of large tropical eruptions. There has been some research which suggests intense industrial sulfate pollution from China is able to reach the upper atmosphere, but this is somewhat contentious. 

    I would also point out that some researchers have identified moderate tropical volcanic eruptions as a reason for less sunlight reaching the Earth's surface over the last decade or so (global dimming). The ocean circulation plays a part, but you can see in the Hiroshima widget (top right-hand corner of this page), that the heating rate declined after 2004. How much of that is due to dimming, and how much due to the ocean circulation, is an open question.    

  15. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Rob Painting, I have to agree regarding acidification.  It should not be ignored in any story about carbon, since it is the twin sister to warming (or maybe it's the left half of the body and warming is the right), and because oceans are the Earth's main source of oxygen.

    What will happen if mixing stops, and what is the likelihood?  Will it result in anoxia (seems likely)?  How did time play into previous anoxia events?  What was the relationship between ∆ pH, ∆ temp, ∆ ocean circulation, ∆ time and anoxia?  Seems like a complicated relationship.  If there is a time aspect aka organisms have time to adapt so anoxia is avoided, does our unprecedented rate of acidification mean too little time for adaptation?  I understand oxygen levels have been decreasing in the atmosphere, but think it is mostly due to the combustion reaction between CO2 and O2, yes?  Is there any portion attributed to less oxygen formation in the oceans?  I think the answer here is also yes.  Yale Environment 360 Story

    What tips the scale for ocean organisms that would cause a full scale anoxia event?  Since I don't hear much about this, I assume it's because the scientists who study it aren't concerned about it?  Maybe this is a whole separate Hollywood blockbuster...

  16. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Rob.   Hmmm...yes, I hear you about OA.  It's just so challenging to present effectively in the visual media of mainstream cinema.  Something for me to think about.     As far as the industrial sulfates....the one week life span does not change the basic dynamic of temporary cooling that Hansen called the 'Faustian Bargain'...is this correct?  Also, I have read that volcanic aerosoles remain effectively airborn (as far as the cooling mechanism) for 1 to 2 years a la 'The Pinatubo or Mt. Tambora Effects'...is this correct?

  17. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    David Goldstein - sorry to be a pedant, but the atmospheric lifetime of industrial sulfate pollution is typically just over a week, not years. Nice bit of writing though.

    As for your movie script, ignoring ocean acidification is a glaring omission. It could well be the most devastating consequence of fossil fuel emissions. Ocean acidification appears to have extinguished ancient marine life (based on the preferential extinction of marine calcifiers) in some of the major extinction events in deep time. Those rates of ancient ocean acidification were probably far slower than the rate of ocean acidification occurring today. Indeed, the current rate of ocean acidification is unprecedented within the last 300 million years.

    It's like jumping off a tall building, marine biologists suspect the outcome is going to be very, very bad, but it's extremely difficult to quantify. Even some species that appear resistant to ocean acidification (some crab species for instance), don't come off that well when one considers that their main food source is highly vulnerable.   

  18. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    "Regarding the alleged pause, I disagree a little. This is rather a big meme. I listen to ordinary people in the street discussing clmate change, especially the sceptical ones, and this is the big thing they quote"

    Yes, for now. My point was that this meme will fade. It will disappear entirely when the wind-driven ocean circulation switches phase and global surface warming rises abruptly. Of course the climate science cranks will simply move on to another meme. But I'm interested in the bigger picture, not the crank shifting of goalposts.

    As for future changes in El Nino/La Nina, that's an area of great uncertainty. There are a number of research papers that claim various things. No clear picture has yet emerged. What I have observed is El Nino tends to be stronger when the circulation is sluggish (positive Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation [IPO]), and La Nina stronger when the circulation is vigorous (negative IPO).    

  19. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    nigel- you comment that "the research suggesting the pause is minimal needs wider publicity".  I, of course, agree.  I actually wrote an article about the 'pause' several months ago for Huffington Post:  www.huffingtonpost.com/davidgoldstein/the-first-level-of-disrup_b_2975223.html       The problem is, as I see it, that even this relatively simple level of nuance and iteration is simply too much for the level of discourse these days in the media and the public-at-large.  Another factor, of course, is the question of what proportion of the media even WANTS wants to dig too deeply into the nuances of climate change. 

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] The use of "all caps" is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.

  20. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Rob Painting at 2. I certainly agree we are causing climate change, and climate change is causing suffering, and will cause considerably more. This does need discussion, its just a question of treading carefully.

    At the very least descriptions of human suffering must be totally accurate. My concern is the climate sceptic denial people jumping on any errors or waving their arms about scaremongering.

    Regarding the alleged pause, I disagree a little. This is rather a big meme. I listen to ordinary people in the street discussing clmate change, especially the sceptical ones, and this is the big thing they quote. Of course they dont undertsand the reasons that its just the solar cycle and la nina having a temporary affect on surface temperatures, and that the oceans continue to warm strongly.

    It would be good to see this issue adressed better in the newspapers and the research suggesting the pause is minimal needs wider publicity. This site does a good job on this particular issue and needs wider publicity. I look foward to your next upcoming article on the issue.

    I think global warming is probably changing the el nino / la nina cycle. This cycle isnt fully understood, but currents relate to differential temperatures affecting this and unevenly around the world. It may lead to bigger el ninos but fewer of them.

  21. How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?

    Michael Sweet my point was made based on  the information provided by John Hartz.  It was not a response to comments that are pure conjecure such as "Any Fox meteorologist is also most likely a denier. They were probably not listed in the posts you read since they are so common the writer thought it unnecessary to give examples."

    Similarly Tom Dasyton,  John Hartz didn 't provide a list of "denier meteorologists"  Had he done so my comment would not have been appropriate and would not have been made.

  22. Media failure on Iraq War repeated in climate change coverage

    The Iraq War Resolution was presented to Congress in Sept 2002, a year after the tragedy of 911.  The Resolution passed in Oct 2002.  In Nov 2002, there was a General election, during which the Presidents Party gained two seats in the Senate and 8 in the House, handing them control of both Legislative bodies.

    People play politics in DC all the time in scheduling votes for major actions, but a War Vote is different.  Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of lives hang in the balance.  If ever 'conscience' was needed to rule a Congressman's actions, this qualified.  But a year away from the horror of 911?  Scheduling a War Vote a month before an election ensured that Congressmen would NOT be voting their conscience but rather in consideration of the revenge-lust of their constituents.  Who can 'lead' with conscience in a War Vote when the Mob has been handed a hammer a month away?  In the House, 95% of the NAY votes for war came from Democrats, and in the Senate it was 91%.  And the Party clearly paid greatly a month later for those votes of conscience.

    200,000+ people, including 4,000+ American soldiers, died, in part, as an Afterthought to a War Vote scheduled primarily over its political consequences.  And the American media had Nothing to say about this.  It has always seemed to a particular kind of crime to have done this to our soldiers, and the Iraqi people, and for the media to treat it with no light whatsoever.  They are complicit in a crime.

  23. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Rob- yes, OA feels like it might be a 'Horseman of the Apocolypse' that is being largely (in terms of the general public) overlooked compared to his more 'glamorous' colleagues.  

  24. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Nigelj - "I do agree human stories of climate impacts are a great idea, however I dont think you want examples of specific human suffering creeping into this websites articles on the science, as you will make yourself targets for accusations of scaremongering."

    As I wrote earlier, climate change has and will continue to cause suffering. To ignore this simply because climate science cranks make spurious allegations is weak justification in my book. Burning fossil fuels = suffering. Those are the cards that physics has dealt us. Doing something about it is a moral challenge.

    "In terms of reaching the public the research debunking the pause is criticical."

    I think you underestimate the temporary nature of these memes. They are soon forgotten and new ones evolve over time. This meme doesn't really have any legs because the Earth as a whole continues to warm - especially the oceans. Ongoing global sea level rise is a testament to this.

    SkS also has a series coming up on the wind-driven ocean circulation explaining the fundamentals of the so-called 'hiatus' and 'accelerated warming' decades. Finishing the animations and graphics are the hold-up at the moment. 

  25. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Yube - it's an anecdotal observation. I am unaware of any public survey which delves into the level of understanding of its respondents sufficiently to gauge whether they truly understand the ramifications. When I talk to people (non-experts) I've yet to run across a single person whom has even heard of ocean acidification. And yet, on our current trajectory, an extinction event later this century appears likely as a result of ocean acidification and ocean warming.

    Coral reefs are already headed toward functional extinction, and a looming change in the wind-driven ocean circulation (greater warming in the tropical oceans) will see massive coral reef mortality in the coming years. Too late to stop that sadly, but it is likely to further galvanise climate policy activism.

    Boswarm - I have no idea what you mean about coming back to bite us. The scientific basis for climate policy action is overwhelming. SkS writes about the science relentlessly, and will continue to do so. But the more people that understand the moral implications of climate change and ocean acidification the better. If Jim Cameron's mini series, and the use of movie celebrities, helps to penetrate public indifference or apathy, even better still. Hopefully he avoids further scientific mistakes, such as those I pointed out in the trailer.

  26. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    @Jeremy(#9) - yes, Jeremy, I do address the denialist campaign (which in my screnplay has gone strong thru 2070).  I am fairly well informed (for a 'lay person') around climate issues.  It has been fun AND challenging to think about what to include and/or not include in a 2 hour 'blockbuster' type movie about a 4C warmer world.  For example, I have NOT mentioned ocean acidification because I am trying to be conscious of what the average (re: at best, superficially informed) citizen-movie goer can take in.  For instance, I include a scene straight from a headline story in my local (Eugene, Oregon) paper last month about coastal fishermen hauling in nets full of writhing jellyfish and baby octopi climbing onto their fishing lines in an attempt to escape an oceanic 'dead zone' - but do not mention OA specifically.  BTW, email me at dagold56@hotmail.com, be glad to send a copy for a read and some feedback!

  27. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    I have a design background but also some science, and I take an interest in climate change. I do agree human stories of climate impacts are a great idea, however I dont think you want examples of specific human suffering creeping into this websites articles on the science, as you will make yourself targets for accusations of scaremongering.

    If there must be articles like this on this website, they need to be separate articles clearly stating that they are dealing with the human side of climate change. Articles in newspapers would be good but they must be highly accurate or they will get ripped apart.

    For example look what happened to Al Gore. Al Gores book was very good on the science but it also made some open ended disaster speculation on sea level rise that went beyond the IPCC predictions, and he made himself a target for accusations of scaremongering. One relatively little thing in his book weakened it somewhat.

    In terms of reaching the public the research debunking the pause is criticical. Assuming this is strong research it needs much wider exposure in the mainstream daily media. This in combination with a human interest and suffereing angle would be quite compelling.

  28. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Although welcome, I doubt that a movie is going to move sufficient number of people to make a difference. It’s all about marketing – people need to hear the message 10-15 times before they sit up and take notice. And by message I don’t mean blogs, or arcane science papers that help contribute to our knowledge but are almost totally meaningless to the general public. By message I mean extreme weather events: extended droughts, massive storm surges, typhoons, extreme heat waves, etc. Even though the deniers attempt to downplay the relevance of climate change to these events, my sense is that most people recognise these events as being unusual, and climate change offers an explanation. But how many Florida residents can see the writing on the wall regarding loss of potable water because of just modest sea level rise? How many people in the south western USA think that somehow they will continue to have drinking water despite the continued reduction in Colorado river water flows? Just two examples of the many that abound in the world regarding the effects of climate change.

    I recently attended Green Party meeting where I live (BC, Canada), and a well-known climate scientist commented that I was a pessimist because I didn’t see any significant action happening in time to mitigate climate change (although he did subsequently comment that perhaps I was being a realist). The question is one of balance – how to convince the public not just that climate change is real (it appears most people now get that!) but to convince them that the consequences are going to be very severe unless something is done about it, and done soon, yet at the same time not have them give up hope. People need to be mobilized so that governments worldwide are forced to take strong action to reduce CO2 emissions. That is the real problem facing us. Living in Canada, with both federal and provincial governments hell bent on extracting fossil fuels as fast as they can, and a population that appear to be resigned to the status quo, hanging onto hope is tough!

  29. Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise

    Tom @12,

    I doubt you're right there. How are countries going to adapt to SLR of say 2-4 meters/century after 2100 (assuming they've managed to adapt until then)? The rich countries may succeed in adaptation for a while, but in the poor countries mass migration seems a more likely result, which would probably have strong effects in the rich countries as well (assuming there will still be rich and poor countries by then). It will be very costly to keep adapting to rapidly and continually changing shorelines, and retreat may be the only option at a certain point. Only if you assume the world will get richer and richer over the coming centuries, can I imagine such SLR would not be a major problem. But I don't think we can assume that, because there seem to be strong limits to such growth.

  30. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    John @ 18 

    Well surely you will allow me to ask for Rob to link a source for his "great bulk of humanity is unaware" comment. 

    (-snip-)

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] Moderation complaints snipped.

  31. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    wpsokeland: Your comment was deleted because it was sloganeering in the form of gobblygook. Sloganeering is prohibited by the SkS Coments Policy. Please read this policy and adhere to it.

  32. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    YubeDude: Your most recent post has been deleted because it constituted excessive repetition which is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy. You have made your points and Rob Painting has responded to them. Please move on.

  33. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Boswarm wants to delete my comment because it's not about science and he or she doesn't like the idea of showing the real face of the suffering resulting from climate change.  First, this particular blog is NOT about the science, but about the upcoming movie.  Second, science has failed to convince people to act.  Science is clearly important, but there are many more people in this world Un-moved by science than are moved by it.  

    I follow the science because I'm a scientist and it's interesting to me.  I 'care' about the subject because it is now, and will continue to, cause both human suffering and suffering to other species.  Because life is beautiful.  Children the most of all.  They are innocent, and they will feel the burden more than others.  Why is it offensive to try to make people understand that?

  34. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

     

    Ok, I've been having a back and forth about CO2 and water vapor and the usual about how it's a much stronger green house gas..  I referenced SK and discriped how water vapor creates a positive feedback loop.  He then goes into areas of science that are pretty technical but I suspect it's somewhat convoluted.

    He claims to be a H2O vapor is that it is vastly more variable as a mol fraction in the atmosphere than CO2, and that the signal to noise ratio picking up the effects of a boost of CO2 from 0.25% to 0.40% is going to be a challenge given the background noise of H2O cycling from near 0% to over 5% wildly over vast areas of the earth such that it is hard to know what average is.
    That is just background physics from knowing how relative humidity works, and knowing quite a bit about radiation heat transfer in gasses from having taken graduate level engineering classes in that subject.

  35. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Great to hear, this is a good thing and about time. People are moved by things that touch and affect their lives, like nothing else.

    Apologies in advance but I have to get this off my chest.

    There is no disputing the dedication and determination of climate change activists, and those working towards a 'carbon free' future based on the outstanding work of our scientific community. You’d have thought the overwhelming weight of evidence would have been enough to rouse and activate an increasingly apathetic and at times confused public (outside the community of dedicated activists). So what happened?

    Any change in direction will have to be driven by popular demand, and not by osmosis.

    Perhaps the key is to move the argument to the ‘audience’ and engage it at an emotional and organic level. Whilst individuals remain insulated from the true nature of things, leading comfortable lives, and who’s greatest fear is losing, or not accumulating wealth; they will not be inclined to act. Isn’t this message of fear being pushed by the denial fraternity?

    I would probably go further:

    Projects such as this TV series are essential to help engage and educate the public. They also help to mitigate and marginalize a highly organized and financed propaganda machine.

    However, there are a multitude of initiatives that work tirelessly towards a common goal, but where is the ‘Communications Strategy’?

    I doubt there any single organisation with the finances and clout to drive the message into the lives of the people who will ultimately make things happen.

    Dialogue and cooperation, coordinated through a single strategy (perhaps away from the UN) will deliver economies of scale…

    • Deliver an effective and incontrovertible empirical argument.
    • Move the whole debate away from politics to evidenced based arguments, defining and quantifying the ‘Opportunity Costs’ of the individual.
    • Identify the 'value proposition' that demands and holds the attention of the majority of the population
    • Personally attach the ‘audience’ to the problem, they need to own it!
    • Develop an irresistible 'call to action'.
    • Through highly targeted and well planned communication campaigns, neutralize the opposition's strategic and tactical position and operational advantages.

    It is now time to recognize the situation for what it is, emulate a corporate model and take a leaf out of the business strategic and marketing handbook. It is essential this is a professional and well led ‘Corporate Marketing Campaign’.

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Unneccesary white spaces deleted.

  36. How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?

    Poster, there is a list of denier meteorologists maintained by Forecast the Facts.  With quotes.

  37. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    @YubeDude #10:

    Simply put, SkS cannot be all things to all people. There are numerous quality websites that focus on the issues you have identified. Over the course of the past couple of years, more than 200 of these websites have been highlighted in the Spotlight section of the SkS Weekly Digest.

  38. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    The comment above that included this should be deleted:

    Since children are especially hard-hit by warming related diseases, there should be a ruthless use of their loss, the same way those religious organizations do to get donation money.

    I have always regarded SKS as an aurthority and and educator and still do, but this is beyond the realm of normal science comments.

    I am disgusted about the above, but to Rob, keep up the good work, as maybe you are right, but this eventually may come back to bite. Undecided so far.

    I prefer science.

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] For future reference, please identify the name and number of the comment that you are referring to when you post a comment like the above . Doing so, helps everyone follow the converstation without spending time searching through a batch of prior comments. Thank you.

  39. How do meteorologists fit into the 97% global warming consensus?

    Poster,

    Joe Bastardi is a well known denier who is a meteorologist.  Watch Fox News for the weather report.  Any Fox meteorologist is also most likely a denier.  They were probably not listed in the posts you read since they are so common the writer thought it unnecessary to give examples. I find your apparent claim that no meteorologists are deniers strange.   What is your point?

  40. Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise

    lennartvdl @11, obviously adding sea level rise to the generalized threat from global warming does increase the risks; but the overall risks from sea level rise itself are sufficiently small that even quite rapid (2 m/century) sea level rise does not greatly increase the risk.  Indeed, were it the only risk, or were the other risks minor, I would say the correct response to the risk from sea level rise would be adaption.  Unfortunately the threats are a package deal, and the threats from other aspects of global warming are sufficient to make mitigation a necessity. 

  41. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Yube - you are obviously entitled to start your own blog and focus on such issues. This post does not advocate any particular climate policy. 

  42. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Jeremy - I think you and Yube appear to be looking at this in the wrong way. The great bulk of humanity are completely unaware of the enormous threat posed by global warming and ocean acidification. Those people are Jim Cameron's target audience, and are unlikely to have heard of any of the bogus claims by contrarians.

  43. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Jeremy@8

    those 'minor' errors that will be latched onto by deniers, blown out of all proportion, and used to try - probably with some degree of success - to undermine all accurate / credible content.

    When you know the science, pound the science.
    When you know the facts, pound the facts.
    When you know neither pound the table.

    One of the points I was making by suggesting that the usual suspects will latch on to the messenger (Hollywood) or apply a cherry picker to find inaccurate outliers and then wail from the highest highs about how the science is wrong; never mentioning that science is not what Cameron is about or that slight mistakes in a glossy production does not alter the reality that various metrics have established.

    Something tells me that Heartland planed a fund raiser and cocktail party the moment this program was announced.

  44. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    Rob@7

    So I take it that you also would like to establish a parallel forum that invites a freer range of topics as they relate to AGW? Would you agree that amelioration and geo-engineering issues should be discussed in depth? Would you find it helpful to open up discussions on the nature of communication and the media as it relates to AGW and climate change? Should we not be talking about the economics as they relate to both the impact from climate change and the cost of re-directing the industrial paradigm?

    I know I would, but the SKS structure currently is resistant to these kinds of discussions as they enter a more subjective and interpretive area of discourse. Questions or discussions that enter into the politics of the debate and the form the message takes are somewhat off limits and it is often times hard to know when and if particular subject can or should be discussed.

    I applaud all the hard work being done here by the site administrators, the moderators and those who take the time to do the hard yards of research and submission of articles. I only ask if we couldn’t do more and establish a new line of conversation that allows topics and discussions currently frowned upon. Your posting Rob would be a perfect opening for this new forum.

  45. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    .... I should have made clear that I hope dagold (@comment 1), not Cameron et al., will include some 'historical' take on denialist culpability! My mistake.

  46. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    99% vs 97%? hurricanes twice as bad?

    It's exactly those 'minor' errors that will be latched onto by deniers, blown out of all proportion, and used to try - probably with some degree of success - to undermine all accurate / credible content.

    Cameron and colleagues will need to be extremely careful on that score.

    I hope they will also include some element - even just a passing reference - to denialist efforts to undermine effective mitigation. It would be interesting to have a credible, carefully thought-through 'historical' take on the issue, from the 'future'.

  47. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    "Yes tell the human story, yes tell it to a mass audience on Showtime, sure why not get James Cameron involved, by why discuss it here on SKS?"

    SkS has no shortage of blog posts on the dry technical aspects of  global warming. I contribute to SkS because, ultimately, we need to act to reduce fossil fuel emissions to limit further harm - the science is crystal clear on that. Unless, of course, the great majority of people want to act out their Mad Max fantasies for real. 

    A series such as this may help shift the needle of public opinion toward support of climate policy and this is to be condoned (IMO). The consequences of climate change and ocean acidification are emotive issues - people have and will continue to die because of the effects of climate change (more intense and more frequent heat waves for instance), so I am unclear how James Cameron is able to film the human aspect without invoking an emotive response - nor should he.

    Slavery/segregation/apartheid did not end because white people were convinced that people of coloured skin were not inferior, nor was it driven by politicians - they only reflect the prevailing attitudes of the day.  Slavery/segregation/apartheid ended when enough people were convinced it was morally wrong, and they then forced politicians to act. I expect the same with climate change/ocean acidification - there is going to be only so much suffering that people will put up with.

    SkS will continue to publish dry technical posts, but we (me in particular) will also deviate from that from time-to-time.  

  48. Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously

    I personally feel that a parallel thread is needed that goes beyond the actual science here at SKS; a place where the message is discussed and not just the metrics of science. Alas we do not have one so I am confused about this post.


    Unfortunately this is going to be for Heartland, WUWT, Morano and his lordship Monckton the kind of unrelated to the actual science focus point on which they can anchor all manner of obfuscation and irrelevance. This will be for the denailinistas what Sara Palin is to logic, reason and informed political discourse; a side show that addresses style over substance, where Hollywood takes the place of MIT and where science is shunted aside for a rain of tears as little innocent children run naked in fear.
    Yes tell the human story, yes tell it to a mass audience on Showtime, sure why not get James Cameron involved, by why discuss it here on SKS? If we are supposed to stay on topic and use linked sources to address the actual science why do we entertain these diversions that are neither scientific nor empirical in nature?
    There is no way in hell this movie/documentary film is going to avoid using the emotions card to try and bend our perceptions and attitudes; as soon as it does it will be game over for any objective and scientific discussion as it relates to the message.

    IMHO

     

  49. Experts say the IPCC underestimated future sea level rise

    Tom @10,

    I think you're right. And adding the risk of large and fast SLR to other severe climate risks probably does change the maths into making even relatively limited global warming a civilizational threat, that we better insure ourselves against, as far as we still can.

  50. Dikran Marsupial at 18:31 PM on 6 December 2013
    Attacks on scientific consensus on climate change mirror tactics of tobacco industry

    4timesayear wrote "It is most unfortunate that the IPCC did just exactly that with their research - the focus was solely on man-made CO2."

    someone obviously hasn't taken the time to actually read the IPCC WG1 reports then! ;o)

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