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Comments 48751 to 48800:

48751. tlitb1 at 06:29 AM on 9 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       @John Mason at 12:47 PM on 8 February, 2013

       Thanks for the reply.

       "I didn't say it was deliberate, did I?"

       I inferred you had in mind a deliberate intent specifically from the “...which is why [*it*] has promoted...” in the segment I quoted.

       I can understand speaking of observed large scale movements, tendencies, and even non-sentient chemical reactions in an analogous way to intention, but I always want to find out more, and question, when the author who uses them seems only to move within that analogous thinking without surfacing too often as you do to me.

       I want to know what you think when you say things like, as in your reply to me, ...

       "...but neither do they seem to have much concern that they are in the business of doing so..."

       "...that conscience-related bit has fallen by the wayside..."

       You seem to be clearly talking about motivations, or absence of good ones, in perceived powerful entities that you have a contrary position to.

       If that entity is best described as the "corporate world", then I would say that the "corporate world" is something that would more likely follow the dread "invisible hand" of Adam Smith. 

       i.e. be doing, or thinking, nothing. ;)

       i tseems to me that the corporate world is something that allows the luxury of detaching from modern society and speculating about what it is to be “disconnected”.

       Is that even a valid concept?

       The concept of “disconnect” implies there was previously a “connection” whereas I suggest if you were rather specifically arguing for a new method of connection then that would have greater resonance.

       I currently think that large scale economies and the “corporate world” have offered large parts of modern humanity the ability to find the time to make considerations of how best to “connect” to whatever they want to choose to connect to ;)

48752. KR at 06:11 AM on 9 February 2013
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       Composer99 - Excellent catch on the False Dichotomy. 

       Kevin - You have (incorrectly) posed the question of accuracy as binary; that if current data is accurate then previous data cannot be accurate, cannot be trusted, and you then attempted to use that as a Reductio ad Absurdum argument against corrections.

       That is simply wrong.

       The real state of affairs is a continuum:

       • Estimates pre-2007 were and are accurate, within some uncertainties.
       • Current estimates are more accurate, with fewer uncertainties.

       Again, if you disagree with any particular correction(s), you are going to have to present data demonstrating an issue with that. Not logical fallacies and arm-waving, which is all you have presented to date.

48753. Andy Skuce at 05:50 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       Kevin@10

       First, did you read the paragraph that I highlighted? It deals with the issues you raise.

       Second, I can't speak for Dana, but I am against any new hydrocarbon infrastructure that does not pay for the negative externalities that it causes, including new oil and gas pipelines. Every new capital investment in an energy project tends to lock in that infrastrucure for the project lifecycle, since the capital is a sunk cost. We can't afford to keep building the infrastructure that will increase carbon emissions over decades. This argument justifies Dana's calculations of the total, well-to-wheels impact of Keystone XL.

       See this post and the figure below

       

48754. dana1981 at 05:49 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       JoeT - I'm not sure where Pierrehumbert got his figure from, but I saw the XL 830,000 barrel per day maximum capacity in several places, including the State Dept EIS.  The existing Keystone pipeline has around a 500,000 gallon per day capacity, so perhaps Pierrehumbert accidentally cited that number instead of the value for XL.

       Also Kevin, I'm a he, not a she.

48755. JoeT at 05:41 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       Excellent summary Dana, thanks very much. It always takes me quite some time to go through all your references. I appreciate the considerable amount of time and effort it takes to synthesize all the reports you go through.

       Just a quick question. Just a few weeks ago I read the Pierrehumbert article on realclimate that you linked to with the Andrew Leach reference. Aside from the fact that he measures tonnes of C and you do tonnes of CO2 (a factor of 3.67), your numbers are 2.3 higher than his. He's got 500,000 barrels/day to your 830,000 and 0.42 tonnes CO2/barrel to your 0.58. What accounts for the difference? Thanks.

48756. dana1981 at 05:37 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       Kevin @9, see Andy @8.  Gold star to Andy.

48757. JoeT at 05:36 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       Excellent summary Dana, thanks very much. It always takes me quite some time to go through all your references. I appreciate the considerable amount of time and effort it takes to synthesize all the reports you go through.

       Just a quick question. Just a few weeks ago I read the Pierrehumbert article on realclimate that you linked to with the Andrew Leach reference. Aside from the fact that he measures tonnes of C and you do tonnes of CO2 (a factor of 3.67), your numbers are 2.3 higher than his. He's got 500,000 barrels/day to your 830,000 and 0.42 tonnes CO2/barrel to your 0.58. What accounts for the difference? Thanks.

48758. Composer99 at 05:36 AM on 9 February 2013
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       Kevin:

       These adjustments were made in 2008. This thread was started in 2007. Therefore there was confidence that these were accurate before they were. That is my point.

       Unfortunately, your point appears to rest on a false dichotomy: that data are either accurate or they are not. As Bob Loblaw noted, data are actually on a continuum of more or less accurate and there is almost always room for improvement. If the accuracy of GISTemp improved due to the 2008 adjustments, it does not follow, of necessity, that it was not accurate before, only that it was less accurate.

       I do not have a priori reason to expect that, just logic, common sense, and probability.

       A new algorithm is used that can find abnormalities better. It stands to reason, that the probability of finding data that "needs corrective action" only on "one side of the argument" would be rather small.

       This is an argument from personal incredulity, not an appeal to "logic", "common sense", or "probability". In addition, with regards to treating the data there are no "sides of the argument". There are only identifiable, quantifiable uncertainties & biases (of the methodological/numerical kind, not the political kind) in the data and adjustments to correct them.

       It is just a thought provoking exercise. Do you really believe that all those adjustments were needed, but that there was only the one adjustment the other way? I just read a piece by Dr. Sanford (Union Concerned Scientists) the other week where he was arguing that due to the fact that since there were MORE high temp records than low temp records lately, that this proved AGW theory. That level was something like 75-25, not 99-1.

       Are those Dr Sanford's exact words? Is there a link? Based on what you have written it appears Dr Sanford noted that high temperature records exceeded low temperature records in the given timeframe by a ratio of 3:1. How is this pertinent? Insofar as you are tying this back to a ratio of adjustments performed on NASA GISS, this appears to be a non sequitur.

       How reliable is the data. I am not naive to believe it can ever be 100% accurate, nor does it have to be. Again, this thread started in 2007, saying how reliable that data was, then there is a correction that adjusts the data in such a way as to increase the warming trend by 10% in 2008, so how reliable was it in 2007?

       That's all I'm asking.

       The false dichotomy identified at the start remains in play here. Just because the data was made more accurate/more reliable in 2008 does not mean it wasn't accurate or reliable at all in 2007. It just means it was not as accurate. If you suspect otherwise, can you provide some sort of calculation or other analysis to support your suspicion (or a link to someone else doing so)?

48759. Andy Skuce at 05:33 AM on 9 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       Trevor_S@19

       while Andy seems to think we can all live in cities and install a few solar panels and spinning windmill blades

       I don't think I quite said that.

       I have been influenced by Stewart Brand's take on the environmental advantages  of most of us living in dense cities (ie, not suburban sprawl). This report from the Brookings Institute has some numbers and this Guardian article comments on the generally smaller carbon footprints of urban versus rural dwellers.

48760. Doug Bostrom at 05:22 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       Kevin:  ...only the difference between this and "normal" oil should be used, as this oil would replace other oil used, not be in addition to.

       "This" oil is relatively expensive to produce compared to preferred reservoirs, "preferred" including those with fairly horrendous geopolitical or technical challenges. If for instance the Arctic were to produce a true Middle East or Gulf of Mexico elephant play, the tar sands bubble would go "pop" instantaneously, only to be reinflated when the hypothetical Arctic bounty was exhausted. Willingness to capitalize the tar sand project on the grand scale of Keystone is simply an indication of the confidence fossil fuel firms have in our long term inability to pick and choose between reservoirs. 

       The very existence of Keystone says your argument is plainly wrong. 

       Rather than being a weirdly unusual and impossible economic choice, the tar sands project confirms our inclination (or rather desperate need because, let's face it,  we're addicted)  to burn -all- available hydrocarbons, not substitute something more expensive for what can be obtained more cheaply elsewhere. 

48761. Kevin8233 at 05:15 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       She is objecting to the Tar Sands XL Pipeline.  She goes on to show how Tar Sands oil is worse (on a CO2 basis) than normal oil.  So far so good.  As I stated above, if she was objecting to any oil pipeline, her methodology is fine.  She is however, trying to show why the Tar Sands Oil pipeline is objectionable, specifically, because it is Tar Sands Oil.  That is why only the difference matters.  Again, as stated earlier, the oil from this pipeline will replace oil from some other source.  If this pipeline were to be constructed so as to support some new, dedicated new oil consumption enterprise, her logic again would be fine.  This oil will replace some other oil that is more expensive.  So if she wants to include the total, then she must subtract the oil CO2 equivalents that are replaced, which is essentially what I did, only earlier.

48762. Andy Skuce at 05:06 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       Kevin @7

       Dana also mentioned the incremental effect of burning bitument versus regular crude oil in this paragraph.

       Additionally, as Andrew Leach notes, this 7 billion metric ton estimate is in an ideal world where the oil transported by Keystone XL would not otherwise be either shipped elsewhere or replaced with some other source.  The EPA has estimated that the "extra" emissions associated with Keystone XL as compared to a no-Keystone XL world with realistic assumptions is in the range of 1 billion metric tons of CO2 over 50 years.  If these assumptions are correct, constructing Keystone XL only represents closer to 0.2% of our carbon budget.

       Which is what I guess you were after. 

       
       

48763. KR at 04:49 AM on 9 February 2013
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       Kevin - If you disagree with any of the corrections to the data, positive or negative in how they affect trends, you are going to have to state why that correction might be invalid! 

       You have not done so. 

       All you have done is express multiple fallacies: Argumented ad Consequentiam fallacy, an appeal to consequences, without addressing the truth or falsity of the corrections themselves (a correction was upward, therefore it must be wrong), the Common Sense fallacy, and an Argument from Personal Astonishment. I'm afraid none of those hold up against actual data. 

       As to pre-2007, our estimations improve all the time as new data comes in, as new relationships are identified. By your logic we should still be using Ptolemaic spheres...

        

48764. Dikran Marsupial at 04:45 AM on 9 February 2013
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       Kevin wrote "These adjustments were made in 2008.  This thread was started in 2007.  Therefore there was confidence that these were accurate before they were.  That is my point."

       If that is your point, you are labouring under a misaprehension. Most SkS regulars are well aware of the fact that there are homogenisation issues with the data, and that there will continue to be adjustments as the science improves.  That is the nature of science.  However that does not mean that the data are unreliable, even with the adjustments, the uncertainties are small enough to be confident of the conclusions being drawn on the basis of those data.

       Kevin wrote "Again, this thread started in 2007, saying how reliable that data was, then there is a correction that adjusts the data in such a way as to increase the warming trend by 10% in 2008, so how reliable was it in 2007?

       That's all I'm asking."

       However, Kevin earlier wrote "If the data is/was so accurate, why does Hansen keep changing it?  And why are ALL changes in the direction that support his belief?  You would think that at least some "mistakes" were made in the other direction, no?  How much cooler are the 30's going to get?"

       It seems to me that your purpose has changed somewhat!

       If you want to ask scientific questions, then ask them, rather than imply scientists have been disingenuous.  All that achieves is to create a combative atmosphere that rarely helps much.

48765. Composer99 at 04:41 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       Kevin:

       Your criticism of Dana's logic & calculations appears to rest on your assumption that:

       Instead of calculating the total quantity of CO2 equivalents generated by this [the ongoing extraction of fossil fuels from Alberta tar sands], only the difference between this and "normal" oil should be used, as this oil would replace other oil used, not be in addition to. [Emphasis mine.]

       What is your justification for this assumption?

48766. Kevin8233 at 04:29 AM on 9 February 2013
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       Kevin, if everybody thought the data were right before the adjustment they would have stopped working on it and the adjustment would not have been made. The adjustment was made precisely because of the research of climatologists who work to understand the limitations of the data.

       These adjustments were made in 2008.  This thread was started in 2007.  Therefore there was confidence that these were accurate before they were.  That is my point.

        

       There is no a priori reason to expect that adjustments to NASA GISS historical temperature data must be "fair and balanced". Only that they (a) address identifiable problems with the data and (b) are methodologically sound.

       You are correct.  I do not have a priori reason to expect that, just logic, common sense, and probability. 

       A new algorithm is used that can find abnormalities better.  It stands to reason, that the probability of finding data that "needs corrective action" only on "one side of the argument" would be rather small.

       It is just a thought provoking exercise.  Do you really believe that all those adjustments were needed, but that there was only the one adjustment the other way?  I just read a piece by Dr. Sanford (Union Concerned Scientists) the other week where he was arguing that due to the fact that since there were MORE high temp records than low temp records lately, that this proved AGW theory.  That level was something like 75-25, not 99-1.

        

       You seem to be falling into the "if we don't know everything, we know nothing" mindset where certain individuals in the fake skeptic camp play the uncertainty monster.

       This is the nature of the thread here.  How reliable is the data.  I am not naive to believe it can ever be 100% accurate, nor does it have to be.  Again, this thread started in 2007, saying how reliable that data was, then there is a correction that adjusts the data in such a way as to increase the warming trend by 10% in 2008, so how reliable was it in 2007?

       That's all I'm asking.

48767. John Mason at 04:25 AM on 9 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       Interesting - a broad church there, so to speak. Personally I come at this from an observational, science-based position, but I do think people of almost all persuasions are increasingly recognising that something has gone badly wrong. I know some very conservative people, politically-speaking, who also hold this view and are searching for answers. The simplistic 'left versus right' argument that some tend to put forward looks even weaker in the light of your above post.

       It doesn't matter, senso stricto, whether the world was created or came into being via geological processes (the evidence tells me the second one). We can discuss that at our leisure after solving the big problem of our time - making sure it still feeds, waters and oxygenates us into the long future, and to do that the climate needs to be relatively stable.

48768. Kevin8233 at 03:58 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       Kevin - please read the "What is the Potential Climate Impact of Keystone XL?" section more carefully.

       My statement stands.  You calculated the TOTAL potential impact, and I am stating that that is illogical.  It is the "above and beyond" normal oil that is important to the issue of whether or not to proceed with the XL.  Your logic would argue against ANY oil pipeline, not tar sands pipeline.

        

48769. numerobis at 03:35 AM on 9 February 2013
       WYSIWYG Comments Feature
       

       On iOS/safari, the edit box does not scroll when you go back to edit a post, sometimes.  But not consistently (I'm failing to reproduce right now).  It also seems to interact poorly with the autocorrect: it's offering corrections for words I deleted.

       I've noticed the same with some bb forums.

       An option to have a dumb editor for "smart"phones and other dumb browsers would be ideal.

48770. John Hartz at 03:33 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       The Forward on Climate rally scheduled for Sunday, Feb 17 in Washington, DC is being sponsored by more than 100 environmental and progressive organizations in the US and Canada. To access a complete list of the sponsoring organizations, click here.

48771. numerobis at 03:27 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       "There is no reason to do it"

       There are many very good reasons to exploit tar sands.  The work is bringing very good jobs to some perfectly nice human beings, and it provides energy at a cheaper short-term cost for everyone.  It brings in large revenues to the relevant branches of government, who can then run social programs with only light tax burdens on the general population.  And, of course, it brings huge profits to the companies involved.

       Long term they are a disaster, of course.

48772. saileshrao at 02:52 AM on 9 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       From the Durban addendum on the Interfaith Declaration on Climate Change presented to Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of UNFCCC in Durban, Nov. 2011:
       
       "While Climate Change is a symptom, a fever that our Earth has contracted, the underlying disease is the disconnection from creation that plagues human societies throughout our world. We, the undersigned, pledge to heal this disconnection by promoting and exemplifying compassion for all creation in all our actions."
       
       Signed:
       Archbishop Desmond Tutu
       Ela Gandhi, Honorary President of WCRP (granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi)
       Bishop Geoff Davies, Executive Director of South African Faith Communities' Environment Institute (SAFCEI)
       Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, Catholic Church and Chair of KwaZulu Natal Inter Religious Council (KZN IRC)
       Dr. Mustafa Ali, Secretary General of African Council of Religious Leaders
       Bishop Michael Vorster, Methodist Church of Southern Africa, Natal
       Rev. Jenny Sprong, Methodist Church of Southern Africa
       Rev. Emmanuel Gabriel, Methodist Church of Southern Africa
       Stewart Kilburn, HIV 911
       Saydoon Sayed, World Council on Religions for Peace (WCRP) Coordinator, Secretary of KZN IRC
       Rev. Sue Britton, Anglican Church of South Africa
       Rabbi Hillel Avidan, South African Union of Progressive Judaism
       Professor Hoosen Vawda, Nelson Medical School
       Cannon Desmond Lambrechts, National Religious Association for Social Development
       Dr. Sylvia Kaye, Secretary of Bahai Faith of South Africa
       Dhunluxmi Desai, KZN IRC and Southern African Hindu Maha Sabha
       Sr. Agnes Grasboeck, Sisters of Mariannhill/ WCRP
       Jerald Vedan, Buddhist Representative for Inter Religious Council
       Pundit Raj Bharat, Atman Universal Movement and WCRP
       Martina Grasboeck
       Fauzia Shaikh
       Sister Usha Jeevan, Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University
       Seelan Moodliar, Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University
       Isaac Wittmann, Young Adults in Global Mission - Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
       Kristin Opalinski, Lutheran Communion in Southern Africa
       Rev. Lumka Sigaba, Methodist Church of Southern Africa
       Jaine Rao, Climate Healers
       Dr. Sailesh Rao, Climate Healers
       Mark Naicker, Catholic Youth
       Stuart Scott, Interfaith Declaration on Climate Change
       Paddy Meskin, President WCRP South Africa / Secretariat for KZN IRC
       Moulana Abdullah, Inter Religious Council on Peace - Tanzania
       Mahomed Yussuf, Sunni Jumait
       Maulana Mahomed Ebrahim, Sunni Jamait Ulama
       Priscilla McDougal, United Church of Christ
       Shamim David, Inter Religious Council of Zambia
       Mantanta Wasim, Inter Religious Council of Zambia
       Sheikh Idrisa Mtembu, Muslim Association of Malawi
       Sheikh Saleem Banda, World Assembly of Muslim Youth
       Adam Makwinda, World Assembly of Muslim Youth
       Fred Kruger, National Religious Coalition on Creation Care

        

48773. Bob Loblaw at 02:48 AM on 9 February 2013
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       Kevin: "considerring everyone "thought" the data was correct before the adjustment."

       "Correct" is not a binary choice (yes, no) in science. No data are perfect. They don't have to be perfect in order to be useful. Even when they are already good enough to be useful, it is possible to get greater utility by improving the analysis.

       You seem to be falling into the "if we don't know everything, we know nothing" mindset where certain individuals in the fake skeptic camp play the uncertainty monster. If you waited until your knoweldge was perfect before doing anything, you wouldn't even be able to get out of bed in the morning.

48774. KR at 02:48 AM on 9 February 2013
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       Kevin - Regarding your complaints on adjustments, I'll just restate something I posted on one of the "skeptic" blogs on those very adjustments:

       It could be argued that it’s better to look at raw temperature data than data with these various adjustments for known biases. It could also be argued that it’s worth not cleaning the dust and oil off the lenses of your telescope when looking at the stars. I consider these statements roughly equivalent, and (IMO) would have to disagree.

       If you don't agree with adjustments for various biases, you're going to have to address them directly - regarding the particular adjustment, with support for your opinion - before such criticism can be taken seriously. 

       Otherwise, such complaints are just arm-waving. 

48775. Composer99 at 02:43 AM on 9 February 2013
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       Kevin:

       IMO your point is discounted because you have presented no evidence to support it. Only suspicions based on your perception of the adjustments and a graph from Climate4You.

       There is no a priori reason to expect that adjustments to NASA GISS historical temperature data must be "fair and balanced". Only that they (a) address identifiable problems with the data and (b) are methodologically sound.

       If you have evidence that one or both of (a) or (b) is not the case, or can link to someone else who does, then by all means bring it to the attention of the pros here (and even better, bring it to NASA's attention).

       But you are going to need more than your personal suspicions as expressed in:

       If the data is/was so accurate, why does Hansen keep changing it? And why are ALL changes in the direction that support his belief? You would think that at least some "mistakes" were made in the other direction, no?

       or

       I'd say a 10% adjustment is rather large, considerring everyone "thought" the data was correct before the adjustment.

       I don't have enough info regarding the algorithm to say anything more about it, except the general observation, again, that the chances of all the adjustments being on "the correct side of the belief paradine" can't be 100% (sorry - 99%).

       (By the way, can you please provide some kind of substantiation that "everyone thought" the historical data was correct before the adjustment? There's a rather large difference between thinking that data is 100% correct, and thinking it is correct enough.

48776. dana1981 at 02:24 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       As a general rule I would ask that people read the post carefully before criticizing it.

       Kevin - please read the "What is the Potential Climate Impact of Keystone XL?" section more carefully.

       jyushchyshyn - nowhere in this post did I 'blame Alberta'.  I merely talked about the Keystone impact on global and Canadian emissions.

       Arguments that "we'll just keep burning oil anyway" miss the point.  We have a choice whether or not to continue burning all of our fossil fuel reserves.  We need to choose not to.  Exploiting the unconventional tar sands oil is the wrong choice.  There is no reason to do it, and doing so has very negative consequences both for Canada and the world in general.  Exploiting the tar sands just brings some revenue to Canada at the expense of the global economy and the Canadian environment (and potentially the American environment, if the pipeline is built and inevitably leaks).

48777. Dikran Marsupial at 02:18 AM on 9 February 2013
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       Kevin, if everybody thought the data were right before the adjustment they would have stopped working on it and the adjustment would not have been made. The adjustment was made precisely because of the research of climatologists who work to understand the limitations of the data.

       Your argument is a straw man, the climatologists know that the data were collected for purposes other than climatology (i.e. weather forecasting, which has differing requirements), and research on dealing with these issues is ongoing (perform a google scholar search on "homogenisation" of station data.).

       Now just because the data are not perfect, that does not imply that they are unreliable, as the uncertainties are quantifiable, even if they are not displayed in every graph you see.

48778. Kevin8233 at 01:53 AM on 9 February 2013
       Temp record is unreliable
       

        Your claim that "ALL changes in the direction that support his belief?" is demonstrably false. In Jan 2010, an adjustment resulted in a decrease in global trend of 0.005^oC/century 

       So, my point is discounted because the changes are only 10%, yet, I am proven false because of one adjustment that is less than 3% of the overall adjustments?  That doesn't seem right.

        

       My overall point though, and the thread topic, is the reliability of the data.  I'd say a 10% adjustment is rather large, considerring everyone "thought" the data was correct before the adjustment.

        

       I don't have enough info regarding the algorithm to say anything more about it, except the general observation, again, that the chances of all the adjustments being on "the correct side of the belief paradine" can't be 100% (sorry - 99%).

48779. meher engineer at 01:50 AM on 9 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       Mason made a good point when he wrote, "You cannot see hydrogen sulphide gas, but at concentrations of a few hundred ppm (at which level you cannot smell it either) it can be deadly poisonous." Ozone, a Green House gas, makes for an even sharper point. G.M.B. Dobson, the "Dobson Unit" man wrote, “Fabry and Buisson, [4], in 1912, made careful measurements of the absorption coefficients of ozone and compared these with the absorption of sunlight by the atmosphere. From their measurements they concluded that there was about 0.5 centimeters of ozone in one vertical thickness of the atmosphere” (google the Wikipedia article on Dobson at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._M._B._Dobson, go to Ref 3, and click to get to his article on "40 years’ research on atmospheric ozone at Oxford: a history”; the quote above is in the Introduction). Ozone, in the stratosphere, protects all living things by absorbing the Sun's lethal ultraviolet radiation. Present in concentrations as small as a few parts per million in the air we breathe at ground level, it destroys our lungs. Incomplete combustion of fossil fuels like gasoline and diesel produces Ozone.  

48780. stonepig at 01:30 AM on 9 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       Interesting. Came back to see what else was commented.

       but Dr Yew???..."patently not about science. But it does have a rather sly political message of the sort that denialists will seize on to discredit SS: "there you go, we told you they were just pushing a leftie/hippy/tree-hugger agenda"

       I'm sorry, but I saw nothing unscience, sly, or something to seize on to boggle us stoned pigs.  I thought John's article was a delicious blend of where we are and what could happen, without stuff that boggles a statistical mind. Unless, of course, Yew consider the psychology of humanity a flabby soft science, ya, that'll connect Yew to a few good people...

       Thank you to the gardeners, and those antidotes about apples and such.  I wish those antidotes weren't true, but alas, the ignorance is the most boggling thing of all. Living in the country, snow drifted up to my windows, I am grateful for the water if it melts down into my well. Those are my dots.

       The connectedness is there, it's real, and despite those who don't see it, feel it, honor it, or protect it, it is still there, and will starve them during a great drought, or drown them on the seashore.

       If anything John, we need more of this expression about the reality of thought and action. Thank you.

        

48781. DSL at 01:14 AM on 9 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       I agree with skymccain, and I'll add that dialogue, as painful and slow as it is, is essential to the successful operation of a democracy over the long haul.

48782. Kevin8233 at 00:26 AM on 9 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       Bubble burster here, your logic is slightly off.  Instead of calculating the total quantity of CO2 equivalents generated by this, only the difference between this and "normal" oil should be used, as this oil would replace other oil used, not be in addition to.

        

       Since the difference is 580 - 487 = 100 (round off for ease), the final number is about 17% of your original number - still high, but significantly less.

48783. chriskoz at 21:08 PM on 8 February 2013
       For Psychology Research, Climate Denial is the Gift that Keeps on Giving
       

       Bert from Eltham@26,

       One thing where you might still be wrong is that according to you "Climate Science is inherently very complicated". I totally disagree.

       When I, still some 2yago, was thinking that the "debate was not settled" according to popular media, I appreciated the "skeptic arguments" as something complex, requiring high degree of expertise to grasp.

       Now, when I started looking at the discussions on this site, I figured out the occasional deniers' comments are so hard to understand, because they are simply illogical, often succumbing to various fallacies. On the other hand, the climate science concepts discussed here, filled in beautifully my knowledge of physics, chemistry, statistics. Because the information is logical, in accordance with everything I learned from primary school to uni, it is actually easy to assimilate. Much more easier than "skeptic arguments".

48784. chriskoz at 20:35 PM on 8 February 2013
       Icy contenders weigh in
       

       mdenison,

       
       I don't know the source of this 69ft of SLR claim in 189sec of the video. The Foster & Rogling graph is not readable to me. It looks like they did linear extrapolation of SL vs CO2 trend from last glacial maximum, which is meaningless IMO.

       Alley et al 2005 in their Fig1 provide a little different picture. And different numbers are exptrapolated when Richard Alley does "the absolute stupidest thing" with this figure from about 0:45 to 1:30 of this video, it looks roughly 10-12m of SLR covering 10% of the current population.

       So those "absolute stupidest thing"numbers are uncertain, especially given the uncertainty of the CO2 levels for which we have to go back some 30Ma.

       I don't understand how Jason got it fixed at 21m. But the bottom line is, as you can carefullt read in Alley et al 2005, this process will take some 2 milenia. Meanwhile a lot of things can happen and CO2 may go back down. And even if not, the 10% population/infrastructure is not the "end of the world" disaster. It is possible for homo sapiens to adapt to that.

48785. skymccain at 19:22 PM on 8 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       Skeptical Science is not in danger of losing its focus.  However, as a few comments have suggested, in a way, we err when we separate what we can do from what we should do. There is no perfect agreement on a scientific perspective of anything – that’s what makes Skeptical Science so valuable – so why must we demand perfect agreement and separation on the subject of ethics; what we should do? 

        

       I fully support the publication of this article and appreciate both the supportive and non-supportive comments.  After all, nobody is forced to read what they are not  interested in are they?

        

       Is Dr. James Hansen to be criticised because he speaks about his concern for his grandchildren?

        

       I could go on and on but want to keep this short.

48786. Jesús Rosino at 18:54 PM on 8 February 2013
       A Climate Sensitivity Tail
       

       JasonB,

       Thanks for your insighful explanations, I especially liked the one about signal/noise in the LGM. I have to reflect on them for a while, but your arguments seem convincing to me. It would have been nice anyway if Annan had been around here to add something :).

       Of course, I agree that this discussion is interesting for the sake of accuracy, but doesn't have political implications. The main uncertainty in long-term proyections is rather the emission scenario we follow.

48787. MartinG at 18:53 PM on 8 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       The only reason for building the pipeline is that somebody wants to make a profit. Tar sands wreak a lot of environmental damage, and are a very inefficient source of energy. We need energy even though we don’t like what it does to the environment, but tapping shale gas is infinitely preferable to exploiting tar sands.

        So why not load these plans with the real costs of the project and hence make the project so expensive so it is uneconomical. Without profit greed will go look somewhere else. With less oil available the price will go up. Our real problem is to use our energy more efficiently – and the only realistic way to do that is to make it more expensive. Same goes for the SUVs - put a heavy tax on fuel to reflect the real cost of its use – let the price rise – and then, and only then will mr Joe Public take fuel economy seriously. Europe has done it – next step US and Canada.

48788. Trevor_S at 18:15 PM on 8 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       Dr Yew, you have a point but if you have the majority on the same page in relation to climate science, what then ? and while Andy seems to think we can all live in cities and install a few solar panels and spinning windmill blades, I don't think that will work, assumig you are trying to keep < 4 degrees cooler world.  If less than 4degress is not the end game, what is it ?

       It would be nice to see some firm numbers on the the destruction just doing that would cause, having everyone buy a new electric car, even if powered with renewables, billions of them ?  

       This seems one small step in perhaps providing a debate to what will the future have to be like ?  My partner and I are doing the modern version of Thoreau's iconic Walden, albeit with a Dam instead of a pond :)  as an expermineton in living a more simple existence for that very reason, we think there are no other options for the future but would love to see some informed debate with numbers.

       There was a similar piece here

       https://theconversation.edu.au/living-off-the-grid-is-possible-but-its-not-enough-to-fix-climate-change-10929

48789. jyushchyshyn at 17:51 PM on 8 February 2013
       An Updated Look at What Keystone XL and Alberta Tar Sands Mean for the Climate
       

       Again, you are blaming Alberta. No need to give up your gas guzzling SUV as long as you fly the gas in from a country from which flaring accounts for 99% of the well to wheel emissions. People do need to remember that industry only makes products which consumers buy. It is also true that in the case of fuel for cars, trucks and SUV’s, most of the emissions from “well to wheel” come from the tailpipe. Even if oil from the tar sands could be replaced with a more ideal source of oil, which could be difficult because OPEC countries have a horrible environmental record, the best emission reductions which could be accomplished without a reduction of consumption of hydrocarbon fuels would be rather weak intensity targets. Intensity targets are the controversial class of greenhouse gas reduction targets which could result in increased total greenhouse gas emissions if the growth of consumption increases at a sufficient rate.

       In order to make real reductions in environmental impact, consumers must take responsibility for their choices. These choices must be informed choices. Even organic produce and products which are recommended by such environmental groups as Greenpeace may not be the most sound products. Use of energy must be minimized by using such products as compact fluorescent lights and well insulated homes.

       Whether the Keystone Pipeline is approved or not will not change whether or not Earth warms. If people stopped using gas to power their cars, there would be no market for the oil and the pipeline would shut down and the investors would lose their money. But if we continue to use the oil without the pipeline, we will just buy the oil from other sources. Or perhaps there will be a gas shortage, which will result in a huge backlash. Denialists already want to jail climatologists, and they have yet to make any kind of sacrifice. If the fight agianst global warming leads to a shortage, it will be unsafe to go on a walk unless you wear a T-shirt that says, "Global warming is a hoax."

48790. JasonB at 15:20 PM on 8 February 2013
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       Tom Curtis,

       I think you'll find that a lot of "skepticism" can be boiled down to failing to put things into perspective. :-)

48791. BillEverett at 15:19 PM on 8 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       From an email this morning from a friend in New Mexico:

       "Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.

        

       "There is no other way for land to survive the impact of mechanical man, nor for us to reap from it the esthetic harvest it is capable, under science, of contributing to culture.

        

        

       "That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics. That land yields a cultural harvest is a fact long known but latterly forgotten.

        

        

       "Such a view of land and people is of course subject to the blurs and distortions of personal experience and personal bias. But wherever the truth may lie, this much is crystal-clear: our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy. The whole world is so greedy for more bathtubs that it has lost the stability necessary to build them or even to turn off the tap. Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora of material blessings.

        

        "Perhaps such a shift of values can be achieved by reappraising things unnatural, tame, and confined, in terms of things natural, wild, and free."

        

        

       Aldo Leopold
       (1948)
48792. JasonB at 15:11 PM on 8 February 2013
       A Climate Sensitivity Tail
       

       Jesús Rosino #17,

       There are some discrpenacy among probability distribution functions on Figure 2 based on the instrumental record, but all of them tend to point to the lower end of the sensitivity spectrum.

       They all have peaks at the lower end of the PDF, but the problem is that they all have long, fat tails — in other words, they are a very poor constraint on climate sensitivity, as I mentioned. The Last Glacial Maximum, on the other hand, is a much better constraint.

       The fact that the estimates based on the instrumental period tend to peak low has probably more to do with the fact that the climate has not been in equilibrium during that entire instrumental period and so therefore converting the sensitivity computed into an equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), which is what is being discussed, requires some guesswork (and, dare I say it — modelling).

       I'm prone to trust sensitivity based on instrumental record rather than paleo, as there are significantly less uncertainties regarding both temp and forcing changes.

       It's important to consider both signal and noise.

       There is no doubt that the temperature accuracy and many of the forcing accuracies during the instrumental period are much better than temperature and forcing reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum. In other words, the noise is lower.

       However, the change in temperature and forcing between the LGM and now is so much greater than the change during the instrumental period — in other words, the signal — that the signal:noise ratio is in fact much better using paleo reconstructions than it is using the instrumental period. That's why the range of estimates for climate sensitivity derived from the LGM are so much tighter than the range of estimates from the instrumental period, the last millennium, and volcanic eruptions, easily shown in that figure. The final result, combining the different lines of evidence, owes much more to the LGM results than it does to the instrumental period.

       Also don't forget that during the instrumental period,

       1. We still don't have a very good constraint on the influence of aerosols, and
       2. The climate has not been in equilibrium, as I already stated.

       For these reasons I trust the sensitivity based on the paleo data far more than I trust the sensitivity based on the instrumental period, and that trust is vindicated by the level of uncertainty associated with the sensitivity derived from each.

       It's true that there's no change in the warming trend, but, as Annan says in the comments, high-end sensitivities should show a gradual acceleration.

       I don't think that's true — not yet, anyway. There are a wide range of sensitivities in the models used in the IPCC reports yet the individual model forecasts haven't separated themselves into different temperature ranges based on their sensitivities yet, they're still all mixed together. So why should we expect the acceleration in the trend to have separated itself from the noise by this date?

       He adds that "quite a sustained steadying, with the limited ocean warming and changes to forcing estimates all points in the same direction".

       I don't say that Annan is right, my point is that I don't think he's saying just the same as mainstream climate blogs, and that he is indeed suggesting a (slight) change in the way climate sensitivity is portrayed in scientific reviews.

       I guess my point is that to the extent that he's saying something different to the mainstream climate blogs, he's wrong.

       I'm not talking about his claims that the IPCC and others have failed to damp down that long, fat tail as much as they should have — as far as I knew, that was "settled" years ago by his work, among others, and Figure 2 shows very clearly that combining the different lines of evidence very effectively shows very high sensitivities to be unlikely, despite the instrumental period on its own not being able to show that, so I wasn't aware that this was the problem that he claims it is — but rather his claims that the last ten years or so tell us anything useful. Think about it — if the various estimates of climate sensitivity based on the instrumental period still had such fat tails just five years ago, then why would an extra five years suddenly turn that around and allow calculations of sensitivity based on the instrumental period to now rule out high sensitivities?

       It's true that his statement is prone to controversy, but the denialist point that he is suggesting a sensitivity lower than 2 is easily debunked, and I think that this controversy may have the positive effect of attracting more climate scientists to the discussion put forward by Annan. :) Constraining sensitivity is an interesting issue.

       It's trivially easy to debunk, but that doesn't mean that the usual suspects will actually do so and won't instead blindly repeat it as if it supports them. Yet another example of how "fake" their scepticism really is.

       Constraining sensitivity is an interesting issue, but I suspect you'll find that there's little more progress that can be made on that front until the signal during the instrumental period is so great that the signal:noise ratio becomes higher than with the LGM.

       In other words, the only way to really get a much more precise value on it is by waiting until Bad Things Happen.

       In the meantime, even the lower limits of the likely range suggest urgent action. "Lukewarmists" like to pretend that we only need to worry if the sensitivity is really high, and that if it's somewhere in the middle of the range or lower (Steven Mosher defines "lukewarmists" as those who think there is a >50% probability of it being less than 3°, apparently not realising that that includes pretty much everyone) then we can sit back and relax.

48793. villabolo at 15:04 PM on 8 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       An apology to future generations.

       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD5xFKulrNk 

48794. Glenn Tamblyn at 13:31 PM on 8 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       DrYew

       
       The hard science of Climate is a necessary precondition for dealing with AGW, but it is not a sufficient condition.  Because the problem is fundamentally psychological in nature. You correctly point out the type of reaction denialists (n fact many conservative types) have to supposedly 'touchy feely stuff' ,  their particularly psychological reaction.

       But John's piece, although expressed as a personal narrative, is dealing with a different psychological effect. Disconnect is something I suspect most Westerners are afflicted by.

       So there is a conundrum. Do we not discuss something like this because it will  trigger a negative reaction in some people, even if the topic is meant to address  a psychological issue in another group of people for whom thinking about this might be highly beneficial?

48795. Glenn Tamblyn at 13:05 PM on 8 February 2013
       A Climate Sensitivity Tail
       HadfieldThe problem with trying to draw any inference about CS from decade scale surface temperature changes is that what we are often seeing is short term variability. Or mwe might be seeing fluctuations due to changing patterns of where the heat is going in the oceans with a flow-on impact on surface temperatures. Any measure of longer term CS must include the longer term processes. However we can't assume that because a long term process may have a certain long term impact that we can then assume that some linear proportion of that impact will appear quickly.Long termimpacts may well occur in very non-linear ways over longer time scales. For this reason I tend to prioritize types of studies in terms of how much weight I give them:1. Long term Paleo studies.2. Models3. Short term CS estimates.
48796. John Mason at 13:00 PM on 8 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       Dr Yew,

       Why do you suggest that recognising that the environment is of vital importance to Mankind's continued existence is the sole territory of left wingers or hippies? Conservatives need to eat, drink and breathe too!

       In fact, the reality is that it was the organised climate science denial movement who first projected the climate change issue as a right versus left debate. By doing so, they created the polarisation that still infests the online blog-wars. Events will catch up with this tactic at some point: like gravity, the laws of atmospheric physics don't care a hoot which guy you voted for! 

       In the meantime, there's room, I think, for a bit of philosophy here and there, because half the problem does stem from the way many view the world and the wanton consumerist lifestyles that many westerners (both left wing and right wing) have become accustomed to.

48797. John Mason at 12:47 PM on 8 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       tlitb1,

       "Could you provide any evidence for this alleged desire by this "corporate world" to promote a 'disconnect' amongst the populace?"

       I didn't  say it was deliberate, did I? It is, as you said, an effect. Take advertising, for example: it creates via clever messaging an effective illusory projection in order to sell stuff to people that they do not necessarily need. The deliberate bit is creating the advertising message. The effect is to further disconnect people from actuality. This is promoted not to disconnect people but to make money, which is the raison d'etre for corporations. They may not desire to further disconnect people, but neither do they seem to have much concern that they are in the business of doing so: in the race to rake in more numbers than the competition that conscience-related bit has fallen by the wayside, a bit like the environment!

48798. Tom Curtis at 11:45 AM on 8 February 2013
       Temp record is unreliable
       

       IanC, thankyou for your detailed analysis.  I note that your plotted difference is a close match to that provided by Kevin, but what a difference in perspective does the inclusion of the original data make.  In this case it is worth noting that the GISStemp trend is 0.64 C per century.  The overall change in trend is, therefore, less than 10% of the total.

48799. Andy Skuce at 11:41 AM on 8 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       DrYew@9

       Our main focus here remains on the science and on countering misinformation. But the challenge that we face in addressing climate change is not just a technical one, values matter. Even science journals like Nature have political editorials, for example, the recent one on the Keystone XL pipeline, not that I agree with it.

       All of the contributors to Skeptical Science do it for free. We are driven by varied motives and have many diverse viewpoints, but I think it is fair to say that all of us want to see the slide into a climate crisis halted. That has led me into a lot of reading outside of hard science—on politics, economics, philosophy, psychology and even sociology—in an effort to try and understand why policy changes are so slow in coming. If only it were as easy as pointing out that some people on the Internet are wrong about the science.

       I believe that John Mason is quite right in pointing out how many of us have become detached from the natural world. I don't share all of his views (nor he mine) and I don't think that the kind of lifestyle he lives is a realistic one for most of us; the great majority of people are going to have to continue to live in big cities. I am currently working on a couple of articles that look at the disconnect that many of us have in connecting our knowledge of climate science to climate action. See, for example, this non-science opinion piece in the Royal Meteorological Society journal Weather.

       I disagree with you when you say that we need a mono-focus on the science. As somebody (Swift?) said: You can't reason somebody out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into. Similarly, we can't rely on just hard-sciencing our way out of a problem that we didn't hard-science our way into.

48800. Gestur at 11:00 AM on 8 February 2013
       The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
       

       John, I’m very grateful indeed to you for this fine essay. I personally share with you a dismay at how fast so many of us have lost these connections, as I also know the satisfactions of reconnecting to nature in this simple way of growing some of your own food. These are important thoughts you’ve set down—of the utmost importance—that positively need to be brought up and thought about deeply by all of us these days.

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