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2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #31

Posted on 1 August 2020 by John Hartz

A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, July 26 through Sat, Aug 1, 2020

Editor's Choice

The four types of climate denier, and why you should ignore them all

The shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological fool: each distorts the urgent global debate in their own way

Mer de Glace glacier in the French Alps

‘Serious debates about what to do about the climate crisis are turning into action. The deniers have nothing to contribute to this.’ Signs of global warming on the Mer de Glace glacier in the French Alps. Photograph: Konrad K/SIPA/REX/Shutterstock

Anew book, described as “deeply and fatally flawed” by an expert reviewer, recently reached the top of Amazon’s bestseller list for environmental science and made it into a weekly top 10 list for all nonfiction titles.

How did this happen? Because, as Brendan Behan put it, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”. In an article promoting his book, Michael Shellenberger – with jaw-dropping hubris – apologises on behalf of all environmentalists for the “climate scare we created over the last 30 years”.

Shellenberger was named a hero of the environment by Time magazine in 2008 and is a loud advocate of nuclear power, but the article was described by six leading scientists as “cherry-picking”, “misleading” and containing “outright falsehoods”.

The article was widely republished, even after being removed from its first home, Forbes, for violating the title’s editorial guidelines on self-promotion, adding further heat to the storm. And this is why all those who deny the reality or danger of the climate emergency should be ignored. Obviously, I have broken my own rule here, but only to make this vital point once and for all.

The science is clear, the severity understood at the highest levels everywhere, and serious debates about what to do are turning into action. The deniers have nothing to contribute to this.

Click here to access the entire opinion piece as originally posted on The Guardian website.

The four types of climate denier, and why you should ignore them all, Opinion by Damian Carrington, Comment is Free, Guardian, July 31, 2020


Articles Linked to on Facebook

Sun, July 26, 2020

Mon, July 27, 2020

Tue, July 28, 2020

Wed, July 29, 2020

Thu, July 30, 2020

Fri, July 31, 2020

Sat, Aug 1, 2020

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Comments

Comments 1 to 2:

  1. The science is clear. Unless we're missing something.
    "A 2015 study suggested that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) has weakened by 15-20% in 200 years."
    "May 20, 2020 - Over the last 200 years, the magnetic field has lost around 9% of its strength on a global average."(ESA)
    "Atlantic Circulation [is] Consistently Tied to Carbon Dioxide". Weakening AMOC means more CO2 is left in the air instead of absorbed in the ocean, no?
    The missing piece of the puzzle is whether electrically conductive salt water experiences the Lorentz force moving through earth's magnetic field.
    Weaker field = less AMOC = less ocean CO2 = more air CO2 which is what we're seeing and most of it is from nature (NOAA), and the time frame is even correct.
    Since the field is only half a gauss, the question is the quantity of force compared to the coreolis effect, convection or other forces.
    Scientists are currently frustrated in trying to model AMOC so that might be a missing factor.
    It's presented here as just a theory that can be checked out if we want to cover all the bases to avoid missing anything.
    Does this fall into one of the four categories or might there be a fifth?

    0 0
    Moderator Response:

    [DB]  Others have already responded to you, except for this:

    "Over the last 200 years, the magnetic field has lost around 9% of its strength on a global average"

    In actuality and for full context, the strength of Earth’s magnetic field is currently among the strongest in the past 100,000 years:

    "Except for the Laschamp excursion, which is seen globally in the model, other apparent excursions appear in limited locations and are likely regional in nature.

    Transitional or reversed directions during excursions do not occur simultaneously all over the globe. And, the regional duration of the excursions varies from a few centuries to about 3.5 thousand years.

    It has been suggested that the current dipole decrease and association with the South Atlantic Anomaly where field intensity is unusually weak might indicate an imminent field reversal or excursion.

    However, none of these similar cases progressed to transitional events: thus the present field morphology cannot be taken as any clear indication of an upcoming reversal or excursion."

    Panovska et al 2020 - One Hundred Thousand Years of Geomagnetic Field Evolution

    100,000 years of magnetic field strength

     

  2. The earths magnetic field is not causing the AMOC to slow. Magnetic fields affect electrical fields, not physical phenomena like ocean currents.

    There is no correlation between the slowing AMOC and weakening magnetic field. The magnetic field has been weakening for at least the last 200 years, and the recent slowdown in the AMOC is believed to have started at earliest in the 1850's but the strongest evidence suggests in the last couple of decades.

    The AMOC is slowing because anthropogenic global warming is not surprisingly affecting ocean currents. Some related stuff below.

    timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health-news/earths-magnetic-field-is-weakening-here-is-how-it-might-impact-you/articleshow/76003806.cms

    www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04086-4

     

    Why would anyone propose an idea like this? Not the average scientist. I think only a "ego driven" denilalist crank would do this.

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