Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Settings


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.

Home Arguments Software Resources Comments The Consensus Project Translations About Support

Twitter Facebook YouTube Mastodon MeWe

RSS Posts RSS Comments Email Subscribe


Climate's changed before
It's the sun
It's not bad
There is no consensus
It's cooling
Models are unreliable
Temp record is unreliable
Animals and plants can adapt
It hasn't warmed since 1998
Antarctica is gaining ice
View All Arguments...



Username
Password
New? Register here
Forgot your password?

Latest Posts

Archives

Search Tips

Comment Search Results

Search for 97%

Comments matching the search 97%:

    More than 100 comments found. Only the most recent 100 have been displayed.

  • Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

    Two Dog at 04:55 AM on 29 March, 2024

    "One Planet Only Forever" - I get the point about "having some merit" but couldn't the "deniers" make the same case?  i.e. that there are uncertainties in the man-made climate change narrative. One uncertainty that confuses me is why was there no global warming from about 1940-1970?  Presumably CO2 was increasing over that period.


     


    John Mason - not sure I understand the point.  Over history there has been many cooling and warming factors that are observed by the temperature record but largely unexplained.  How do we know this current warming is not, at least in part, one such warming period?

  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #12 2024

    Paul Pukite at 07:41 AM on 22 March, 2024

    NigelJ mentioned "extreme marine heatwaves"


    Heatwave spikes in the each of the major ocean basin indices — Pacific (Nino 3.4), Atlantic (AMO), and Indian (IOD). These are additive in terms of a global anomaly.


    NINO34




    AMO


    IOD

  • It's a natural cycle

    Paul Pukite at 06:55 AM on 22 March, 2024

    For the context of this thread, the important observation will be whether the anomalous global temperature rise of 2023 will recede back to "normal" levels.   If that's the case, it will be categorized as a natural cycle.


    So far it appears that there are simultaneous spikes in the temperature of 3 different ocean indices ENSO (Pacific), AMO (Atlantic), IOD (Indian). The last time that happened was in 1878, the year known for a super El Nino. Can see the 2 spikes in AMO for 1878 and 2023 in the following chart.


    AMO spikes


     


    That holds interest to me in Minnesota in that this year's ice-out date for Lake Minnetonka almost broke the record for earliest date (in 1878 it occurred  March 11, this year March 13)


    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/03/12/lake-minnetonka-ice-out/72941498007/


     

  • The U.S. has never produced more energy than it does today

    Paul Pukite at 10:18 AM on 21 March, 2024

    Energy use is outside the deep expertise of climate followers. Most don't appreciate that even though USA is the largest extractor of crude oil in the world, they still need a large fraction of imported oil.  The USA only extracts <13 million barrels/day of crude oil from it's territory, yet the USA consumes 20 million/day of finished product.  Compare that to a USA wheat crop where we harvest much more than we consume.


    USA crude oil import export


    USA crude oil import export


     Note that the above is crude oil only, and other liquid fuels make up the amount to reach 20 million.

  • CO2 is just a trace gas

    Bob Loblaw at 06:13 AM on 2 March, 2024

    In addition to what OPOF says about ozone, it should be noted that ozone in the stratosphere is an important absorber of UV radiation as well. Not that absorption of UV radiation in the stratosphere causes any noticeable heating. Oh, wait. It does.


    Atmospheric temperature profile


    As for the errors in using % or ppm as a measure of CO2 quantities, I'll beat my own drum and point to this blog post from a couple of years ago.

  • The promise of passive house design

    AussiejB at 08:32 AM on 21 February, 2024

    I studied Archecture and while I did not finish my studies the house I desigened for my first house followed the principles of this article.


    The second house built on the secondary dune on a beach north of Cairns in tropical Far North Queensland, Australia did not need airconditioning.


    Flow through ventilation from the sea breezes cooled the house and the ceiling area.


    Large over hanging roof lines ment that no thermal heat was absorbed by the house.


    If I could do this in the early 1970's, we can do much better in the 20's, especially with the building materials available now with thermal insulation to mitigate heat gain in the tropics and subtropics or heat loss in cooler latitudes.


    Good article I must add.

  • Other planets are warming

    One Planet Only Forever at 13:52 PM on 7 February, 2024

    I recommend a minor update to the first sentence of last paragraph of "Further Details".


    "For lots of useful information about Pluto and the other dwarf planets, NASA has a useful resource on its website, including a link to Pluto: Facts."


    And some interesting Pluto: Facts are quoted below:



    • Pluto's 248-year-long, oval-shaped orbit can take it as far as 49.3 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun, and as close as 30 AU. (One AU is the mean distance between Earth and the Sun: about 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers.)

    • From 1979 to 1999, Pluto was near perihelion, when it is closest to the Sun. During this time, Pluto was actually closer to the Sun than Neptune.

    • When Pluto is close to the Sun, its surface ices sublimate (changing directly from solid to gas) and rise to temporarily form a thin atmosphere.


    So, maybe Pluto would appear to warm rapidly during that orbit event ... but that would explain things in ways that climate science deniers, and the related delayers of harm reduction, would resist learning from.

  • 2023's unexpected and unexplained warming

    Daniel Bailey at 07:24 AM on 17 January, 2024

    cctpp85, one answer is that it's the difference between theory-based calculations (reanalysis products) and direct observations.


    Parker 2016 - Reanalyses and Observations: What’s the Difference?


    Atmospheric Reanalysis: Overview & Comparison Tables

  • At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

    Just Dean at 09:44 AM on 11 January, 2024

    I think this is where data from paleoclimatology can help as well.  Three recent studies have looked at the earth's temperature vs CO2 during the Cenozoic period, Rae et al.Honisch et al., and Tierney et al. .  Each of those show that the temperature of ancient earth continues to rise as CO2 increases.  As I understand it the first two are based solely on proxy data while the Tierney effort includes modeling to try and correlate the data geographically and temporally.


    All of these are concerned with earth system sensitivities that include both short term climate responses plus slower feedback processes that can take millenia, e.g. growth and melting of continental ice sheets. Both Rae and Honisch include reference lines for 8 C / doubling of CO2. In both cases, almost all the data lie below those reference lines suggesting that 8 C / doubling is an upper bound or estimate of earth's equilibrium between temperature and CO2. Also notice that there quite is a bit of spread in the data.


    In contrast, when Tierney et al. include modeling they get a much better correlation of T and CO2. They find that their data is best correlated with 8.2 C / doubling, r = 0.97.  Again, this represents an equilibrium that can take millenia to achieve but does to my way of thinking represent "nature's equilibrium" between T and CO2. 


    In these comparisons, the researchers define changes in temperature relative to preindustrial conditions, CO2 = 280 ppm. For Tierney's correlation then on geological timescale, the temperature would increase by 8.2 C at 560 ppm.  At our present value of 420 ppm there would be 3.7 C of apparent warming potential above our 1.1 C increase already achieved as of 2022, i.e., global warming in the pipeline if you will.


    Bottom line, based on paleoclimatological data, there is no apparent saturation level of CO2.

  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #26 2023

    MA Rodger at 21:14 PM on 2 January, 2024

    Just Dean @11,


    I would not agree that the Holocene paper Osman et al (2021) co-authored by Tierney is the sole reason behind what has become the “Holocene temperature conundrum.” Other studies also found an absence of a Holocene Thermal Maximum, eg Kaufman et al (2020) or Bova et al (2021), or a very weak one, eg Kaufman & Broadman (2023), or regional differences, eg Cartapanis et al (2022).


    Chen et al (2023) [ABSTRACT] characterises it as a model-proxy thing with these methods needing to sharpen their game if the conundrum is to be resolved.

  • CO2 limits will harm the economy

    One Planet Only Forever at 11:11 AM on 16 December, 2023

    PollutionMonster,


    I agree that Jason Stanley's book, How Fascism Works, is recommended reading.


    I recommended How Fascism Works, along with Timothy Snyder's book On Tyranny, in a comment I made in 2021 on a different SkS item, "The New Climate War by Michael E. Mann - our reviews". My comment there is @17 (linked here). Note that Bob Loblaw makes an additional excellent recommendation, for "The Authoritarians", on that comment string.


    We are indeed in "Strange Daze" (Days misspelled intentionally) full of examples of trouble-makers succeeding in "Strange Ways". Maintain your focus on learning to be less harmful to others. And help others, including trying to help them learn to be less harmfully misled (admittedly you will encounter some Almost Lost Causes - People very deep into the delusions and fantasy beliefs of misinformation and disinformation).

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    MA Rodger at 19:54 PM on 12 December, 2023

    Dessler's post does rather hedge its bets by suggesting it might be "due to natural variability persisting over an extended period" which will at some point come to an end (so as per the 2007-12 slowdown but in reverse). But he also points to the recent deep La Niña which may be amplifying the impact of the less-than-massive El Niño.


    The ENSO indices do show the build-up to present weak El Niño conditions were unusually preceded by strong La Niña cinditions which had been, if anything, strengthening through the period rather than, as is usual, weakening as El Niño conditions approach. (The MEI perhaps shows this situation best.) Yet the big 1997-98 El Niño also strengthened quite suddenly and showed nothing like this 2023 bananas situation.


    MEI el nino profiles


    The bananas (sudden appearance of an additional +0.2ºC in the global average temperatures) won't be some sudden forcing as there is no sign of anything (or things) approaching the required force. That means we have a natural wobble.


    But is that wobble reversing something that has been shielding the impacts of AGW and so it won't reverse? Or is going to abate in coming months/years? Dessler looks to the climate models as suggesting it is the latter. But the question is still an open one!!

  • Most people don’t realize how much progress we’ve made on climate change

    One Planet Only Forever at 07:41 AM on 7 December, 2023

    There is reason to continue to be skeptical regarding the rate of progress on the undeniable need for corrections of many ‘harmful popular profitable developments’ to limit the harm done to future generations by ‘most fortunate people’ today.


    Things are undeniable worse today than they should have been. The following quote describes actions that caused less correction to occur than could have and should have happened.


    “After years of inaction despite constant warnings from climate scientists, hopes had been high for a breakthrough in climate agreements in 2009, leading up to the U.N. summit — known as COP15 — in Copenhagen.


    But just a few weeks before that event began, a hacker broke into a server at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and released a tranche of climate scientists’ stolen emails. Though there was no indication of wrongdoing in those emails, some phrases taken out of context, combined with the then-unusual nature of the public release of private email correspondence derailed the Copenhagen summit, which was ultimately widely considered a failure.


    Climate science denial and policy obstruction thrived in the ensuing years (after the theft of East Anglia emails and misleading promotion of them prior to COP . That was exemplified by an incident in which then-Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, brought a snowball to the floor of the Senate in February 2015, because he apparently believed that winter snow proved that global warming was a hoax. (it doesn't)”


    Inhofe was likely promoting a misleading marketing scam. And the ‘liking to benefit from making things as bad as can be gotten away with’ crowd is still at it today.


    This recent NPR item “Oil firms are out in force at the climate talks. Here's how to decode their language” (linked here) exposes that those who resist harm reduction efforts rely on science, the science of misleading marketing. See the NPR item “U.N. climate talks head says "no science" backs ending fossil fuels. That's incorrect" (Linked here) which includes the following: “...al-Jaber responds to Robinson's suggestion with this incorrect statement: "I respect the science, and there is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what's going to achieve 1.5 [degrees Celsius]." That is my basis for stating that the beneficiaries of being more harmful ‘love the science ... of misleading marketing’.


    As presented in the first NPR item the Oil (and gas) firms have developed misleading marketing abuses of the following terms (watch out for how they are abused):



    • Low carbon and Lower carbon (no admission of the need to meet the Paris objective)

    • Unabated fossil fuels (abated gets a free pass even if it isn’t a significant abatement)

    • Net-zero (relies on the magic of actions that suck carbon out, or relies on the harm of their actions, providing fossil fuels that ‘other harmful people burn’, being perceived to be net-zero)

    • Reliable. Affordable and ‘secure’ energy (questionable claims made using these terms – all dismissive of harm done.


    The worst claims are the one about reducing perceptions of poverty - without mentioning that is accomplished via unsustainable and harmful actions – which means that no real reduction of poverty has occurred, just fleeting impressions that things have improved.

  • At a glance - Evidence for global warming

    Daniel Bailey at 06:20 AM on 6 December, 2023

    Yes, this is getting off-topic.  Risking pushing the envelope, all ENSO phases are clearly warming, due to the underlying and overburdening human forcing of climate becoming increasingly pervasive.  Perhaps a better thread can be suggested for such (but not here).


    All ENSO phases are warming

  • At a glance - Evidence for global warming

    One Planet Only Forever at 14:11 PM on 3 December, 2023

    Paul Pukite @23,


    I will continue to pursue the points I raised regarding your comment @2.


    I am confident that nigelj’s comment about similar trends was regarding ‘a trend like the global average surface temperature data - warming rather than cooling with more significant warming occurring after 1950 than prior to 1950’.


    Your comment @2, and later comments except for your latest @23 (sort of), appear to insist that it is not possible to have confidence regarding a warming trend in the NINO 3.4 region (the middle of the equatorial Pacific).


    Your comment @2 starts with:


    "All these show a similar warming trend." [nigelj’s point]
    Not the middle of the equatorial Pacific. (your response)


    As my comments should indicate, I learned from and accepted nigelj’s finding of an explanation about the current models indicating a larger amount of warming in the equatorial Pacific (especially the east part) than the actual observations. However, as I commented, that does not alter the incorrectness of your comment @2. But you do appear to have finally accepted your incorrectness (sort of) by ‘seeing’ a warming trend in the NINO 3.4 SST data.


    However, I am still confident that it is incorrect to declare that having confidence that ‘the NINO 3.4 SST historical data indicates warming similar to the global average surface temperature data’ requires an accurate explanation for the trend being lower than the current global climate models for that region and it requires that understood influence to be removed from the SST values.


    The data is what it is regardless of the mechanisms producing it. Large variations of the temperature data simply requires a longer duration of the data set to have confidence that there is a warming trend. And a lower trend rate will also require a longer data set to establish confidence.


    The NOAA presentation of the centered 30-year base periods (linked here) that I provided a link to in my comment @16 helpfully presents the trend of the SST NINO3.4 data set in spite of significant variations in the data values. Each 30-year period contains a substantial variety of the variation. Comparing the 5 year steps for the data starting in 1936 shows that there is indeed a recent trend (more significant after 1950 than before 1950 – consistent with the NINO3.4 chart you included in your comment @23). The 1966 to 1995 values, and all the more recent ones, are clearly warmer than the earlier ones. However, it also shows that the ENSO perturbations in the data are large enough to make the warming trend hard to be confident of, even appearing to potentially be a cooling trend in a shorter data set. The 1981 to 2010 results are not clearly warmer, and may even be cooler, than 1976 to 2005.


    Global average surface temperature data evaluations using the SkS Temperature Trend Calculator (linked here) can also provide an example supporting my confidence that the ‘noise’ of ENSO variations do not need to be removed to be able to have confidence regarding a trend.


    As I indicated in my comment @17, using the GISTEMPv4 dataset in the SkS Temperature Trend Calculator (linked here) the trend of the data after 1950 is 0.152+-0.018 C / decade (high confidence of a warming trend). I add the following set of shorter recent time periods and the resulting trend and level of confidence (2 sigma value compared to trend value):


    Years                  Trend +- 2 sigma
    2016 to 2023 = -0.148 +- 0.513
    2015 to 2023 = -0.066 +- 0.428
    2014 to 2023 = +0.074 +- 0.379
    2013 to 2023 = +0.180 +- 0.331
    2012 to 2023 = +0.244 +- 0.289
    2011 to 2023 = +0.284 +- 0.249
    2010 to 2023 = +0.262 +- 0.220
    2005 to 2023 = +0.229 +- 0.129


    The longer the time period is the more confidence there is in the evaluated trend. Admittedly the global average surface temperature variation in the evaluations is only about 2 degrees C. So a longer time period would be expected to be required for the NINO SST values because they have larger variation of temperature and a smaller trend. But confidence regarding the trend can still be established without a detailed understanding of the mechanisms at play. And I am confident that the authors of 2012 report you (mis)quoted in your comment @2 had reason to be confident with their evaluation and reporting (repeating part of the quote I had included in my comment @4)


    “...While centennial trends are not assessed here, we note that using a reduced period results in more consistent linear trends in SSTs over the 61-year record (Fig. 1), which are significantly positive throughout the tropical Pacific Ocean.”


    What the authors of the paper observed and explained, was that the pre-1950 data was not as reliable as the post-1950 data. And since the main interest is ‘warming similar’ to the global average surface temperature which has more significant warming since 1950 than before 1950, the earlier SST values are not that important.

  • At a glance - Evidence for global warming

    nigelj at 05:09 AM on 3 December, 2023

    OPOF & M Sweet.  You guys sound correct in your technical analysis and correct that  the equatorial part of the pacific ocean is warming (and I also thought the graphs posted by PP showed a slight warming after 1970). But the warming in a narrow band along the equator is at a significantly slower rate than  the pacific ocean as a whole (roughly 0.2 compared to 0.6 in the maps in  link I posted). The map posted by MS is a bit too large scale to pick up this level of detail and difference. 


    This basic pattern is important, and the  explanation seems quite good. I think that is the main point.

  • At a glance - Evidence for global warming

    nigelj at 05:44 AM on 2 December, 2023

    I don't think PP is a denialist. Have seen his comments at RC. We sometimes just get on edge and jump to the conclusion that anyone who says "flat trend" is a denialist because its a common denialist talking point. 


    We know the oceans as a whole have warmed considerably since the 1980s. But then you do have a few areas with cooling like the cold blob in the nothern atlantic. 


    I'm eyeballing Paul Pukete's graphs of the equatorial pacific and at best I can only see a very slight warming trend from around 1970 - 2022. I mean it does look flat or near flat, so I looked for an explanation and this is interesting. I have highlighted the main pargraphs only:. It seems to be consistent with what PP is saying.


    Part of the Pacific Ocean Is Not Warming as Expected. Why? BY KEVIN KRAJICK |JUNE 24, 2019


    State-of-the-art climate models predict that as a result of human-induced climate change, the surface of the Pacific Ocean should be warming — some parts more, some less, but all warming nonetheless. Indeed, most regions are acting as expected, with one key exception: what scientists call the equatorial cold tongue. This is a strip of relatively cool water stretching along the equator from Peru into the western Pacific, across quarter of the earth’s circumference. It is produced by equatorial trade winds that blow from east to west, piling up warm surface water in the west Pacific, and also pushing surface water away from the equator itself. This makes way for colder waters to well up from the depths, creating the cold tongue.


    Climate models of global warming — computerized simulations of what various parts of the earth are expected to do in reaction to rising greenhouse gases — say that the equatorial cold tongue, along with other regions, should have started warming decades ago, and should still be warming now. But the cold tongue has remained stubbornly cold.
    Why are the state-of-the-art climate models out of line with what we are seeing?


    Well, they’ve been out of line for decades. This is not a new problem. In this paper, we think we’ve finally found out the reason why. Through multiple model generations, climate models have simulated cold tongues that are too cold and which extend too far west. There is also spuriously warm water immediately to the south of the model cold tongues, instead of cool waters that extend all the way to the cold coastal upwelling regions west of Peru and Chile. These over-developed cold tongues in the models lead to equatorial environments that have too high relative humidity and too low wind speeds. These make the sea surface temperature very sensitive to rising greenhouse gases. Hence the model cold tongues warm a lot over the past decades. In the real world, the sensitivity is lower and, in fact, some of heat added by rising greenhouse gases is offset by the upwelling of cool water from below. Thus the real-world cold tongue warms less than the waters over the tropical west Pacific or off the equator to the north and south. This pattern of sea-surface temperature change then causes the trade winds to strengthen, which lifts the cold subsurface water upward, further cooling the cold tongue.


    news.climate.columbia.edu/2019/06/24/pacific-ocean-cold-tongue/


     

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    MA Rodger at 10:04 AM on 11 November, 2023

    Just Dean @22,


    My apologies for misreading your comment @20.


    The climatology community do not generally spend their time awaiting monthly global temperature anomalies and (as in the kerfuffle with the so-called 'hiatus' a decade back) tend to react to issues after they have arisen; and then not very fluently. So in that regard Jason Box is an oddity.


    Concerning the contribution of El Niño to 2023 global temperatures, it is true that there were stronger La Niña conditions in mid-2022 than there was in mid-1996 and particularly in mid-2014. Thus the change from a cooling La Niña would perhaps suggest more resulting warming in 2023. But the flip side of that is the La Niña conditions so far in 2023 being far weaker than 1997 & 2016 suggesting less resulting warming. (Note the 2009-10 El Niño also began from strong La Niña conditions in 2008.) The net effect for 2023 should then perhaps be 1997 or 2015-like. But they are not.


    Thus I would suggest there is ample evidence from the global temperature record to indicate something with perhaps even more warming impact on global temperatures than the coming La Niña.


    If the temperature rise (using ERA5 with assumed Nov/Dec 2023 anomalies as per @21) the global temperature rise through the first year and then the additional second year rise run as follows:-
    1996-97 ... +0.12ºC ... ... 1997-98 ... +0.19ºC
    2008-09 ... +0.13ºC ... ... 2009-10 ... +0.10ºC
    2014-15 ... +0.15ºC ... ... 2015-16 ... +0.18ºC
    2022-23 ... +0.30ºC ... ... 2023-24 ... +???ºC


    Perhaps it would be worth setting out the same data for was the most powerful El Niño of recent decades. This was overwhelmed by the El Chichón eruption of April 1982 which resulted in a cooling in 1982:-
    1981-82 ... -0.20ºC ... ... 1982-83 ... +0.19ºC


    So perhaps the Jan 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption and its water vapour is acting as a booster for 2023. (I mentioned satellite data @21 supporting this contention. See th 6 min video from Andrew Dessler here. It's now 3 months old.)

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    Just Dean at 23:36 PM on 10 November, 2023

    MA Rodger,


    If you read my previous comment closely, you will see that I understand we are in the first year of an El Nino event. I am indeed comparing 2023 to 2015 or 1997. 


    If you look at the global temperature series referenced in Zeke's July 26 CarbonBrief article, you will saw-tooth like structures for both the 1998 and 2016 El Nino events. The total temperature excursion over the two years was about 0.3 C, with each year adding about 0.15 C.  I realize that 2023 is extraordinary and might be closer to a jump of 0.2 or 0.25 C  but we need to see how this year and 2024 play out.  To quote Zeke from his 10/31 post on The Climate Brink, "It remains to be seen if we will see more exceptional warmth in the latter part of this year and early next as the El Nino event peaks or if this El Nino is behaving differently – potentially contributing more warming early on due to the rapid transition out of unusually persistent La Nina conditions – than we’ve seen in past events."


    We are observers in an unfortunate global warming experiment. We will need wait to see how it unfolds. To my earlier point to Michael, Zeke is trying his best to interpret this in real time, and allowing us to look over his shoulder, basically giving updates on a weekly or biweekly basis. I am not aware of any other climate scientist that is sharing insight that frequently. Between Zeke, Mann and Hansen, I find Zeke to be the most moderate, consistent and coolheaded. Yes, I'm a fan.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    MA Rodger at 20:48 PM on 10 November, 2023

    Just Dean @20.


    It is not correct to make a comparison of 2023 with El Niño years 1998 & 2016. We are in the first year of a 2023/24 El Niño and the earlier ones were 1997/98 and 2015/16. 2023 is not the El Niño year in which the temperatures jump.


    (Using ERA5 numbers), if we assume the October anomalies coutinue for Nov/Dec, 2023 would show a record year averaging +0.16ºC above all previous years. 1998 & 2016 saw similar +0.15ºC & +0.18ºC respectively. But 2023 is not another 1998 or 2016. We would have to wait for 2024 to make a comparison with previous El Niño years. And the coming El Niño is not looking anything like 1998 or 2016. It is forecast to be "moderate El Niño event", so more like 2010.


    That is why 2023 is being described as "Staggering. Unnerving. Mind-Boggling. Absolutely gobsmackingly bananas." The big question, which is yet to be answered, is 'Why?'


    2023 temps drivers


    You'll be familiar with this graphic if you follow Jason Box. It well-explains the temperature rise 2014-2023 but it does not show anything that would explain the "staggering, unnerving, mind-boggling & absolutely gobsmackingly bananas" temperatures we've seen over the last five months.


    (If you want to see how bananas, have a play on the UoMaine Climate Reanalyser and compare 2023 with previous years, then blank off 2016-23 and repeat for 'pre-El Niño' 2015. And again for 1997.)


    My suggestion as to 'Why?' is that the Jan 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption which was exceptionally large and being sub-ocean blew large amounts of both SO2 and H2O into the stratosphere. These two would cancel each other out so the rather chilly 2022/23 winter (globally) with the SO2 marginally more powerful. But that SO2 has dropped out now and the remaining H2O is still there providing us the bananas. If this is the situation (& there is satellite data showing SO2 dropping out quicker than the H2O), the bananas do thankfully have a shelf-life.

  • SkS Analogy 26 - Earth's Beating Hearts

    Bob Loblaw at 11:19 AM on 10 November, 2023

    groovimus @2:


    Congratulations. Your second post at SkS, and  you've provided two incredibly bad arguments in a single paragraph.


    First, you're making an "argument from incredulity" I can't believe that people are still making "I can't believe" types of arguments these days. [See how that works?]


    Second, you're making an "it's only a trace" argument. Usually people that are making an "it's only a trace" argument are doing it with respect to CO2 concentrations. At least we should give you some points for originality - for making it about the mass of humans vs. the mass of the earth - but you're still only scoring 2-3 points out of 100. If you were really creative, you'd go onto the CO2 is a trace gas thread and tell us how the mass of CO2 is sooo small in comparison to the mass of the earth, instead of the usual comparison with the mass of the atmosphere alone. It would still be a completely bogus argument, but boy oh boy could you really throw around some huge ratios!


    Also, you never did go back to follow up your first SkS comment, where you completely failed to provide any argument why anyone should listen to John F Clauser (the subject of the post you were supposed to be commenting on). All you had there was ad hominem rants and insults.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    MA Rodger at 21:23 PM on 8 November, 2023

    This Hansen et al (2023) paper was pre-published back in January and did result in a bit of discussion here at SkS. And there was supposed to be a second paper specifically on SLR.


    Hansen et al rattle through a pile of stuff, some of which I would agree has merit and some which I find difficult to accept, some very difficult. The high ECS is one of the very difficult ones. (Perhaps the point that the big part of the difference between high ECS values and the IPCC's most likely value ECS=3ºC, [something the IPCC tend not to identify preferring a range of values as in AR6 Fig1.16]: the difference is due to warming that follows the forcing by a century or more. That time-lag is one of the reasons the ECS estimates are not better nailed down and still has its 'fat tail' . It also would give mankind a fighting chance of dodging it.)


    SLR is certainly a big subject of concern. It is a long-term problem, multi-century. The equilibrium position for a +1.5ºC is perhaps 3m and the threat of setting Greenland into unstoppable meltdown at higher levels of warming would triple that. I do tend to get irked by the SLR by 2100 being the sole subject of discussion.


    Of course, predictions of that 2100 SLR being massive (5m) is one of Hansen's foibles. The worry is, I think, specific to Antarctica and it is a genuine worry. But to achieve 5m by 2100 would need massive numbers of icebergs bobbing around in the southern oceans and result in global cooling. And there is also the awkward point for climatologists that increased snowfall over Greenland/Antarctica could provide a significant reversal of SLR.


    The final issue raised by Hansen et al (2023) is the impact of the reduction of aerosols from our falling SO2 emissions. Quantifying the impact of SO2 emissions is not entirely global a thing, so emissions in, say, China may induce more cooling than, say, Europe. But that said, global SO2 emissions data I identify tends to be way out-of-date. The most recent is this one from a Green Peace publication. This shows the reduction in SO2 is well in hand over the last decade. And the CERES data showing EEI does show a drop in albedo (yellow trace in the 2nd graphic) through that period. My own view of these CERES numbers is that they include a lot of bog-standard AGW-feedback-at-work.


    SO2 emissions 2005-19


    CERES TOA fluxes


    There is also the last 5 months of crazy global temperatures (so post-dating Hansen et al's pre-publication). I don't see these as being sign of things to come. I'd suggest it is casued by the January 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption which threw both SO2 and H2O into the stratosphere, the cooling SO2 dropping out leaving the warming H2O to do its thing before eventually it too dropping out.


    And the in-the-pipeline thing. Climatology is/has-been saying we need to halve CO2 emissions b 2030, and following the point of net zero in mid century we enter a century-plus of net-negative CO2 emissions. That would see all emissions 2008 to year-of-net-zero removed by human hand and stored away safely. So that is on top of the natural draw-down of CO2 into the oceans. And if we don't do that, it will not be from ignorance of the situation.

  • New report has terrific news for the climate

    One Planet Only Forever at 03:06 AM on 22 October, 2023

    Fred Torssander,


    In addition to the helpful responses by MA Rogers and nigelj, I offer another perspective regarding the question you ask @3:


    How can we know that government action, external governing of the socioeconomic-political marketplace rather than simply allowing marketplace game players the freedom to believe and do whatever they want, has resulted in reduced harm?


    This can be particularly challenging if pursuers of benefit from harmful actions deliberately develop and disseminate disinformation and misinformation.


    How much less harmful are things today, or will things be in the future, due to policy actions? A more important question not asked by people asking that question is: How much more harmful are things due to a lack of development and implementation of effective harm reduction actions – especially the lack of effective limitations on the ‘freedom to benefit from developing and disseminating disinformation and misinformation’?”


    A good example of this problem is NPR’s recent, well researched and presented (and long and detailed), reporting (in parallel with efforts by the  regarding the efforts to cast doubt on the science regarding harm done by gas stoves “How gas utilities used tobacco tactics to avoid gas stove regulations”.


    Essentially, the understanding is that "...industry-backed reports confused consumers and muddied the science that regulators relied on about the potential dangers of cooking with gas, according to an investigation by NPR and documents uncovered in a new report from the Climate Investigations Center (CIC), a research and watchdog group." And that can happen regarding climate change impact reduction efforts.


    The section of the NPR reporting “How Gas Utilities followed the tobacco strategy” presents ways that science can be harmfully biased by the pursuit of money (the American Gas Association – AGA – referred to its pursuit of popular support for gas use in homes as “Operation Attack”). As mentioned in the article “the AGA was hiring researchers who previously accepted research funding from tobacco companies”.


    A particularly enlightening part of the NPR article is


    “Ralph Mitchell of Battelle Laboratories conducted work for the tobacco industry and had sought funding for research from Philip Morris in 1964 and the Cigar Research Council in 1972. Mitchell and colleagues at Battelle and the Ohio State University reexamined earlier studies that concluded there were health problems linked to use of gas stoves. Using an alternative, and in some cases controversial, analysis technique, Mitchell's team found "no significant difference in reported respiratory illness between the members of households cooking with gas and those cooking with electricity."


    None of the authors of the 1974 Battelle paper are alive today to answer questions about their work.


    "The research in question occurred nearly 50 years ago, and it would be inappropriate to speculate on the researchers' methods or conclusions," said Benjamin Johnson, spokesman for Ohio State, in an email to NPR. A Battelle spokesman offered a similar statement and wrote that the organization "conducts research that conforms to the strictest standards of integrity."”


    It is challenging to ‘conclusively prove the harm reduction of a policy action’. The only ‘certain way to eliminate doubt about the benefits of harm reduction actions’ is to have a parallel planet where the only difference is the action in question with monitoring for a long enough period of time to be highly confident of the ‘measurable differences’. Without that ‘impossible proof’ any suggested harm reduction action is open to the ‘raising of doubt about its merits’. Of course, there is also an inability to be certain about the benefits of actions that are potentially harmful ... but the potential perception of personal benefit can tragically over-power the ability to learn to be less harmful and more helpful.


    An obvious problem is the ways that disinformation and misinformation efforts can unjustifiably raise questions about the effectiveness of ‘likely very effective harm reduction actions’, especially when ‘perceived benefits’ have to be given up to reduce the damage being done, or when being less harmful requires more effort or is more expensive.

  • 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

    Eclectic at 14:46 PM on 28 September, 2023

    Sorry, Likeitwarm @1597 . . . but the Miskolczi "paper" proves no such thing.  His "constant infrared optical depth" ideas are junk science.


    Rob Honeycutt is pointing you in the right direction.  Look inside yourself and ask why you choose to cherrypick these disproven ideas originating from a few - a very small handful - of "contrarian scientists".   That is the question for you . . . if you are brave enough to face yourself in the mirror.


    Let me hasten to add : AFAIK the good Dr Miskolczi may well be a nice guy and kind to children & animals.   And AFAIK, lawyers would not consider him legally insane . . . but he is delusional about this area of climate physics.


    Sadly, Likeitwarm, there's a small number of scientists who are simply delusional.  It's a quirk of their personality, a crazy streak.  But that is no reason for you to be sucked in by them.

  • 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

    Likeitwarm at 04:38 AM on 28 September, 2023

    Sysop, Thank you for allowing this conversation with scaddenp and myself to continue.


    1562 scaddenp
    You said "What I am asking is whether you can remember what switched you into looking for sites like CO2Science or temperature.global? Was it just disbelief about trace gases or were there other considerations?"


    I've been thinking about an answer for you.
    I started looking into "global warming" back in the mid 2000s, 25 years ago,
    I think with this site https://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html.
    Many other places and books since then.
    I find a lot, 1000s or more, of scientists that disagree with AGW.
    One is Nasif Nahle who has calculated the emissivity of CO2 at less than .003 and and says that it doesn't absorb or emit much if any IR. You can see his calculations at https://jennifermarohasy.com/2011/03/total-emissivity-of-the-earth-and-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide/
    Then there is the Club Of Rome, a bunch of rich elitists that think they know best for the rest of us. Back in 1968-1974 they decided they needed a scare tactic to get people to reduce births, thus reducing the population of the earth and the resources used by them. They settled on AGW because CO2 is emitted when fossil fuels are burned. Reduce the available energy and you will reduce the birth rate.
    The U.N. IPCC was not charged with finding out what makes the climate change but rather how to pin it on human causes. See https://shalemag.com/manmade-global-warming-the-story-the-reality/ and https://principia-scientific.com/the-club-of-rome-and-rise-of-predictive-modelling-mafia/
    UN’s Top Climate Official: Goal Is To ‘Intentionally Transform the Economic Development Model’
    https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/
    You see, the goal was not to save us all from overheating the planet or acidifying the oceans. The goal was to scare everyone into giving up cheap fossil fuels.
    I don't know what the goal of you and your colleagues at Skeptical Science is but I do know you can create logic and equations to describe anything, so I remain skeptical of your site.
    Now you know where I'm coming from.  See www.ourwoods.org.
    Cheers

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38

    nigelj at 16:56 PM on 25 September, 2023

    Just Dean


    Regarding Hannah Ritchies video. I read the main points that she made in her video. Her points were basically that infant mortality is much lower than 300 years ago, poverty has come down, we have made some progess with wind and solar power, coal fired power is declining, and levels of deforestation have generally stopped and environmental pollution in America has fallen (despite economic growth). All worthy points to make and a good counter to the doom and gloom.


    Other writers have put a positive spin on human progress such as Seven Pinker in Enlightenment Now and Michael Shermer in The Moral Arc and IMO both books make good points.


    However economic growth has a good and bad side. The good side is obvious, but the article did point out the bad side. I don't agree with all the points it made, but economic growth has been a prime contributer of deforestation and its a bit naive to think it can continue indefinitely without causing more deforestation. There is also depletion of the worlds fisheries. Economic growth is also generally accepted to be one of the prime causes of mineral resource depletion (along with population growth) that is on track to leave future generations short of basic materials. Economic growth has been one prime cause of pollution in the development phase of many societies. While its possible to have economic growth and keep pollution at moderate levels as America shows, a necessary condition is a strong rule of law absent in many countries and America ( and other developed countries) is not exactly free of all pollution.


    It therefore looks like it would be very difficult and perhaps impossible to have indefinite economic growth based around resource extraction and processing and also have a sustainable environment, and also maintain ever expanding wealth. It is also hard to see how such economic growth would be maintained indefinitely if we are using up finite resources. So it looks like economic growth may fall naturally over time all other things being equal. Economic growth rates have been falling in developed countries since the 1970s anyway.


    Japan has had relatively minimal economic growth over the last 30 years but has maintained a good standard of living. So once countries reach a certain level of wealth it looks like we could have zero or near zero economic growth and maintain a good standard of living.


    However the commentary seemed to call for a more rapid and deliberately planned end to economic growth. This might face difficulties because our entire financial system is based on debt finance reliant on at least some economic growth to pay off the debt. If economic growth was abruptly switched off for good banks would not be able to make loans.


    Any governmnet brave enough to have a policy of zero economic growth (easily achieved through monetary policy) might find the entire business sector waging war against them along with a large part of the population. A zero growth world would probably require large modifications to how capitalism operates and this should be possible but doesn't look like it would be rapidly achieved. It seems more likely to me that economic growth will slow and stop of its own accord due to emerging resource scarcity, demographic changes, etc,etc.


    Its very hard and slow turning large ships around.

  • It's cosmic rays

    MA Rodger at 21:33 PM on 22 September, 2023

    sailingfree @120/121,
    The H. Svensmark input into AGW science has been in general seen as entirely overblown unless you are in denial about AGW when the idea that the sun plays a much bigger role than the climatology shows is usually seen as supportive of their denialism.


    Svensmark first published a cosmic ray climate effect back in 1997 demonstrating a remarkable fit between cosmic rays and global cloud cover. The fit proved to be spurious while experiment has demonstrated the causal link between cosmic rays and cloud formation to be very very weak. Undeterred by these setbacks, Svensmark has since been examining the detail of the cosmic ray/cloudiness relationship in an attempt to show there was a climatic effect after all.


    Part of this analysis by Svensmark homed-in on Forbush Decreases, a phenomenon identified back in the mid-1900s and today catalogued at an average rate of over 100 events per year. A relationship bewteen these Forbush Decreases and changes in cloud had been observed back in the 1990s.


    Svenmark first published on this phenomenon back in 2009. They used the most energetic Forbush Decreases (just 26 over 21 years) to produce a correlation between peak cloudiness and the Forbush Decrease strength (Fig 2- not entirely convincingly) and plotting the averages of cosmic ray evolution and average cloudiness evolution for the five most energetic Forbush Decrease events (Fig 1) although the reason for showing the averaging of these five alone is not evident to me in this paper.


    Svensmark et al (2021) which you ask about is simply Svensmark et al (2009) but using a correlation with the CERES radiation data. The CERES data restricts analysis to post-2000 events and now only the 13 most energetic events are analysed for the correlation (fig 2) with event evolutions averaged from (again) the five strongest events (fig 1), this apparently because there is too much "dominant meteorological noise" if more events are included, although I'm not sure that squares up with the effect being climactically significant.


    Of course, with the sun less active since SunSpotCycle 23, and thus presumably the cosmic rays increasing cloudiness which cools the climate, this would suggest that Svensmark's work would be implying amplification of the role of AGW rather than a diminution which denialists hope for. But such understanding may be a bit too involved for denialists to grasp.

  • At a glance - Does cold weather disprove global warming?

    scaddenp at 11:51 AM on 13 September, 2023

     Just to address the point, consider another cold country with frozen seas about it - Sweden. According to this -


    "In the 1970s, three quarters of Swedish homes were heated with oil boilers. Today, electric-powered heat pumps have all but replaced oil in single-family homes (most multi-family homes rely on district heating). That has driven greenhouse gas emissions from oil heating of buildings down 95 per cent since 1990, according to the Swedish Energy Agency"


    The difference is Sweden's willingness to act. A carbon tax in 1990 and revised building codes certainly helping. The very common district heating schemes also use waste heat and wood waste as well as GSHP.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36

    michael sweet at 03:21 AM on 10 September, 2023

    The Guardian had an article about Powis et al 2023.  This paper shows that heat waves hot enough to kill humans will spread to many locations with 2C of warming.  They use a lower wet bulb temperature of 31.5C where previous studies of extreme heat used 35C wet bulb .  Recent studies have found the 31.5C wet bulb temperature is fatal without fans or AC.  


    I have not seen a similar article that discusses when agriculturatal animals like cattle and goats will begin to be killed by heat.  Obviously it will be impossible to air condition pastures.  If the heat cannot be withstood by animals even occasionally, it will be very difficult to keep animals in those areas.  Imagine if they could not raise cattle in Texas for the entire summer!!   At 2C warming large areas of the world are too hot for humans (and presumably agricultural animals) (sorry, I could not copy the diagrams showing where the heat would be too hot for humans)


    Does anyone have a link for the threat of extreme heat to agricultural animals? 

  • John F. Clauser: the latest climate science-denying physicist

    nigelj at 06:10 AM on 9 September, 2023

    Eclectic


    "In comparison, Simon Michaux [referred to briefly in a different SkS thread, recently] does know what path we should be taking towards a wind-turbine & solar-panel powered economy . . . but says we cannot reach that goal, owing to inevitability of materials supply shortfalls. (We can't get there from here.)"


    IMO Michaux is taking a very doomy, pessimistic approach to the materials issue. The crowd who wrote the limits to growth in around the 1970s were the same and  proclaimed the world would run out of key metals like lead, zinc etc,etc,  by the 1990s and of course that never happened.  Lets explore why.


    Now firstly obviously materials are a finite resource. Some of the elements are quite rare and so scattered in the crust they cant be extraced economically. Even the concentrated mineral despots of those elements are not common in the earths crust. So we have a problem and are at risk of running out of some things longer term.


    But Michaux takes a particularly doomy view of the situation. He  looks at known current high grade / medium grade reserves and says red alert we are running out. But he is basing his warnings on known reserves of good grade ore depoits. He makes insufficient allowance for our ingenuity in extracting low grade deposits, making new discoveries, mining the sea bed,  extracting minerals from sea water (there are trillions of tons), high levels of recycling. And its highly likely we will get better at doing these things and in energy efficient ways.


    Im not talking techno hype where anything is possible and we will conquer all problems. Im just taking the view that its very likely we will find ways of  finding more materials.


    If we do run into severe shortages of materials we will have to reduce our energy use. Michaux concerns do not seem a good enough reason to give up on renewables completely, and he doesnt provide an alternative if we did do that.

  • It's cooling

    CORK at 04:27 AM on 5 September, 2023

    Climate's changed beforeWhat bothers me in the "Escalator" is the time scale. From 1970 to 2022 the temperatures rise, yes. 


    But this is not incompatible with a cooling at geological time scales. We may be in a rising part of the curve which will go down and over several 1000s of years the average will show a cooling trend. 


    The scale of time can be used and the curves can defend both arguments. Therefore the "escalator" is of no use. 


    The only pure fact in all the climate change saga is that humans are producing greenhouse gasses. 


    From that fact a whole theory of climate has been built. It is very difficult to say things like that without being insulted today. 

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #34

    nigelj at 06:59 AM on 28 August, 2023

    The retracted study made questionable claims that food production hasn't been affected by climate change. I came across this commentary recently, following a discussion on another website that suggests food production is already being negatively impacted by climate change:



    Climate change is affecting crop yields and reducing global food supplies
    Published: July 9, 2019 11.22pm NZST


    Farmers are used to dealing with weather, but climate change is making it harder by altering temperature and rainfall patterns, as in this year’s unusually cool and wet spring in the central U.S. In a recently published study, I worked with other scientists to see whether climate change was measurably affecting crop productivity and global food security.
    To analyze these questions, a team of researchers led by the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment spent four years collecting information on crop productivity from around the world. We focused on the top 10 global crops that provide the bulk of consumable food calories: Maize (corn), rice, wheat, soybeans, oil palm, sugarcane, barley, rapeseed (canola), cassava and sorghum. Roughly 83 percent of consumable food calories come from just these 10 sources. Other than cassava and oil palm, all are important U.S. crops.


    We found that climate change has affected yields in many places. Not all of the changes are negative: Some crop yields have increased in some locations. Overall, however, climate change is reducing global production of staples such as rice and wheat. And when we translated crop yields into consumable calories – the actual food on people’s plates – we found that climate change is already shrinking food supplies, particularly in food-insecure developing countries.......



    theconversation.com/climate-change-is-affecting-crop-yields-and-reducing-global-food-supplies-118897



    I wonder if Sky news have published the fact that the paper was retracted?

  • Ice age predicted in the 70s

    Bob Loblaw at 07:17 AM on 19 August, 2023

    MA Rodger @ 138:


    Yes, this discussion is wandering off the blog post's topic. There is no way to determine Don Williamson's motives unless he explains them, but it appears that he is trying to do two things:



    1. Take Oreskes' paper out of context to make it look like the 1970s "cooling" story was an indicator of a huge shift in climate science [it wasn't] - I presume to discredit climatology as a science [he hasn't].

    2. Bootstrap the idea that "they don't know what they are talking about - they'll just make stuff up" by using the hiatus as an indicator that warming isn't linked to CO2 increases [he's wrong] and we might flip back into decades or centuries of cooling even if we burn every last bit of fossil fuels [we won't].


    I have an off-topic challenge to Don that he has not yet responded to (review one example of the many "hiatus" papers he insinuates support him). I need to let him respond, if he is willing or able.


    If the off-topic sound bites continue without responding to that challenge, I will probably need to bow out of the conversation and take on a moderator role.

  • Ice age predicted in the 70s

    MA Rodger at 00:33 AM on 19 August, 2023

    Don Williamson @133 & others,
    Discussion of the early 21st century SAT/SST record is hardily on-topic for this comment thread. The handful of years showing a reduced rate of warming surface tempertures did not lead to a reversal of warming but to an increased rate of warming, so any linkage to 1970's ideas of a coming ice age is entirely absent, despite an attempted linkage @108 up-thread. (And for the record, the take-away from the SciAm article referenced @133 is the ascribed response fro 'researchers' to all the 'hiatus' nonsense:-



    "Picking a period of a decade or so where one part of the Earth's climate system fails to warm and using it to discredit all of climate science is a fallacious argument, and one driven by those with an agenda to discredit climate scientists."



    Don Williamson, you have up-thread referenced Oreskes in the discussion of the 1970's idea of a coming ice age and insist there is some missing argument that gives continuing credibility to this 1970's idea (which are also ideas of earlier times according to Oreskes. "Throughout most of the history of science, geologists and geophysicists believed that Earth history was characterized by progressive, steady, cooling.") Do note the referenced pre-print conference paper does not constitute proof of a 'missing argument'. And were one sought, perhaps Oreskes (2007) 'The scientific consensus on climate change: How do we know we're not wrong?' can provide it.

  • Ice age predicted in the 70s

    Bob Loblaw at 00:01 AM on 19 August, 2023

    As a further part of the challenge to Don:


    You have referred to "the hiatus". I will repeat the graphic of the Escalator:


    The Escalator


    Since the topic of the OP here is "cooling in the 1970s", and The Escalator shows seven periods of "no warming", please be specific as to which of those seven periods represents "the hiatus" you are talking about. Or a different period, if you have found an eighth.

  • Ice age predicted in the 70s

    Eclectic at 10:39 AM on 17 August, 2023

    Don Williamson @123 and prior :


    To put things in a more realistic perspective : the Ocean Heat Content continued to rise during the so-called Hiatus of atmospheric temperatures.  So there was actually no real Hiatus ~ it was just an interesting talking-point.  The globe was continuing to warm.


    Yes, we can discuss "the hiatus" as an abstract concept or as a propaganda topic  ~  but we are wasting our time if we tie ourselves into a pretzel trying to argue about consensus or scientific opinion regarding a physical non-event in overall global warming.


    Propaganda point: Yes . . . a real scientific point: No


    However, the 1945-1975 "cooling pause" was definitely real.

  • Ice age predicted in the 70s

    Rob Honeycutt at 04:09 AM on 17 August, 2023

    Don @120... The "dominant view" changed precisely because it became clear the planet had moved from a cooling period into a warming period.


    You're clearly not grasping there is no inconsistency here. What Oreskes is discussing is how "contrarians" might pick up on this fact and utilize it to create doubt in the minds of the general public related to the critical nature of CO2 driven climate change.


    It's not like before 1970 researchers thought CO2 played no role in climate. It's not like they didn't know atmospheric aerosols would cool the planet. 


    I think the difference here is related to changes in the earth's mean temperature and the cause of changes in the earth's mean temperature.

  • Ice age predicted in the 70s

    Rob Honeycutt at 23:58 PM on 16 August, 2023

    Also, Don... It was around the 1970's when there was some disagreement in the climate science community regarding whether the cooling effects of industrial aerosols or the underlying CO2 driven warming would dominate. At that point in time, there wasn't a strong consensus. It took additional study to convince the leading experts that CO2 was the larger, longer term problem.


    The good news was that we, as a species, were able to substantively address the issue of industrial aerosols through the clean air acts in the US and similar regulations in other countries. 

  • Ice age predicted in the 70s

    Rob Honeycutt at 12:51 PM on 16 August, 2023

    "Why not acknowledge the 'dominant view' was wrong and science coalesced into a new consensus?"


    Don... This comment is exactly what I'm talking about. There was (and still currently is) a dominant view that the earth has been cooling for the past several thousand years. There was (and still currently is) a dominant view that the earth had been cooling from the 1940's up to about the early 1970's. 


    What she's saying is that "contrarians" might exploit these facts of science in order to seed doubt in the minds of the general public about the clear reality of CO2 driven global warming.

  • Ice age predicted in the 70s

    Rob Honeycutt at 05:01 AM on 16 August, 2023

    Don... I know Dr. Oreskes fairly well, and have had several one-on-one conversations with her in the past during AGU in SF.


    I think perhaps you're misinterpreting what's being stated in this piece. Re-reading it myself, I wonder if you're thinking stating the dominant scientific view in the 1950's, 60's and into the 1970's was that the earth was cooling and would continue to do so. That would be an inaccurate interpretation.


    Mid-century cooling was, and is, very well understood and accepted. There was some exploration at that time whether cooling or warming would dominate in the coming decades, but even then the dominant view was that it would likely be CO2 induced warming.


    Famously, the renowned climate scientist Dr. Stephen Schneider, produced one paper suggesting that cooling due to global dimming from aerosol pollution was the bigger problem. Fairly soon, though, he also became convinced by the weight of evidence that the underlying warming from CO2 was the larger problem.

  • Ice age predicted in the 70s

    Don Williamson at 04:30 AM on 16 August, 2023

    To Rob Loblaw


    I couldn't find any reference to MacDonald saying the dominant view of the 1950s to 1970s was a cooling climate in your wikipedia link. Perhaps you could demonstrate that it was his thoughts not hers. I can't really bend my brain into that logic without supporting documents. What have you found?

  • Ice age predicted in the 70s

    Bob Loblaw at 00:50 AM on 16 August, 2023

    Don:


    That is a pretty short article by Oreskes, with very few references, and carries no date. It has a ucsd.edu email address (U California at San Diego). For her current Harvard web page, you can find a link to her CV, which tells us she was at UCSD from 1998 to 2013. So it is potentially a rather old article.


    In the 1970s, there was indeed speculation that the observed cooling might continue, but the "Further reading" section of this rebuttal shows more detailed analysis of how much of the scientific literature believed it was likely (not much).


    Also note that the title of the paper you link to includes "The work of Gordon J.F. MacDonald". Wikipedia has a page on Gordon J.F. MacDonald, and it is likely that Oreskes is summarizing the views of MacDonald rather than presenting her own detailed analysis. After all, she is a science historian. Also note that in her first paragraph, Oreskes states (emphasis added),



    ...not very long ago most earth scientists held the opposite view. They believed that Earth was cooling. Throughout most of the history of science, geologists and geophysicists believed that Earth history was characterized by progressive, steady, cooling



    MacDonald was a geophysist, and according to the Wikipedia page he also was skeptical about continental drift/plate tectonics. The contrarian community is littered with geologists that have limited understanding of climate science.


    I don't see this as an expression by Oreskes that she thought the "it's cooling" crowd had a legitimate argument.

  • Ice age predicted in the 70s

    Don Williamson at 23:40 PM on 15 August, 2023

    There was an article by Naomi Oreskes regarding the cooling climate dominant view of the 1950s to 1970s.


    I was finally able to locate her work after months of research, I heard rumors about it but it turns out to be real.


    It might advance the discussion if this is included in the consensus debate. It needs to be tackled head-on, what does Naomi Oresekes say about her previous paper?


    LINK

  • Wildfires are not caused by global warming

    Scott at 02:48 AM on 31 July, 2023

    Eclectic @14 /Bob Loblaw @13 You are correct, I assumed the diagram was from the IPCC, it isn't, and the increase it shows has very little to do with global warming. In that respect it is extremely misleading. The area burnt by wild fires has been decreasing not increasing. You criticised this conclusion as being from 2016 - yet in a 2020 blog post by the Royal Society the authors of the paper were interviewed again to find out whether things have changed since its publication. The answer was basically no. "... when considering the total area burned at the global level, we are still not seeing an overall increase, but rather a decline over the last decades. This has been confirmed in a series of subsequent studies, using data up to 2017 or 2018."
    royalsociety.org/blog/2020/10/global-trends-wildfire/


    From: 'Large Variations in Southern Hemisphere Biomass Burning During the Last 650 Years' Z. Wang,1 J. Chappellaz,2 K. Park,1 J. E. Mak1 (Science Vol 330 17 December 2010)


    "These observations and isotope mass balance model results imply that large variations in the degree of biomass burning in the Southern Hemisphere occurred during the last 650 years, with a decrease by about 50% in the 1600s, an increase of about 100% by the late 1800s, and another decrease by about 70% from the late 1800s to present day."
    Southern hemisphere biomass burning


    [For some reason images are not showing in the preview but the source is correct]


    The same picture is repeated globally. In 'Climate and human influences on global biomass burning over the past two millennia' by J. R. MARLON et al. (Nature Geoscience 1, 697–702; published online: 21 September 2008), they measure sedimentary charcoal records spanning six continents to document trends in both natural and anthropogenic biomass burning for the past two millennia. From this they obtain the following graph - again showing a very clear 20th century decline.


    GlobalBiomassBurning


    All this begs the question of why there has been such an increase in fires in California.
    "Autumn and winter Santa Ana wind (SAW)–driven wildfires play a substantial role in area burned and societal losses in southern California. Temperature during the event and antecedent precipitation in the week or month prior play a minor role in determining area burned. "


    "Models explained 40 to 50% of area burned, with number of ignitions being the strongest variable. One hundred percent of SAW fires were human caused, and in the past decade, powerline failures have been the dominant cause. Future fire losses can be reduced by greater emphasis on maintenance of utility lines and attention to planning urban growth in ways that reduce the potential for powerline ignitions."


    See 'Ignitions explain more than temperature or precipitation in driving Santa Ana wind fires' by Jon E. Keeley et al. Science Advances 21 Jul 2021 Vol 7, Issue 30


    In 'Nexus between wildfire, climate change and population growth in California' by Jon E. Keeley and Alexandra D. Syphard (Fremontia vol 47 Issue 2 2020) is a detailed analysis of wildfires in California. A distinction is drawn between fuel dominated and wind dominated fires.
    FireCause


    Population increase leading to urban expansion, accompanied by expansion of the electric power grid, increasing the chances of a powerline failure was a significant cause of wildfire. (The 2021 Dixie fire at 389,837 hectares was caused by a tree falling onto a powerline and could have been prevented had the power company acted promptly - see California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Investigation Report Case Number: 21CABTU009205-58). General poor maintenance by utilities has caused many wind dominated wildfires.


    Fuel-dominated fires are mostly forest fires in lightly populated regions and so tend to result in less property damage. A century of fire suppression has led to a huge accumulation of fuel at ground level. As a result a low intensity surface fire can easily become a high intensity crown fire.


    How 100 years of a misguided policy outlawing controlled burns has left California vulnerable to wild fires
    www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/21/wildfire-prescribed-burns-california-native-americans


    www.reuters.com/world/us/california-is-meant-burn-experts-teach-landowners-art-prescribed-burns-2023-06-01/


    In conclusion, the total area burnt has been decreasing globally and in California where it has increased this is largely due to misguided policies of forest management and poorly maintained, overloaded power infrastructure. (Urban planning which doesn't adequately address fire hazard doesn't help either). I think linking wildfires to global warming is misguided and likely to backfire when it is revealled to be the least important factor.

  • It's not urgent

    PollutionMonster at 18:07 PM on 29 July, 2023

    I used the tactic of asking for a source rather then trying to debate an incoherent argument.


     Denier link heritage


     This seems very similar to the other arguments they make usually focusing on how expensive and infeasible renewable energy is. Certainly more subtle than other deniers who deny the 97% scientific consensus.


     


     

  • How big is the “carbon fertilization effect”?

    Bob Loblaw at 06:06 AM on 14 July, 2023

    Yes, Daniel, Mr Burton certainly is consistent in wandering off topic in his comments. At least in this case he followed it off the Hansen post, but now he is mixing in CO2 fertilization and drought.


    He is also showing his years of experience in picking cherries.


    So many of the "CO2 is plant food" argument depend on studies in greenhouses, etc, where other limiting factors are not limited. The SkS post "Plants cannot live on CO2 alone" provides background. That may be a better place to continue this discussion.


    As for his drought comments, he has picked a global diagram (figure 5 out of the Hao et al paper he references) that  contains absolutely no regional information at all.


    Figure 2 from that paper (available online) shows some examples of the regional droughts as detected by their methodology, but the paper does not provide any information about regional trends. The figure (below) does indicate that "global" really is rather global. I suspect that changes in the desert zones (look at the Sahara) or high latitudes have little effect on agricultural productivity.


    Hao et al figure 2


     


    Mr. Burton's U.S. drought trend also suffers the same failure: ignoring regional trends. It is also purely a precipitation-based wet/dry analysis - not looking at the important temperature effects on drought. And each classification of "very wet/very dry" is solely an indicator of whether each region is wetter or drier than its own regional value - which tells us very little about drought. Quoting from the original source:



    Climate divisions with a standardized anomaly in the top ten percent (> 90th percentile) of their historical distribution are considered "very warm/wet" and those in the bottom ten percent (< 10th percentile) are classified as "very cold/dry".



    A normally very wet area that is only seeing precipitation in its bottom 10 percent will in all likelihood still be getting more precipitation than a normally dry area that is in its top 10 percent. The student that typically gets 85-95% on exams and score 85% on this one still gets a better grade than the student that typically gets 65-75% on exams and scores 75% on this exam.


    If you start to look at regional patterns, other features begin to emerge. SkS had a re-post of a 2018 Carbon Brief article that looks at specifics. It gives a good explanation of the factors other than precipitation that need to be considered. When it comes to agriculture, even the "correct" amount of precipitation can be bad if it is at the wrong time. Fields that are "too wet to plough", crops ready for harvest that are rotting in the fields and can't be harvested, etc.


    As usual, Tamino does an excellent job of taking data and picking out regional patterns. He did one in 2019, looking at "The West Burns and the East Drowns - so it averages out, right?". Spoiler alert: the two regions show different trends. Borrowing two of his images:


    Tamino US west PDSI


    Tamino US Central PDSI


     


    Tamino also had a post in 2018 about US drought patterns. Again, there are major regional differences, with the west (especially the southwest) getting drier, and the northeast getting wetter.


    The sort of analysis that Mr. Burton is presenting is the kind of argument that leads one to conclude that the average person has one testicle and one breast.


    Follow-ups on the drought discussion should probably be removed from this thread and posts on the 2018 Carbon Brief article repost.

  • How big is the “carbon fertilization effect”?

    daveburton at 00:59 AM on 13 July, 2023

    I wrote elsewhere, "Due to the temperature dependence of Henry's Law, a 1°C increase in temperature slows CO2 uptake by the oceans by about 3%."


    In reply, Rob asked, "Where do you come up with this 3% figure?"


    From Weiss (1974), an approximate relationship is (as summarized by Pro-Oceanus):


    The equilibrated ratio of partial pressure to dissolved concentration is governed by solubility:

    pCO2 = Kₒ [CO2 (aq)]


    where pCO2 is the partial pressure of CO2 in the gas phase, Kₒ is a solubility coefficient, and CO2 (aq) is the concentration of CO2 dissolved in the water.


    The solubility of CO2 in water is a function of both the temperature and the salinity of the water, one relationship from Weiss (1974):


    ln (Kₒ) = -60.2409 + 93.4517(100/T) + 23.3585(ln(T/100)) + S(0.023517-0.023656(T/100)+0.0047036(T/100)²)


    where the solubility coefficient (Kₒ) has the units of mol kg⁻¹ atm⁻¹, temperature (T) is Kelvin, and salinity (S) is in parts per thousand (approximately equal to PSU).


    Note that for non-saline waters, the second term of the equation becomes zero, leading to


    ln (Kₒ) = -60.2409+93.4517(100/T)+23.3585 ln (T/100)



    To get the "3%" figure, you can plug in suitable values, or you can look at a graph, like this one:

  • Hansen predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater

    daveburton at 07:21 AM on 7 July, 2023

    Michael wrote, "the last time Carbon dioxide was over 400 ppm the sea level was more than 20 meters higher than current sea level."


    Yes, many things were different 4.5 million years ago. They weren't all caused by CO2.


    For example, the highest-quality Pacific sea-level measurement record is from Honolulu, on Oahu. But it would be difficult to say anything meaningful about how sea-level there has changed since CO2 levels were last this high, because Oahu (and the Big Island) didn't exist 4 million years ago!



    Michael wrote, "Your sea level graphs are obviously flawed."


    I guarantee that they are not flawed.


    They are accurate plots of sea-level measurements at those two sites, which are the best long NOAA Atlantic sea-level measurement record (The Battery, NYC), and the best long NOAA Pacific sea-level measurement record (Honolulu, HI). The linear and quadratic regressions are accurately calculated from the most recent 100 years of data at each site, shown with deep blue traces. Earlier data (not included in the regressions) is shown in light blue.


    If you click the links, you can adjust the measurement periods over which the regressions are calculated, and see the effect of those adjustments. You can also smooth the plots, and choose whether to plot linear and/or quadratic fits, as well as confidence and/or prediction intervals. At the top of each graph you'll also find links to the corresponding NOAA and PSMSL web pages for those sites. You can also do the same analyses for other NOAA measurement sites, and for over 1000 sites with data available from PSMSL (though the PSMSL data aren't as up-to-date as the NOAA data).



    Michael wrote, "you have cherry picked two single locations to do your calculations without justifying your choice."


    They aren't "cherry-picked," I told you why I chose them: they are "the best long U.S. Atlantic and Pacific sea-level measurement records, respectively."


    The analysis period of 100 years is arbitrary, of course, but if you click the links which I provided you can easily change it:
    https://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=Battery&c_date=1923/6-2023/5
    https://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=Honolulu&c_date=1923/6-2023/5


    I also reported the conclusion of a comprehensive study: "Hogarth studied many long measurement records, and concluded, 'Sea level acceleration from extended tide gauge data converges on 0.01 mm/yr²'" (That's negligible, BTW.)


    Beware of "global" sea-level analyses which use varying mixes of measurement locations. As you can see from the striking difference between Oahu and New York, sea-level trends vary considerably from one location to another. So if you use a different mix of measurement locations for the left and right ends of a plot, you can easily create the illusion of a sharp acceleration or deceleration which is not evident in the individual measurement records.


    Also, beware of the fact that there are also regional effects, in some places. For example, ENSO causes changes in low-latitude easterly Pacific trade winds. During El Niños easterly Pacific equatorial trade winds diminish, so the Pacific ocean sloshes east, raising sea-level in the eastern Pacific, and lowering it in the western Pacific. This is very striking when you compare the sea-level measurement records of Kwajalein (in the western Pacific) and San Diego (in the eastern Pacific). They are almost perfect mirror images!
    https://sealevel.info/1820000_Kwajalein_San_Diego_2016-04_vs_ENSO_annot4.png


    Correlation of sea-level with ENSO at Kwajalein and San Diego


    (One of the nice things about Honolulu is that it is near the ENSO "teeter-totter pivot point," so, unlike other long Pacific sea-level measurement records, Honolulu's is scarcely affected by ENSO.)


    Another example of regional effects is the southeastern United States, where Gulf Stream variations are apparently the cause of well-known multi-decadal fluctuations in sea-level trends. For a discussion see Zervas (2009), NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 053, Sea Level Variations of the United States, 1854-2006. Here's a relevant excerpt:
    Excerpt from NOAA Tech rpt 53 p.xiii

  • Hansen predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater

    Rob Honeycutt at 01:30 AM on 6 July, 2023

    Dave... So much is wrong in that post. Let's just start with atmospheric CO2 perturbation. No one claims it stays up there forever. But the change in CO2 concentration will persist for centuries and millennia to come. 


    https://climatehomes.unibe.ch/~joos/papers/joos97eps.pdf


    Your sealevel.info snippet is misleading, and I assume you understand that virtually no one is going to follow the link to the actual IPCC page to read the full passage, because it will directly contradict what you're saying.


    What you're looking at in those changes is a function of partial pressure. The ocean takes up about half of our emissions (lucky for those of us who live in the atmosphere, not so lucky for sea dwelling creatures). The increases you're demonstrating are merely a function of increased atmospheric concentrations. The oceans, in particular, are not going to continue to take up CO2 beyond what it's capable of doing due to partial pressure.


    https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Carbon+Uptake

  • 97% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven

    Eclectic at 11:07 AM on 5 July, 2023

    Duran3d @75  ~ the short version is that Rob Honeycutt is correct.  The long version is that Rob Honeycutt is still correct.  [See also: Bob Loblaw @77 ]


    In derivation, the word consensus has a (narrow) range of meanings . . . but the meaning which you wish to use is nowadays  an extreme outlier (used by hardly anyone).  Over decades, the meaning of a word can gradually drift in one direction ~ and the drift does occur by consensus   ;-)


    Consensus does not mean merely a majority, or even a supermajority [indeed some sources claim "over 75%"  agreement is a consensus ~ but that is far too weak for expressing consensus  among scientists].   And some people try to gild the lily by going all mathematical:  e.g. in year 2010 the consensus among scientists was >97% about the human cause of modern Global Warming . . . a figure which has now risen to >99% agreement (at time of writing).    # But that sort of thing is unnecessary, because the overall evidence (of AGW) is so overwhelming, that it is a justifiable short-hand to use the simple word consensus.


    Duran3d , you may be pleased to hear that one of the range of meanings of consensus  used by the Ancient Romans . . . included a situation involving "plotting together".   That fact could be joyous news to current climate-science-denying contrarians & Conspiracy Theorists !   Though I think most of that group are not really interested in meanings or facts.


    As an aside ~ the word consensus  is attacked by one of the (current)  U.S. Presidential candidates [RFK.Jr]  who uses his lawyerly skills to advocate the Anti-vaxxer cause.  But coming from him, it is all just a torrent of words intended to convince the already-convinced intransigent Anti-vaxxers.  He continually demands "scientific evidence in controlled studies" while also continually ignoring the bleeding-obvious evidence which already exists as a huge mountain.  He is a true Denialist.

  • At a glance - Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin

    Bob Loblaw at 10:12 AM on 5 July, 2023

    By the way, Gordon. We're still waiting for you to provide a definition of "catastrophic" on this thread here.  Don't think we've forgotten about your previous evasive behaviour on other threads.


    Have you read the Comments Policy yet?

  • Hansen predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater

    daveburton at 01:56 AM on 4 July, 2023

    It appears that Hansen added that "assuming CO2 doubled" caveat later. Many years later he claimed to recall that that's what he had said to Reiss back in 1988, but there doesn't seem to be any contemporaneous evidence of it.

    Moreover, his claim doesn't pass the smell test, not only because of the implausibility of remembering such details years later, but also because in 1988 the atmospheric CO2 concentration was less than 352 ppmv, and it was rising by only 1.63 ppmv or +0.476% per year. For the CO2 level to reach 570 ppmv by 2028 would have required a wildly accelerated average annual increase of ((570-352)/40) = 5.45 ppmv or +1.21% per year.

    The rate of CO2 level rise did accelerate, but only slightly. Over the last decade the atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased at an average rate of 2.45 ppmv or +0.603% per year.

    With only five years to go before 2028, the average sea-level at The Battery in Manhattan has risen by only about 6.7 inches (some of which is due to subsidence), and the "West Side Highway" (Henry Hudson Parkway) is still about ten feet above mean sea-level.

  • Greenhouse effect has been falsified

    EddieEvans at 23:53 PM on 26 June, 2023

    Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?


    Robotic Reading: Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?


    While Earth’s climate has changed throughout its history, the current warming is happening at a rate not seen in the past 10,000 years.


    According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "Since systematic scientific assessments began in the 1970s, the influence of human activity on the warming of the climate system has evolved from theory to established fact."1


    Scientific information taken from natural sources (such as ice cores, rocks, and tree rings) and from modern equipment (like satellites and instruments) all show the signs of a changing climate.


    From global temperature rise to melting ice sheets, the evidence of a warming planet abounds.

  • Greenhouse effect has been falsified

    EddieEvans at 23:50 PM on 26 June, 2023

    "Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?" with current NASA evidence for anthropogenic greenhouse gas warmoing.


    EVIDENCE


    How Do We Know Climate Change Is Real?


    There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause.


    While Earth’s climate has changed throughout its history, the current warming is happening at a rate not seen in the past 10,000 years.


    According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "Since systematic scientific assessments began in the 1970s, the influence of human activity on the warming of the climate system has evolved from theory to established fact."1


    Scientific information taken from natural sources (such as ice cores, rocks, and tree rings) and from modern equipment (like satellites and instruments) all show the signs of a changing climate.


    From global temperature rise to melting ice sheets, the evidence of a warming planet abounds.

  • Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation

    Rob Honeycutt at 09:26 AM on 19 June, 2023

    Peppers, here is a link to the appropriate thread for the breathing CO2 topic. But before you respond, please take the time to read the article and consider the science presented.

  • Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    Charlie_Brown at 03:13 AM on 18 June, 2023

    Bob @388
    We agree more than you think. I did not intend to imply that only two atmospheric layers need to be considered for emittance. I was intending to illustrate the many strong and weak absorption lines in the layers that were most important for emittance from CO2 and H2O. A useful concept is to look down from the top of the atmosphere. Integrate absorptance/emittance for energy loss to space from the top and descend until a value of 1.0 is reached. MODTRAN Infrared Light in the Atmosphere (MILIA) model, which is a multilayer model, does the calculations.


    Maybe we disagree on descriptions for the magnitude of contribution to the upward heat flux from the tropopause and the stratosphere, because I conclude that the major emitting layer for CO2 is the tropopause (11-20 km in the 1976 U.S. Std atmosphere) and the stratosphere contributes only a small amount. This can be demonstrated by changing the altitude in MILIA from 20 km (217 K) to 50 km (271 K). At 20 km, the bottom of the spectrum in the CO2 band of 14-16 microns reaches 217 K, which matches the Planck distribution. Raising the altitude to 50 km brings the bottom of the band up a little bit to 222 K, but not to the higher temperature of the stratosphere. Also, and very interesting, is the appearance of a sharp peak at 14.9 microns that matches a Planck temperature of 240 K. This is caused by the contribution from a few very strong CO2 absorption lines.


    We agree that Manabe’s work is awesome, but I don’t think that it necessarily supports a description “A lot of IR loss to space comes from the stratosphere.” It demonstrates a significant effect of CO2 on the temperature of the stratosphere. However, the stratosphere has so few molecules that small differences in the total IR energy flux can have large differences in temperature.

  • Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    Charlie_Brown at 07:47 AM on 16 June, 2023

    Actually, I think that Vidar2032 @383 is correct. When he/she says GHGs emit at a fixed temperature, I believe he/she means at the temperature of the atmosphere as fixed by the atmospheric temperature profile. The 1976 U.S. Std Atmosphere for the tropopause, where CO2 emits to space, is close to 220K, while the emitting layer of H2O vapor in the troposphere is about 240-270 K. When he/she says that the effect of increased concentration is to broaden the band, that also is correct when considering that increasing concentration strengthens weak absorption lines. Look at the Figure in Bob Loblaw @7 in his linked thread to Beer’s Law above, which Bob kindly produced for me at that time. The weak absorption lines on the wings get stronger as concentration increases. There is sufficient path length in the tropopause to bring most of the absorption lines for the CO2 band between 14-16 microns close to 1.0, which means that the emittance is close to 1.0. Stacking the strong absorption lines in the middle of the band, which means increasing the path length and bringing an emittance of close to 1.0 even closer to 1.0, is not how increasing CO2 increases the emittance. Note that increasing emittance means more energy is emitted from a colder temperature which has less intensity than the energy emitted from a lower altitude at a warmer temperature. This is in accordance with the Planck black body distribution curves that Bob presents. The difference between a black body and a gas is that a black body absorbs/emits at all wavelengths while gases absorb/emit only at wavelengths specific to their molecular structure. What would be interesting, if only I could post my own Figure, would be the HITRAN absorption lines for CO2 at conditions of the tropopause and H2O for the troposphere.


    Meanwhile, Vidar’s question is an excellent opportunity to use the Univ of Chicago link to MODTRAN Infrared Light in the Atmosphere. Choose the 1976 U.S. Std Atmosphere. All one has to do is increase the water vapor scalar to 1.07 to show a 7% increase, then adjust the temperature offset until the original value is matched. It turns out to be about 0.25 C. Better, to see if 7 % is about right, set CO2 to 280, CH4 to 0.7, and Freon to 0 to get pre-industrial conditions. Save the run to background. Then change CO2 to 415, CH4 to 1.8, and Freon to 1.0 to get current conditions, adjust the temperature offset to match the starting value, and choose holding fixed relative humidity. The raw model output shows that it changes the water vapor by about 6%, and the temperature offset is about 1.0 C. It's a very good approximation, but be careful not to place too high of an expectation on the accuracy and precision of this model. Realize that it is designed to be an educational tool with high computational speed and limited flexibility that provides good results, but better models exist for professional use.

  • 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

    Rob Honeycutt at 11:21 AM on 13 June, 2023

    Actually, Bob, I think this is the paper CO2 Science is discussing.

  • At a glance - How reliable are climate models?

    Bob Loblaw at 06:01 AM on 2 June, 2023

    PSBaker @ 15:


    First, let's address your statement "I was not referring to..."


    In your first comment (#1), you weren't referring to anything specific.  You finished off with a broad, sweeping generalization about "senior scientists and journal editors". This gives the appearance that you are casting a wide net - as Eclectic said in comment #2 "unless you feel something misleading or nefarious is being concealed by their omission."


    So, now that you have actually provided some specific references, let's look at them. Eclectic has already made some comment in #18, but I have a few more points to make.


    For your first reference (link to full artcle):



    • Eclectic commented on the vagueness of much of the discussion. I tend to agree.

    • I also note that the key figure 2, on precipitation changes, makes what I would consider to be a fundamental error in the use of global climate model projections. It uses the multi-model mean as if it is the predicted path. It is not. In the figure I included in comment #8, the Model ensemble spread that gives a better indication of the possible future paths as predicted by the models.

    • In section 2.1, they talk about people often use an average from several models "so that only the trend remains", so they are aware of the  issue, but then they went and used that same ensemble mean to do their analysis in figure 2.

    • In the first part of section 2, they actually state "Although the limitations of climate change projections are well-documented... the consequences of these limitations for practical decision-making in development practice have not been clearly laid out for the nonspecialist." [emphasis added]

    • I also note that the sentence from the abstract immediately preceding the one that you quote states: "Climate model projections are able to capture many aspects of the climate system and so can be relied upon to guide mitigation plans and broad adaptation strategies..."


    Thus, your first reference is not a broad condemnation of climate models - and basically sounds like a cry that it's the fault of climate scientists that non-specialists don't pay attention to the well-documented efforts of those climate scientists to explain the limitations of climate models.


    Now, for your two references to Nature Climate Change:



    • The Lembrechts one is a short News & Views article, and the first reference it contains is to the Maclean and Early paper (the other reference you provide). It hardly constitutes a second, independent analysis.

    • In the Maclean and Early paper, the data that they use to evaluate their microclimate approach (as opposed to a macro-climate approach that global climate models work with) uses two time periods: 1977-1995, and 2003-2021.

    • The changes in "heathland and grassland plant taxa" that they are looking at would not experience substantial change during that period, compared to the expected changes over the next century. The differences in range shift they get from their two modelling approaches are 14km (macro) and

    • The short time periods means that much of what they are modelling in the way of microclimate changes is going to be related to weather and short-term variability, not long-term major shifts.

    • A major weakness in their argument is that they basically present a case where short-term small changes in climate conditions do not lead to major range shift - but the concerns for future climate are not related to minor shifts that have already occurred. They are related to the major shifts expected in the future, and how they will be occurring much faster than species have adapted to in the past.


    So, your second and third references also do not reflect on unreliability of global climate models.


    P.S. The next time you want to post a comment similar to #1, please provide the references you are relying on in your first post. And as Eclectic has stated in #18, you should also be providing some sort of detail on what it in those papers that you think is relevant, and what point you want to make.

  • At a glance - How reliable are climate models?

    nigelj at 17:19 PM on 31 May, 2023

    Gordon @10


    The IPCC WR5 projection in your comments includes observational data from 1970 -  2012 only. Its old data possibly from an older IPCC report. The observational data is quite close to the modelling for much of that period but the years 2005 - 2012 (approx) in that graph clearly fall significantly below the modelling mid line prediction. But this is a relatively short time frame, and it represents short term natural variation that models can't fully predict in terms of timing. This is the alleged pause in surface temperatures, which amounted to a flat period in the warming trend of about 7 years and was due to the influence of natural variation ( in simple terms)


    The graph posted by Bob Loblow @ 8 includes observational data from 1970  - 2022 and so its much wider and more recent data,  and its obvious that the warming trend from 2012 - 2022 has swung back to near the model mid line prediction, and that the observational trend is tracking quite close to the modelling overall for the full period 1920 - 2022. The modelling is obviously not running significantly hot.


    I'm surprsied you didn't notice any of this. 

  • 10 year anniversary of 97% consensus study

    One Planet Only Forever at 03:35 AM on 31 May, 2023

    The discussion here regarding the potential position of climate scientists regarding climate change impacts being catastrophic is interesting.


    Based on Gordon’s comments it is obvious that the question to be asked of climate scientists is “Does your understanding support the claim that 4 C of warming would be potentially catastrophic?” His alternative question, evading the term potentially’ misleads the discussion into a ‘simplistic but complicated’ debate about the meaning of ‘catastrophic climate change impacts’.


    ‘How significant’ a catastrophe needs to be to ‘count’ is not a matter of personal opinion. It also is not a matter of political popularity or business popularity and profitability. Applying ethical considerations to the available evidence can establish a general common sense understanding that relates to this matter. Morality and Ethics basically say that preventable harm done is unacceptable, especially if the damage done is irreparable. The construction industry pursuit of ‘zero-injury’ in more advanced nations is a ‘business’ example of the application of this concept. However, political popularity or business popularity and profitability can compromise that fundamental ethics with questionable ethical ‘evaluations that consider the benefits obtained by some people to be worth the harm done, especially of the harm is done to ‘identifiable others’.


    Many people unethically consider a catastrophe to only count if it happens to the sub-set of humanity that they have decided to identify with. They are not open to accepting the broad diversity of less harmful and more helpful ways of being human in pursuit of developing sustainable improvements for the future of humanity. Those people can be expected to make up a diversity of arguments attempting to distract from learning about harm done to others. They will even try to diminish harm done to others in the future (a classic ethical test of the merits of things happening later being less important is the question of the ethics of burying a long lasting land mine in a region where it is likely that the mine will only be detonated and harm someone in the distant future).


    Using structural engineering or business management as examples of consideration of catastrophe is also helpful. I am a professional civil/structural engineer with an MBA. So these are areas of understanding I am quite familiar with and able to understand in depth.


    When engineering things like a structure or surface run-off drainage system there is an important difference between ‘temporary failure of part of the system causing limited and repairable damage’ and a ‘more significant catastrophe affecting more of the system or producing harmful results that are not repairable’. The general engineering rule regarding repairable failure of parts of the system is that the probability of such a localized limited ‘potential catastrophe (because some irreparable harm could occur as a result of the repairable failure) needs to be less than 2%. The potential for a larger or irreparable failure needs to be significantly less than 2%.


    For a business, the quarterly or annual lack of performance by a portion of a larger operation is a concern. And a business venture’s sustainability requires the chance of each of those ‘limited catastrophes’ to be small because too many of them happening too often would be a bigger problem. And a larger aspect of the business failing to perform as hoped would need to have a significantly lower probability of occurring.


    Sustaining a structure, drainage system, or business requires actions that understandably, based on the evidence, reduce the risk of catastrophic results. Benefiting from harm suffered by others, including avoiding the costs of being less harmful, may be temporarily regionally popular and profitable. But developing sustainable improvements for global humanity requires limitations on the sovereignty (freedom) of ‘all’ portions of the population (business and political) to believe and act as they please.


    Relating that understanding to climate change, the probability of ‘catastrophic (irreparable) regional results’, such as needing to relocate or ‘adapt’ any small percentage of already developed human activity, would have to be less than 2%. And the probability of ‘needing to relocate, or revise to adapt, a larger amount of developed human activity’ would need to be a much lower than 2%.


    Based on that understanding, open to improvement, the evidence indicates that catastrophic climate change impacts have already occurred at levels of impact below 1.5 C. So, applying that ethical perspective, it is highly likely that a vast majority of climate scientists, perhaps more than 97%, would say that their understanding supports the claim that 4 C of warming would be potentially catastrophic.


    Note: There is a very important difference between understanding and opinion. Common sense requires common evidence based ethical understanding. Opinion is free from the restrictions of evidence or ethical consideration.

  • Antarctica is gaining ice

    Bart Vreeken at 19:51 PM on 24 May, 2023

    Thank you very much, scaddenp #579


    So text was just removed, which is very annoying! I wasn't sure if I had done anything wrong myself.


    But indeed, a rising air temperature and reduced sea ice mean more snowfall and a higher Surface Mass Balance according to multiple models. The question is how that relates to the increased melting and calving along the edges. Nobody knows exactly, and therefore it's good to have a close look on what happens. 


    Antarctic surface climate and surface mass balance in the Community Earth System Model version 2 during the satellite era and into the future (1979–2100)


    BL #577 "He's made a big thing about NASA's 149 Gt/yr value"


    Huh ...? I simply changed the number, for it was wrong. Bob Loblaw was the one who kept talking about it. And yes,  "it ignores all the data in between." But that's not what the discussion was about. Replacing the 'last-first' by 'regression' doesn't make it better, for that still ignores all the data in between.

  • Antarctica is gaining ice

    Bart Vreeken at 05:44 AM on 21 May, 2023

    "Where the 149 Gt/yr number comes from was discussed in March"


    OK, let's have a look at the data of IMBIE, then. IMBIE is the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise. They compare data from different sources: gravimetry, altimetry, input-output. 


    essd.copernicus.org/articles/15/1597/2023/


     


    There, the average number over April 2002 - December 2020 is 114,9 Gt/Yr. Very much like my calculation, but without the data of 2021 and 2022. 


    IMBIE3 Rates of ice sheet mass change

  • 10 year anniversary of 97% consensus study

    Bob Loblaw at 00:20 AM on 18 May, 2023

    To borrow a contrarian meme, "one more nail in the coffin" of Gordon's quest "to find out what percentage of climate scientists believe that global warming will be catastrophic."


    The study referenced in the OP is not a survey of "what scientists believe". Skeptical Science has a longer post on the 97% consensus theme. The Cook et al (2013) study is just one of the papers discussed there, and this is how it is described (including a link to the paper itself):



    A Skeptical Science-based analysis of over 12,000 peer-reviewed abstracts on the subject 'global climate change' and 'global warming', published between 1991 and 2011, found that over 97% of the papers taking a position on the subject agreed with the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of the project, the scientist authors were emailed and rated over 2,000 of their own papers. Once again, over 97% of the papers taking a position on the cause of global warming agreed that humans are causing it



    Note that the study looked at the abstracts of published papers. And in a second phase, the study did not ask scientists "what they believed" - they asked authors of papers to rate the papers they had written.


    That Gordon confuses reading the literature with "asking what someone believes" tells us more about Gordon than we probably need to know.


    If Gordon seriously wants an answer to his "catastrophic" question, along the lines of the study done by Cook et al (2013), there is an obvious solution:



    Read the scientific literature


  • 10 year anniversary of 97% consensus study

    Eclectic at 09:58 AM on 17 May, 2023

    Gordon ~ regarding Dana Nuccitelli, it's all a matter of context.


    Easy to see when "catastrophic"  is being used as a deflection / strawman that is being shouted (to abort rational thinking).


    Catastrophic  is defined by the effect  (not the absolute temperature e.g. 4 degrees rise).   As I am sure you know very well, Earth's surface temperature was above that 4 degC  level in the distant past  ~  but then  there was much more carbon in the biosphere.   Nowadays . . . not so much carbon "available", but the biosphere is far less resilient against rapid warming (in large part, thanks to the presence of 8+ Billion humans ~ and many of whom live in poverty already).


    Your question about % of scientists "believing" in catastrophic probabilities, is a question that is moot.   It is a question that is designed (consciously or otherwise) to deflect thought away from the practicalities of our current situation.  Or to deflect from the 97% topic?

  • 10 year anniversary of 97% consensus study

    Eclectic at 16:35 PM on 16 May, 2023

    John Mason @7 ,


    You are quite right ~ "going red giant" is vastly more likely (tho' gradual)


    . . . so I rate that as only  # 97%  catastrophic.


    ~Was going to say # 95% , but 97% is an almost inescapable climate figure .

  • 10 year anniversary of 97% consensus study

    Gordon at 10:12 AM on 16 May, 2023

    On the 10th Anniversary of the 97% consensus study maybe it is time to find out what percentage of climate scientists believe that global warming will be catastrophic ?

  • Skeptical Science News: The Rebuttal Update Project

    BaerbelW at 05:21 AM on 12 May, 2023

    The blog post was updated on May 11 with the links ot the latest rebuttals getting the "at a glance treatment":


    The 97% consensus on global warming


    Global cooling - Is global warming still happening?

  • There is no consensus

    Rob Honeycutt at 09:25 AM on 22 April, 2023

    Okay, let's go over this again, Albert.


    The premise of the paper is as stated in the introduction. 



    We examined a large sample of the scientific literature on global CC, published over a 21 year period, in order to determine the level of scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW).



    Do you honestly not see the words: human activity is very likely causing most of the current AGW?


    That statement creates the fundamental basis of papers that either endorse or minimize that position.


    If you're telling me that most "skeptics" agree that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW... hey! We're good!


    "It is a clear indication that only 1.6% of the papers thought that humans were causing most of warming."


    Nope, precisely because categories 1, 2 and 3 all endorse the idea that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW.


    "...AMS in 2016 and it explicitly asked members if they vpbelieved humans were responsible for the majority of warming and 67% said yes."


    And they also explain that most of their members were NOT experts in climate science and do not publish climate research. The greater their expertise, the greater their level of agreement, with the highest level of expertise also demonstrating ~97% agreement with the idea that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW.


    "...why Cook went to considerable lengths to hide the category numbers."


    He didn't.


    "I am passionate about truth in science..."


    Clearly, quite the opposite.


    "...I have an open mind on all matters..."


    As Carl Sagan used to say, "It's good to keep an open mind, but not so much that your brain falls out." I think that perfectly describes your position in this matter.


    "In the sixteenth century, 99.9% of scientists believed the Sun orbited the Earth."


    No, it was 16th century scientists who were explaining to people the earth orbited the sun. Once presented within a scientific/mathematical structure, scientists of the day readily accepted this fact. 


    "i Won't be commenting on this thread again."


    We are relieved.


     


     

  • There is no consensus

    Albert at 09:03 AM on 22 April, 2023

    "a) If you had bothered to read the actual paper it's explained why the figures are organized as they are."


    I have read the paper multiple times and the so called explanation groups 1,2 and 3 together and compares them to groups 5 6 and 7 and as I have said, most sceptics would be in group 3.


    The "minimise" option Is a red herring as most sceptics believe in an ECS of 1.2C which is both group 3 and groups 56 and 7.


    "b) Your 1.6% figure only relates to papers that explicitly quantify human contribution. With that you'd have to compare that to other papers that explicitly minimize human contribution."


    Nonsense. It is a clear indication that only 1.6% of the papers thought that humans were causing most of warming.



    You can't count, for example, a paper that explicitly quantifies against a paper that implicitly endorses human contribution.


    Nomsense. Most sceptics who write papers would be in several categories and that is the lie in Cooks paper.


    The only time that a scientific organisation has polled its members was by the AMS in 2016 and it explicitly asked members if they vpbelieved humans were responsible for the majority of warming and 67% said yes.


    They didn't play the pretend game of setting up false categories and compare warmists against sceptics like Cook did.


    The AMS were extremely embarrassed by this and tried to spin the result saying it was misinterpreted blah blab blah but since this no scientific body has ever dared poll their members again.


    Roh you still havenot explained why Cook went to considerable lengths to hide the category numbers. It took me a couple of days to eventually figure out how to chuck the file into a spreadsheet and extract the totals.


    I am passionate about truth in science, you're not, so let's just agree to disagree. 


    PS engaged with you on this subject because I have an open mind on all matters and wanted to read whether there were aspects of the "97%" I wasn't aware of, but your comments show me that there aren't.


     


    Last comment 


    A few years ago the Australian sceptic society had a comment on their home page saying nothing was exempted from scepticism but also had a manifesto on global warming saying the science was settled and gave theit reasons.


    I went through the manifesto line by line discrediting it by referring to data and submitted it. However next day it had disappeared and I contacted the editor and he said he had passed it on to "experts" to see if it was valid. He said he would get back to me but never did.


    So a sceptic society now determines what you can be sceptical about. You can challenge the theories of Newton and Einstein but not the high church of climate change. That makes it a faith, not science.


    Very last comment


    In the sixteenth century, 99.9% of scientists believed the Sun orbited the Earth.


    i Won't be commenting on this thread again.


     


     


     

  • Arctic sea ice has recovered

    Albert at 15:26 PM on 20 April, 2023

    I tried to insert a graphic from DMI showing Arctic ice extent from 1979 but without success.  


    https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover_30y.uk.php


    The URL shows a decline of about 15% from 1979 to about 2012 but unfortunately most warmists only refer to the minimum monthly values rather than all the data.


    Its like only giving January rainfall totals instead of the yearly totals.


     


    The graph above showing Arctic ice just shows reconstructions because there was no accurate way to measure total Arctic ice before satellites.


    I could show you reconstructions showing significantly different trends but I know it would be a waste of time.

  • There is no consensus

    Rob Honeycutt at 15:03 PM on 20 April, 2023

    Albert... I think you should take a moment to read the comments policy for this site. Accusations as you've just leveled are against policy.


    As for your question, no one was trying to hide anything. The data is there available for anyone who wishes to dig into it. But it's not really relevant to the results of the paper. It just creates fodder for people like you whose intent is to misinterpret the data.


    Regarding the AMS paper, different from the Cook paper, that research was about the opinions of their members. As already stated, the paper was structured similar to Doran/Zimmerman where the subjects had varying degrees of expertise in the subject matter. Once you got to publishing PhD level scientists, yes there was a consensus in the 97% range.

  • There is no consensus

    Rob Honeycutt at 10:06 AM on 20 April, 2023

    @932... "How can you misinterpret a plain English statement saying 'explicitly endorses >50% of warming is human induced'?"


    Yes, this is indeed the exact sentence you're attempting to use to reject the conclusions of the paper. Remember, the conclusion of the paper is that 97.3% of the research agrees that human activities are primarily responsible for global warming.

  • Arctic sea ice has recovered

    Albert at 09:57 AM on 20 April, 2023

    "BL] In the absence of an argument from you that short-term variations actually indicate a departure from long-term trends, there is nothing to challenge."


    You keep misinterpreting the point I am making is that Arctic ice thickness and volume stopped shrinking at least 11 years ago, I made no other claim.


    What do you mean by a "long term trend"? the Satellite measuring of Arctic ice and global temperatures started in 1979 and we know that global temperatures reduced from about 1940 until the mid 1970s and we know that Arctic ice is sensitive to global temperature so it is logical to believe that Arctic was low in 1940.


    I will find some evidence that scientists believed Arctic ice was low in 1940 but I suspect that even if I did, you wouldn't acknowledge it

  • There is no consensus

    Albert at 21:01 PM on 19 April, 2023

     "Quite commonly I see statements saying that Cooks paper said the "97% of scientists believe that humans are largely (>50%) responsible for global warming" but Cooks paper category 1 clearly and unambiguously states that the figure is 1.6%."


    please stop throwing in red herrings like "minimise" and tell me why my direct quote is wrong?

  • There is no consensus

    Rob Honeycutt at 14:44 PM on 19 April, 2023

    And... "Quite commonly I see statements saying that Cooks paper said the "97% of scientists believe that humans are largely (>50%) responsible for global warming" but Cooks paper category 1 clearly and unambiguously states that the figure is 1.6%."


    Here you muck up pretty much everything. The Cook paper is an analysis of research papers, not scientists' opinions. 


    Category 1 explicitly endorses the idea that human's are the primary cause of global warming, and makes quantifications.


    Category 2 explicitly endorses the idea that human's are the primary cause of global warming without making quantifications.


    Category 3 implicitly endorses the idea that human's are the primary cause of global warming.


    Category 5 implicitly minimizes the idea that human's are the primary cause of global warming.


    Category 6 explicitly minimizes the idea that human's are the primary cause of global warming without making quantifications.


    Category 7 explicitly minimizes the idea that human's are the primary cause of global warming, and makes quantifications.


    The level of consensus is the measure of the papers that endorse vs those that minimize.


    It's that simple. A child can understand this.

  • There is no consensus

    Rob Honeycutt at 14:31 PM on 19 April, 2023

    Albert @914... "Once again I ask, why have 3 categories lumped into the "97%" result when only one category saying 'explicit or implicit support that humans contribute to global warming'."


    Think of it in terms of "endorse" vs "minimize" and think of the IPCC position being the subject being either endorsed or minimized.


    Three endorse categories and 3 minimize categories. 

  • Arctic sea ice has recovered

    Albert at 13:42 PM on 19 April, 2023

    Looking at the graph should indicate quite clearly that there is definitely no decline since 2012 and your tabulated data also clearly shows this.


    Average Arctic ice extent has also plateaud since 2012 (SII) or 2006(MASIE).


    If you look at yearly averages since 1979, Arctic ice has only reduced by about 15% and as I wrote above, all this was prior to 2012.


    DMI, JAXA, Bremen uni, and others all say the same.


    "i would be curious to learn what you believe explains the observed Arctic Sea Ice Mass changes since 2012."


    My guess is the cyclic currents that bring warm waters to the Arctic have reached the top of their cycle and are changing to a cooler mode.


    Evidence seems to suggest that the cycle is around 80 years and we know that Arctic ice extent was also low around 1940.


     

  • There is no consensus

    Albert at 13:09 PM on 19 April, 2023

    Once again I ask, why have 3 categories lumped into the "97%" result when only one category saying "explicit or implicit support that humans contribute to global warming".


    Again, virtually every sceptic scientist, meteorologist, geologist, etc would agree with the above statement so they will not be publishing a paper saying there is little or no anthropogenic warming.


    Skeptics believe in the direct effect of CO2 causing an ECS of about 1.2C but reject the positive feedback theory pushing ECS to 3C and beyond.


    So categories 5,6 and 7 are really meaningless, because of the above.


    Quite commonly I see statements saying that Cooks paper said the "97% of scientists believe that humans are largely (>50%)  responsible for global warming" but Cooks paper category 1 clearly and unambiguously states that the figure is 1.6%.


     


     

  • There is no consensus

    Bob Loblaw at 05:04 AM on 19 April, 2023

    Albert @909 starts off by questioning the groupings in the Cook et al  2013 study, saying that he searched and could not find totals for the individual categories.


    I have linked to the journal article above, and you can scroll down and find the "Supplementary data" link. In that data, one of the files provides every single paper/abstract included in the study, and it's ranking. It's pretty trivial to read that into a spreadsheet and get totals for each group. Those totals are:








































    1 Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+% 64
    2 Explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimise 922
    3 Implicitly endorses AGW without minimising it 2910
    4 No Position 7970
    5 Implicitly minimizes/rejects AGW 54
    6 Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW but does not quantify 15
    7 Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW as less than 50% 9

    The paper points out that category 4 includes two groups, which need to be treated differently:



    • No position (7930 papers)

    • Uncertain (40 papers)


    "No position" must be excluded entirely, as it is impossible to conclude a position that is not expressed in the paper's abstract. That makes a total of 4014 papers that express an opinion (explicitly or implicitly).


    Given the groupings of 1-3 and 5-7, it is obvious that 1-3 share the trait of "not minimized". It is perfectly reasonable to treat "not minimized" as ">50%", when the paper does not quantify a value.


    Likewise, grouping 5-7 together is the opposite: they all share the trait of "minimizes", whether they have quantified the minimization or not.


    The point of the three categories is to distinguish between explicit quantification, explicit without quantification, and implicit without quantification - on both sides of the equation.


    Now, what about that 1.6% number that Albert throws out? To get 1.6%, you have to pick category 1 (64 papers) and divide by 4014 (the total number that expressed an opinion, explicitly or implicitly).


    So, while Albert is questioning the grouping of papers into 1-3 and 5-7, he sees no problem in grouping 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 together into one category and calling it "papers that disagree that humans caused most of the recent warming". That grouping is far less supportable than the grouping used in the paper. Categories 2 and 3 (totalling 3832 papers) clearly are not defined in such a way that you can interpret "not minimized" as "<50%".


    In fact, if you only consider the papers that explicitly quantify the effect as >50% or <50%, there are only 73 papers in categories 1 and 7 - and 64 of them say >50% of recent warming is due to humans. That is 88% of the total. A far cry from Albert's 1.6%.


    We can also compare categories 2 vs. 6.  98% are on the "endorses" side.


    And we can compare categories 3 and 5. Again, 98% on the "endorses" side.


    Either Albert has not really considered where the 1.6% value came from, or he is deliberately trying to bias the result in one direction.


    As for his final claim about "skeptics" being included in the 97%, Skeptical Science has another blog post on that matter. Scroll down to the section titled "Confused Contrarians Think they are Included in the 97%".


    Albert is just repeating frequently-debunked crap.

  • There is no consensus

    Albert at 20:41 PM on 18 April, 2023

    why does the original paper list the seven categories but not the seven individual totals. I searched but couldn't find any totals.


    instead it lumps categories 1,2 and 3 into a single number.  So what was the point in having 3 categories?


    but we frequently hear that the paper showed that "97% of scientists believe that humans caused most of the recent warming" which is not true because only 1.6% of papers said that.


    I don't  know of any sceptic who doesn't think humans are causing some warming so they would all be in the 97% consensus.


     


     


     

  • Gas stoves pose health risks. Are gas furnaces and other appliances safe to use?

    Bob Loblaw at 23:50 PM on 30 March, 2023

    A quick reference to a news item I came across this week. Earlier this month, Desmog had an article about this gas stove issue, with the under-the-headline statement "The American Gas Association is trying to discredit research on the health impacts of gas stoves today. But newly revealed documents show it was discussing indoor air pollution concerns five decades ago."


    As described in the Desmog article, the pattern of behaviour by an industry trade group looks awfully familiar. It is a lot like the tactics that we have seen from the fossil fuel industry over climate change issues - and by the tobacco industry over smoking and cancer issues.

  • CO2 effect is saturated

    Bob Loblaw at 10:43 AM on 25 March, 2023

    Gootmud:


    Don't play word games. It's the climate contrarians that make the claim that "the CO2 effect is saturated". You need to get the ones making that claim to explain what they mean.


    In years of watching this (I've been studying climatology since the late 1970s, specialized in the subject for my PhD, and taught it at university for a number of years, and for over a decade made my living measuring climatologically-important radiation fluxes), I have yet to find a climate contrarian who can define it in a way that actually presents a real description of radiative transfer processes.


    The people that make the claim pretty much always end up demonstrating a critical lack of understanding of how radiation transfer theory works. As you try to get them to define what they mean, it readily becomes apparent that they don't know what they are talking about.


    There are several variations in the contrarian "CO2 is saturated" meme, and each goes wrong in a slightly different way. The term is rarely seen in proper radiation transfer discussions of climate, because the very few ways in which it is a meaningful term are ones that are not an issue for earth's climate - past or future.


    The few climate contrarians that do understand radiation transfer theory do not make the "CO2 is saturated" claim - as you have discovered. They make other bad claims, but not the "CO2 is saturated" one.

  • The Big Picture

    Bob Loblaw at 06:11 AM on 21 March, 2023

    Rob @ 139:


    In spite of Bart's map stating (on the US one):



    "Please click on the map for historical temperature data and snow depth of places in the U.S. since 1974



    ...you actually need to click on the place names on the map to get a page showing data for that city. Clicking anywhere else on the map does nothing.


    Another case of Bart saying one thing, but meaning something else.

  • The Big Picture

    Bart Vreeken at 04:22 AM on 19 March, 2023

    Hi Bob Loblaw, I'm afraid you don't understand the figure well.


    Above a) you see the mass loss of Greenland where the calculation is based on. It says -166 Gt/yr. This causes a global sea level rise of something like 0,46 mm/yr. Due to the gravitation effect there are places on earth where the sea level rise is less then that, and places where it's more then that. The border between these two area's is the green line on the map between Africa and South America and in the Pacific. So, the Netherlands are in the area with less then 0,46 mm/yr sea level from Greenland, but it's more then zero. Then there is an other line, between yellow en blue. In the blue area there is no sea level rise by Greenland at all. Instead there is a drop of the sea level. 


    Gravitation effect

  • The Big Picture

    Rob Honeycutt at 02:50 AM on 19 March, 2023

    Bart @84... You were doing so well in your explanation up to the point you started making up stuff on your own, like: "Netherlands are close enough to Greenland to take profit of this effect..."


    The Netherlands are 3000km away. 


    Here is a map from NASA, created through the JASON and TOPEX satellite missions to measure SLR over the past 23 years. This map represents the change in SLR over that period. Blue/white areas are where SL has fallen or stayed the same. Orange/red are SLR.


    Now, look close at the area between Greenland and The Netherlands.


  • The Big Picture

    Bart Vreeken at 22:30 PM on 18 March, 2023

    MA Rodger @82 your quote is about the global sea level rise, not the local SLR. 


    This is how it works. The Greenland Ice Sheet has a lot of mass, so it attracts sea water. Due to that, the sea level in a large area around Greenland is higher then it should be without the mass of the ice. When the ice starts to melt a part of this effect disappears. So, around Greenland the sea level will drop, not rise. Netherlands are close enough to Greenland to take profit of this effect, but not enough to avoid sea level rise from Greenland completely.


     


    Sea Level and Gravitation

  • The Big Picture

    michael sweet at 07:01 AM on 18 March, 2023

    Bart:


    I do not see the graph you posted at 35 in your paper.  You have a graph at 52 that shows considerably more sea level rise than your graph at 35, but still much less than the KNMI report.


    The KNMI report that I linked was put out after the IPCC updated their sea level rise projections in 2021.  Apparently the paper you link was written before the IPCC updated their projections.  


    The Netherlands National Weather Institute's (KNMI) most recent projections, made after the publication of the paper you linked, are 1.2 - 2.0 meters of sea level rise in Holland by 2100.  If you prefer to look at outdated projections by lesser authorities that is your business.  Every time sea level projections are updated they are increased.  I suggest you try to keep more up to date.


    At 35 you said " I don't see many projections between 1-2 meters here."  That is incorrect, the Dutch National Weather service best estimate is 1.2-2.0 meters.


    Rob at 42: The link to Tamino (copy of link) that I posted at 30 shows the sea level data and explains why you cannot use the average of 1900-2020 to project to the future with a straight line.  He used the data from 1970-2020 and a quadratic fit for the most accurate projection. 


    Peppers: Tamino explains how to project future sea level rise.  He only projects to 2050 because the uncertainty bars become too big after that.

  • Antarctica is gaining ice

    John Hartz at 12:01 PM on 14 March, 2023

    Bart @ 556:


    "More information" does cometh rather quickly. The following in-depth artice was posted on BBC's Future feature yesterday:


    Why East Antarctica is a 'sleeping giant' of sea level rise by Alec Luhn. Future, BBC, Mar 12, 2023 


    The lede for the above article:


    Scientists once thought the East Antarctic ice sheet, which contains enough water to raise sea levels 52m (170ft), was stable. But now its ice shelves are beginning to melt.


    A key pragraph from the article related to your comments on this thread:



    Usually, glaciers move at a glacial pace. The speedy collapse of the Conger's ice shelf came after some of the most dramatically warm weather ever observed in Antarctica. For the first time since satellite monitoring began in 1979, the sea ice extent around Antarctica dropped below 2 million sq km (770,000 sq miles). Less sea ice means more waves battering the ice shelves in front of the glaciers. Massive fields of sea ice off of Adelie Land, Wilkes Land and Princess Elizabeth Land in East Antarctica completely disappeared.


  • The escalator rises again

    Bob Loblaw at 01:44 AM on 10 February, 2023

    I don't have the stomach to go over to WUWT, but the author of this blog post has also reposted it on his own blog, and here have been some interesting comments over there.


    Willis Eschenbach, of WUWT fame, has commented, and posted a graphic of what he calls "an actual structural breakpoint analysis" for the period 1969 to now. He draws attention to the steps, claiming "this is not done by 'cherry picking' but by mathematical analysis, this brings up the interesting question … what is causing the jumps?".


    Spolier alert: the "jumps" are an artifact of an inappropriate statistical analysis, and Willis has no explanation of any physical process to explain them, other than a brief hand-waving about El Nino events. But let's entertain the possibility for a bit.


    I pointed out in the comments over at ATTP's that the month-to-month change in the anomalies (i.e., this month's anomaly minus last month's) shows absolutely nothing to suggest that the anomaly goes through any sort of slow change (as suggested by the linear segments) interspersed with sudden jumps. If you take the entire BEST record, this is what you see for the month-to-month change in the anomalies:


    Month-to-month change in BEST anomalies


    The month-to-month change in anomaly looks pretty much like random noise to me. If Willis' hypothesis of meaningful "jumps" existed, I'd expect to see periods of fairly steady (i.e., unchanging) anomalies, with periodic short episodes of large changes representing "jumps" No such structures appear in the data.


    I also took the information from the graphic Willis posted of his "structural breakpoint analysis" and added the six line segments he created to a graph of the 1969-present BEST anomalies. This is a reproduction of  that information from Willis' graph:


    BEST temperature anomalies, 1969-2022


    The point I made over at ATTP's is that Willis six-segment linear fit to the data provides virtually no additional statistical explanation of the overall data. The equation on the above graphic is the basic linear fit for the entire data set. Note that the r2 value is 0.81. The regression standard error is 0.145 C - indicating the remaining "unexplained" variation in the residuals from the regression.


    How much better does Willis do with six line segments (and five breakpoints)? Not much. The accumulated standard error from the six regression lines is 0.133C - just over 0.01C better than the simple fit.


    If we look at some statistics for the six segments, we get:












































    End YearStandard errorP-valueR^2
    1976.8 0.131 0.07 0.0353
    1986.9 0.141 0.764 0.0008
    1994.7 0.141 0.25 0.0143
    2001.8 0.137 0.376 0.0095
    2014.9 0.119 0.005 0.0504
    2022.9 0.137 0.126 0.0001

    The P-values do not account for auto-correlation (there is lots), so take them with a grain of salt. But only one of Willis' line segments looks remotely significant, and the r2 values are very low.


    The fact is that nearly all of the statistical explanation in Willis' analysis is in the jumps, but there is no reason (looking at the month-to-month changes) to expect this analysis to come up with anything that is not just a misrepresentation of the noise.


    A basic linear regression does almost as well, with only two parameters (slope and intercept). In Willis' analysis, he needs 17 parameters: six lines (slope and intercept = 12 parameters) and five break-point years. This is not particularly parsimonious.


    Splitting a gradual increase in the data into a bunch of "jumps" that are a function of noise may be entertaining, but it's not particularly scientific.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #4

    One Planet Only Forever at 03:50 AM on 1 February, 2023

    Here is some newer news that raises a very important point regarding the ‘objectives of human actions today’. It is reporting 'new research', but relates to my comment @1.


    NPR News Item “AI is predicting the world is likely to hit a key warming threshold in 10-12 years”


    The important point is the unfortunate, and incorrect, ways that the Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 C and 2.0 C are discussed.


    The common sense needs to be that it is harmfully incorrect to refer to the 1.5 C target as ‘potentially, or actually, dead’. That incorrect way of thinking about the targets would be likely to also make 2.0 C ‘dead’.


    The required understanding is that, ideally, human action would keep global warming impacts below 1.5 C. If the powerful among the current generation is unwilling to make that happen, if the leadership actions taken indicate that 1.5 C will be exceeded, then the portion of the population most responsible for making the problem worse has to be required to pay today to start removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. And that ‘non-profitable action’ needs to be done with the least harmful of the currently developed technologies for doing that, not the least expensive. And any improvements that would further reduce the harm of those ‘removal operations already started’ would need to be implemented as modifications of existing operations, not just be part of new items built. And continued inaction to limit the harm done would trigger a larger 'penalty to do more 'now' to remove CO2.


    The science has long been clear that limiting harm done requires human global warming impacts to be brought back below 1.5 C. That will require unprofitable actions that need to be as harmless as possible. It is almost certain that the only way that will happen, and most effectively happen, is if the most harmful portion of the current population, those who benefited most from the developed problem and those who are currently benefiting most from continuing to make the problem worse, will not give up their harmful desires ‘they have to pay now, and be required to fix the problem as harmlessly as possible’. That penalty mechanism is likely the only way to keep human impacts below 2.0 C and minimize the magnitude and duration of an overshoot of impact above 1.5 C without having 'the solutions be new unnecessarily harmful developments'.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #2

    Evan at 03:28 AM on 24 January, 2023

    Thanks Rob for your comments.


    I agree with most of your points, but differ in messaging. Climate scientists, and even yourself, use the phrase "Once we get carbon emissions down to net zero," as though it is a foregone conclusion that we will. For the not-so-well-informed, watching from a distance layperson, one could get the feeling that we've found a way out of our mess, that we're well on our way, and that the current rollout of renewable energy and EVs will solve the problem. Yes, there are promising technologies, but rolling them out across the globe and replacing, not supplementing the fossil-fuel industry, is quite another matter. This all assumes, of course, the renewable energy is replacing fossil-fuel energy. Or is renewable energy merely allowing cheap expansion of more generating capacity? Rapid growth of renewable energy does not mean we are reducing emissions.


    And as you well know, energy consumption is just one part of the problem.


    I am not trying to spread pessimism. I am trying to help people prepare for a likely future. It is far more likely that we will have warming in the pipeline for decades to come, than not. It is far more likely that our current CO2 concentrations represent committed warming than not. The fact that the future theoretically lies in our hands and depends on what we do, cannot be construed to give us a likely future where we get to net zero emissions by 2050.


    Take a look at the following graph, where I've taken the 1970-2005 upward accelerating trend line and projected it forward. The 2010, 2015, and 2020 data all lie about this upward accelerating trend line! I don't see any indication of an inflection point. What I do see is a hint, not proof, but a hint that the trend line is more than accelerating upwards.


    For all of our sakes Rob I hope you're right and that I'm wrong. But the Keeling Curve only tells me one message. Time to prepare for a very tough future. We're in the middle of building a house now, and we're putting a lot of money into building it strong, into a ground-source heat pump, and into an expensive roof that can withstand high winds and hail. In short, the Keeling Curve is suggesting that we must build far beyond current building codes to keep up with the changing climate.


    I am serious, though, when I say that I hope you're right and I'm wrong. I don't want to be a pessimist. But I do want to help people prepare for the likely future.


    Upward accelerating Keeling Curve

  • Can induction stoves convince home cooks to give up gas?

    One Planet Only Forever at 04:39 AM on 23 January, 2023

    The following NPR article, “Gas stoves became part of the culture war in less than a week. Here's why”, shows that the people who want to benefit from prolonged, or increased, gas burning jumped on, and dumped on, the report of the study about the harms of cooking with gas.


    Marketing promoting the ‘positives’ of anything is actually a serious problem. And consumerism fuelled societies are full of it. Exclusively selling positive impressions, including selling how a product or service will alleviate unjustified fears like the health and cosmetic industry does, builds popular support and profitability. And that popularity and profitability can cause people to resist learning about harmful aspects of what they have been enticed to develop a liking for. People can be harmfully tempted to like leadership that makes-up things to be feared and claims to fight against the created, but unjustified, fears and anxiety. And a nasty twist of that understanding is the ways that misleading marketing can get people to believe that climate change impacts are a ‘made-up fear’.


    Most of the societies in human history that are perceived to be more advanced and superior, aspired to by others, can be understood to have been governed by misleading marketing and a related resistance to learning to be less harmful and more helpful to others.


    Human history is also full of evidence that a portion of the harmfully governed dominant populations have tried to promote learning about the harmful realities of the supposedly advanced and believed to be superior societies and cultures.


    The challenge continues to be breaking that cycle to get an increasing amount of human activity governed and limited by the pursuit of learning about what is harmful. That requires leadership actions that understandably reduce real harm done, repair harm done, and help people who genuinely need assistance to live a basic decent life. All human activity being governed that way would develop amazing sustainable improvements.

  • Don’t get fooled: Electric vehicles really are better for the climate

    Philippe Chantreau at 03:56 AM on 6 January, 2023

    I believe that this has been looked at already in details by multiple teams:


    arstechnica.com/cars/2021/07/electric-cars-have-much-lower-life-cycle-emissions-new-study-confirms/


     


    Overall impact is highly dependent on battery manufacturing processes, and the ones made in Asia have an overall higher adverse impact:


    www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969721079493


     


    By far the most comprehensive analysis I have seen on the subjects is that of the EEA:


    https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/electric-vehicles-from-life-cycle


    From section 6.1, summary of key findings, climate change impacts: ". In general, GHG emissions associated with the raw materials and production stage of BEVs are 1.3-2 times higher than for ICEVs (Ellingsen et al., 2016; Kim et al., 2016), but this can be more than offset by lower per kilometre use stage emissions, depending on the electricity generation source (Figure 6.1). Hawkins et al. (2013) reported life cycle GHG emissions from BEVs charged using the average European electricity mix 17-21 % and 26-30 % lower than similar diesel and petrol vehicles, respectively (Figure 6.1). This is broadly in line with more recent assessments based on the average European electricity mix (e.g. Ellingsen et al., 2016, Ellingsen and Hung, 2018."


    The referenced papers are available, Hawkins et al (2013) is probably a little dated but not as European specific as others cited.  Neugebauer, Zebrowski and Esmer (2022) has a variety of models that show benefits in most situations. Ellingsen and Hung (2018) is more specifically focused on the European generation mix. In general, CO2 emissions favor EVs, unless the EV would replace a still operational ICE car that is driven less than 5000miles/year. This holds even for generation mixes that are heavily reliant on coal.

  • Examining Dr. John Christy's Global Warming Skepticism

    Vissermc at 21:42 PM on 26 December, 2022

    This page could use an update. Christy claims all the climate models are overestimating when tested against the data. Paper link: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021GL097420.


    YouTube video where he claims models are off by factor of 2: https://youtu.be/qJv1IPNZQao

  • Record snowfall disproves global warming

    MA Rodger at 04:11 AM on 24 December, 2022

    On this David Viner quote from 2000 discussed @8,9&10, I think it's fair to say it applies to Southern England and is saying snow (perhaps lying snow rather tha snowfall) will be a lot rarer in coming years.
    The Met Office does produce UK maps of both 'snow days' and 'snow lying days' for 30-year periods. These show decline in both with the more dramatic decline in 'snow days' although the most recent version of these maps (1991-2020) are yet to be published. (See maps in Fig 1 in this CEH 'Snow in Britain: the historical picture and future projections' document from 2016).
    Of course, all these maps are saying is that the 1990s were less snowy than the 1960s and the 2000s less snowy than the 1970s.


    There is a better reckoning showing to winter 2012/3 in this 2013 Reading Uni blog which shows graphs of the annual number of 'snow lying days' at Reading since 1948/9. This shows the decline in snowiness up 2008 was reversed in the following years.


    Another less-exacting attempt to show the level of UK snow is graphed out by decade below, based on this record here. Taking the method up-to-date puts the latest ten-years (2011/12-to 2020/21) at 22, so the snowiness is again showing decline, although a couple of 'very snowy' years would soon boost that up again.


    UK snowiness by decade

  • It's a natural cycle

    MA Rodger at 23:30 PM on 16 December, 2022

    Long Knoll @33,


    If confusion is sought, the early attempts at creating an Arctic Sea Ice Extent/Area record is a good place to start.


    The 'splice' of two of these early attempts was probably not the work of Heller but of a Kenneth Richard shiown in this NoTricksZone post from 2016.


    The more recent part of the spliced graph is taken from Fig 7.20a in the first IPCC Assessment Report of 1990. A similar graph appears in the second IPCC Assessment Report of 1995 as Fig 3.8a. These Arctic Ice records do not match later records which begin to appear in Chapman & Walsh (1993). I have plotted out these various records (see here the graph posted 16/12/22) but have not had any success finding an explanation for the dip in Arctic Ice levels 1973-76. (The use of US Navy data is not something considered accurate today, but the decision not to use it or to use it differently is not something I have seen explained.)


    The earlier part of the 'spliced' graph is from Vinnikov et al (1980) which isn't on-line but note the graphic in this 2013 slide show by Vinnikov from Vinnikov et al (1999) (abstract on-line) presents a record consistent with the current records. And for good measure Walsh is one of the co-authors of Vinnikov et al (1999). So again we see a major reappraisal of the data which hasn't been explained in the literature. And without access to these early papers, the question remains of what the basis for these early records actually is. (And my assertion back in 2017 that Vinnikov et al (1980) was plotting summer ice levels is probably wrong.)

  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #50 2022

    peterklein at 07:12 AM on 16 December, 2022

    I mostly became mostly aware of the climate and global warming issue about the time that Al Gore began beating the drum (even while he continued to fly globally in his private jet). Since then, I've read about climate change and climate modeling from many sources, including ones taking the position that ‘it is not a question if it is a big-time issue, but what to do about it now, ASAP?’.


    In the past few weeks, it appeared to me there has been a of articles, issued reports, and federal government activity, including recently approved legislation, related to this topic. While it obviously has been one of the major global topics for the past 3+ decades, the amount of public domain ‘heightened activity’ seems (to me) to come in waves every 4-6 months. That said, I decided to write on the topic based on what I learned and observed over time from articles, research reports, and TV/newspaper interviews.


    There clearly are folks, associations, formal and informal groups, and even governments on both sides of the topic (issue). I also have seen over the decades how the need for and the flow of money sometimes (many times?) taints the results of what appear to be ‘expert-driven and expert-executed’ quantitative research. For example, in medical research some of the top 5% of researchers have been found altering their data and conclusions because of the source of their research funding, peer ‘industry’ pressure and/or pressure from senior academic administrators.


    Many climate and weather-related articles state that 95+% of researchers agree on major climate changes; however (at least to me) many appear to disagree on the short-medium-longer term implications and timeframes.


    What I conclude (as of now)
    1. This as a very complex subject about which few experts have been correct.
    2. We are learning more and more every day about this subject, and most of what we learn suggests that what we thought we knew isn't really correct or at least as perfectly accurate as many believe.
    3. The U.S. alone cannot solve whatever problem exists. If we want to do something constructive, build lots of nuclear power plants ASAP (more on that to follow)!
    4. Any rapid reduction in the use of fossil fuels will devastate many economies, especially those like China, India, Africa and most of Asia. Interestingly, the U.S. can probably survive a 3 or 4% reduction in carbon footprint annually over the next 15 years better than almost any country in the world, but this requires the aforementioned construction of multiple nuclear electrical generating facilities. In the rest of the world, especially the developing world, their economies will crash, and famine would ensue; not a pretty picture.
    5. I am NOT a reflexive “climate denier” but rather a real-time skeptic that humans will be rendered into bacon crisps sometime in the next 50, 100 or 500+ years!
    6. One reason I'm not nearly as concerned as others is my belief in the concept of ‘progress’. Look at what we accomplished as a society over the last century, over the last 50, 10, 5 and 3 years (e.g., Moore’s Law is the observation that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles about every two years!). It is easy to conclude that we will develop better storage batteries and better, more efficient electrical grids that will reduce our carbon footprint. I'm not so sure about China, India and the developing world!
    7. So, don't put me down as a climate denier even though I do not believe that the climate is rapidly deteriorating or will rapidly deteriorate as a result of CO2 upload. Part of my calm on this subject is because I have read a lot about the ‘coefficient of correlation of CO2 and global warming, and I really don't think it's that high. I won't be around to know if I was right in being relaxed on this subject, but then I have more important things to worry about (including whether the NY Yankees can beat Houston in the ACLS playoffs, assuming they meet!).


    My Net/Net (As of Now!)
    I am not a researcher or a scientist, and I recognize I know far less than all there is to know on this very complex topic, and I am not a ‘climate change denier’… but, after
    also reading a lot of material over the years from ‘the other side’ on this topic, I conclude it is monumentally blown out of proportion relative to those claiming: ‘the sky is falling and fast’!
    • Read or skim the book by Steven Koonin: Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters /April 27, 2021; https://www.amazon.com/Unsettled-Climate-Science-Doesnt-Matters/dp/1950665798
    • Google ‘satellite measures of temperature’; also, very revealing… see one attachment as an example.
    • Look at what is happening in the Netherlands and Sri Lanka! Adherence to UN and ESG mandates are starving countries; and it appears Canada is about to go over the edge!
    • None of the climate models are accurate for a whole range of reasons; the most accurate oddly enough is the Russian model but that one is even wrong by orders of magnitude!
    • My absolute favorite fact is that based on data from our own governmental observation satellites: the oceans have been rising over the last 15 years at the astonishing rate of 1/8th of an inch annually; and my elementary mathematics suggests that if this rate continues, the sea will rise by an inch sometime around 2030 and by a foot in the year 2118… so, no need to buy a lifeboat if you live in Miami, Manhattan, Boston, Los Angeles, or San Francisco!
    • Attached is a recent article and a Research Report summary.
     Probably the most damning is the Research Report comparison of the climate model predictions from 2000, pointing to 2020 versus the actual increase in temperature that has taken place in that timeframe (Pages 9-13). It's tough going and I suggest you just read the yellow areas on Page 9 (the Abstract and Introduction, very short) and the 2 Conclusions on Page 12. But the point is someone is going to the trouble to actually analyze this data on global warming coefficients!
    My Observations and Thinking
    In the 1970s Time Magazine ran a cover story about our entering a new Ice Age. Sometime in the early 1990s, I recall a climate scientist sounding the first warning about global warming and the potentially disastrous consequences. He specifically predicted high temperatures and massive floods in the early 2000’s. Of course, that did not occur; however, others picked up on his concern and began to drive it forward, with Al Gore being one of the primary voices of climate concern. He often cited the work in the 1990’s of a climate scientist at Penn State University who predicted a rapid increase in temperature, supposedly occurring in 2010 and, of course, this also did not occur.


    Nonetheless many scientists from various disciplines also began to warn about global warming starting in the early 2000’s. It was this growing body of ‘scientific’ concern that stimulated Al Gore's concern and his subsequent movie. It would be useful for you to go back to that and review the apocalyptic pronouncements from that time; most of which predicted dire consequences, high temperatures, massive flooding, etc. which were to occur in 10 or 12 years, certainly by 2020. None of this even closely occurred to the extent they predicted.


    That said, I was still generally aware of the calamities predicted by a large and diverse body of global researchers and scientists, even though their specific predictions did not take place in the time frame or to the extent that they predicted. As a result, I become a ‘very casual student’ of climate modeling.


    Over the past 15 years climate modeling has become a popular practice in universities, think-tanks and governmental organizations around the globe. Similar to medical and other research (e.g., think-tanks, etc.) I recognized that some of the work may have been driven by folks looking for grants and money to keep them and their staff busy.


    A climate model is basically a multi-variate model in which the dependent variable is global temperature. All of these models try to identify the independent variables which drive change in global temperature. These independent variables range from parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to sunspot activity, the distance of the earth from the sun, ocean temperatures, cloud cover, etc. The challenge of a multi-variant model is first to identify all of the various independent variables affecting the climate and then to estimate the percent contribution to global warming made by a change in any of these independent variables. For example, what would be the coefficient of correlation for an increase in carbon dioxide parts per million to global warming?


    You might find that an interesting cocktail party question to ask your friends “what is the coefficient of correlation between the increase in carbon dioxide parts per million and the effect on global warming?” I would be shocked if any of them even understood what you were saying and flabbergasted if they could give you an intelligent answer! There are dozens of these climate models. You might be surprised that none of them has been particularly accurate if we go back 12 years to 2010, for example, and look at the prediction that the models made for global warming in ten years, by 2020, and how accurate any given model would be.
    An enterprising scientist did go back and collected the predictions from a score of climate models and found that a model by scientists from Moscow University was actually closer to being accurate than any of the other models. But the point is none were accurate! They all were wrong on the high side, dramatically over predicting the actual temperature in 2020. Part of the problem was that in several of those years, there was no increase in the global temperature at all. This caused great consternation among global warming believers and the scientific community!


    A particularly interesting metric relates to the rise in the level of the ocean. Several different departments in the U.S. government actually measures this important number. You might be surprised to know, as stated earlier, that over the past 15 or so years the oceans have risen at the dramatic rate of 1/8th of an inch annually. This means that if the oceans continued to rise at that level, we would see a rise of an inch in about 8 years, sometime around 2030, and a rise of a foot sometime around the year 2118. I suspect Barack Obama had seen this data and that's why he was comfortable in buying an oceanfront estate on Martha's Vineyard when his presidency ended!


    The ‘Milankovitch Theory’ (a Serbian astrophysicist Milutin Milankovitch, after whom the Milankovitch Climate Theory is named, proposed about how the seasonal and latitudinal variations of solar radiation that hit the earth in different and at different times have the greatest impact on earth's changing climate patterns) states that as the earth proceeds on its orbit, and as the axis shifts, the earth warms and cools depending on where it is relative to the sun over a 100,000-year, and 40,000-year cycle. Milankovitch cycles are involved in long-term changes to Earth's climate as the cycles operate over timescales of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years.


    So, consider this: we did not suddenly get a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere this year than we had in 2019 (or other years!), but maybe the planet has shifted slightly as the Milankovitch Theory states, and is now a little closer to the sun, which is why we have the massive drought. Nothing man has done would suddenly make the drought so severe, but a shift in the axis or orbit bringing the planet a bit closer to the sun would. It just seems logical to me. NASA publicly says that the theory is accurate, so it seems that is the real cause; but the press and politicians will claim it is all man caused! You can shut down all oil production and junk all the vehicles, and it will not matter per the Theory! Before the mid-1800’s there were no factories or cars, but the earth cooled and warmed, glaciers formed and melted, and droughts and massive floods happened. The public is up against the education industrial complex of immense corruption!


    In the various and universally wrong ‘climate models’, one of the ‘independent’ variables is similar to the Milankovitch Theory. Unfortunately, it is not to the advantage of the climate cabal to admit this or more importantly give it the importance it probably deserves.


    People who are concerned about the climate often cite an ‘increase in forest fires, hurricanes, heat waves, etc. as proof of global warming’. And many climate deniers point out that most forest fires are proven to be caused by careless humans tossing cigarettes into a pile of leaves or leaving their campfire unattended, and that there has been a dramatic decrease globally on deaths caused by various climate factors. I often read from climate alarmists (journalists, politicians, friends, etc.), what I believe are ‘knee-jerk’ responses since they are not supported by meaningful and relevant data/facts, see typical comments below:
    • “The skeptical climate change deniers remind me of the doctors hired by the tobacco industry to refute the charges by the lung cancer physicians that tobacco smoke causes lung cancer. The planet is experiencing unprecedented extreme climate events: droughts, fires, floods etc. and the once in 500-year catastrophic climate event seems to be happening every other year. Slow motion disasters are very difficult to deal with politically. When a 200-mph hurricane hits the east coast and causes a trillion dollars in losses then will deal with it and then climate deniers will throw in the towel!”


    These above comments may be right, but to date the forecasts on timing implications across all the models are wrong! It just ‘may be’ in 3, 10 or 50 years… or in 500-5000+ before the ‘sky is falling’ devastating events directly linked to climate occur. If some of the forecasts, models were even close to accuracy to date I would feel differently.


    I do not deny there are climate related changes I just don’t see any evidence their impact is anywhere near the professional researchers’ forecasts/models on their impact as well as being ‘off the charts’ different than has happened in the past 100-1000+ years.


    But a larger question is “suppose various anthropogenetic actions (e.g., chiefly environmental pollution and pollutants originating in human activity like anthropogenic emissions of sulfur dioxide) are causing global warming?”. What are they, who is doing it, and what do we do about it? The first thing one must do is recognize that this is a global problem and that therefore the actions of any one country has an effect on the overall climate depending upon its population and actions. Many in the United States focus intensely upon reducing carbon emissions in the U.S. when of course the U.S. is only 5% of the world population. We are however responsible for a disproportionate part of the global carbon footprint; we contribute about 12%. The good news is that the U.S. has dramatically reduced its share of the global carbon footprint over the past 20 years and doing so while dramatically increasing our GDP (up until the 1st Half of 2022).


    Many factors have contributed to the relative reduction of the U.S. carbon footprint. Chief among these are much more efficient automobiles and the switch from coal-driven electric generation plants to those driven by natural gas, a much cleaner fossil fuel.


    While the U.S. is reducing its carbon footprint more than any other country in the world, China has dramatically increased its carbon footprint and now contributes about 30% of the carbon expelled into the atmosphere. China is also building 100 coal-fired plants!


    Additional facts, verified by multiple sources including SNOPES, the U.,S. government, engineering firms, etc.:
    • No big signatories to the Paris Accord are now complying; the U.S. is out-performing all of them.
    • EU is building 28 new coal plants; Germany gets 40% of its power from 84 coal plants; Turkey is building 93 new coal plants, India 446, South Korea 26, Japan 45, China has 2363 coal plants and is building 1174 new ones; the U.S. has 15 and is building no new ones and will close about 15 coal plants.
    • Real cost example: Windmills need power plants run on gas for backup; building one windmill needs 1100 tons of concrete & rebar, 370 tons of steel, 1000 lbs of mined minerals (e.g., rare earths, iron and copper) + very long transmission lines (lots of copper & rubber covering for those) + many transmission towers… rare earths come from the Uighur areas of China (who use slave labor), cobalt comes from places using child labor and use lots of oil to run required rock crushers... all to build one windmill! One windmill also has a back-up, inefficient, partially running, gas-powered generating plant to keep the grid functioning! To make enough power to really matter, we need millions of acres of land & water, filled with windmills which consume habitats & generate light distortions and some noise, which can create health issues for humans and animals living near a windmill (this leaves out thousands of dead eagles and other birds).


    • So, if we want to decrease the carbon footprint on the assumption that this is what is driving the rise in the sea levels (see POV that sea levels are not rising at: www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRChoNTg) and any increase in global temperature, we need to figure out how to convince China, India and the rest of the world from fouling the air with fossil fuels. In fact, if the U.S. wanted to dramatically reduce its own carbon footprint, we would immediately begin building 30 new nuclear electrical generating plants around the country! France produces about 85% of its electrical power from its nuclear-driven generators. Separately, but related, do your own homework on fossil fuels (e.g., oil) versus electric; especially on the big-time move to electric and hybrid vehicles. Engineering analyses show you need to drive an electric car about 22 years (a hybrid car about 15-18 years) to breakeven on the savings versus the cost involved in using fossil fuels needed to manufacture, distribute and maintain an electric car! Also, see page 14 on the availability inside the U.S. of oil to offset what the U.S. purchases from the middle east and elsewhere, without building the Keystone pipeline from Canada.


    Two 4-5-minute videos* on the climate change/C02/new green deal issue, in my opinion, should be required viewing in every high school and college; minimally because it provides perspective and data on the ‘other’ side of the issue while the public gets bombarded almost daily by the ‘sky is falling now or soon’ side on climate change!


    * https://www.prageru.com/video/is-there-really-a-climate-emergency and
    https://www.prageru.com/video/climate-change-whats-so-alarming

  • 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #49

    David Hawk at 23:21 PM on 11 December, 2022

    Thank you Jonas. You comment allowed a small wiff of fresh air to challenge site management being appalled at what they losely define as ad hominem to thus remove comments that find context essential to meaning. Its okay, and normal to do such, but it necessarily erodes credibility when mistakes are made. Humans make mistakes. I used to reference this site in much of my teaching in three countries and advising on research funding but no longer reference this location. A site manager sent me a note saying I had included a reference to one of my books on the importance of feminine research on climate change in 1856, a book presented to OECD in 1979 on climate change. He said he had thus removed the book title. In fact he only removed the content but left the book title?  This was similar to a prior event where my cartoon against humans was criticized as political, thus the comment and cartoon were removed. Later, the site manager reposted the cartoon without my name?  I guess we all make mistakes as humility.


    Mistakes occur with arrogance in the climate change subject area. We really need to be more careful  A few years ago Science posted a review of one of my books and received more than 800 responses. The editor became upset by the responses and wrote me saying they were imposing a cap of 150 responses. He said the 2,100 pages that had resulted were too much to manage?  I eased his life by no longer referencing them.


    Jonas, once again, your comment was a nice reminder of the importance of openness and transparency in the tradition of Socrates and Joan of Arc, but of course they were treated badly for such. Seems whatever they said was either political, ad hominem, or simply "off-topic."  My debate with China's Leadership Council a few years ago on governance of climate change was eventually so classified via new leadership.  Humans?

  • 2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46

    EddieEvans at 23:17 PM on 8 December, 2022

    Yes, "The Baby Boomers and religious groups can and should help the younger generations break out of the cycle of excusing harmful pursuits of perceptions of prosperity and superiority."
    The new climate change creates "a perfect moral storm that threatens our ability to behave ethically." So I'm obliged to follow Stephen M. Gardner's wordy "A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change (Environmental Ethics and Science Policy Series)".
    In the US, we have the science; we know what must happen, and it's clear that at the bottom, it's now an ethical issue, climate deception, denial, and delay. Our climate joins the intergenerational buck-passing we find in nuclear weapons, waste, and mass extinction. Yet, I guess that James Hansen remains unknown to the general population, and looney politicians and cult followers have control over idols of the market, idols of the stage.
    So when do intergenerational social and cultural patterns break for science? When it's far too late for the following generations. Tragically, they each will pass the buck by necessity or choice to the following generations, if any.

More than 100 comments found. Only the most recent 100 have been displayed.



The Consensus Project Website

THE ESCALATOR

(free to republish)


© Copyright 2024 John Cook
Home | Translations | About Us | Privacy | Contact Us