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

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

A data scientist’s case for ‘cautious optimism’ about climate change

nigelj at 05:10 AM on 4 April, 2024

William @ 38

"At what point - would you start to not trust a climate alarmist - if deaths continue to fall or not rise for another 40 years - would you think maybe we should not trust those who make these predictions and fuel the narrative. Or do they just get a forever pass - and you will always accept more predictions - even though the people and movements who made them before have always been wrong."

Scientists are making the best predictions and projections they can. The best evidence they have says heatwaves have already become significantly more frequent and intense (refer last IPCC report), and that this situation will get worse over time particularly as warming gets above 2 degrees C. I see no reason to doubt them. The predictions are rational, logical and evidence based. I am a sceptical sort of person but Im not a fool who thinks all predictions should be ignored or that everything is fake or a conspiracy.

Scientists generally predict heatwave mortality will increase and be greater than reducing deaths in winter due to warmer winters, as per the reference I posted @34. What scientists cannot possibly predict is what advances there might be in healthcare and technology that might keep the mortality rate low. All we know is there will likely be further improvements in healthcare and technology, but quantifying them is impossible and it would be foolish to assume there will be massive improvements. We have to follow the precautionary principle that things could be quite bad.

If warming over the next 20 years causes less harm than predicted mitigation policies can be adjusted accordingly. This is far better than just making wild assumptions that global warming would be a fizzer.

Please appreciate that contrary to your comments elsewhere, multiple climate predictions have proven to be correct. Just a few examples:

theconversation.com/20-years-on-climate-change-projections-have-come-true-11245

www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/oct/25/charlie-kirk/many-climate-predictions-do-come-true

"I think people just want to believe things will be terrible and there are primed believe end of days narratives."

Some people yes. Other people think things will always be fine. Both are delusional views. I would suggest the vast majority of people between those extremes have a more rational, nuanced view and that they look at the overall evidence. Polling by Pew Research does show the majority of people globally accept humans are warming the climate and we need to mitigate the problem.

"Yes - anything could happen in the future and deaths and damage levels could rise again- but it is nor healthy to ignore the present - or trust people that wilfully distort it."

I'm not ignoring the present or past. The mortality rate from disasters has mostly fallen over the last 100 years and that looks like robust data. I didn't dispute this above. I dont recal anyone disputing it. However you cant assume that trend will always be the case. The climate projections show deadly heatwaves are very likely to become very frequent and over widespread areas, and so obviously there is a significant risk the mortality rate will go up.

It's almost completely certain that at the very least considerably increased resources will have to go into healthcare, air conditioning, adaptation, etc,etc. This means fewer resources available for other things we want to achieve in life. Once again its not all about the mortality rate per se. So when I look at the big picture there is a strong case to stop greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a new zero carbon energy grid.

A data scientist’s case for ‘cautious optimism’ about climate change

William at 02:26 AM on 4 April, 2024

I don't dismiss predictions and opinions.
I am however a great believer in evidence, especially hard evidence .
It is difficult to discuss matters with someone who ignores evidence because it does not fit their pre conceived opinion and biases.
If you say t will rain tomorrow -and I say it will not - and we both agree to a bet on it.
And it did not rain - you can't say I think it will rain nest week therefore i was right - and I am not paying you.
This is the basic tactic of climate alarmist - they keep being proved wrong - so they move the timelines. - the new timeline are wrong - so they move them again - and so on and so on.

It is why people still say Thomas Malthus was right. One can never win with them - because they just say somethimng that is unfalsifiable .

It is like someone saying - prove there are no UFO

And btw – it is not just one metric deaths – there has been no increase in economic damage in real terms, no increase in droughts, floods, land burned by bushfires, famine , migration from hot places to cold. None of these ( despite 40 years of predictions ) have occurred – but yes you will be able to find new predictions – and maybe in your book – that means they have occurred.

A data scientist’s case for ‘cautious optimism’ about climate change

William at 00:09 AM on 4 April, 2024

nigelj

At what point - would you start to not trust a climate alarmist - if deaths continue to fall or not rise for another 40 years - would you think maybe we should not trust those who make these predictions and fuel the narrative. Or do they just get a forever pass - and you will always accept more predictions - even though the people and movements who made them before have always been wrong.

I think people just want to believe things will be terrible and there are primed believe end of days narratives.

Yes - anything could happen in the future and deaths and damage levels could rise again- but it is nor healthy to ignore the present - or trust people that wilfully distort it.

A data scientist’s case for ‘cautious optimism’ about climate change

William at 02:54 AM on 3 April, 2024

Eclectic 14
Thomas Malthus was a bit more than not 100% right - he was more like 100% wrong . He said : We would not have enough food to feed more than one billion people - we actually feed 8 billion better than we did 1 billion. His scare did harm and helped cause the potato famine.

I don't cite him and say : predicted problems will not occur because he was wrong. The truth is neither you or I have any idea which problems will or will not occur .

I do say we should remember Thomas Malthus - when people make apocalyptic predictions and want us to fundamental change on the back of the predictions.
Getting rid of fossil fuels could cause untold damage. Cheap reliable energy has massively improved human well-being .
We ignore that our peril.

A data scientist’s case for ‘cautious optimism’ about climate change

William at 22:29 PM on 2 April, 2024

Eclectic,
Surely instead of spending trillions trying to change the weather - it would be better to give the poor air conditioning.
110f with air conditioning is much better than 108f with no air conditioning.
The real action toy want will cost trillions - and as the movement always says only real significant action will make any difference to temperatures .

Much better to spend the money on adaption, if and when we need it. It should also be noted everything is based on predictions ,modelling and projections., We could have had the same conversation 40 years ago - we could have the same one in 40 years.
I will say - none of it happened - and you will say it will in the future.
Mankind has always been useless at predicting the future - we have not learnt from Thomas Malthus - interesting people are still saying - yes his predictions were very wrong - but one day.....

Surely there must be some part of you that thinks maybe it has been overhyped. There may be bigger problems - that we should spend our time and money on. Or are you absolutely certain catastrophe awaits unless we take drastic action?

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

TWFA at 11:44 AM on 27 October, 2023

Without a time machine the answer as to whether Clauser or "everybody else" is right or wrong is not and cannot as yet be known, theory is not an outcome, consensus is not data, only measurement is, as Spock would say, "Insufficient data, captain".

No, I am not claiming to be as intelligent or logical as Spock and you are not going to be able to insult or castigate me into agreement or silence. I and doubtless others do not find such an approach the least bit persuasive, and the biggest problem the experts have is being persuasive instead of dismissive.

Whether you like it or not there will be other old geezers like me and Clauser who have only earned their advanced degress in ignorance through a lifetime of experience and observations of nature, people, their predictions and outcomes, most recently all the peer reviewed scientists and experts claiming that a vaccine, a mask and two weeks to flatten the curve was all that was necessary to bring things to a halt, but in my case a serial entrepreneur and inventor investing in my own ideas and predictions as well as those of others.

We have learned that it is not the answers that make the case, it is the questions that precede them, and we know how to ask them. Do not dismiss the value of lay participation in an esoteric field, especially when it affects them directly, you never know where wisdom and breakthrough may come from.

I mean, who would ever expect that a dumb playwright without an advanced degree in probability theory like Bernard Shaw could ever be able to explain it to the masses in a public debate of his day not unlike the one we are engaged in right here.

However I am pleased to learn from you that we have some kind of recorded data of planetary cloud cover history, presumably from cave drawings forward, or perhaps Martian observations contained in journals carelessly left behind after landing and departing Nazca International Spaceport, instead of inferred or imputed data through a chain of supporting inferred or imputed data, and because the effects of cloud cover and weather is my primary area of interest I would appreciate links to that data.

From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

Rob Honeycutt at 11:46 AM on 18 October, 2023

Rabelt... Assuming your "main narrative" is "[d]elta C13 starts decreasing around 1750 and continues to decrease ever since, the main narrative blames it on FF"... Your narrative is a basic misinterpretation of the science.

The C13 narrative (if you want to call it that) is merely the physics behind carbon isotopes for natural sources vs through burning hydrocarbons. That it. If you're saying this area of physics is wrong, you need to explain why.

The accepted understanding of this physics merely creates a prediction that can be tested. If the increasing concentrations of CO2 are primarily due to the buring of FF's, then we should see a corresponding relationship with C13. And that's all this is. It's just one piece of evidence that contributes to the scientific understanding that our uses of FF's is the source of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.

A Frank Discussion About the Propagation of Measurement Uncertainty

MA Rodger at 18:52 PM on 11 August, 2023

Nigelj @13,
The paper Frank (2019) did take six months from submission to gain acceptance and Frontiers does say "Frontiers only applies the most rigorous and unbiased reviews, established in the high standards of the Frontiers Review System."
Yet the total nonsense of Frank (2019) is still published, not just a crazy approach but quite simple mathematical error as well.

But do note that a peer-reviewed publication does not have to be correct. A novel approach to a subject can be accepted even when that approach is easily show to be wrong and even when the implications of the conclusions (which are wrong) are set out as being real.
I suppose it is worth making plain that peer-review can allow certain 'wrong' research to be published as this will prevent later researchers making the same mistakes. Yet what is so often lost today is the idea that any researcher wanting publishing must be familiar with the entirety of the literature and takes account of it within their work.

And for a denialist, any publication means it is entirely true, if they want it to be.

In regard to the crazy Frank (2019), it is quite simple to expose the nonsense.

This wondrous theory (first appearing in 2016) suggests that, at a 1sd limit, a year's global average SAT could be anything between +0.35ºC to -0.30ºC the previous year's temperature, this variation due alone to the additional AGW forcing enacted since that previous year. The actual SAT records do show an inter-year variation but something a little smaller (+/-0.12ºC at 1sd in the recent BEST SAT record) but this is from all causes not just from a single cause that is ever accumulating. And these 'all causes' of the +/-0.12ºC are not cumulative through the years but just wobbly noise. Thus the variation seen do not increase with variation measured over a longer period. After 8 years in the BEST SAT record is pretty-much the same as the 1-year variation and not much greater at 60 years (+/-0.22ºC). But in the crazy wonderland of Pat Frank, these variations are apparently potentially cumulative (that would be the logic) so Frank's 8-year variation is twice the 1-year variation. And after 60 years of these AGW forcings (which is the present period with roughly constant AGW forcing) according to Frank we should be seeing SAT changes anything from +17.0ºC to -12.0ºC solely due to AGW forcing. And because Frank's normal distributions provides the probability of these variations, we can say there was an 80% chance of us seeing global SAT increases accumulating over that 60 years in excess of +4.25ºC and/or decreases acumulating in excess of -3.0ºC. According to Frank's madness, we should have been seeing such 60-year variation. But we haven't. So as a predictive analysis, the nonsense of Frank doesn't begin to pass muster.

And another test for garbage is the level of interest shown by the rest of science. In the case of Frank (2019), that interest amounts to 19 citations according to Google Scholar, these comprising 6 citations by Frank himself, 2 mistaken citation (only one by a climatological paper which examines marine heat extremes and uses the Frank paper to support the contention "Substantial uncertainties and biases can arise due to the stochastic nature of global climate systems." which Frank 2019 only says are absent), a climatology working-paper that lists Frank with a whole bunch of denialists, three citations by one Norbert Schwarzer who appears more philosopher than scientist, and six by a fairly standard AGW denier called Pascal Richet. That leaves a PhD thesis citing Frank (2019)'s to say "... general circulation models generally do not have an error associated with predictions"
So science really has no interest in Frank's nonsense (other than demonstrating that it is nonsense).

How to inoculate yourself against misinformation

Teakay at 17:19 PM on 16 May, 2023

Petra Liverani I find it interesting why people such as yourself claim to be more open when in reality you are the least open as your stand point just dismisses volumes of scientific evidence that doesn't fit your own beliefs & feeling. Contrarian thinking can have a value in science to stress standing hypothesis & create alternative hypothesis. However alot of alternative hypothesis continue to be kicked around well after their sell-by date as the evidence against them grows. We see this in climate science with the likes Lindzen. His climate predictions were proved wrong. He could of conceded, but instead doubled fown and went into the 'it's a conspiracy against me'. The evidence against Terrain theory is so high their are branches of science dedicated to virology that you have dismiss over a 100years of scientific evidence. The pieces of Terrain theory that had merit where long included into health care such as the role environment & personal health that's how science works it incorporates things which can ve evidenced as having an effect. The ideas pushed by the likes of Sam Bailey have long been dismissed to the point she is reverting to scientific knowledge of the 1800's when trying to apply Koch's postulates. Again this mirrors climate science where past talking points are continually rehashed though the scientific evidence had dismissed them long ago. The poor logic deployed to dismiss any evidence against a biased position is astonishing - the vast organisation, cost, number of people invloved etc that would be required gor these conspiracy theory's to be real is laughable when membersof governments can't even keep their affairs secret.

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

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32 2022

nigelj at 11:30 AM on 19 August, 2022

Jason Chen @12

"What's not that list is physics goals of fixing the climate or even predicting it well. 30 years later, the climate is neither fixed nor on a path to be fixed. Fixed hasn't even been defined. The IPCC hasn't identified anything close to a seat belt. The response strategies it has formulated have a conspicuous overlap with Klaus Schwab's agenda for maximal disruption. Large chunks of the world are rejecting them as economically and politically unpalatable. These are just facts."

Your stream of mostly nonsensical, wrong, evidence free, citation free assertions is getting tiresome. I wish you would take your trolling somewhere else. You also have a habit of confusing various things.

For the benefit of sane people:

"What's not that list is physics goals of fixing the climate"

Fixing the climate is not a physics goal. Physics is about understanding the climate. Mitigation is about fixing the climate.

And The IPCCs stated goals of assessing the relevant scientific information obvious directly imply the requirement to understand the physics.And their stated goal of formulating response strategies is clearly about "fixing the climate".

"or even predicting it well"

IPPC does not predict the climate. It reviews predictions made in various modelling exercises and the predictions have been quite good:

climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

"the climate is neither fixed nor on a path to be fixed."

The fact that the climate problem has not been fixed is nothing to do with the IPCC or some undefined nebulous global elite. Neither are tasked with fixing the climate problem. Its because governments have weak policies, corporates have been slow to respond, and individuals have been complacent.

"Fixed hasn't even been defined. "

Fixed has been defined: Net zero by 2050 under the Paris Accord Agreements. You may disagree with the definition, but stop telling people there is no definition.

"The IPCC hasn't identified anything close to a seat belt."

The IPCC have defined the science very well. Their latest report runs to about 10,000 pages and references many thousands of peer reviewed studies. The science goes back over 100 years. This website discusses this issue if you go through their menu system to find relevant information.

"Klaus Swabs agenda".

Jason you better put on your tin foil hat.

"Large chunks of the world are rejecting them as economically and politically unpalatable. These are just facts."

Large chunks of the world are rejecting climate mitigation strategies for a range of reasons. For some its because they don't want to pay any costs, but there are many other reasons including vested interests, holding on to establiashed patterns of a materialistic displays of status, campaigns of climate science denialism and for various psychological reasons. But equally large chunks of people want mitigation strategies implimented, if you read polling studies by Pew Research.

Those are the real facts, with some relevant sources noted..

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32 2022

JasonChen at 13:34 PM on 18 August, 2022

Was it decided that we must rearrange parts of our physical economy? The passive voice and the cryptic "we" rob the question of any meaning. "We" don't decide anything. "We" may be perfectly happy to drop hammers, more concerned with our paychecks and careers and reputations and self-images than with most of the 70 billion toes out there.

What appears to have happened in the 1980s is that some faction at the WMO succeeded after a long lobbying effort in getting the UN to charter the IPCC with a half-scientific, half-political mission to assess the AGW science and make recommendations to governments on climate interventions to essentially slow the spread of global warming. Both the fact of AGW and the need for interventions were baked into the mission from the start.

30 years and countless billions later, the bench of researchers has swelled enormously. Careers have grown, new institutions born. The question of the future of the world's energy production has taken sharp political contours, because how could it not? The IPCC sits atop the great pyramid you describe. Everyone with an office in the pyramid agrees with the IPCC and stand united against the mobs of Deniers fuming in the sands outside.

Seems to me we cannot tell from this picture whether that WMO faction was right or wrong back in the 1980s. If they were right and the ranks of researchers since then have vindicated their predictions, we get the pyramid.

On the other hand if they were wrong, institutions take on their own momentum and quickly outpace any individual's ability to shift their course. Political institutions in particular are always concerned about political optics and pathologically unable to admit error. Over the years the power structure naturally evolves to filter for true believers and loyalists and to cast out boat-rockers. The institutions come to be filled with people who support the institutional narrative for the same reason 97% of popes support Catholicism. We would still be looking at a pyramid.

Taking the Temperature: a dispatch from the UK

Fixitsan at 22:58 PM on 25 July, 2022

nigelj.No

I wasn't talking about flat period of global temperatures mid last century, but instead a flat temperature in the UK from 1910 and proceding into the 1990s, which is 70% - 80% of the last century,which is a period of time I bet if you asked the layperson to describe in terms of temperature for that period almost certainly would argue that because CO2 has risen for that century then so too must have temperature. To even suggest to them that that had not been the case, even backed up by such a reliable and noteworthy source, is just bound to have you labelled a denier, despite being backed up by science in that case. Well, if it isn't the layperson who would say that, any of the 'journalist fact repeaters' and news cockatoos would definitely stick their oar in.

To even get to that stage though suggests there is an enormous disconnect between what most people think and what is happening in reality. Science provides the data for reality and I assume the media in general make it their mission to sex up everything to do with climate change out of habit.

I still wait every morning for the final calamatous news that the Maldives have finally become a victim to sea level rise, as I was assured by the Maldivian climate minister and international scientists should have happened by today that it was the only certain outcome if CO2 production did not decline. CO2 output has increased over those 30 years .

Concerned about the properties of the people there I turn to Google and type 'Maldivian Properties risk' and get nothing but pages and pages of property sales pages reporting increasing property prices due to a high demand in the The Maldives, representing a good risk for investment. How interesting it is to find presumably otherwise finance savvy investors throwing money out to be washed away with the at risk properties in the Maldives (sarc)

You would think for an island constantly on the cusp of being destroyed it ought to be seeing falling property prices !

The cost of living in The Maldives is 9.82% lower than in the UK

Rent in The Maldives is 11.3% lower than in the UK on average

Surprisingly expensive for somewhere about to disappear forever under water that will rise and engulf it, apparently, when it gets around to it, it's just busy not rising all that quickly at the moment and has not been for quite some time indeed.

So did the Maldivian Environment minister and international scientists lie ? Perhaps they only made the most dire prediction possible and that hasn't come true. But in itself that makes it difficult to detect when any other prediction is a realistic one or if that's also the most dire possible prediction. Under these circumstances who can blame the average person for feeling like it is just business as usual where politicians are concerned, always amplifying negatives and generating high levels of irrational fear, but conveniently always leaving office before they have to be held accountable for being wrong. Again. Business as usual.

Antarctica is gaining ice

Shalom Wulich at 22:11 PM on 18 June, 2022

Hi Philippe,

So following the fact that measured data wasnt aligend with the CMIP5 model, now there is new explantation - Good for science!
CMIP6 - you are king !

Were Policy makers aware that in 2014 IPCC CMIP5 got it wrong and now there is a correction with new explanation ? Are they being told of all the corrections ? if so where in the SPM ?

Additionally , if the models then were wrong and now fine tuned, how can we be sure that now they are ok ? what new findings might finetune future models ?

So while we rely on these models to drive policy it might be that in the future, due to these model coming out wrong, we might find ourselves regreting actions we took based on wrong predictions ?

If we go back to 2014 AR5 and review the SPM this is what I make of it:

IPCC - the model predicting Antarctic sea ice got it wrong, lets not include it in the report. If we do include it, it might raise concerns on the validity of the other models we used. Why raise this doubt to begin with ?

Policy makers understanding- Ice is decreasing dramatically all over. Measured data is aligend with models, we go to do something, IPCC is totally right !

Attaching the 2 links showing the Arctic and Antarctic trends measured vs. model and the CMIP5.

Actual Sea trends

The approval CMIP5 model got it wrong

The IPCC used models

and again qouting the key section from IPCC AR5 2014 report:

B.3 Cryosphere

"Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent (high confidence) (see Figure SPM.3). (4.2-4.7)"

Where is the other trend ? The Antarctic sea ice ???? Ohhhh. That. It's not relevant now.

Models are unreliable

Eclectic at 22:55 PM on 19 March, 2022

Out today ~ date 19 March 2022 ~ a new YouTube video

by science journalist PotHoler54

Describing multiple errors with Dr Roy Spencer's [Christy and Spencer] UAH satellite system's tropospheric temperature measurements, errors made over several decades.

In short : Spencer's predictions wrong, and model predictions right.

Not exactly news ~ except I myself had not realised how greatly Spencer's fundamentalist religious beliefs had given a severe bias to his thinking.

(Moderator ~ I'm not sure if there is a better thread for this post.)

SkS Analogy 1 - Speed Kills: How fast can we slow down?

nigelj at 13:05 PM on 21 February, 2022

Santileves @78, I have followed the global warming issue ever since James Hansens speech that we have hard evidence of a human influence on climate in the early 1990s. I was even a bit sceptical at one point in the early days, but lot of time has gone by and tens of thousands of papers have been published. If we were wrong, it would almost certainly have been found by now.

And if we are wrong, we will have built a lot of new energy infrastructure that we will need eventually anyway because fossil fuels are a very finite resource. So being wrong is not a massive problem and will not bankrupt the world economy, not even slightly. Doing nothing could be a massive problem. The worst case scenarios are very bleak and cannot be completely ruled out.

You have been given some references to proper rebuttal of one of the papers you quoted. Several people have posted comments on the paper by Prof. Demetris Koutsoyiannis. It is not necessary to go through his claims line by line when his basic assumptions are nonsensical.

Regarding y2k I agree there was some degree of hype. But using this to cast doubt on climate science is fairly weak. They are very different issues involving different people. And nobody really knew exactly what would happen after year 2000. When theres even a small chance aircraft could fall out of the sky its better to upgrade the computer chip / change the software.

The basics of climate science go back centuries. Svante Arrhenius did detailed calculations in the 1890s on the effect of industrial CO2 on the climate. He predicted a 5 degree warming in total and 1 degree c of warming in the 20th century. He worked essentially alone. He wasn't paid a fortune for this work. He had long been curious about such issues as what caused climate change. Nobody has been able to scientifically rebut his work, and obviously his prediction for the 20th century has been proven reasonably accurate. Successful predictions are good evidence a theory is on the right track.

SkS Analogy 1 - Speed Kills: How fast can we slow down?

nigelj at 17:25 PM on 20 February, 2022

Santalives

So your logic is Y2K was over hyped so climate change is over hyped. Experts have been wrong about some things. That doesn't mean they are wrong about everything. The issues between computer chips and climate science are obviously also quite different. You have posted another nonsensical denialist talking point. Are you going to ignore your doctors advice because doctors have not always got things right?

"So it brings us back to the basic question is there a problem here? So far climate predictions have not really what you call acurrate"

Just blatantly false, unsubstantiated statements. Warming predictions have been quite accurate refer here:

www.science.org/content/article/even-50-year-old-climate-models-correctly-predicted-global-warming

www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2022/02/another-dot-on-the-graphs-part-ii/

Go away and waste someone elses time. You could find this information yourself, troll.

Thanksgiving advice, 2021: How to deal with climate change-denying Uncle Pete

Mick James at 09:59 AM on 26 December, 2021

The Pentagon predictions weren't wrong: they were about what might happen were an abrupt climate change to occur (as happened 8000 years ago) rather than the gradual change currently observed and predicted. They didn't suggest such an event was likely or imminent. The report should be read in the same light as one outlining the consequences of, say, a nuclear war between Russia and China in 2004.

Thanksgiving advice, 2021: How to deal with climate change-denying Uncle Pete

what should we do at 06:57 AM on 5 December, 2021

Unfortunately, there isn't so much information in this post as there is social reinforcement--it goes back to the old trope of the crazy uncle and serves to encourage thinking the other side is stupid.

I also notice that certain supporting information like that the pentagon takes climeat science seriously neglects to mention that all, that is all, of their predictions about climate were wrong. The Climate Discussion Nexus offers a lot of actual, real information without so much "snide." This one is about the Pentagon predictions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj83l0mcWUY

We should be focused on the actual pace of change and its effects as well as what to do about it, not scoring points on who was right or wrong all along. This video needs to be posted so it's clear this article is not a font of scientific accuracy, but what we need to do is focus on reasonable action.

This article fails in that way and can only serve as candy for true believers.

Why the IPCC climate reports are so important

rkcannon at 20:10 PM on 7 August, 2021

IPCC is clearly biased towards man causing climate change from CO2. They have extreme predictions that are highly unlikely but the media uses that for their scare tactics. Politicians and naieve public believe it. This is why many think there is a climate emergency, which is wrong. It's all a big fraud to get control of energy. Now Biden is mandating electric cars. But these still need power plants. Windmills and solar are barely energy positive and require massive waste dumps when used up. Blades are not recyclable.

Models are unreliable

robnyc987 at 21:17 PM on 5 July, 2021

Any model that requires calibration is wrong; there are an infinite number of models for a system with more than 6 or 7 in interdependant variables can be backtested with 100% coorelation yet differ in future predictions. So, all the models show is the bias of the modeler. It's non-sense to claim any model of the climate is accurate. Basically, the model must work without any calibration or the results simply reflect the bias of the modeler. Humanity may have increased the amount of CO2 in the atmoshere; but, humanity has simply no idea what the impact will be.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/finance-why-economic-models-are-always-wrong/

The New Climate War by Michael E. Mann - our reviews

nigelj at 13:50 PM on 13 June, 2021

Nick Palmer @31, I do understand where you are coming from but I have a couple of disagreements.

"I thought I'd already addressed that. The short answer is that Big Oil continued to support the "B.S. factories" because they were effective at trying to protect those corporations against unwarranted attack."

That doesn't mean the corporations don't also use lobby groups to help spread denial. You seem a little bit stuck in an either / or mindset.

"Anyone who regularly takes on the really incorrigible denialists, as I do - I don't mean the brainwashed rank and file Hicksville idiots, but the much smarter ones - soon discovers that beneath all the high sounding 'alternative science' of the 1000frollyphds, the B.S. factories, Heartland's James Taylor, Quora's James Matkin etc are people who are almost always actually motivated by just a couple of things, of which by far the most common is extreme ideological antipathy to the 'big government' solutions promoted by extremist activists - the deep green environmentalists, the 'Smash Capitalism' closet reds and the 'System Change, not Climate Change' demonstrators."

This extreme ideological antipathy to big government is indeed common thing with the denialists, a libertarian and conservative leaning thing, but you need to understand many of these people define big government as anything beyond military and policing! They are opposed to anything that isn't very small government. So to say climate denlialism is the fault of a few extreme political activists proposing very big government is flawed logic.

"The 'Greenpeace knew' report and the recent Oreskes/Supran paper really are not evidence showing which way the truth lies being, as I've suggested before, chock full of cherry picking and insinuation and, in my view, the leading-the-reader attribution of malignant motives to innocent(ish) behaviour because of the underlying ideology of the authors. Oreskes is known to be significantly left wing and long ago Greenpeace's leaders adopted similar, or stronger, politics and I find their campaigning and assertions have got increasingly slanted and deceptive too."

I thought Orekses book was actually quite good if a bit too general, but there is plenty of hard evidence tying oil companies to spreading denialism of you look around. Read the book Dark Money for a start.

"What is noticeable is that no matter how convincingly one may have demolished their case, give them several weeks, or a couple of months, and one will often find them using exactly the same flawed logic, cherry picked facts and deceptive framing as before. This could mean either they have some sort of mental condition where their mind edits out their defeat so, like psychics who forget all their wrong predictions and only remember any correct ones, they maintain a spurious sense of their own abilities or they don't care much if you demolish their case in public because their only goal is to sway the public mind to their desired end and they know that the public has a very short memory and that the short denialist memes 'it's the Sun, it's cooling, it's cold now in Hicksville, it's cosmic rays etc have a very powerful ability to fool, or at least induce doubt and uncertainty in, the public's minds."

Yes its some sort of mental condition of a sort. Some people have difficulty admitting to themselves they are wrong or have been sucked in, so they hang onto beliefs. They become stubborn and entrenched. We probably all do a bit at times. With others the stubborness and arrogance is more extreme. Google narcissistic personality disorder. Combine this with small government leanings and a smart mind and a reasonable knowledge of science and you have a nuclear powered denialist, and the internet gives them the whole world to preach to. It's really frustrating to say the least.

The New Climate War by Michael E. Mann - our reviews

Nick Palmer at 01:20 AM on 13 June, 2021

Well, there's too much to address there! Just a couple of points.
Phillipe@28 wrote: " However, that would leave one wondering why they continued to support the bullshit factories churning out propaganda favorable to their short-term financial interests in the following 30 years, as uncertainty dwindled away."

I thought I'd already addressed that. The short answer is that Big Oil continued to support the "B.S. factories" because they were effective at trying to protect those corporations against unwarranted attack. Pharmacological/vaccine corporations are currently coming under similar COVID19 propaganda type attacks to their detriment - they have less of a need to use 'B.S. factories' because most of the population have been familiar with vaccination most of their lives, so they know that the attacks are mostly baseless. The general voting public have no such familiarity with climate change, and the effectivess or otherwise of the many and various solutions put forward out there, so they are vulnerable to political manipulation by ideologically motivated types who think 'the answer' to the whole (not just climate change but biodiversity loss, inequality, 'white supremacy', LBTQ+ gender inequality etc etc) situation is to change 'the system' to end up with a world where we all live in some sort of vaguely defined harmony with nature and everybody is equal and all the wealth is redistributed to achieve their faith-based dreams of a socialist paradise. Part of that playbook is undermining established big industry and 'decentralisng'.

Anyone who regularly takes on the really incorrigible denialists, as I do - I don't mean the brainwashed rank and file Hicksville idiots, but the much smarter ones - soon discovers that beneath all the high sounding 'alternative science' of the 1000frollyphds, the B.S. factories, Heartland's James Taylor, Quora's James Matkin etc are people who are almost always actually motivated by just a couple of things, of which by far the most common is extreme ideological antipathy to the 'big government' solutions promoted by extremist activists - the deep green environmentalists, the 'Smash Capitalism' closet reds and the 'System Change, not Climate Change' demonstrators.

I really don't know if these 'denialist/lobbyist' people truly believe all the propaganda they put out, in which case they would have been driven to delusion to protect their favoured clients and industries to sabotage the 'stop all fossil fuel use today and indict the corporations types' or if they cynically know that they are deliberately spreading deceit and misdirection to achieve the same end.

The 'Greenpeace knew' report and the recent Oreskes/Supran paper really are not evidence showing which way the truth lies being, as I've suggested before, chock full of cherry picking and insinuation and, in my view, the leading-the-reader attribution of malignant motives to innocent(ish) behaviour because of the underlying ideology of the authors. Oreskes is known to be significantly left wing and long ago Greenpeace's leaders adopted similar, or stronger, politics and I find their campaigning and assertions have got increasingly slanted and deceptive too.

BTW, when I refer to left wing I am not referring to centre'ish politics like that of the US Democrats but more towards the sort of Utopian student revolutionary type beliefs.

Blowing my own trumpet, I am one of the very few climate science denier fighters who can actually beat them to the point where they shut up (the smarter ones) or else (the dumber/madder ones) they resort to increasingly irrational conspiracy theory ideology to respond (not 'the scientists are all faking it for grant money' conspiracy but full-on Rothschilds, Bilderbergers, Illuminati, New World Order - even the shape shifting lizards!) which lets the reading/listening audiences see 'what lies beneath'. What is noticeable is that no matter how convincingly one may have demolished their case, give them several weeks, or a couple of months, and one will often find them using exactly the same flawed logic, cherry picked facts and deceptive framing as before. This could mean either they have some sort of mental condition where their mind edits out their defeat so, like psychics who forget all their wrong predictions and only remember any correct ones, they maintain a spurious sense of their own abilities or they don't care much if you demolish their case in public because their only goal is to sway the public mind to their desired end and they know that the public has a very short memory and that the short denialist memes 'it's the Sun, it's cooling, it's cold now in Hicksville, it's cosmic rays etc have a very powerful ability to fool, or at least induce doubt and uncertainty in, the public's minds.

A clear example of the second type is Marc 'Climate Depot' Morano who is so confident of the validity of his position that he even proudly described it on camera to greenman3610 (Pete Sinclair).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFnhTo6Wd80

He still appears to believe in his 'in denial of mainstream climate science' position but he does admit here to using misleading rhetoric etc to achieve his ends, which are to sway the views of the public. He more or less admits to using 'the game' to propagandise. Even this is not necessarily smoking gun evidence of 'evil' if he truly believes his own rhetoric is accurate, it's just yet another example of what I call 'non-clinically diagnosable insanity' of which the online world is now suffering a tsunami!

My main point is still this. I'm just about certain that the underlying motivations and beliefs of all major figures in the climate change wars are far more nuanced, and often hidden, than the simplistic 'they knew', 'they're evil', 'they're stupid' etc epithets flung at them by their opponents, whose motivations are similarly complex.

Antarctica is gaining ice

wideEyedPupil at 14:03 PM on 10 June, 2021

I was reading today that Manabe and Werherald, working at NOAA, predicted in 1967 that lower atmosphere would act in opposite ways warming in the former would be accompanied by cooling in the later. And that it wasn't until 2011 that atmospheric testing was able to confirm this until 2011. Another prediction by Manabe and two other scientists is that land areas warm faster than oceans, with the slowest warming around Antartica. My understanding has been that while Land masses do warm faster than oceans (for more than one reason) but that warming at the polar regions had been more like 2-3 °C compared to the global average of 1.0-1.1 °C.

is there a different thread on this site where I can learn about polar warming in comparison to other regions? And the relevant mechanism. I'm aware of ozone depletion over Antartica for example which is a seperate but interconnected mechanism.

thanks in advance. the book I'm reading (The Wizard and the Prophet, an excellent read) may have got it wrong I guess but Charles C Mann is a long time science writer/journalist.

Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

MA Rodger at 21:49 PM on 25 May, 2021

Eclectic @3,

The promotion of Koonin to premier-league climate-change dnier does give the opportunity to demolish another of these folk. He certainly gets a bit of a kicking here and here.

So what is his message?

This New York Post OP from Koonin appears to be saying that, while the science is sound, the problem is with the interpretation of the science. Yet while the exemplars he gives are probably flat wrong, they are not central to the AGW science so quite irrelevant in the full analysis. The only other thing he presents in this OP about his grand message is:-

"Humans exert a growing, but physically small, warming influence on the climate. The results from many different climate models disagree with, or even contradict, each other and many kinds of observations. In short, the science is insufficient to make useful predictions about how the climate will change over the coming decades, much less what effect our actions will have on it."

This he says he learned at the feet of Lindzen, Curry & Christie during the APS RedTeam-BkueTeam exercise Koonin chaired in 2013, an exercise that contains nothing of merit that I can see.

And as for climate models making useful predictions, they've done a pretty good job up to now.

So whay actually is Koonin bleeting about? Waht is his message? It would be good to see the actual message because so far all I hear is a blowhard!!

Why scientists shouldn't heed calls to 'stay in our lane'

Bob Loblaw at 23:26 PM on 6 May, 2021

alonerock @ 27:

Science does not do "moral obligations". Science attempts to find observable patterns and understanding that allow people to make better predictions.

From a moral standpoint, this allows us to better realize the implications and likely outcomes of our choices - but it does not tell us what the moral choice is.

Right now, the science of climatology is telling us with a high degree of certainty that burning fossil fuels will lead to warming at rates far greater than anything humans have experienced before. The science of biology is telling us that nature will find it very hard to adapt to this rapid change. The science of economics (please don't laugh - let's be generous today) is telling us that as time goes on the economic costs of this rapid warming (and other anthropogenic climate changes) will greatly exceed the costs of avoiding it or minimizing it, and that these costs will be unequal across different parts of society.

What specifically is your moral concern? My morals tell me that I should have concern for my fellow humans, and nature in general. There is no Planet B if we get this badly wrong.

2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #17

Dale H at 09:54 AM on 29 April, 2021

Moderator

Thank you for the information. I have read the attached and the climate sceptics link explaining the information and alot of the comments and will look through the rest. It is a big help as well I will follow all the links.

Bob Loblaw @9, Doug Bostrom @10 & scaddenp @11

Thanks for reading my ideas and thank you for your time on responding. First I apologize on modelling comment as it was the wrong wording for what I was trying to explain and yes it is about statistical models not physics models. I will study all of the links and information to learn more. As you can tell I am also not a statistician but have used large amounts of data/statistical models to help change the behavior of people in all of the studies delivered which is difficult because people naturally resist change because of the risk involved and sometimes their own agendas so alot start out as deniers.

My point was we could strengthen our arguement by looking closely at the period when it was higher with all the different forcings and tie it back to the current increases to strengthen the predictions which I haven't seen done that often at least to the public level. In a simple sense it gets to us as the model said so without explaining the different pieces. Once again I come back to the premise that all of you have thought of these things and are not getting near the credit for all of your brillance and hard word.

I think we have convinced all of the scientists and now maybe broaden the approach with a full view aimed at a larger audience. As with everything else I mentioned you have probably done this already. I was just trying to understand the bigger picture and offer any help on understanding then educating and selling the ideas.

Thanks again as I have already learned alot in the last week.

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021

Bob Loblaw at 07:13 AM on 15 March, 2021

SunBUrst @ 25.

What Rob said @ 26. I guessed that you would probably try to claim that your statement of a "prediction he made in 2006 that New York City would be flooded within ten years due to sea level rise from the melting of the Arctic ice cap." was from the movie.

So, your score on this issue is (so far):

You got the year of the movie right (2006),

Gore said nothing about "within 10 years",

It was not about melting "the Arctic ice cap".

Pretty pathetic, really. The only thing right is pretty trivial. On any item of substance, you got it badly wrong.

Where are you getting this crap? You really need to find yourself some better sources of information. There is lots here at this site if you take the time to look.

...but at comment #27, you are just running off on a different quest. To avoid admitting your error, you are trying to distract everyone. It won't work - we've seen all this sort of behaviour time after time after time.

If you actually have something accurate and new to contribute, please do so.

Hurricanes, wildfires, and heat dominated U.S. weather in 2020

scaddenp at 06:10 AM on 24 February, 2021

Jamesh, it is very unclear to me why you are posting here.

Let's get one thing very clear. If you wish to convince readers that the science is wrong, then you cannot do so by displays of ignorance. You certainly cannot disprove science by insisting it make predictions that it manifestly does not.

A "build up of heat in the environment" manifests itself as a temperature increase. A temperature increase of the observed size will definitely have effects such as we are seeing, but not more.

Here is how the game is played. If you want to dispute the science, then you point to what the science consensus says. The IPCC reports are the best way to do this, or quote from peer-reviewed research. (If you have learnt your climate science from denier sites, then chances are everything you think you know is wrong or distorted. ) Then you point to observations or papers which you think clearly show that the stated science is wrong. Beware of cherry-picked observations from denier sites. Deniers largely rely on strawmen statements about science and cherry-picking as the main rhetorical devices.

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #7, 2021

Bob Loblaw at 03:43 AM on 21 February, 2021

Jamesh @ 8:

As you seem to be struggling to find appropriate places to discuss stuff, let me try to help you.

First, The the most recent ice sheet to cover New York State would have been the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which covered pretty much all of Canada and the northern US states. It had several distinct and somewhat independent areas of motion, though. "Polar" is probably not a good descriptor for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentide_Ice_Sheet

If you want to argue that it represents evidence that climate has changed before and therefore humans can't be the cause now, then the reasons why that argument are wrong is #1 on the Most Used Climate Myths page "Climate's changed before":

https://skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm

If you want to use it to argue that climate scientists were predicting a return to ice age conditions in the 1970s, then the reasons why that argument are wrong is #11 on the Most Used Climate Myths page "Ice Age predicted in the 1970s":

https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm

If you want to use it to argue that we are now heading into another glacial period, then the reasons why that argument are wrong is #14 on the Most Used Climate Myths page "We're heading into another ice age":

https://skepticalscience.com/heading-into-new-little-ice-age.htm

If you want to use it to argue that the current warming is just a continued pattern from a previous cold period, then the reasons why that argument are wrong is #48 on the Most Used Climate Myths page "We're coming out of the Little Ice Age":

https://skepticalscience.com/coming-out-of-little-ice-age.htm

If you want to use it to argue that climate follows natural cycles and the current warming is no different, then the reasons why that argument are wrong is #56 on the Most Used Climate Myths page "It's a Natural Cycle":

https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-natural-cycle.htm

If you want to use it to argue that you know of some special factor affecting climate that climate science has ignored, and you are the only one that knows this, then you might want to go to Climate Myth #130 "Climate Skeptics are like Galileo":

https://skepticalscience.com/climate-skeptics-are-like-galileo.htm

If you want to use it to argue that humans can survive large shift in climate, then Climate Myth #197 "Humans survived past climate changes" is your destination:

https://skepticalscience.com/humans-survived-past-climate-changes.htm

The Debunking Handbook 2020: Debunk often and properly

factotum at 06:12 AM on 28 October, 2020

Comments policy link DID NOT WORK!! I had to copy and paste.

Look up truth in, say wikipedia, and you will find little more than a large circle of words.

I would suggest that you use some form of

1. A statement about X must be able to be falsified, preferably by some form of observation or measurement. If it can not be falsified then it can be provisionally considered to be true. Like Newtons theory of gravity.

2. The statement must be measurable or refer to historical records of observations and measurements, or must make predictions accompanied by some reasonable time in which said prediction will be confirmed by observation

For example a statement about drought can be supported by records of published food prices.

Much better than this circular stuff from wikipedia: Thus, 'truth' involves both the quality of "faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty, sincerity, veracity",[7] and that of "agreement with fact or reality",

One has false statements, true statements, statements that are neither, and very often in discussions, statement that "are not even wrong!

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

duncan61 at 16:09 PM on 22 March, 2020

I will pick sea levels,The actual tide reading at locations around the world are real and recordable but the NASA data is different and the modelling even wilder.Its hard to take it serious when predictions are made but do not come true in real time.I have access to claims that areas where I live would be underwater by 2020.Well can we agree its 2020 and the areas are still there and not flooded.I was wrong about the sea levels in Fremantle they have gone up 200mm but its over 160 years and the sea is lower at French Guyana.The magnetic poles are moving and undersea volcanoes occur plus localized silting.There is a claim here locally that the land is sinking because we are using a lot of groundwater for consumption.You can easy find all the data online or would you like me to post pictures with wriggly lines on it.I am keen to find the truth and need some actual proof.On another forum a poster showed before and after pictures of a glacier the first is from 1940 and its all iced up the second is recent and it shows all the ice gone except on the top of the mountain.The only problem I picked up on was the second photo is clearly much closer than the first and the water level is way down on the first photo where they were standing at the edge of the lake.The second photo they would have been 30 feet under and it is definitely the same place.That individual never posted again once I pointed this out.Makes it hard to take it for real.What do you have.Claims based on what should happen.Can anyone in the universe show me where its flooded and not Norfolk because that always floods on the spring tide.I have seen pictures of 1940 airbases on pacific Islands that are only 1 metre above sea level and they are still there

Climate's changed before

theSkeptik at 06:48 AM on 25 February, 2020

@michal sweet, MA Rodger and KR:

First of all I very much appreciate your quick comments on my post.

to 1) yes, I realize now that ice core measurements have been taken in the antarctica (not arctica) which I assume means it's about CO2 from the atmosphere, not the sea water. The shown direct relationship to the temperature is therefore plausible to me.

to 2) I am discussing solely the meaning of the presented data from the University of Copenhagen. The article claims it supports the assumption that there is a causal relationship between the GHG and global temperature. Don't get me wrong, there may be other evidence for that claim but that's not my point here.

@michael sweet

The predicion you mentioned about the global warming 100 years ago is outside the scope of the discussed data. Apart from that, there are only two possible outcomes from such a prediction: a) It can turn out right - temperatures are rising or b) it can turn out wrong - temperatures are falling. So even with an uneducated guess one would have a 50% chance to be right. Finally, the graphic doesn't even show any evidence of global warming, though it does show a very significant raise in methane and CO2 in the last decades.

@MA Rodger

I see your first argument is in line with another claim of the article that recent data show a phase shift in GHG and temperature. Since 2012 GHG movement is said to no longer lag behind temperature data. I agree this would be an indication of a significant change. Unfortunately this data is not shown in the article and it can't be seen in the presented graph. Your second argument just seems to support my concern: Global warming can't be seen in the antarctica according to the chart so far. It is possible that it shows up in the future, but the shown data gives no evidence to that assumption.

Finally I do not make any claims about any relationships between GHG and temperature or other related parameters. I am just looking for unbiased information and constantly come across overinterpreted data and conclusions driven by preoccupation. If one claims a causal relationship between two parameters its up to them to give evidence, not to me to proof otherwise.

@KR

As a physicist working for several decades in RnD companies I am not easily convinced of simple models describing the behaviour of complex reality. At least it's not obvious to me that a gas in a concentration of only several hundreds of ppm is likely to have such a significant influence on global temperature. It might not be impossible and I will surely have a closer look at this matter in due course. However, as I mentioned before this is not my current point. I am discussing the presented graphic which seems to support nothing of the claims about global warming apart from unusual high greenhouse gas concentrations.

The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

Nick Palmer at 10:25 AM on 5 January, 2020

Michael Sweet. Whether you realise it or not, you argue in exactly the same way as denialists do, only in an alarmist mirror fashion. Clearly you are going to continue with your long ill-thought out posts chock full of incorrect assertions and characterisations and I wonder if the moderators need to slow you down a bit. I'll just point out an example of your style: M.S. wrote "I supported William Reese's article advocating allowing people to discuss high danger possibilities of AGW. Currently only low ball projections are publicly discussed"

It is absolutely untrue that only lowball projections are publicly discussed - you just made that up.

M.S also wrote: "You claim without suppport that Cauderia says 6 billion dead is scaremongering crap" Firstly, it is Caldeira actually...
This was extraordinarily easy to check - yet M.S didn't... - again, his aggressive denier/alarmist style shows because he appears to believe that if one don't know of something, that it doesn't exist. Try looking again at the 'Reece article' linked to in the comment#8. In it is this: "Similarly, Ken Caldeira, senior scientist, Carnegie Institution, points out, “There is no analysis of likely climate damage that has been published in the quality peer-reviewed literature that would indicate that there is any substantial likelihood that climate change could cause the starvation of six billion people by the end of this century.”"

Which rather proves my point about Caldeira's views and demolishes his insinuation and it also strongly suggests that M.S. didnt read or properly understand the words in the article he referenced!. Only reading headlines or cherry picking articles is a classic denialist/alarmist trait

There is a point which M.S, is fundamentally not getting, which I have addressed several times already - incorrigibly ignoring or failing to understand repeated points is also classic denialist/alarmist think. That is starkly illustrated in his fallacious statement: "You ignore your previous complaints about underprediction and shift the goalposts to a single word Hallam said. You complain about people who discuss worst case scenieros and imply that I discuss worst case scenieros"

The point is that those who campaign and pontificate using 'fear porn' and say worst case low probability things WILL happen, like Hallam, are simply wrong. Get it? WRONG.... They are also highly irresponsible because they give massive amounts of ammunition to the denialist propagandists, who use it to confuse and mislead the public about what the sensible peer-reviewed science says. No scientist worth his salt would support that nonsense, indeed they get angered by it. BTW Michael Mann wouldn't approve of Sweet's postion either! It is the implied certainty in the words of Hallam and his ilk that is dangeously misleading.

I did not 'complain' about people who discuss worst case scenarios at all, all those scenarios are covered in the science and often in restrained magazine articles. It is legitimate to mention low probability outcomes as part of a full risk assesment process. It is not legitimate to tell the public that 'we're all going to die in X years'. Again, I say it is absolute nonsense to say that the very low probablity, worst case scenarios which depend not only on nothing at all being done to fix things but that fossil fuel use, particularly coal, will massively increase in future, which is the R.C.P 8.5 pathway which is next to being abandoned as a possible future, are not being mentioned publicly. However, it's true that climate scientists and policy makers are not 'hyping' them, like the dangerously stupid and irresponsible Hallam's of this world tend to do, for very good psychologcal reasons. Such risks may even be mentioned in the public arena more if only the reporters, fired up by the irresponsible doomers, extremists and alarmists, who create a journalistic hunger for headline worthy quotes about 'worst cases' happening and make them interview as if those were firm, almost inevitable, predictions, didn't need to be corrected so often by real scientists when interviewed.

Those types I do, and did, complain about are those who misrepresent the science and the possibilities to be as scary as they can possibly make them out to be in order to plug their cause or their ideology or whatever motivates them. NigelJ, who is probably one of the most regular commenters here, and who knows his stuff, has already confirmed that trying to scare the public with over the top hype to try and stampede them towards a policy, desired by the scarey pontificator, does not work and is actually counterproductive. People like Michael Sweet seem either unaware of this or ignore it

As Sweet clearly can't acknowledge that others can know stuff he is unaware of, shown by his denier like demands that everything anyone says that he doesn't like be ' proved' - MS: "You provide no data to support your claims", here's a few links that support what I and NigelJ wrote about hyping fear and its countreproductive nature.

Fear won't do it- Promoting Positive engagement With Climate Change Through Iconic and Visual Representations

'Loss-Framed Arguments Can Stifle Political Activism' Adam Seth Levine (a1) and Reuben Kline (a2)

'How Hope and Doubt Affect Climate Change Mobilization Jennifer R. Marlon1*, Brittany Bloodhart2, Matthew T. Ballew1, Justin Rolfe-Redding3, Connie Roser-Renouf3, Anthony Leiserowitz1 and Edward Maibach3

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00188.x

'Fear-Based Climate Appeals Can Be Counterproductive'
https://psmag.com/environment/fear-based-climate-appeals-can-be-counterproductive

The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

nigelj at 06:48 AM on 3 January, 2020

michael sweet @29

"you can't argue every issue by pointing to what an expert or two said and leaving it at that. Sometimes experts are dead wrong. You are using the "argument from authority fallacy," and also doing exactly what the denialists do when the point at a couple of denialist experts."

Yes I did say this, but at that point I was referencing the claims of Reese that 6 billion people will die by 2100, not sea level rise per se. This is really Reeses opinion, its not in the peer reviewed literature as far as Im aware, its been heavily criticised by several other experts, and like Nick Plamer says theres a big difference between claiming what will happen and what might happen. Reese is feeding the denialists. It's sad if you can't see this.

"Your paper actually supports my posts: 2 meters is a high estimate but within 95% estimates of high sea level rise and 5 meters is within the long tail. You did not read the paper. The paper also states that the consensus of experts has significantly increased since 2013. "For sea level rise the consensus always increases every 5-10 years."

Whatever. I have already stated that I accept some published science (Hansen and others) concludes 5 metres is possible as the most extreme worst case. An incredible numbers of things have to happen for this to occur and some of the mechanisms in Hansens research are none too clear. That's the opinion of plenty of scientists. Not everyone accepts Hansens conclusions. 2-3 metres by 2100 is what is considered more reasonably possible and scares the hell out of me anyway and would be devastating. I don't know why anyone needs to wildly speculate beyond this.

Even Hansens sea level rise predictions that New York would be underwater by date xyz have fed the denialists for decades, and the scientific community has had to do gymnastics to defend them.

If we want to be convincing the public, and using scary predictions towards the upper end, imho we need to be focusing in on a worst case for sea level rise that is strongly backed by evidence, not the off the chart highly contested stuff at the extreme end. I have already made this point so I'm trying again. It's a subtle difference but its important.

Nick Plalmer is right when he says "If you havent seen the clear evidence from psychology that overstating risks not only turns people off, but reduces the credibility of the 'consensus' middle ground of science in the publics' eye then you need to read a bit wider." I have done some psychology, so Im aware of this. Basically fear can motivate change, but the research finds when using extreme and scary scenarious, there has to be a solid evidence base or fear can work in the opposite direction to whats intended.

"Farmers raise crops on all the good land. Only poor land is allowed to go to trees. Virtually all farmable land is already occupied by a farmer. Your gross insensivity to farmers on good, delta land being forced to move to cities is disgusting. Lost good land is not replaced by poor land in the mountains or melted permafrost. All the estimates I used were for 2100. You refer to multiple time periods so it is unclear what you mean. It is clear that you are not up to date on the amount and consequences of sea level rise."

My point was sea level rise will reduce framland, and forests might be cut down to provide more farmland so its hard to see 6 billion people dying by 2100. And it seems plausible, given huge numbers of trees are being cut down in the Amazon rain forest to grow crops and for cattle (unfortunately). Obviously there could well be very increased mortality longer term given seaa level rise wont stop by 2100.

I said nothing about farmers being forced to move to cities. I said nothing about growing trees on mountains or permafrost regions. I don't recall using multiple time periods. I only talked about 2100 or end of this century. I provided you with a reference from physics.org to some of the latest science on sea level rise.

----------------------

Michael Sweet @30

"The rules for the IPCC reports were written by fossil fuel lawers."

Where do you get that from? Not that it would suprise me.

"Lowballing problems as you suggest has not motivated anyone to take action in the past 30 years. "

I don't think problems have been low balled as much as you think. While the IPCC have not highlighted the possibility of multi metre sea level rise by 2100, there is a graph in their report talking about 12 degrees c by 2200 for business as usual. This is not low balling. The media has been full of scary predictions of all sorts.

"I do not support frightening people with 15 feet (Alley actually mentioned 30-40 feet as a maximum in his talk, listen to it again), but having 65 cm in the Executive summary, which is the most you expect people to read, is not accurate."

This seems in total contradiction to all your previous rhetoric!

My position is this and it always has been and I've said it 100 times: The IPCC understate things in the executive summary and are too cautious. The possibility of 2 metre sea level rise should be mentioned, or something like that, because theres good evidence its a reasonable possibility. But making truly extreme claims like 6 metres sea level rise and 6 billion people dead within one hundred years feeds is on shaky ground, and feeds the denialists and could be counter productive.

I think we might be more on the same page than you think.

The never-ending RCP8.5 debate

Nick Palmer at 02:07 AM on 3 January, 2020

Michael - it's getting tedious hearing your defence of extremist views. Yo just repeatedly used then term 'lowballing' which shows you do not have a good grasp of the science. The figures from the IPCC represent MIDBALLING, being the most likely figures. Lowballing would be using the figures, again least likely, at the other end of the probability graph.

If you havent seen the clear evidence from psychology that overstating risks not only turns people off, but reduces the credibility of the 'consensus' middle ground of science in the publics' eye then you need to read a bit wider.

Most people, if they have memories, have seen extremist science predictions - or rather how the media report such predictions - fail before. The textbook example is that of Paul R. Ehrlich who famously, in 1968 wrote a book and the original edition of The Population Bomb began with this statement: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate ..."[20] Ehrlich argued that the human population was too great, and that while the extent of disaster could be mitigated, humanity could not prevent severe famines, the spread of disease, social unrest, and other negative consequences of overpopulation."

I think you will find that although he was a top person in his field at the time he was essentially completely wrong. The inheritors of his mantle today are such as Guy McPherson, Pete Wadhams, Beckwith, Kevin Anderson, Carana, Scribbler etc who all take the far-end-of-the-probability-graph most unlikely forecasts and, in their public interviews, talk as if the least likely is pretty certain. It's just not scientifically valid to do that.

Alley, of course, is a top notch scientist but people have to remember that he is speaking as a scientist using very precise language which unfortunately can be very prone to misintrepretation when reported on by interviewers of lesser scientific appreciation.

Similarly the Hallam of E.R. activist types who spout extremist definitive statements such as "six billion people will die as a result of climate change in coming decades" need to be told to shut up because they are are seriously damaging the credibility of the actual climate science in the public arena.

In 1982, Exxon accurately predicted global warming

Grant777 at 06:23 AM on 7 November, 2019

MsGteacher,

I believe it's important for students to see how both sides of politics to skew data in their favorable conclusions. I love how you want them to think in a socratic oriented way. "Reading between the lines" is an important characteristic to develop at their age. It's easy assume in modern times that our civilization has all the answers. This new generation is exposed to many characteristics of instant gratifications - technology that provides instant feedback at a touch of a figure, etc... Its easy for young minds to see a problem and instantly want solutions to said problem. But what if we don't have all the answers? It is evident from previous climate models that durastic overestimates of environmental destruction took place, but getting them to think critically to why that was the case, would be a great take away. Why were the predictions in "The Inconvienant Truth" so far off from what we see approaching year 2020?

The basic knowledge of a high school student can easily look into the science of the molecule CO2, the positive feedback loops within the carbon cycle, and so on to result in a cynical veiw of Anthropogenic influences of Global Warming; although there are many things left out of standard text books. In pyschology, its learned that people in general feed on a negative situation 2x greater than a positive one. So thinking into the individuals studying climate change - an extremely complex system, one could see how derived parameters within a climate model might favor positive feedback loop characteristics over unknown or unpredictable negative feedback loops that would counterreact human influences over time.

Why were previous climate models overestimated? Precisely from human induced illogical assumptions in future outlook. What parameters did they miss to make them so durastically wrong?

Possibly increases to carbon sinks? https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth

Creating an environment more favorable to organisms like Diatom? https://sciencing.com/diatom-ecosystem-5157.html

Also, solutions to "aid" our influences on our climate should be socratically reviewed. It'd be a good exercise with your students to do the same study I did for a college presentation on whether EV's are as eco-friendly as their advertisements want you to believe. You can go to Tesla or other Ev's sites and find their car's Voltage/mile ratings, while taking your state's annual energy CO2 emissions / voltage produced from EIA.gov and compare it with some of the best hybrid model ICE cars. You'll find for states like West Virginia, driving a Tesla or any EV for that matter produces more CO2 than even a car getting 30 mpg. And that CO2 is all being released in one area at the power plant - easily escapable to the atmosphere instead of while driving an internal combustion engine in nature etc where CO2 sinks could readily soak it in. Also I discovered these inaccuracies without taking into account the amount of power lost in resistors over time when transferring electricity a great distance.

It makes it evident to me that people like jumping to a solution without vetting it properly. Really, it comes down to using peoples' fear in a topic like AGW for government subsities in one's new business venture. Its a good eye opener to the world. I hope this might help.

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

markpittsusa at 07:03 AM on 21 October, 2019

Doug & Philippe

Re: The Forth National Assessment, Vol II

Some things to consider:

First, it is impossible to easily see the non-sensical aspects of this report because it is basically a summary of hundreds of articles. So, as a skeptical scientist, you have to go to the underlying articles to see if they make sense.

Secondly, I am Not saying their analysis is wrong in the sense that they made up the data, or did the calculations wrong, or anything like that. But they are wrong in the senses of:
— Garbage In Garbage Out (aka your assumptions determine your conclusions)
— Correlation is Not Causation
— Hundreds of Articles That All Cite the Same Few Sources Do Not Constitute Hundreds of Independent Findings

Thirdly, many of the “scientific predictions” that were reported in the popular and social media concerning this report were the worst case (usually 2 standard deviation) scenarios. This is a big deal since much of what is said to be “science,” is not what scientists are predicting at all.

Forth, we have to trust the experts. And we can’t pick and choose which experts to believe, right? The Forth NCA report ignores the economic loss estimates of the recent Nobel Prize winner William Nordhaus (mentioned 2 times) but instead relies heavily on the work those trained in climate science/ sustainability instead of economics (particularly the work of S. Hsiang, mentioned 33 times). If career bureaucrats choose to ignore the economic experts when making economic estimates, is the result science, or politics?

[I will address specific scientific problems in the Forth NCA report in a later post.]

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

markpittsusa at 08:15 AM on 20 October, 2019

.Nigel - At least in terms of the economic social science, I believe you are dead wrong. And that’s the problem.

For example, there are few (if any?) economists involved in making the often repeated prediction that climate change will cost the US economy 10% by 2100. I know of no peer-reviewed article in an economic journal that shows this.

If you track down where the economic loss estimates are coming from, they are almost always made by climate scientists, not economists.

And concerning health issues, the situation is not much different. It is climate specialists, not public health officials, making the most predictions.

[I am basing this opinion on my familiarity with the big IPCC report from the end of last year, the Forth National Climate Assessment (for impacts on the US), and the influential Lancet report on health problems related to climate change - all from about the end of last year.]

CO2 effect is saturated

scaddenp at 11:10 AM on 26 September, 2019

Analogies are a tool for promoting understanding by transferring understanding from a known process into a new area where the elements of the analogy are applicable. They are especially useful for explaing things to people who lack the technical background to work through real process.

What you cannot do is disapprove a theory by inappropriate use of an analogy.

If you want to prove some theory is wrong, then you need to show that correct application of the theory results in predictions that are incompatible with observation. Radiative theory so far spectacularly matches observation. You need to focus on understanding rather than looking for some reason to dismiss science.

It's cosmic rays

unknownwallet at 15:53 PM on 6 September, 2019

i respectfully disagree.

1. Only 2% of the atmosphere is greenhouse gases, only 3.62% of that is CO2 and only 3.4% of CO2 is due to human activity
2. CO2 lags temperature changes by 800 years
3. Sea levels have already been rising for the past 8000 years
4. Climate change model's predictions have all been overestimates
5. There has been no global warming for 18 years
6. There has been no increase in the frequency of storms since 1954
7. There has been no increase in the frequency or severity of droughts in the US
8. Warming in the past (before human history) has been far more drastic in the past indicating that current warming is not human caused

check these infographics to understand more,

#https://anonfile.com/N28bb553n0/1561633804542_gif

#https://anonfile.com/P88eb85dnb/1561631378053_png

#https://anonfile.com/Rc83b055n2/1561629956134_png

i'd really to ask someone to prove me wrong.

human made global warming isn't a huge deal, and there are bigger threats than this.

Models are unreliable

rupisnark at 05:21 AM on 10 August, 2019

Eclectic @ 1134
Given the way the climate models are constructed, if they are make incorrect predictions, then they are not necessarily reliable.

When an editor of this blog pointed me to several sources and the first says:-
“That is to say, is the troposphere actually warming as expected? Unfortunately, the answer to this is much less cut and dry” and the third (the paper by Steven C Sherwood and Nidhi Nishant) says “...as shown in previous studies, tropospheric warming does not reach quite as high in the tropics and subtropics as predicted in typical models” then it is clear that this is more than a gnat.

“ the gnat is simply a gnat…While all around you is a stampede of elephants “. If the climate change hypothesis is wrong and policies are followed that reduce global growth by >1% pa as is being proposed, it will cost millions of lives, so perhaps your analogy suggests that it is climate scientists stampeding people to cause (indirectly) millions of deaths?

Models are unreliable

rupisnark at 23:43 PM on 31 July, 2019

MA Rodgers @1121
Thank you for your post. The second part of which was useful.
On the first part, the reason I keep up questions is to try to pin down the areas of disagreement. From that point it is possible to proceed. The fact that you will not clarify certain points raises to progress the discussion when I expected that you could have put to bed the issue is slightly concerning. Is the heat content of the Earth rather than the ocean relevant?
So if you could please respond to all my points raised in @1120 Re response to @1117, I would be grateful.

♣ We cannot use the surface temperature, because the surface temperature record was used in the development of the model.
->Whatever else Christy says he and McKitrick are right on this point. In numerous fields I have seen models developed based on past data which were no more than data mining. Once inspected the models and they are often nonsense. If this is what the climate models are doing, then they have a long way to go before they can be relied on to make sensible predictions.
The 4 general conditions laid out in McKitrick & Christy in the introduction seem sensible. Would any of the 102 climate models pass them?
♣ (The actual abilities through the decades of the various models at projecting GAST is briefly reviewed by CarbonBrief.)
->This link does not appear to work.
♣ And Christy in not addressing uncertainty plus other failings is considered by this 2016 post at RealClimate.)
->This is an excellent post. Very helpful and can be understood in 5 minutes. The graphs he generates give a very good picture of how wide the potential disagreement would be, (if it weren’t for the other potential issues you have made about Christy's argument).
-> One thing that neither side of the “debate” see is that people on the other side genuinely believe what they are saying is true and do not believe they are being influenced by issues such as their reputation and previous statements/papers, financial incentives (whether big oil money or academic research grants) or peer pressure. As an example, issue (2) is the sort of thing that many people on both sides of this debate might do inadvertently to save time or deliberately to strengthen their arguments. If doing inadvertently and the result went the other way to the way they wanted, they may well notice the issue and correct it.
♣ See this SkS post of 2009.
->This will need a few re-reads as not as well written as the Real Climate post.
♣ And the "tropical hotspot" isn't a marker of AGW but of warming generally.
-> Just to be clear, is it or isn’t it a prediction of the 102 warming models? [Perhaps on the third reading of the SkS 2009 it will be clear to me – Apologies if I missed something obvious but at second reading it appears to be saying that the hotspot is NOT the key marker, but that the models do predict it].

Does the following summarise the position correctly?
1) Tropical hotspots are said to NOT be a signature of AGW (as opposed to global warming generally) BUT they occur in the output of most/all of the climate models.
2) There is some uncertainty as to whether the hotspots exist, although the majority of the evidence suggests they do.
3) If the hotspots do not exist, then climate models will need to be refined, possibly need a greater re-work. (This does not mean their outputs are completely wrong)
♣ His choice coincides with the long contentious "tropical hotspot" which has been argued over for decades.
->Isn’t the period Christy has chosen a little longer than this? [Again, happy to be shown to be wrong]
♣ Christy attempts to use the uncooperative "tropical hotspot" as some sort of essential failing of CMIP5 models and by implication as an essential failing of all models. As set out above, such attempts are poorly contrived and to-date even a corrected argument is far from unconvincing.
->From what I have seen so far (a long way to proper understanding), his argument while not totally convincing is not entirely without merit.

Models are unreliable

scaddenp at 07:19 AM on 31 July, 2019

Strange comment. Models predict that climate is changing fast so I dont see how rapid change makes them wrong. However, no climate modellers is claiming that models are 100% accurate. Not even close. They have no skill at decadal level prediction but do at climate (30 year average) level. Climate sensitivity estimates are still too wide for comfort (2-4.5), however, they remain the best tools we have for predicting further climate.

Models are unreliable

MA Rodger at 21:53 PM on 22 July, 2019

rupisnark @1114,

You must forgive me my intolerance of those in the scientific & political community that remain imprisoned in climate change denial. Yet you do bring a real humdinger of climate change denial here for comment. Christy makes many many 'points' in that GWPF talk and he is pretty-much wrong it all of it.

I could continue down the many arguments he makes but how long have you got?

Consider the second point (The nonsense of the first point I dealt with up-thread @1113.), the graphic "What's happening at the surface?"

This second graphic shows a very small "Extra CO2" effect. This likely makes sense only if this tiny box represents the imbalance in the surface energy flux which is causing AGW. If it is meant to represent the impact of the AGW-induced warming, the box should be roughly the size of the cooling "Heat Flux" box and also have a cooling box the same size to balance.

The second graphic as-presented is scientific nonsense. But as that is really only repeating the incompetence of the first graphic, perhaps I should consider the third argument set out by Christy.

So graphic number three which makes sense to also consider graphic number four. This bring quite a lot of stuff into the discussion - Christy & McNider (1994) and Christy & McNider (2017) as well as Hansen et al (1998). But without getting too deep into all this, the bottom line is that Christy makes two crazy mistakes. Firstly Christy grossly misprepresents Hansen et al (1988) both in his GWPF talk and in Christy & McNider (1994). Hansen et al did not predict a +0.35ºC/decade temperature trend as Christy states (see this SkS post). Secondly Christy & McNider (2017) attempts to expunge ENSO & volcanic effects from the UAH TLT satellite temperature record but in doing so also manage to expunge much of the warming signal of AGW. Thus a trend of +0.16ºC/decade in UAH v5.6 is converted into +0.095ºC/decade. Exactly how Christy & McNider achieve this would require some detailed analysis. Certainly their use of NINO1+2 and NINO3 as an ENSO signal is one possible cause as these two SST series do contain an AGW signal.

---

Certainly I would concede nothing regarding Christy's work without first checking it out. His work is totally untrustwothy.

And if you wish to check out "distortions of information from both sides", perhaps addressing the apparent distortions on the other non-denialist "side" would be a better appraoch.

Models are unreliable

MA Rodger at 04:03 AM on 22 July, 2019

rupisnark @1112,

A first indication that there will be a great many "errors" is the author of this talk you ask about. John Christy is not known for presenting factual accounts of AGW. And a second indication is the audience. The GWPF is allegedly a UK-based educational charity but they fell foul of the UK Charity Commission and now all the really dodgy stuff is posted, as is this talk, by the 'Forum' rather than the 'Foundation' (although dodgy stuff predominated on both).

I would say that John Cristy's GWPF talk is an untrustworthy account from beginning to end. As it runs to over 7,000 words I will address just the beginning and the end. He parting comments are saying that some doomy predictions from 1970 which proved to be entirely wrong mean that all doomy predictions are wrong. I hope the logical fallacy in such an argument is obvious.

And his first graphic is also shot through with nonsense. Christy tries to make AGW appear insignificant by saying that the effect of CO2 is only 0.5 'units' within a diagram showing energy fluxes measured in very large numbers of 'units'. Yet, even though Christy is simply adapting an IPCC AR5 graphic, he still manages to make some fundamental scientific errors. This is not unusual with John Christy.

Perhaps most profound is his assertion that the energy fluxes balance at the surface which is not true on Planet Earth, as the IPCC graphic makes plain.

Another scientific howler in this first graphic is his annotation "Atmosphere (~750 million units)". He presummably means to say that the atmosphere contains 750 million x 3.4 = 2,550 million joules of thermal energy per square but he is saying watts per square metre which simple jibberish. The atmosphere's thermal energy is roughly something like 2,550 million j/sq m and with the 0.5 'units' from "extra CO2", Christy tries to show the impact of CO2 as being insignificant ("small numbers" as he calls it). But 0.5 'units' would amount to 0.5 x 3.4 x 8766 x 3600 = 54 million j/sq m in a single year. It would take a bit of a fool to dismiss this as "small numbers", but then we are talking about John Christy.

Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?

sauerj at 00:29 AM on 24 April, 2019

All, I am hardly a NP biased proponent. I have only just began to learn about NP (only starting in the last 9 months). I was technologically agnostic before that (instead only focusing on revenue-neutral carbon tax policy). I would call myself a proponent of skeptical science and due-diligence. I have made my primary motivations (zero GHG emissions) quite clear in the above comments. The above characterizations and snide remarks toward me (#16: "black is white and up is down") are unprofessional. I have been fair, professional and forthcoming; referencing all of my points and pointing out (w/o meanness) where the refs that I provided were not correctly understood (ex. 1.2mm panels per day and for US only). ... Nigelj points out that this latter point doesn't matter b/c NP is cheaper (#14); but, this cost detail is very complicated and not so clear, as I explained above & further explain below. Regardless, I still think a continuous replenishment of 1.2mm panels per day, for the US, forever, (assuming a conservatively high 40-yr life span), even if recycling, is something not to dismiss lightly.

I am still worried that a 100% RE plan (per Jacobson's plan, who was a big part of this greenman video) would be imprudently bias against NP and close-minded to how NP can help us (in the mix) get to zero GHG emissions as quickly, smartly & justly as possible. I believe that Jacobson's 100% RE 35-year roadmap plan needs more careful cross-examination; and I base this on what appears to be a thorough review video (cited above & again HERE for convenience), as well as per what other reputable people are saying, also pointed out above, such as highly respected people like James Hansen & others), and I feel that this sort of on-going diligent cross-examination of Jacobson's plan should be pointed out (as I have done).

In the end, I feel that cost should decide, but only provided we are truly & earnestly looking at all costs, and also including all external, long-term costs in the cash flow analysis (which is what the EICDA bill ultimately gets us at (concerning GHG pollution). I am not convinced that that kind of total & comprehensive cost analysis is done w/ Lazard's cost #'s, mostly b/c of the two missing big factors (mentioned in my comments above) which are: non-equal service-life & non-equal reliability (which are not included in Lazard's cash flow analysis).

1) Abbott (MSweet's 16.1): I didn't address the Abbott 2011 paper (material resource issue, #13 in his paper) b/c it is way over my head technically. By myself, I could never get to the bottom on what is the definitive truth on this. To fairly review this paper, it would take a team of senior NP & geological experts, to be able to give Abbott's conclusions due analytical diligence. I am nowhere near qualified for that.

But, in order to meagerly attempt to do that (in the last 2-3 days), I have submitted this Abbott 2011 paper to NP experts (who frequent this "RE vs NP" FB public group) to give them a chance to review & comment on this. A 'Colby Kirk' has given me the following information that throws the Abbott 2011 paper into doubt.

1.1) On Abbott's Material Resource Issue (his point #13):
Per Colby Kirk: "I reviewed his [Abbott] claims on the limited materials. He didn't give a number of materials per reactor, he just claimed all of these materials are required for nuclear reactors and then did a basic algebra formula based on the reserves limited to only the U.S. This is far from being scientific, quantitative or honest.

"For instance zirconium ... "15 Metric tons per reactor unit of ACR1000" at 15,000 reactors will still not be an issue [see page 73 of this site HERE for this 15MT/rx #]. 225,000 tons for the world nuclear fleet against a world supply of 73,000,000 tons [sauerj insert: Abbott has this at 56,000,000 tons]. That's also assuming we only use that reactor design, which advanced reactors will eliminate the need for zirconium cladding.

"None of this brings up the possibility of recycling which would become a large part of the supply line as these materials go up in price. Fuel assemblies go in and come out with the technical possibility of reprocessing and recycling. Different reactor designs have different needs and any bottle neck on certain materials will just motivate a substitution or design pivot."

1.2) On Abbott's paper being "peer reviewed":
Per Colby Kirk: "I've learned to not rely on the approval of peer review since lots of easily refuted antinuclear hit pieces get published in the literature under "peer review". Editors and reviewers can play favorites, have bias and also not know what they are looking at, which is unfortunate. I've seen lots of terrible work pass under "peer review". I can say for sure he [Abbott] is citing some widely refuted anti-nuclear hit pieces that were not peer reviewed like SLS. [sauerj inert: See my note below about this SLS paper below (*).]

"There are also some egregious errors and mistakes in the rest of the paper that any honest reviewer would catch, like cherry picking U235 as the only viable nuclear fuel.
"The document is labeled under "point of view" [sauerj insert: see top of the Abbott paper & on every corner] which looks to be a debate platform in the IEEE content stream. They talk about "personal positions" and "predictions" without mention of peer review like they do for the rest of the journal. Therefore I doubt it is peer reviewed. HERE is the description of that page. "

(*) About the non-peer reviewed SLS paper (that Abbott cites 3 places in his 2011 paper): Colby Kirk also sent me the following two rebuttal articles about this SLS paper, see HERE & HERE.

Finally, on this 16.1 point, I personally could not find where Abbott says that the shortage limit of Be, Nb, Zr, Y, Hf will limit NP to 5% max of total power (NP currently provides 11% of global power today). MSweet, could you cite where Abbott claims this?

2) Lazard pg 13 Methodology (MSweet's 16.4, 2nd para of 16.4): This page 13 is just an example free cash flow analysis for just one technology (wind). That is why it doesn't show a comparative table for NP. But regardless, no, they probably don't include disposal costs for NP; so that is a fair point. But, they probably don't also include replacement & recycle costs with the RE options either; though this is probably much less $ than that for NP.

3) Costs (MSweet's 16.4, 1st para of 16.4): My statement above (comment #13) about NP being less than solar & equal to wind (based on slide #2 on THIS site) was not apples-to-apples in comparison; I did not read the slide carefully enough (my error). This slide is a comparison of old fully depreciated NP and new un-depreciated solar & wind, which shows old NP being less cost than new solar & equal to new wind (but this not a fair comparison on new vs new). As MSweet pointed out above (pt 16.4) (in the PDF that I sited), new NP is much more than solar & wind. ... My next thought (per the bottom citations I gave above in #13, & for convenience citing again HERE & HERE) does NP have to be this expensive (based on installations in China, India & South Korea being 25-30% less and per the 3.1 & 3.2 paragraphs below that give credible evidence & references that Jacobson's 100% RE plan would cost 3x more than a Gen III NP plan in reguards to capital costs). But, I fully admit & agree, per Lazard's #'s, without any correction for service-life & equal reliability differences (or without consideration of the capital cost differences per 3.1 & 3.2 below), that new NP does cost more than new RE.

Lazard's #'s do not account for differences in service-life (per its pg 13 methodology), nor offsetting to achieve equal on-demand reliability (ditto). I think these two are big cost factors that are missing from Lazard's cash flow analysis, which is otherwise quite rigorously & technically well done. This lack of 100% apples-to-apples comparison (due to these two missing points) is the same lack of apples-to-apples consternation as cited in the Grist article above (conveniently cited again HERE, see below the "Are renewables cheaper?" header)

On comparing capital cost differences b/w a 100% RE plan vs a mostly NP plan to supply the US with enough non-carbon energy to de-carbonize the US, the following information is noteworthy:
3.1) Capital cost to put the US on 100% RE: Per Jacobson, to supply the 1591GW US demand using his 100% RE plan will cost $15.2tr (not counting necessary pumped hydro back-up which adds $1.3tr for every 4 hours of total US grid back-up). Ref: See this video (3:15-4:15) for these Jacobson 100% RE costs #'s.
3.2) Capital cost to put the US mostly on NP: The Gen III reactors (in SKorea) were built for a cost of $4.4bn/GW. Therefore, to satisfy the US power demand, this would cost $6.7tr (almost 1/3 the cost of the 100% RE costs if the RE plan includes a moderate amount of pumped hydro back-up). And, this NP capital cost could fall to $3tr with Gen IV MSR reactors. These NP costs are per this video (4:50-6:30).

4) Shellenberger (MSweet's 16.2 [the first 16.2]): MSweet, Could you post which video (& time) is pertinent to where you said he (Shellberger) contradicted himself? If that is so, then you are most right; and I would agree. Yes, there is absolutely nothing wrong with RE driving power prices down.

5) Shellenberger (MSweet's 16.2 [the 2nd 16.2]): About Fukushima deaths: Shellberger's claims of no deaths due to NP (this video at 14:37) are backed up by the May-2013 UN report (see wiki article, below the "UNSCEAR Report" header), which cites "No radiation-related deaths or acute diseases have been observed among the workers and general public exposed to radiation from the accident". In addition, Shellenberger ref'd the actual UN report, (in the above linked video slide at 14:37), which appears to be extremely thorough (200 pgs). Therefore, I see nothing to make me believe that Shellenberger misrepresented the facts in his video stating that there were no radiation deaths due to NP. Therefore, b/c the nuclear industry didn't technically kill anybody (that all associated deaths were only due to the fault of inappropriate emergency response) per this reputable UN report (that Shellenberger cites), my conclusion is contrary to MSweet's above statement: "Shellenberger denied that the nuclear industry is responsible for the people they killed at Fukushima. The industry demonstrates their complete lack of concern for safety when they do not accept responsibility for the people they kill."

Regardless to no one dying due to radiation, the Fukushima accident was still not good. But do we throw out any good that NP can provide, in getting to zero emissions, if done safely and prudently, due to a possible bad & risky design at Fukushima?

6) Material Mass/Power Comparison (MSweet's 16.3): MSweet, On this "tons/Mwh" point, you mentioned above having trouble finding ref docs that Shellberger referenced. To be clear, I used this Shellenberger video at 18:39 for the mass/power ratio #'s that I posted in #9 above. When I check Shellenberger's references here, I was able to quickly find his referenced doc HERE, which then points to HERE to access it. But, you have to have a sign-on clearance to access it, which I don't have. My expectation is that this doc will, in fact, have a Table 10 (that matches the same figures on Shellenberger's slide). So, I believe you might have been too quick to say that Shellenberger's graph was "falsified"; and to call him a "liar". Now possibly you were looking at a different video and slide, b/c the reference Shellenberger cites here (18:39) is not a "pro-nuclear book" but instead a DOE paper (which led me to the above two sites). If you are able to access this report (again HERE), and find no Table 10 to back-up Shell's slide here, then this does discredit him.
To try to find additional docs on this tons/Mwh ratio subject, I could also ask the above mentioned NP experts for more refs on differences between NP & solar & wind on this point. On the surface, it does jibes w/ my eng sensibilities that solar & wind would far outweigh NP on this ratio due to much lower energy density of the RE's vs NP, especially for the required large scale (per Jacobson's #'s) as outlined in this video (2:40-3:30, and 6:35-8:30).
At this point, on this mass/power ratio matter, I see nothing that gives me reason to doubt Shellenberger's numbers; and certainly no definitive evidence to classify him as a "falsifier" and a "liar".
Also, his presentation cites people who were once very anti-nuclear (Brand, Monbiot), but now in their zeal to really get to zero emissions (as smartly & quickly as possible), and in their honest examination of all the facts, these people have changed their minds. This is profoundly moving to me. Hansen's word is also profoundly moving to me, as I mentioned above (#13).

7) NP Maturity (Nigelj 14): In my learning's about NP (in the last 9 months), I have learned that the NP industry is certainly not fully mature. It may be more mature than the solar industry, but there are many things that could be strategically done to bring the capital cost of safe NP down via alternations/upgrades to different paradigms (from Gen II to Gen III, IV) and construction streamlining techniques. Other countries are moving forward into these more cost competitive & safer paradigms (per all of my points above in #3 of this reply) and lower cost construction techniques.

In Conclusion: I am not a NP hack; please do not characterize me of that. I am a CC mitigation hawk and active CCL member, who is simply asking questions & trying to learn to find the truth, and I feel that reputable sites & people (as ref'd) legitimize my questions & concerns about a 100% RE plan. With this reply, I feel I have addressed your points comprehensively and professionally, and on subject concerning this greenman video and its Jacobson referenced content.

The temperature evolution after 2016 suggests hotter future

scaddenp at 07:18 AM on 27 March, 2019

Thinkingman, you are falling for a number of deniers tricks here.

1998-2000 "commonly cited" by pseudo-skeptics trying to claim the science has got it wrong and it is a cherry-pick because it only considers part of the record, and to make it work, you have to start the period with an exemptional El nino. Do the the arguments still make sense if you start with 1996?

This post here goes in a proper statistical analysis of what is going on. You also seem to bought the idea that something has gone wrong with model predictions. This is nonsense. No scientist expects the actual temperature time series to evolve along the model mean. The science (everything we know about ENSO) says that is impossible. Please read again my earlier reply. A good expectation is that the 30-year trend in temperature series will be close to the 30-year trend in the model mean. However, there is still a wide uncertainty in climate sensitivity.

Finally, I do not accept that you can take two cooling periods (1910-) and (1940-) caused by two different changes in climate forcing and propose a natural cycle for them. This is not evidence, it is misinformation.

Models are unreliable

scaddenp at 16:54 PM on 31 December, 2018

AFT - based on a comment izen in this discussion, I believe this has been attempted but it is anything but straightforward because of changes to compilers, hardware and the state of the data files. There is more about the veracity of the model in this article here and perhaps further comments about Hansen 1988 belong there. In short, the model produces a climate sensitivity that is on the high side compared to modern models for a variety of interesting reasons. However, the article also points out a number of ways in which the model has been misrepresented by deniers. Continued work on reproducing the model is unlikely to help with those who determined to deceive.

Global warming ‘hiatus’ is the climate change myth that refuses to die

Ken in Oz at 10:26 AM on 28 December, 2018

Anticorncob6 - I also like to use the axial tilt theory of seasons as an analogy - on average each day of Spring will be warmer than the day before but we don't expect a few days or weeks of colder than average weather in Spring to mean there won't ever be Summer any more or that it "proves" the axial tilt theory must be wrong.

I admit I was surprised at how much traction "the Pause" got; to me it always looked exactly like the variability overlaying a continuing warming trend that closer studies confirm. Too little "expert" effort distinguishing between shorter term variability and underlying warming and expert efforts at learning what processes are involved in that shorter term variability?

Foster and Rahmstorf's work that estimated and "removed" ENSO, Volcanic Aerosol and Solar Intensity changes confirmed what I thought - that known sources of variability alone were enough to make "the Pause" indistinguishable within a longer term warming trend.

Averages of many model runs, where each run has ups, downs, pauses, accelerations may make for a smooth, each year warmer than the last type graph; it is not and should never be seen as a year by year prediction. Should perhaps have taken a leaf out of Exxon's book; their projections were of a (smooth) band of tempertures rising, not a single line average. But people making policy or having fiduciary duties of care - or journalists reporting about it - should be expected to know better.

Climate impacts

Xulonn at 02:05 AM on 4 November, 2018

Predicting a "sea change" in complex, chaotic systems like climate and economics is extremely difficult, and disastrous change can occur much more quickly than most people realize. I do, however, agree with others in this conversation that the science of climate research is on much more solid footing than that of modern economics.

I remember reading many years ago about someone who challenged an American meteorologist (weatherman?) on next-day forecasting. By simply predicting every next day to have the same weather as the current day, he won - because the meteorological predictions of change in the day were so inaccurate. That matches my feelinga about our current global capitalist system - as long as governments cater to the ultra wealthy and corporate sectors, they believe that the good times and exponential growth can go on forever.

Another factor in overly rosy economic predictions is that people don't want to hear bad news about the future. Often, any predicted change in a negative direction that does not come to fruition leads to people no longer believing the source -unless you are Donald Trump. The U.S. president is a master at telling his fans just what they want to hear - and it is almost always based on falsehoods and inaccuracies. Even when his words are immediately debunked, his fans refuse to accept the truth. Following this surrealistic phenomenon leads me to believe that a similar psychology leads to the stubborn denialism that refuses to accept the reality of the looming disasters that will be precipitated by AGW/CC.

Economists do the same thing as Trump without overtly lying, but simply refuse to consider and include all of the obvious possibilities and their liklihoods in their calculations. Their theories, hyphtheses, and calculations may be mathematical marvels, but the "garbage in garbage out" maxim applies here.

Reading this post and its replies prompted me to go to Google to look for "economic prediction failures" - and I was a bit surprised at how the first page of results was filled with exactly what I was looking for. It looks like I've found some very interesting information to peruse over the next few days.

I see two possibilities for the next few decades - either modern civilization and its global economy will hit a wall - or drive over a cliff. And either one will likely be at full speed with "the pedal to the metal."

At age 76, I probably will not be around to see it. Many of my contemporaries are already gone, and unlike me, did not live long enough to see even the real beginning of the global "tragedy of the commons" surfacing so obviously. The current path of modern technological civilization will likely lead to its end. The focus on "saving the earth" was completely wrong. The earth will survive and life will continue to evolve - just not in the way we humans with out collective monumental hubris expected.

Climate impacts

nigelj at 11:20 AM on 2 November, 2018

Problems with economics and its ability to make good predictions here and here. and here.

Climate change and the refugee problem here. Ultimately it risks driving up inflation at this sort of scale. Something not always considered in cost analysis.

Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised

scaddenp at 06:57 AM on 1 November, 2018

Josbert, when you have model for how something works, then science works by making predictions from the model and comparing them to observations. Cooling of the stratosphere while warming of the troposphere falls straight out the radiative transfer equations (RTE). The RTE are widely used (think about why US Air Force are people that developed the MODTRAN codes) and their predictions about observed radiation whether observed from earth or satellite are matched in equisite detail. However, this is a "shut up and calculate" approach to science and doing an explanation without the math for non-specialists is challenging. I dont like them. However, I can assure you that you are in for an uphill battle convincing anyone that the RTEs are wrong without doing the math and showing that somehow your model produces even better match to observations.

There are genuine climate alarmists, but they're not in the same league as deniers

dkeierleber at 02:55 AM on 13 July, 2018

I think all environmental organizations were damaged by the intentional alarmist predictions of Paul Ehrlich and others back in the 70s. So I think it is important to call out the few extremists and explain why mainstream scientists think they are wrong.

SirCharles @21, I think the widely publicized news on this article is somewhat alarmist (though the paper isn’t).

MA Rodger @23, Thanks for the link. I downloaded the pdf of the paper.
I thought this subject was treated pretty well in the Ars Technica article https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/are-past-climates-telling-us-were-missing-something/ reposted on this site on June 28. https://www.skepticalscience.com/what-happened-last-time-as-warm-as-getting.html
(Sorry, can’t get link tool to work. Are there instructions anywhere?)

Nigelj @18 I think the conservative conclusions of AR5 have caused some damage. California communities are now looking at a realistic possibility of 6.5 ft of SLR by the end of the century while the Summary for Policy Makers had given a maximum of 0.98m. Granted a couple of 2015 papers were game changers in the area of SLR but the following comment from the SPM, in retrospect, seems exaggerated on the conservative end. “Based on current understanding, only the collapse of marine-based sectors of the Antarctic ice sheet, if initiated, could cause global mean sea level to rise substantially above the likely range during the 21st century. However, there is medium confidence that this additional contribution would not exceed several tenths of a meter of sea level rise during the 21st century.”

There are genuine climate alarmists, but they're not in the same league as deniers

Sunspot at 04:37 AM on 10 July, 2018

I wish Mr. Betts would stop using the term "alarmist" over and over and over. It's a common dog-whistle term used by deniers. The article he cites supposedly debunking McPherson is over 4 years old. The basic argument seems to be that the bad things predicted by McPherson, Wadhams, and many others btw, haven't happened yet. We know that. So it's an argument over how fast methane can be released, how soon all the ice melts, etc. No mention of "global dimming". To say that the "alarmists" are wrong is a little premature. There is an impressive roster at the Arctic Blogspot site, not just two people as implied in this article. And I am convinced that a great many Climate Scientists are, privately, just as concerned as McPherson and Wadhams. This is why Arctic Blogspot uses the pseudonym "Sam Carana". Anyone being publicly "alarmist" may lose their jobs! Many Climate Scientists have left the US because they and their families receive death threats! But buy them a beer, and I'd bet they don't dismiss even the most dire predictions. We simply don't know what will happen, but the temperature increase is likely to be exponential, not linear. It's getting hot out there. All over.

What happened last time it was as warm as it’s going to get later this century?

Trevor_S at 15:45 PM on 29 June, 2018

>J Hansen has raised the possibilty that sea level rise could be rapid,

He's not the only one, Harold Wanless does as well

You know, 20 years ago I never thought I would end up seeing the rise because everything, all the projections at that time, really didn’t ramp up until well into the 21st century. But then I started going out to Cape Sable.” Cape Sable is the southernmost part of the mainland; it reaches into the Florida Bay like a swollen hook. “Out there the beaches were disappearing, mangroves were moving in, tiny channels turned into huge rivers in a matter of years. Even the roseate spoonbills started abandoning their nesting grounds. I had never, in my life of studying the geology of the coast of Florida, seen anything like it. That is when I knew in my gut that the early predictions were wrong and that sea level rise was unfolding a lot faster than any of us ever imagined.”

Video: Hansen’s Global Warming Prediction at 30. How did He Do?

nigelj at 16:54 PM on 23 June, 2018

Hansen did rather well, and a lot better than these hilariously wrong sceptics.

American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

Bob Loblaw at 11:01 AM on 18 April, 2018

NorrisM:

You seem to be wanting to continue sea level discussions here, rather than on the Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated thread, where you have not responded to this comment from me.

The moderators have been snipping from your recent post in this thread. One of the snipped phases was:

We saw this happen with sea level rise during the "hiatus" and we could see it if temperatures were to level off for the next 10 years.

...in apparent justification for you claiming that a flattening of sea level rise could be caused by a flattening of temperature rise.

Leaving aside the argument that the "hiatus" in surface temperature rise represented a slowing of global warming (not seen in the ocean temperatures, which are the ones that affect sea level), you are simply wrong that any temporary slowdowns of sea level rise were the result of temperature changes. The primary driver of short-term fluctuations in sea level over the past decade or two is El Nino/La Nina - it shifts water between oceans and land, due to precipitation changes.

Read this post to see the explanation. Here is the first graph from that post:

Sea Level

You are making the wrong conclusions becuase you are looking at the wrong physical mechanisms. Without an understanding of the physical principles that affect sea level, you are doomed to continue these fundamental misunderstandings. I have tried to point this out to you on the other thread, but you are persisting in drawing your own conclusions from a position of ignorance.

American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

michael sweet at 07:39 AM on 17 April, 2018

Norrism:

The scale is largest around 2100 on graph C so it is the easiest to read. I note that your estimate of 0.4 m of sea level rise is well below the 68% range, nowhere near a midpoint value. This paper is used a lot by deniers because it is at the very lowest range of peer reviewed papers. The IPCC has relied on low papers a lot in the past and increases its projections every report because the low estimates are incorrect.

This paper by Hansen, Rignot and 17 other top scientists in 2016 (already cited by 196 others!!!) give projections of up to 17 feet of sea level rise by 2100. They discuss ice sheet disintegration. I could not immediately find again the paper by Rignot that describes the mechanism of ice sheet disintegration. He may not be the lead author. It is cited in the Hansen paper or you could go to his website and look at his list of publications for the years 2014-2016. The 19 authors of the Hansen paper have much more experience and past successes than Rohling and his coauthors.

Rignot had a youtube video previously linked for you that described the process. Search youtube.

I use GOOGLE or GOOGLE SCHOLAR to find free papers.

The central, consensus estimate of the IPCC is that humans were responsible for 110% of the warming since 1950. Your lawerly review of the terms does not appear to recognise that this is the central, consensus number. I cannot understand how you discount the central, consensus number. Gavin Schmitt at RealClimate calculated that there was only a 0.5% chance of humans causing less than 66% of the warming (Curry was unable to do the calculation and said scientists did not know how to either. She was wrong.)

The average sea level rise since 1900 is about 1.7 mm/yr according to you (I cannot find your post since it is not on the sea level rise thread). For the past 30 years sea level rise has been 3.4 mm/yr according to satalite measurements. Sea level rise must be accelerating since the most recent 30 year rise is double the average over the past century, no analysis is needed.

You think sea level rise will immediately slow down to 1.7 mm/yr again?? What is the physical mechanism for the decrease in sea level rise? Your suggestion of a decline in sea level rise appears unphysical (a very strong term in science) to me.

Scientists have predicted for over 100 years that sea level rise would accelerate due to AGW and that prediction has come true. Why could we possibly think that sea level rise will slow down to half of the current rate when peer reviewed papers measure more acceleration? As temperature increases the forcing for sea level rise increases and we would expect acceleration.

Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated

NorrisM at 09:47 AM on 1 April, 2018

Bob Loblaw, Eclectic and michael sweet,

This has been an interesting journey, exploring what I will describe as the “conflicting views” on the future sea level rise “predicted” for the remainder of the 21st century. Let me say that I appreciate that my use of the term “predict” is used in a general sense and that many of what I refer to as “predictions” are in fact “projections” because they are predictions based upon certain assumptions relating to a number of things but most importantly, the level of CO2 emissions based upon the various pathways assumed by the IPCC.

The relevance of the views of a lawyer are on such a technical subject as “sea level rise” is certainly questionable but I suspect the interest of Bob Loblaw is simply because there are a number of legal cases that will be coming before the courts of the United States over the next few years and these cases will be adjudicated by lawyers and not physicists or other scientists. Having said that, there are many lawyers who have an engineering or scientific background before entering law so there may be some hope of having a scientist hear the case. In my case, my undergraduate degree was in the “dismal science”.

In researching this topic, I have largely focused on Chapter 13 of the IPCC Fifth Assessment (Fifth Assessment) and those portions of Chapter 3 dealing with sea level rise as well as blog information contained on this website on the subject as well as blog information on one other website (which does not carry much weight from most of the commentators on this website). I have also read the US Climate Science Special Report published in late 2017 (US Climate Report) as well as the very good RealClimate article on the Fifth Assessment (suggested by Bob Loblaw).

But before I delve into my impressions from these sources, I would also like to reference the discussion of “uncertainty” both in the Fifth Assessment and the US Climate Report. In both reports, the extent of understanding (and certainty or uncertainty about that understanding) is based upon levels of confidence (dealing with the consistency of the evidence and degree of agreement within the literature) and likelihood expressed probabilistically (based upon the degree of understanding or knowledge).

What I want to focus on are the levels of “Confidence”:

“Medium Confidence” means suggestive evidence (a few sources, limited consistency), competing schools of thought.

“High Confidence” means moderate evidence (some sources, some consistency) medium consensus

“Very High Confidence” means strong evidence (established theory, multiple sources) high consensus.

All of the definitions for uncertainty are found in the US Climate Report in the “Guide to this Report” which is easily located.

I think it is very important to keep these measurements in mind when analyzing the findings of the Fifth Assessment. When they use “Medium Confidence” they do not mean “medium consensus” because that term is reserved for “High Confidence”. Unless the term “Very High Confidence” is used then there is considerable uncertainty remaining.

So to commence this research the most logical place to begin is the Fifth Assessment projections found at Section 3.7.6:

"It is very likely that the global mean rate was 1.7 [1.5 to 1.9] mm yr–1 between 1901 and 2010 for a total sea level rise of 0.19 [0.17 to 0.21] m. Between 1993 and 2010, the rate was very likely higher at 3.2 [2.8 to 3.6] mm yr–1; similarly high rates likely occurred between 1920 and 1950."

Figure 3.14 of the Fifth Assessment shows the “bump” in sea level rates in the period 1920 to 1950. Given that the accepted view is that the rapid increase in the use of GWG’s only started after 1950, it seems incumbent on scientists to explain the “bump”. The only explanation I could find in the Fifth Assessment was that this “bump” was ”likely related to multi-decadal variability”. See Section 3.7.4. However, the natural question is if “multi-decadal variability” caused the increase in rates in the 1920-1950 period then why cannot the increase in rates found since 1993 of approximately 3.2 mm/yr also be attributed to multi-decadal variability? Or should not at least a portion be attributed to this internal variability, if only a portion, then how much?

So the Fifth Assessment found that it was “very likely” (read 90-100%) that the average rate of sea level rise since 1901 was 1.7 mm/yr. But before we get into the 3.2 mm/yr rate, we now have a number of papers since the Fifth Assessment that have suggested that the Fifth Assessment’s 90-100% assured estimate is all wrong and the real rate for 1901 to 1990 is 1.1 to 1.2 mm/yr. (Hay 2015 Dangendorf 2017). When asked by others how the IPCC could have got this so wrong, the answer seems to be that everyone is entitled to be wrong, that is science. I fully agree but it does not necessarily engender confidence in other “Very Likely” predictions or projections of the IPCC in the Fifth Assessment.

Perhaps the IPCC will, in the Sixth Assessment actually maintain its 1.7 mm/yr rate which I understand was similar to the AR4. Why do I say this? Because my understanding is that these “new” lower estimates are largely based upon a reanalysis of VLM. But here is what the Fifth Assessment has to say about VLM adjustments:

"High agreement between studies with and without corrections for vertical land motion suggests that it is very unlikely that estimates of the global average rate of sea level change are significantly biased owing to vertical land motion that has been unaccounted for. {3.7.2, 3.7.3, Table 3.1, Figures 3.12, 3.13, 3.14}"

So now on to the $64,000 question as to whether the observed acceleration in sea level rise since 1993 is an increase in the long term rate or is reflective of decadal variability or only reflects “apples and oranges” measurement issues with satellite altimetry compared to tide gauges.

We have disagreements both on the rate of acceleration and the causes of the acceleration.

Firstly, we have a disagreement between the Fifth Assessment estimates of what the acceleration rate is and the recent Nerem 2018 paper. From the Fifth Assessment, the acceleration is quite small with Ray & Douglas (2011) at -.002 to .002 mm/y, Jeverejeva (2008) at .012 mm/yr and Church & White (2011) at .012 mm/yr. Then we have Nerem (2018) re-evaluating things and coming up with .084 mm/yr. I do not propose to get into the technical disagreements that I have read on the Nerem (2018) paper but even extrapolating his acceleration, his projected 2100 sea level rise is somewhere around 65 cm close to the low range of the IPCC RCP8.5 estimate. Although I am not qualified to make any judgments, I suggest that anyone who is qualified should at least read the comments made by FrankClimate on the other website under the Part IV discussion on sea level acceleration. Without question, FrankClimate is technical. His comments have now been incorporated into the Part IV discussion. Would be interested to hear from Eclectic as to whether he disagrees with FrankClimate.

Secondly, we have questions of what is the cause of this recent acceleration since 1993. I had to ask myself why 1993 and not 1990? The obvious answer is that it is in 1993 that satellite altimetry came into the equation with the launch of the TOPEX satellite. Although I think there is general agreement that there are serious questions about whether the data from TOPEX for the first six years should be used at all (or for that matter even the remaining period for that satellite), my sense from looking at the NASA website is that the satellite altimetry is pretty well matching the tide gauges. I think there are a number of people who disagree with me on this but the average rates seem to match. But it is curious that where we see this very large increase in SLR is not at the land-based tide gauges but out in the middle of the oceans. It at least led me to ask myself whether this significant difference between the tide gauge measurements and satellite altimetry measurements in the middle of the oceans would have always been there if we could have measure it with satellites much earlier. I fully appreciate that the tide gauge measurements have shown an upward trend since 1980 (Section 3.7.4) but my understanding is that the large average increase during the satellite era can be attributed to the large increases found in the middle of some of the oceans, especially the Indian Ocean.

But back to attribution. A number of authors have suggested that the way to reconcile the “bump” in 1920-1950 and the increases since 1990 is to link these climate changes to multi-decadal variability, and specifically the AMO or the PDO. Here is what the Fifth Assessment has to say about this at 3.7.4:

"Several studies have suggested these variations may be linked to climate fluctuations like the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) and/or Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO, Box 2.5) (Holgate, 2007; Jevrejeva et al., 2008; Chambers et al., 2012), but these results are not conclusive."

Others have said that the increase in SLR since 1990 is not “statistically relevant” when looking at the long term sea level rise. In that respect, the Fifth Assessment does make the following statement immediately following the above quotation:

"While technically correct that these multi-decadal changes represent acceleration/deceleration of sea level, they should not be interpreted as change in the longer-term rate of sea level rise, as a time series longer than the variability is required to detect those trends."

For those who say that the acceleration should be attributed to AGW, they largely point to the increased rates of melting in the glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet and potentially catastrophic impacts relating to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). I cannot obviously get into discussing these topics without clearly being “snipped” for too long a post. In my view, having read the Fifth Assessment, the risk of “dynamic changes” in WAIS (there is virtually no risk with the topography of Greenland bedrock) are minimal. Here is what the Fifth Assessment has to say about the MISI hypothesis relating to WAIS at 13.4.4.3:

"In summary, ice-dynamics theory, numerical simulations, and paleo records indicate that the existence of a marine-ice sheet instability associated with abrupt and irreversible ice loss from the Antarctic ice sheet is possible in response to climate forcing. However, theoretical considerations, current observations, numerical models, and paleo records currently do not allow a quantification of the timing of the onset of such an instability or of the magnitude of its multi-century contribution."

As to the evidence of a retreat of WAIS, see Chapter 13 at 13.5.4.1:

"Although the model used by Huybrechts et al. (2011) is in principle capable of capturing grounding line motion of marine ice sheets (see Box 13.2), low confidence is assigned to the model’s ability to capture the associated time scale and the perturbation required to initiate a retreat (Pattyn et al., 2013)."

What this tells me is that there is a “theoretical” danger but so far we do not have any evidence of an actual retreat or the time frame over which this could occur. We cannot base our rational responses to AGW based upon theories which have not been supported with observational evidence.

As for the Greenland ice sheet, we know that the major warming was caused by warm waters appearing around Greenland and the impact that this has had on the melting of the ice sheet in the peripheries around the ocean at least from 1990 to 2012. My understanding is that this has been attributed to a decrease in cloudiness associated with the NAO which would mean that it was the increased insolation which caused the increase in the melting. Here is the discussion in FAQ 13.2 regarding the Greenland ice sheet:

"Although the observed response of outlet glaciers is both complex and highly variable, iceberg calving from many of Greenland’s major outlet glaciers has increased substantially over the last decade and constitutes an appreciable additional mass loss. This seems to be related to the intrusion of warm water into the coastal seas around Greenland, but it is not clear whether this phenomenon is related to inter-decadal variability, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation, or a longer term trend associated with greenhouse gas–induced warming. Projecting its effect on 21st century outflow is therefore difficult, but it does highlight the apparent sensitivity of outflow to ocean warming. The effects of more surface melt water on the lubrication of the ice sheet’s bed, and the ability of warmer ice to deform more easily, may lead to greater rates of flow, but the link to recent increases in outflow is unclear."

With the above information, the question that has been posed to me is where would I place the estimate of GMSL at 2100 compared to the Fifth Assessment (RCP 8.5) projection of .59cm to .98cm?

Firstly, it seems to me that during the 20th Century we had an almost linear rise in sea level as is acknowledged by the Fifth Assessment at 13.3.6 at p. 1159:

"GMSL rise during the 20th century can be accounted for within uncertainties, including the observation that the linear trend of GMSL rise during the last 50 years is little larger than for the 20th century, despite the increasing anthropogenic forcing (Gregory et al., 2013b)."

Here is a larger quote from the same Gregory paper:

“The largest contribution to GMSLR during the twentieth century was from glaciers, and its rate was no greater in the second half than in the first half of the century, despite the climatic warming during the century. Of the contributions to our budget of GMSLR, only thermal expansion shows a tendency for increasing rate as the magnitude of anthropogenic global climate change increases, and this tendency has been weakened by natural volcanic forcing. Greenland ice sheet contribution relates more to regional climate variability than to global climate change; and the residual, attributed to the Antarctic ice sheet, has no significant time dependence. The implication of our closure of the budget is that a relationship between global climate change and the rate of GMSLR is weak or absent in the twentieth century. The lack of a strong relationship is consistent with the evidence from the tide gauge datasets, whose authors find acceleration of GMSLR during the twentieth century to be either insignificant or small.”

This is consistent with the “Munk enigma” that he saw a near linear increase in GMSL during the 20th Century notwithstanding the impact of AGW only in the second half.

The Fifth Assessment RCP 8.5 assumes that in the second half of the 21st Century we will have what at least are “quadratic increases” if not “exponential increases” in the GMSL rate. I have no understanding of how a “quadratic curve” differs from an “exponential curve” and I do not have to notwithstanding all of the debate that I read on this issue on the “other website”. What I do know is that it is much steeper than a linear increase.

From Table 13.5 the Fifth Assessment has acknowledged that in the case of RCP 8.5 that in the period 2018 to 2100 they project an average sea level rate of 11.2 mm/yr for the mid-case and for the high case of .98 m the projected average rate is 15.7 mm/yr. See Section 13.5.1 at page 1180:

"The rate of rise becomes roughly constant in RCP4.5 and RCP6.0 by the end of the century, whereas acceleration continues throughout the century in RCP8.5, reaching 11 [8 to 16] mm yr–1 in 2081–2100."

Notwithstanding this projection, the Fifth Assessment acknowledges that this would exceed the average rate of 10 mm/yr during the deglaciation after the Last Glacial Maximum when there were massive ice caps over North America and Europe and Asia to supply the melt water (Chp13 pg. 1205):

"For the RCP8.5 scenario, the projected rate of GMSL rise by the end of the 21st century will approach average rates experienced during the deglaciation of the Earth after the Last Glacial Maximum."

The IPCC clearly understood this but did not explain how this could be achieved given the lack of such volumes of ice now (Chp 13 pg. 1185):

"The third approach uses paleo records of sea level change that show that rapid GMSL rise has occurred during glacial terminations, at rates that averaged about 10 mm yr–1 over centuries, with at least one instance (Meltwater Pulse 1A) that exceeded 40 mm yr–1 (Section 5.6.3), but this rise was primarily from much larger ice-sheet sources that no longer exist."

Grammatically, the phrase “but this rise ….” modifies the reference to 10 mm/yr and not 40 mm/yr.

The IPCC projection of sea level rise attributes the largest rise to thermal expansion, secondly to glaciers, and thirdly to the Greenland ice sheet mass balance loss and with a negative contribution by the Antarctic ice sheet.

As to the IPCC’s ability to adequately model dynamic changes to the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets here is what the Fifth Assessment says at 13.5.4.1 pg 1187:

"As discussed in Sections 13.4.3.2 and 13.4.4.2, there is medium confidence in the ability of coupled ice sheet–climate models to project sea level contributions from dynamic ice-sheet changes in Greenland and Antarctica for the 21st century. In Greenland, dynamic mass loss is limited by topographically defined outlets regions."

Note the use of the term "Medium Confidence".

With all of the above research, given that I could not accept some of the projections of the IPCC for RCP8.5 (leaving alone the fact that RCP 8.5 is probably unrealistic given the changes we see in a move to renewable energy sources at least in the developed world) the question came down to what would I guesstimate the GMSL for 2100 if for some reason I was asked my opinion (which I was by Bob Loblaw).

For me, I would go back to the observations and look at where the sea level has moved since 1900 and assume that it will follow along the same largely linear path that it has pretty well followed since we have kept records in tide gauges. Taking Figure 13.27 of the Fifth Assessment and applying a ruler to the line, it projects out to about .4m by 2100. In other words, whatever impact CO2 emissions have had they are “baked in the cake”. What we see is what we will get.

Using the most recent date online at NASA, as of December 2017, we have had an 87.5 mm rise since 1993 representing an average rate of 3.2 mm/yr according to the NASA website. If we multiply this figure of 3.2 mm times 82 years, we arrive at around 26.24 cm of further rise if the rise continues to be linear. If you add this 26.24 to the .19 cm for the period 1900 to 1990 it totals 45.24 cm.

So my guess is that we probably will have a further 21 to 26 cm from now until 2100 representing somewhere around 8 to 10 inches of sea level rise. Unfortunately, I will not be around to see if I am right!

How to Change Your Mind About Climate Change

nigelj at 05:55 AM on 8 February, 2018

Michael Shermer is a psychologist, and author of Skeptic and The Moral Arc, both interesting books. From his book he was apparently a climate sceptic and general environmental sceptic, because of the overly negative failed predictions of the book Limits to Growth. But this was an early book based on a lot of huge approximations of resources.

However Shermer changed his mind, and accepted agw climate change and other environmental problems were real, after reading various popular books by Tim Flannery, Jared Diamond, and seeing Al Gores presentation on agw science. He cited Gore as a significant influence.

So Al Gore converted at least one sceptic! And Shermer was converted by old fashioned factual information, and making the effort to read a few books, and there are great books out there.

John Key, the moderately conservative leader of one of our political parties, became a convert to AGW after seeing a graph of the last 70 years plotting solar irradiance against temperatures, and it was clear to him that solar irradiance was mostly flat in recent decades, so is obviously not a driving factor. He is a currency trader, and so possibly very data orientated.

This was something that also convinced me agw was real, because the sun is obviously such a powerful possible alternative theory. However not everyone relates to graphical information, and data on watts / sq m and things like this.

So some sceptics do change their minds simply through looking at the facts. They seem to be less strongly influenced by motivated reasoning and confirmation bias.

And there seem to be many different paths to how they decide agw is real because different people seem to connect with different aspects. For this reason as a general rule presentations on climate change might be best to include a mixture of human interest, natural world material, and more abstract material on ocean processes and graphical trends.

I do however agree with Knaugle that a certain group of deniers are very intransigent. They might never be convinced, even if sea levels rose 20 metres, or perhaps only then. I think the reason is that there are an overwhelming number of political, ideological and psychological issues combining together with this group. It's an additive thing. It's not just one thing.

No doubt the denialists look at both sides of the debate, but see only what they want to see. They get very invested in a position, or strongly tied to the influence of a peer group, and then its hard for them to back down, and pride wont let them admit they were wrong.

We all know that shifting political beliefs can be difficult. However most people also have some desire to know the truth, and understand that science is about getting at the truth.

It's not bad

Eclectic at 08:52 AM on 14 January, 2018

David @378 , your argument carries zero weight — for the simple reason that there is no ice age imminent.

The timing of the next glacial (the one that would have occurred, without human presence) has been discussed elsewhere on SkepticalScience. The coming of the next glacial age, may be considerably more than the few thousand years away which casual observation [of history] would suggest. An unusually low amount of orbital ellipticity (i.e. a more circular orbit) over the coming dozens of millennia . . . points to a greatly delayed "next" glaciation — delayed by tens of thousands of years, perhaps.

David, balanced against all the multiple major problems occurring now and increasingly during the next century or three, from AGW . . . an ice age that might come in 2,000+ years (or more likely 20,000+ years) is a non-event in current considerations.

And if such prediction of the zero threat of "imminent next ice age" should happen to prove wrong . . . then the history of the 20th Century demonstrates that we could easily scotch the ice, by 30 years of intensive coal-burning. Easy fix !!

David, in the current situation, there is zero benefit to warming, as a "preventative".

How blogs convey and distort scientific information about polar bears and Arctic sea ice

nigelj at 13:23 PM on 28 December, 2017

TPohlman

"Her (Susan Crockfords) thesis is that sea ice conditions expected in those papers by 2050 has already occurred, but expected population declines have not."

She doesn't have enough information to reach that conclusion. The following are the estimates of population trends in the sub populations according to the polar bear experts here:

3 Are Declining
6 Are Stable
1is Increasing
9 Are Data Deficient

So overall numbers do appear to actually be declining slightly, but despite this with so many data deficient areas, I don't think we can be sure of overall trends in numbers with any degree of real certainty, so its not possible right now to draw conclusions, or say any predictions have been proven wrong.

You also need to understand there has been a reduction in hunting polar bears due to changes in the law, and this could have had more effect than realised on numbers further confusing the picture.

I'm no expert in polar bears or biology, but it only takes a minute to find the critical information underpinning this issue. You should be able to do this yourself, and apply some healthy scepticism to Crockfords views.

It should literally be self evident a decline in ice affects their basic habitat, so at some stage will pose problems. Habitat loss has been a prime factor in the decline of many species. Polar bears are not as resourceful and adaptable as humans, and the trouble is we tend to see things through our own eyes.

I'm always open to alternative opinions, but Crockford is unconvincing.

The F13 files, part 1 - the copy/paste job

ubrew12 at 03:13 AM on 1 November, 2017

The F13 abstract lead off with: "This paper... suggests that numerical models that lack adequate knowledge of fundamental... factors cannot be used to extract “sound” conclusions." So, after extensive review, the authors conclude that 'Garbage in = Garbage out'? Brilliant (/s). Look, nobody makes a policy decision without a prediction of its outcome, based on a model of the future. That includes the 'do nothing' alternative. Trump etal have a model of future climate. Its probably just an 'it'll be alright, it's always been in the Past' model put in their heads by Fox News, but its still a model, and all models are wrong (the future cannot be perfectly predicted). The purpose of research is to make newer predictive models 'less wrong' than others. This implies that model comparison's are necessary to the process of continuous improvement. So, where are the denier models? Big fossils makes a trillion dollars in pure profit annually: where are its competing climate models? Where is Florides model? On what basis is Trump taking the 'do nothing' alternative? If you refuse to make something better than the moon, then you are stuck howling at the moon, which explains Florides first sentence, which reaches a conclusion any freshman studying 'C++' is taught in the first week of instruction.

Florides abstract: "science does not really have a complete... understanding of the factors affecting the earth's complex climate system and therefore no sound conclusions can be drawn." It doesn't matter for two reasons: 1) Policy must be made anyway. To make rational decisions requires the best predictive tools we have, regardless of our incomplete state of knowledge. 2) There is no such thing as a 'sound conclusion'. I'm reminded that, deciding how many Americans to send into Iwo Jima, planners developed a differential equation which assumed each Japanese would fight to the death. Was it accurate? Of course not. It was simply the best planning tool they had, so they used it. The calculation that doubling CO2 in the atmosphere will raise Earth's temperature by 4 C predates computer modelling by 75 years. Policy should be made on that basis, and not on the shifting goalposts of a denier like Florides, for whom scientific modelling will never be good enough because, happily for him, he doesn't have to front a competing model but gets paid apparently to be a professional critic.

Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races

Bob Loblaw at 05:56 AM on 22 October, 2017

NorrisM:

I agree that current federal politics in the US represent a completely dysfunctional response to the risks of climate change, and getting Trump et al to change course is highly unlikely.

It's "The United States of America", not "The State of United America", and individual states can and will take action. California is implementing a cap-and-trade system, for example (and partnering with Ontario and Quebec, last I heard). The whole premise of the article we are commenting below (I intentionally avoid the phrase "commenting on", unfortunately) is that other politcal pressures and actions are happening in the US outside the federal level.
Europe is far more advanced that the US in implementing measures (although much more needs to be done), and although the US is still a major world economy it, does not need to remain one if it chooses not to.
Although China is a huge carbon emitter, they are also rapidly developing alternatives. They will own the future if countries follow the US lead and hop off the bus.
If the rest of the world decarbonzes, and the US does not, the US will become an increasingly unimportant player.
As damages increase, political pressures can and will change.

I completely disgaree with your phrasing of "actual pollution costs (not an extended definition)". Your position represents a continuation of externalities that distort the economic costs related to fossil fuel use. Just because you want to label uncertainties in these costs as "vague", "theoretical", etc. does not mean that the best estimate of these additional costs is $0.

Your item 2 is more likely if we remove fossil fuel subsidies, and correct the distortions caused by the externalities. Your argument against assertive action amounts to "it's too hard", and the implicit choice is that you would rather deal with the consequences of letting climate change happen.

That you keep repeating shop-worn denier talking points about uncertainty, models, etc. suggests that at some deep level you are still believing or hoping that the science is all wrong and no significant change is needed.
From a position of risk management, I ask "what if the science is correct, and things are as bad (or worse) than the predictions? Do you have a plan that amounts to anything more than "I really hoped this wouldn't happen"?

As for your last point: monetary transfers to help developing countries is an active point of international discussion. It will be difficult, but I have not given up hope that the international community will find a solution.

Remember: the best way to minimize the need for these transfers to areas that have been impacted is to prevent the damage from happening in the first place. Arguing about who will pay for the damage to the car is wasting valuable time that could be used to apply the brakes and prevent or reduce the collision.

Your position amounts to appeasement. Chamberlain did not achieve "peace for our time".

Climate and energy are becoming focal points in state political races

Bob Loblaw at 02:12 AM on 22 October, 2017

NorrisM:

Thank you for answering the questions I posed. They were not, however, rhetorical questions ("asked to make a point rather than to elicit an answer."), buth rather genuine questions asked as a sequence in an attempt to focus the discussion. Think of them more as the Socratic Method, searching for areas of agreement and areas of disagreement.

First point (minor) - I think you missed a question. There were 8, and you answered 7. I think that you missed one somewhere in 3-6, as your answers 6 and 7 look more like answers to my questions 7 and 8.

Second point: Koonin's statements about sea level rise. I linked to the full IPCC report chapter 13 in comment 122, In the table of contents, it lists the following sections:

13.4 Projected Contributions to Global Mean Sea Level

13.4.1 Ocean Heat Uptake and Thermal Expansion

13.4.2 Glaciers

13.4.3 Greenland Ice Sheet

13.4.4 Antarctic Ice Sheet

13.4.5 Anthropogenic Intervention in Water Storage on Land

13.5 Projections of Global Mean Sea Level Rise

13.5.1 Process-Based Projections for the 21st Century.

13.5.2 Semi-Empirical Projections for the 21st Century.

13.5.3 Confidence in Likely Ranges and Bounds

13.5.4 Long-Term Scenarios.

Your statement that "The IPCC report does not reconcile how they get to 1m if Koonin is asking the question" is simply wrong. The IPCC does give an extensive discussion of the literature regarding where these estimates come from. That leaves two possibiities, in my mind:

Koonin is ignorant on this subject.
Koonin is intentionally selecting certain forms of evidence and avoiding others in order to present a particular case.

Regardless of which of 1 or 2 is correct, Koonin has no credibility as an honest reviewer on this issue. #1 can be fixed by learning (on Koonin's part). #2 is much more difficult to change. You can, however, learn that some of the sources you are using are not trustworthy.

On question 2: yes, the IPCC may be wrong. Sea level rise by 2100 may be less than stated by the IPCC. It also may be more. There are people studying sea level rise that think the IPCC summary is too conservative - that there is a real risk of large ice sheet destabilisation by 2100 that will lead to 2-3m or more of sea level rise.

I will state again: a risk management plan that assumes all uncertainties will fall in my favour is a Bad Plan.

On answers 6 and 7:

You say "another consideration is that this is going to occur gradually over a period of a few generations." . It is already happening now. It is going to get worse. Although it is impossible to say "this extreme weather event was caused by global warming", the number and frequency of such events is increasing according to many measures and attribution studies. What used to be rare events are now becoming common. Insurance costs are rising, and government emergency bailout funds are running deep in the red.
Yes, Florida's real estate values may go down. People may rebuild elsewhere. People also may convince politicians to provide federal dollars and rebuild. That is what the current US habit is: federally-funded flood "insurance", which takes money from all tax-payers and gives it to the rich along the coasts.That transfer is a subsidy to those on the coast. The current market is already distorted.
Now, what do we do about Bangladesh? Can they afford to move, and where to? You mention Lomborg: he might have an ounce of credibility if he actually was making an effort to improve lives through those other methods. He is not. He is a terrible role model, and he distorts many, many facts in presenting his arguments. He is not a credible source of information.
You admit that the problem is global. It needs global solutions, and agreements such as the Copenhagen Accord are a step in the right direction. The U.S. has backed out, and the U.S. is risking being left behind. If the rest of the world decarbonizes and the U.S. ends up isolated, it may become the "developing world".
On paying other countries to help them adapt vs. letting them move wherever they want. Refusing to pay, and refusing to let them move is basically telling them "I don't care what I've done to you, and I won't help in any way". If things get bad enough, you simply won't be able to stop them moving,and refugee problems will become far worse. We'll be faced with mass migrations, mass deaths, etc. Look at how many people already die trying to get from Cuba to the U.S. or across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
You seem to focus on costs of dealing with the mess. Wouldn't it be nice if we could find a way to prevent the problem?

Nigelj resonds to you with the statement "Then you follow up with skeptical climate statements ". Here are some specific examples (quotes in italics), with my comments in []:

"vague future costs."

[Failure on your part to accept uncertainty and properly Risk Manage]

"...based upon predictions of future temperature increases which are largely based upon models."

[Failure on your part to understand how science makes predictions. Usually the skeptical myth "based on models" implies based on computer models, which is not our only source of information. If it means based on any sort of model, then unfortunately all of science uses models of one sort or another, so rejected models writ large means rejecting science.]

"distorting our economy with a very large carbon tax.",

[Failure on your part to understand that externailities are already a distortion. A carbon tax tries to remove that distortion.]

" I do NOT think that a large carbon tax beyond the costs of pollution"

[Failure on your part to understand that releasing CO2 and causing sea level rise, increased drought, increased heavy rainfall, etc. is a form of pollution.]

Throw in a few "China is a problem and China should pay" arguments, and you are reading from the Climate Denier's Playbook - although I'm sure it doesn't seem that way to you. You have trusted a lot of very unreliable sources of information, and it is affecting your view.

Inside the Experiment: Abrupt Change and Ice Cores

MA Rodger at 19:52 PM on 4 October, 2017

nigelj @1,

Climate science is not unaware of the potential for abrupt change. Of course, back in the ice-ages there was more ice sat on more bits of land available to inject fresh water into northern oceans. So, even though their cause is not understood, the chances of a Dansgaard–Oeschger event or a Heinrich event happening today is not a serious consideration. Yet there remains the melt-event described in Hansen et al (2016) which would see this coming century's warming replaced by rapid sea level rise and superstorms. Hansen et al acknowledge they are at variance with IPCC ARs, stating:-

"These predictions, especially the cooling in the Southern Ocean and North Atlantic with markedly reduced warming or even cooling in Europe, differ fundamentally from existing climate change assessments. We discuss observations and modeling studies needed to refute or clarify these assertions."

Myself, I would say "prediction" is the wrong word to use.

The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change

nigelj at 17:24 PM on 1 October, 2017

Norris M @48

No Norris I made a whole range of points you ignored. But forget it.

You are however confusing me. You started off discussing historical temperatures and complaining we dont have 100% certainty. We have good certainty plus or minus a small difference. We have five main global temperature data sets produced by different agencies (nasa, noa, hadcrut, etc) who all take the raw data and correct for things like urban heat islands, so they dont bias things upwards etc. They do this slightly differently. All these finalised sets of data are actually pretty similar. There's a composite graph here below and its very clear.

https://thinkprogress.org/comparing-all-the-temperature-records-4a273a0f8f31/

If you are now talking model projections until 2015 (latest available) temperatures have tracked models quite well except they are slightly under projections through the last few years, but as you can see not much and the high temperatures of 2015 - 2016 have bought things back into line. So theres nothing fundamentally wrong with the models despite the complete blather on some websites. Some of these model runs are quite old so nothing has been "adjusted".

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/climate-model-projections-compared-to-observations/

Thank's for your quoted commentary but I dont intend to respond to much of it because its all out of context and hard to follow. The graphs I have indicated are from well known websites that dont make things up, and speak for themselves. A picture paints a thousand words anyway.

I will comment on this regarding models and predictions right through to year 2100:

"Sorry Benjamin but estimated ECS is still 1.5C – 4.5C @ 95% confidence. By definition that’s a constant forcing. That range hasn’t been improved in 60 years of climate “science”. The low end of that range is yawn-worthy and the high side is alarming. Observed ECS is near or below the low number."

"If we are still at this range, we are not talking 100% certainty, are we? We are no where near the certainty we require before we undertake massive changes in our society."

You are possibly missinterpreting these numbers. They are not variations in predicted temperatures by 2100. They are uncertainty of climate sensitivity. And yes it's a level of uncertainty for sure, but the raw range of numbers is a bit misleading. The weight of evidence puts the number at most probably 3.0 degrees. Most of the research points firmly at that number, especially the quality research. So its not quite as uncertain as it seems.

Its quite false of the writer to claim nothing has changed and his claims of observed climate sensitivity is very dubious, as it appears based on the pause, and the pause was not as big as was first thought, and has ended and these two things change the picture a lot.

Nevertheless the IPCC acknowledge we do not have 100% certainty on this sensitivity issue, so they have a range of forward temperature predictions. Business as usual emissions is expected to generate between about 3.5 -5 degrees by end of this century. This still has uncertainty, but less than the information you printed on climate sensitivity.

The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change

nigelj at 15:13 PM on 1 October, 2017

NorrisM @45

"Here is my point".

No Norris. Please go back and answer the points I raised in detail.

You show people no basic respect, by ignoring what they say, then have arrogance to expect to be taken seriously. Its starting to really annoy me because I dont do this.

However I will address your points:

"If you do not have a "base" upon which you can agree as to where the temperature has been, then how can you make judgments about the predictions of future temperature rises? How can you compare where you are if you do not know where you have started from?"

Thats empty rhetoric. We know the historical temperature record accurately enough. Anyone with any commonsense can see this, and certainly any scientist can. Im not interested in discussing it further. You pretend to be a reasonable man, but your rhetoric shows you are most unreasonable, and with respect are a likely climate denying shill for the fossil fuel industry, and legal profession, and spend a lot of time reading websites like The Heartland Institute. It will rot your brain reading that material.

"The GSM (or ESM) models have to be judged on their ability to predict the future by how successful they have been in predicting in the past. This is the very basis of the scientific method. Come up with a theory which is "falsifiable" and then see what happens. "

What are you getting at? Models are absolutely not judged just on how they predict the past, its a combination of the past and future. Models have predicted the past rather well, and models run in the 1990s have predicted subsequent temperatures until 2017 quite well. Its not perfect but is certainly predicted them well. That's all any model in any field of science can do. You have been given this data before several times.

The model is valid until someone can prove the terms in the model are wrong, or alternatively the real world proves the model wrong. Neither has happened. Temperatures from 1900 right through to 2017 are very close to the middle of model predictions. The only outlier from this is the hadcrut dataset, which is not a great dataset. This is all a fact whether you like it or not.

"If you say that the "disagreement between the main temperature data sets is quite small" then can you provide me with the following"

No I wont provide it. With respect, please google the information yourself. All you do is come on this website ask people to do your homework and provide information, then when we do you "claim" links dont work, ignore the information, or dispute the information. Data for nasa, noaa temperatures etc is pretty similar. I'm not interested in nit picking.

"The problem with "longer term" predictions is that we have to undertake significant changes in order to move our society from fossil fuels to other sources of energy. We know that the temperature is going up and that clearly a significant portion is man-made. But how fast this is going to happen is clearly material. "

Obviously yes its material, and models give certain results and if you ignore them then its on your conscience. It's the best scientific guide to the future we have. Im not sure what else you expect. A miracle?

"At the present time, my understanding is that oceans are rising at a level of 2 mm/yr "

What do you mean by present time? This year, last five years, what?

Short trends less than about five years mean nothing because natural variation makes levels fluctuate over very short periods. The ten year plus trend is more like 3.5mm and this is what counts, as has been pointed out to you about a dozen times before. A simple google search of the jason topex satellite data on sea level rise will show you this, something more for you to ignore and claim you cannot find. But once you look at a graph like this its all obvious and easier than using words.

"It has to be models predicting much higher temperatures to cause the oceans to rise at massively faster rates to get to 2-3 feet by 2100."

Yes models predict accelerating temperatures. And? Until you provide substantial physical and / or mathematical evidence the models are wrong, why should I take you seriously?

Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes

Rbrooks502 at 15:30 PM on 24 September, 2017

In the meantime, this prediction is out saying that in 2030 we should start seeing more global cooling. I quote the article. "However, at the National Astronomy Meeting in Wales, Northumbria University professor Valentina Zharkova said fluctuations an 11-year cycle of solar activity the sun goes through would be responsible for a freeze, the like of which has not been experienced since the 1600s.

From 1645 to 1715 global temperatures dropped due to low solar activity so much that the planet experienced a 70-year ice age known as Maunder Minimum which saw the River Thames in London completely frozen."

Seems to me that even if Warren was completly wrong about any of his assertions, the science community has some bugs to work out. My skepticism will continue, as well as my anger regarding how my taxxes are spent. Enough said?

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/616937/GLOBAL-COOLING-Decade-long-ice-age-predicted-as-sun-hibernates

Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong

randman at 14:38 PM on 23 September, 2017

Ah, maybe someone can clear this up. What's the mean? the baseline?

59 degrees F or 15 degrees Celsius, right? The glaring omission in my mind coloring the issue of whether predictions were right or how wrong they were, etc,....is simply the fact none of the past 30 years exceeded this baseline.

Obviously then, the baseline of the mean from 1950-1980 was changed. Can someone show me the peer-review papers discussing that change and who and why it was done?

The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists

Bob Loblaw at 11:17 AM on 6 September, 2017

NorrisM @ 53:

What nigelj said in his first paragraph @56.

Koonin gets enough stuff horribly wrong, and has already made his mind up, so he is a terrible choice to lead any investigation in any form. To draw another legal analogy, would you feel comfortable argung a case in court when the judge made public statements before the trial that you knew were horribly wrong and indicated that he had already passed judgement?

Good scientists don't arrive on the scene with conclusions in mind. They let the evidence lead them to conclusions. My conclusions are not based on what I thought 40 years ago - heck, I started university during the supposed 1970s "cooling scare". I've watched the science become more and more certain over the decades. What the "skeptics" present as doubt is largely balderdash.

You are mistaken in thinking that the IPCC is a collection of like-minded scientists. The IPCC imply tries to summarize the existing science (predominantly in the form of peer-reviewed literature). If there is a legitimate publication with a differeing viewpoint, that will be included. The IPCC does not guide research. Eminent scientists are invited to participate in the writing of the reports, but as nigelj points out this has included "skeptics".

As for what would I do? I am not a resident of the US. In Canada, we had a climate-change "skeptical" government in Harper. I voted against him.

The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists

nigelj at 08:15 AM on 6 September, 2017

NorrisM @53

"Bob Loblaw, I understand your criticism of Steve Koonin reaching past his expertise but I have seen nothing to impact his integrity."

No, with respect you miss the point. Its not a question of integrity alone. S Koonin has a lack of grasp of the science, and an obvious sceptical bias which makes him totally unsuitable. Would you be happy with Al gore leading / organising the debate?

"Why not, with the support of the Democrats, make sure this Red Team Blue Team is independent?"

Its going to be very hard to do this, especially given your very own suggestions so far.

"There is clearly something that is driving conservatives and others "in the middle" when you look at the Pew Research results (I do not believe anyone is questioning the integrity of Pew Research). "

Yes on the science. But do you seriously believe conservatives would accept a red blue team result that found climate change was even more serious and proven than the IPCC claims? Really?

"I think you find a reluctance in much of the American public to accept the "scientific consensus" of major global warming and its effects because the costs are so drastic."

Maybe, maybe not. The pew research you yourself are fond of quoting shows the majority are uncertain on the science, but the majority actually want more done about the climate problem, and favour renewable energy. I think the scepticism about the science might be largely politically and ideologicall driven, so a sort of dislike of liberal elites who are generally support the science. Theres certainly some evidence of ideological factors behind it is you read for example The Economist which is pretty reliable.

Of course commonsense suggests cost of renewable energy are at least some degree of concern, but your red blue team is not actually debating that aspect, so your point is irrelevant.

"When or where else has the American public (or any democracy for that matter) been asked to make massive and costly changes to their lifestyle based upon predictions of the future?

How is that relevant really? Theres a first time for everything. And plenty of environmental law has been passed that has had significant costs at least short to medium term. There's some precedent there even if the scale is different.

"There is an expression used with religious claims that applies to other areas of human endeavour. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

This is yet another meme copied and pasted from denier websites. I'm wondering how a busy lawyer like yourself has the time for all your commentary.

Anyway we do have good evidence for climate science and perhaps you also need to take into account the "extraordinary scale and implications" of climate change.

"So this Red Team Blue Team approach, if the Trump administration goes along with it, is that opportunity to get that confidence level up so that it at least includes those in the middle."

By rehashing over studies of climate sensitivity, the mwp, sea level rise projections etc? I cant see it. They will probably conclude much the same as the IPCC . The red blue process is too tainted with bias to have much appeal to moderates in the middle.

"Because both the IPCC and the National Academy of Sciences are populated with climate scientists who have taken a clear position on the issue, this investigation has to be conducted by some other body."

So on that basis you would have to have a red blue team debate for every scientific issue in history. Just so absurd.

And the people you have on the teams also have a "clear view" on the issue negating your argument.

"I think there is an underlying distrust that climate scientists are consciously or subconciously misrepresenting the existing state of knowledge in their zeal to get people onside. "

There will be considerably more distrust of a red blue team collection of scientists picked by a climate denying organiser.

"Climategate reinforced that view or perhaps caused it. "

Well it left a bad impression, but given the red blue team doesn't really address the climategate thing, I can't see how it changes the perception. Basically people need to read up on climategate carefully, and they will realise the scientists did nothing wrong or deceptive. Unfortunatly people are clutching at any reason possible, no matter how silly, or scurrilous or lying, to deny fossil fuels are a problem.

"Judith Curry suggests another US body which I think deals with national security which, as she says, does not have a "dog in the fight".

Actually they do, or at least the military do, because they have produced reports greatly concerned about climate change.

Pleas also note the IPCC teams do include some sceptics. The IPCC makeup reflects weight of climate opinion but does make sure it always includes several sceptics, this is deliberate.

"The constitution of the body has to be equal otherwise you are deciding the issue before the contest. "

No it doesn't. Its not even supposed to be a contest of people like some silly school debate. Science is a contest of ideas and if most scientists support one idea, you can't force them otherwise.

Public debates have their place, but are mere entertainment, and should not be used as alternatives for IPCC process on serious issues.

"What I come back to is, what are your choices?"

One of the real problems is money in politics. Your quoted pew reseaarch shows one important thing that people do generally want more done about climate change, even if they are sceptical of causation, but they are ignored by Trump and Congress, and I suggest this is money in politics and influence of lobby groups, and this is what needs to change.

The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists

NorrisM at 16:47 PM on 3 September, 2017

JW Rebel @ 19

I do not want to make a big deal of this but there is an underlying assumption you make. You assume that because one group may citicize the explanation of some theory that it is not acceptable to criticize that theory without coming up with an alternative theory. You are 100% wrong in that assumption.

It is perfectly acceptable to criticize a theory without coming up with an alternative. One may question the existence of God (for lack of evidence) without coming up with an alternative explanation of why we are here.

In the area of climate change, it is perfectly acceptable to criticize the existing theories without coming up with an alternative explanation. In science, it perfectly acceptable to simply say, this theory is wrong but we just do not know what the answer is. You do not have to come up with a viable alternative.

At this point in my personal deliberations, I am convinced that man has caused the temperature to increase because of CO2 emissions but I am not convinced that the models can accurately predict what the effects will be over the next 70 years or beyond. What troubles me is that these computer models have to make massive assumptions about the impact of clouds because they simply do not have the computer power to properly build them into the models. I think the term they use is "parameterizations". Another issue is how sensitive the climate is to the massive increases in CO2, namely, how much in "positive feedbacks" are created by water vapour, etc.. I would like to hear from both sides on this issue. I would also like to hear from both sides how successful the models have been in predicting temperatures since the models have been developed. I read Michael Mann's support for the James Hansen predictions in an recent article in Foreign Affairs but it seems to me that he "cherry picked" his predictions. Many of Hansen's predictions as to temperature increased in the last 20 yeas were quite far off which were not referenced.

I would also like to hear whether the experts agree on whether there really was a Medieval Warming Period and a Little Ice Age. According to Michael Mann there was no such thing in the promotion of this "hockey stick" which was to show that the temperature increase today is unprecedented in the last 2000 years. A recent Chinese study has shown that certainly in China there have been periods of warming corresponding to the MWP and periods of cooling corresponding to the Little Ice Age. This corresponds to the information we have both about Greenland and Europe.

I am not saying that proving there was a MWP or a Little Ice Age means that we do not have a problem today but I would just like to get the facts and I am not convinced Michael Mann et al have delivered same. I have to admit that Climategate seriously impacted my trust of Michael Mann and Phil Jones. I do not care that their respective universities "cleared" them of any wrongdoing. You have to have massive blinders on you not to read these emails and wince. Are they scientists or are they going beyond the science to promote what they think is the "right thing to do"?

Returning to your main point, it may very well be that there are so many factors involved that it is impossible to predict what the climate will do in 30, 70 or more years. And it may be impossible to predict what portion of today's temperature increase is attributable to anthropogenic influences. This does not end the argument. We clearly have polar ice caps and glaciers melting. Oceans are rising (although they have been for 150 years).

So it behooves us to consider what we should do.

I just had to comment on your premise that the "other side" has to come up with a viable explanation otherwise you just accept the present premise and predictions of future temperature increases and the concomitant effects.

So I am hoping that a red team blue team can deal with some of these issues. I do not have any preconceived views on what would be achieved but I would enjoy seeing each side go at each other.

For those who say that it is too complicated, I say "fooey". If you cannot hit the main points and come to a conclusion then we should not be going down the road of massive changes to our society because it is undemocratic. If you cannot distil these issues for the public and you therefore have to rely on arguments of "trust me" or "trust the IPCC" then I do not think you have a chance at all of convincing the majority of the US public to go along with the massive changes proposed. Gradually switching to RE, yes, but not massive changes which impact their economic well being. It is like asking the Oracle of Delphi to tell the ruler whether he should go to battle. I think we have got beyond that stage.

New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest

Eclectic at 20:50 PM on 31 August, 2017

NorrisM @62 & prior :

you may not have noticed it, but your posts have become increasingly absurd.

When you "make your case" by adducing extreme outliers such as Ehrlich's predictions or (minority) 1970's "Global Cooling" predictions, then you are arguing in a moronic and ridiculous manner. What next : will you be saying that the case of Galileo shows that all modern science is wrong? You seem to be too intelligent to be stooping to such illogical nonsense — so please, pull yourself together and "snap out of it".

This website is not WattsUpWithThat, where the comments columns typically contain frothing hysteria and the full gamut of logical fallacies (combined with insane Conspiracy Ideation). Please go to WUWT if you wish to indulge in gutter-level rhetoric & illogicality.

So, I beg you, please rein yourself in and put aside the disingenuous "concern" & nonsense. The CO2/AGW situation is clear and straightforward. "Renewable" electrical power generation [plus or minus the nuclear version] is urgently required to replace all fossil-fuel power generation. Questions of EROI "efficiency" need to be viewed against the bigger picture — and to make a humorous but true analogy: at a fast cruising speed, a helicopter operates most efficiently cruising at an above-ground altitude of approximately 10 feet. An efficient choice, but a far from wise one !

Scaddenp @59 :

"Personally I have problems with the aesthetics of major flooding, desertification, and lost beaches."

Thank you for those wise words! It shows up the absurdity of those Lomborg-like arguments which "cherry-pick" one leaf out of a whole forest.

New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest

nigelj at 18:24 PM on 31 August, 2017

NorrisM @ 62

Your worries about birds killed by wind power are noble indeed. Do you have the same concerns about birds hunted to death, killed by aircraft strike etc? You didnt mention that.

You express this point of view that climate change is not so bad because not many people die in hurricanes in America due to technology compared to Asia. What about the effects of climate change on those less technically advanced countries? You clearly dont care too much.

You pretty much dismiss risks of nuclear power as there have only been a couple of serious accidents. Yet you haven't considered how a world with thousands of reactors would be a much greater risk, especially given the nature of many of those countries.

You also make note of the fact people hurt from climate change are spread over centuries not swept away within months by some catastrophic event. I can't undertsand how that makes it any better for the people hurt. Again your logic is hard to fathom.

You note other scares that you claim turned out to be fizzers, or nothing much. But the reason many didn't become disasters is because multiple preventive steps were taken! Eg the bird flu, the ebola scare, y2k, the ozone hole, etc.

I agree Paul Erlich got some things wrong. One person, no widespread consensus, so your point is what exactly? This is why consensus counts for something.

Yes scientists said there was cooling in the 1970s, actually because there was cooling in the 1950s - 1970s. However the weight of opinion was it could be temporary.

You say we won't drown from climate change, a total straw man argument. You lawyers, I mean you have no shame! Sea level rise has huge implications and costs.

Theres a large peer reviewed literature on the economic costs and general impacts of climate change. Just google the issue.

You dont believe tipping points exist. Its not a question of 'belief' its about science and it does point at tipping points, and so does the paleo climate historical evidence.

You say climate science and the economics resulting from the impacts of climate change are complicated and not limited to one field of science. So what? We all know that.

You rubbish economics, but it is actually a science, and what you say doesn't change that. Its limitations are in predictions, not in quantifiying costs of climate impacts, in fact that's more of an accounting type of exercise.

All interesting. Thanks.

Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument

Tom Dayton at 02:39 AM on 14 July, 2017

Mike Evershed: GoogleMaps is a computer model of traffic. It "predicts" when I will arrive at my office, given my home departure time. I run that model multiple times, each time with a different input of my departure time (a different "scenario"), and each such run "predicts" the resulting arrival time. GoogleMaps does not predict when I will depart, so it does not predict when I will arrive.

GoogleMaps can be "wrong" about my arrival time if I input the wrong departure time. GCMs can be "wrong" about the climate if I input the wrong forcings. Such "wrong" outputs do not in any way reflect poorly on GoogleMaps or GCMs. To help keep that distinction clear, scientists use the term "projection" for what GCMs output, as a more concise term than "prediction given a particular set of input assumed forcings."

Climate scientists just debunked deniers' favorite argument

Mike Evershed at 01:34 AM on 14 July, 2017

As I understand it the authors of the recent paper in Nature Geoscience said that: "We conclude that model overestimation of tropospheric warming in the early twenty-first century is partly due to systematic deficiencies in some of the post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations". As neither a believer or a denier, I think the logical view to take is that the model predictions were indeed wrong and due to wrong assumptions. I leave others to judge whether the wrong assumptions reflect shortcomings in our understanding of how the climate works. But I would plead for more humility on all sides in this debate.

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

Eclectic at 13:38 PM on 11 July, 2017

Thank you for that explanation, Bob Loblaw @51, though I am not sure that is at the heart of NorrisM's line of inquiry. I suspect he wants black-and-white certainty — without regard to questions of probabilties & the consequent need for prudent risk-management of planet Earth.

Nigelj @52, some of those graphs have not been updated with the latest real-world temperatures (which show a better match to the old "predictions").

NorrisM @49 , you are making a mountain out of the molehill that was the Koonin-chaired panel of scientists back in early 2014.

Metaphorically speaking : in a scientific ocean rivalling the Pacific in size, the Koonin/APS review was a momentary ripple in a lagoon. And a ripple that was stillborn. [ er, sorry about the mangled metaphor ;-) ]

NorrisM, you have made the mistake of equating the Koonin/APS review with something like a major case before the Supreme Court. But the situation was quite different. Doubtless the scientist-participants would have done a bit of "brushing up" before the panel met — but there would have been nothing like the lawyers' preliminaries where weeks of careful polishing of comprehensive presentations (prepared by teams of high-powered lawyers/barristers) before battle commenced.

Furthermore, the matters discussed were only a tiny section of climate science. And from my reading of the transcript, nothing much came forward that was substantive or in any way conclusive. Really, the result was stillborn. So I don't see how you can justify cherry-picking such a "non-event" and drawing any lessons from it.

(B) You do well, to put a "tick mark" of suspicion against some of the denialists (such as Lindzen). Not only does their case not hold water, but you can see how their underlying thinking is severely tainted/motivated by non-logical emotional bias. Lindzen, for instance, holds that our planet was created by Jehovah [i.e. the pre-Christian deity] as a self-correcting mechanism, and so it cannot deviate from the ideal narrow condition suited to humanity. Or so Lindzen seems to believe. Such is the power of emotion-driven illogical thinking, that it results in Lindzen being quite unfazed that (repeatedly!!) the physical evidence keeps showing him to be severely wrong.

Self-deception and delusion are the essence of climate denialism.

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

nigelj at 18:44 PM on 6 July, 2017

Norris M @6

Interesting comments, but I largely disagree.

"Rightly or wrongly, I think that ClimateGate had a very damaging effect on the climate change views of conservatives everywhere. "

Well it probably didn't help their views. I can appreciate that much.

People do get tainted by one so called mistake (alleged in the cause of climategate), but that is very shallow to dismiss people on that basis.

It's also very much "wrongly" that climate gate tainted anyones views. I'm a political moderate, with a reasonably decent arts, technical and some science education. It only took me five minutes reading the actual evidence of climate gate and both sides of debate and commentary, to see there was literally nothing there, nothing wrong. Numerous investigations have also concluded the same.

People concluding otherwise, must want to conclude otherwise, and are being irrational. I do however agree it was an unfortuante thing and rather bad luck, but to claim it means the damage is irreversible is absurd, innacurate and lazy thinking.

"Judith Curry has herself admitted that this made her seriously question her position which was until then "mainstream"

Her views are in a small minority of climate scientists, and she does not have a spectacular research record or any great clarity on anything, in fact she is rather vague about things. So please explain why you give her views prominence.

"The hiatus"

So much rubbish is talked about this. Firstly the latest information shows the pause was more of a short blip, and entirely within expectations. Last years temperatures changed everything.

It's at least partly inaccurate to claim models didn't predict the pause. All models without exception expect flat periods, but its impossible to predict them exacly because short term natural variation is slightly random. Models have been reasonably reliable predicting temperatures, as evidenced by articles on this website.

Things are still slightly under predictions, but only slightly and this is not enough to be concerned about. Republicans dont appear to want to hear that, instead they seem to hear, things are not 100% as predicted to within millimetres, so everything must be wrong. With respect this is childish, self interested, and intellectually empty thinking, and they are smarter than that.

"For now let us not get into arguments about this because you will NOT convince the Republicans by one "new study" that shows that the IPCC was mistaken. "

So you are saying don't even try because people are so stubborn with minds closed? Humanity might as well give up. Just imagine your outrage if Hilary Clinton said something like that. Nobody needs to be that closed minded.

Remember the only evidence that really counts is the science, and weight of scientific evidence, and it all points one way. Not politics, or character of climate scientists, or scandals, or occasional mistakes, or the like. One mistake on a minor point does not make an entire theory wrong, or key conclusions wrong. Climate change theory is built on wide evidence, not one piece of evidence.

"So "97% of climate scientists" does not cut it with Republicans. They simply do not trust the climate scientists believing, rightly or wrongly, that their bread and butter is really based upon making sure that climate change is primarily man-made."

Well that is just foolish thinking. Scientists are not exaggerating to manufacture work. Scientists get work in all sorts of fields because its needed, without glamourising everything.

We could turn around and say we dont trust politicians because their bread and butter depends on xyz, or business people or anyone. The world cannot and doesn't work like that or it would come to a complete stop . You have to have fundamental trust in professionals, unless they personally start to consistently act otherwise. Now look at the many, many false claims by Donald Trump, and there you have someone of dubious integrity.

Basically people just do their jobs, and scientists are no different. They very critical of each other if they can find fault, because its in their interests.

"Can anyone really be a scientist and say that 100% of climate change is man-made? "

Obviously yes, if thats what the science finds, and it does or very close to it. It's like certain diseases have very precise causes.

"Climate change has been on-going for the life of the planet and the man-made CO2 emissions simply cannot be 100% unless you have strong evidence that we are in a natural "cooling period". "

There is overwhelming evidence that we are in a natural cooling period. The solar energy output of the sun has been in a decades long cooling phase. Review "Is it the sun" on this website. This is a key reason for scientists beings concerned, quite apart from the evidence and calculations that point at CO2.

"It is not possible that the climate naturally is not going either up or down. "

No because the science doesn't find this. There are over 12,000 research papers on climate change, and many look at this aspect. How many would be enough for you?

"When you say "100%" you sound like an extremist. Most people, and especially conservatives, do not like extremists. Not a smart thing to say."

Maybe so, but when they said 90% that was too extreme as well. Seriously do we have science here, or "pc" correctness on an acceptable level? What is an "acceptable level" and why?

"But back to the Republican position. When they see there are real-life climate scientists like Judith Curry (who I have to admit sounds much more balanced than Michael Mann in testimony before the various Congress committees and who is not subject to any "ad hominem" attacks that seem to be levelled at Christy and Lindzen),"

With respect, you are being one eyed. There's fault on both sides. Michael Mann gets abuse each week for example. Forget the short tempers, and look at the scientific research.

"then the "red team blue team" approach with other scientists (primarily physicists I hope) may be the best answer to the Republicans"

It's a staged, dubious sort of enquiry that can achieve nothing new. It's too small. The IPCC is much, larger and they include sceptics as well as so called warmists, and rotate new scientists on each review panel. You have a very good process, but most people haven't read what really happens overall, only biased little snippets of information taken out of context.

The rest of the world has moved on while the Republicans alone seem stuck. You are just engaging in delaying tactics yet again, and we are sick of it for over a decade now. The rest of the world has seen through the ruse, and moved on to accept the obvious reality of human caused warming.

"Once we get past what Dessler calls "positive statements" (in his very good book on climate change)"

It's a very dubious book, and it's not about books and opinions, it's about the weight of published evidence in proper journals.

"I just think the climate science community has to do a reality check. Trump won and he in all likelihood is here for at least for the remainder of his first term and possibly 8 years (would Pence be any better?). "Anyone who does not accept this is really like the ostrich in the sand pictured on the home page of this website."

That's a real laugh given Trumps approval ratings are so low. I doubt he will even survive this term, and chances of re-election look slim. I'm sorry he is probably a good family man, but imho he is a confidence trickster, and does not have solidly founded policies and beliefs.

"I personally am very unhappy with this situation but the American people have spoken!'

Yeah sure. All your previous comments suggest otherwise.

"Churchill has noted, democracy is close to unworkable but compared to the alternatives, it is the best. "

Well I would agree on that, but not with much else.

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

NorrisM at 16:31 PM on 6 July, 2017

Rightly or wrongly, I think that ClimateGate had a very damaging effect on the climate change views of conservatives everywhere. It is very similar to evidence given by a witness testifying in some legal case who is completely honest in his testimony until the last question, where, in his desire to "win the case" for whatever side, he "fudges" his last answer. The cross-examining lawyer then leads another witness who proves on that very point that the witness was not telling the truth. For any jury, ALL of the evidence of that witness is tainted. I truly think this happened with this issue. Judith Curry has herself admitted that this made her seriously question her position which was until then "mainstream". It is just about irrelevant now as to what was or was not the intention of those emails. The damage has been done. End of story.

When you add this to the issue of the "hiatus" of X number of years whether or not it was really there (the IPCC at least in 2013 coined that term) has added to the legitimate questions of conservatives that are we being led down a garden path. The models did not predict this and therefore are unreliable. That is not an unreasonable position to take IF the hiatus really occurred. For now let us not get into arguments about this because you will NOT convince the Republicans by one "new study" that shows that the IPCC was mistaken.

Then you add on John Christy's famous graph which so impressed Steve Koonin between the predictions of the models and the actual observations (see APS panel hearing below). Do you not think that those pressing the Republicans not to do anything on the climate change file have not read the transcript of the APS panel hearing where three (3) of the top IPCC contributing climate scientists, Collins, Hand and Santer, admitted that the model predictions do not track the observations? Their answer was that they do not trust the observations. Can you not see how this would make conservatives suspicious?

So "97% of climate scientists" does not cut it with Republicans. They simply do not trust the climate scientists believing, rightly or wrongly, that their bread and butter is really based upon making sure that climate change is primarily man-made. Can anyone really be a scientist and say that 100% of climate change is man-made? On that point I fully agree with Perry. Climate change has been on-going for the life of the planet and the man-made CO2 emissions simply cannot be 100% unless you have strong evidence that we are in a natural "cooling period". It is not possible that the climate naturally is not going either up or down. When you say "100%" you sound like an extremist. Most people, and especially conservatives, do not like extremists. Not a smart thing to say.

But back to the Republican position. When they see there are real-life climate scientists like Judith Curry (who I have to admit sounds much more balanced than Michael Mann in testimony before the various Congress committees and who is not subject to any "ad hominem" attacks that seem to be levelled at Christy and Lindzen), then the "red team blue team" approach with other scientists (primarily physicists I hope) may be the best answer to the Republicans. Give it a go and see what happens. If the Koch Bros result happens again, then you will have a very legitimate and strong position to force the Republicans to act. If their own "red team blue team" comes to the conclusion that CO2 emissions are really the cause then we are at least then only into the question of how much warming and decisions as to how best to approach this. So I say, fully support the "red team blue team" even if it has been done before.

Once we get past what Dessler calls "positive statements" (in his very good book on climate change) which are the facts, then we can get into "normative statements" on what we think the results are in economic terms and what we should do about it, both as to mitigation and adaptation.

I do suspect that such a "red team blue team" debate will get bogged down on the facts and largely because we do not have the proper instruments to measure what is happening year to year. If the result is that the Republicans do at least decide to dedicate much more money to funding both weather/climate satellites and water buoys and on-land temperature measurements then it will be a "win" for the majority of climate scientists who believe that we are the cause.

What I found most unsatisfying about the APS panel struck in 2014 to re-evaluate their statement on Climate Change is that after having somewhat of an "appellate hearing" there were no "reasons for judgment", just a decision by the Board of Directors of the APS one year later to effectively stick with their previous statement. I have no problem with them sticking with their same statement but by providing their reasons they could have provided massive "independent evidence" outside the climate science community that man made warming is a major threat to our world. On another post, I have made reference to the APS panel. You can read the APS Workshop Framework Questions and transcript of the proceeding with 6 of the top climatologists on both sides of this debate on the APS.org website just searching "Climate Change Policy Review".

I just think the climate science community has to do a reality check. Trump won and he in all likelihood is here for at least for the remainder of his first term and possibly 8 years (would Pence be any better?). Anyone who does not accept this is really like the ostrich in the sand pictured on the home page of this website.

I personally am very unhappy with this situation but the American people have spoken! Get used to it! As Winston Churchill has noted, democracy is close to unworkable but compared to the alternatives, it is the best. Comey must stay awake at nights realizing how he might have turned the course of history.

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20

joe - at 09:42 AM on 23 May, 2017

"someone once made a bad prediction, therefore all predictions are wrong". Can you show that Haile et al are using the same methodology and assumptions that have proved erroneous in the past? This would be a useful contribution to the discussion which is otherwise a bit handwavy.

Rob - True - Haile is using a different methodology and assumptions, etc., yet the conclusions have a striking similarity to the Paul Ehrlich et al conclusions. Why is a re-hash of those failed studies and predictions any more valid?

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20

joe - at 08:00 AM on 23 May, 2017

[Rob P] How can projections for future decades be proven wrong now? The study authors used global production data from 1961–2013 to reach their conclusion.
Your comment does seem to be sloganeering (a violation of the comments policy) but if you can provide some examples/details of the prior studies you claim are wrong a genuine discussion with others can ensue.
And please note that sloganeering may result in comments being deleted.

Rob - This study is simply a variation of the numerous paul elrich predictions which have been demostratively wrong - My point and question is why does this study have any greater predictive value when it only a rehash of the multiple prior studies.

Its a fair and valid question

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20

joe - at 07:54 AM on 23 May, 2017

Or, if this isn't correct, could you explain what it is specifically that makes you question the validity of Haile et al (2017)?

What makes me question the validity of the Haile study - Its the similarity of conclusions with the Paul Ehrlich predictions, et al. Simply put, numerous studies have predicted the same and/or similar results, yet all have been wrong to date.

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20

joe - at 00:35 AM on 23 May, 2017

John - yes the study should be judged based on its one merits - yet it is basically a rehash of numerous other studies that have been proved wrong, In fact, just the opposite has occurred based on advancements in real science.

my question remains - What makes this study any more valid that all the other previous studies that have been proved wrong, such as Ehrlich frequent predictions.

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #18

scaddenp at 12:52 PM on 11 May, 2017

SCE - I struggle with the apparent logic "I suspect the motives of some countries therefore the scientists in all countries are wrong". This motive-based style of reasoning is an appalling way to assess the validity of science. Please to spend some time on this site so you are not working from such a terribly low base of understanding.

And frankly the diagnosis of where the "push" is coming from is based on what information? So far you seem to be relying on appallingly inaccurate source of information on which to base your opinions. Looking at Paris and earlier conferences, I would say the most desparate push is coming from countries most affected - but as I say, this is largely irrelevant to the science. USA, Europe, Japan would be the biggest contributors to our science.

Just because you dont know something does that mean noone does? The models dont attempt to predict weather, are poor at regional prediction and have no skill at even decadal level prediction. However, they are very good at studying the energy balance on earth which is what ultimately determines climate.

It seems you are also still stuck in the notion that AGW is somehow all climate models. Why not look at all the other ways of investigation (eg the first few chapters of the WG1).

Instead of look for a blog commentator response on the models, why not just read the chapter in the AG5?

If you want to propose some alternative to current theory, then you need an alternative source of energy to be heating the earth. With solar flat or down, Milankovich going negative, its a tough job. Try spending some time with the "Climate changed before" myth (top left). The Arguments button, taxonomy is also a very good way to navigate this site and get answers to questions.

On the other hand, if your skepticism is motivated by ideology or group identity, I very much doubt that anything you read here will change your mind. Can I suggest that in advance you think hard about what is the data that would convince you when examining an aspect of the science? It is the standard scientific way of overcoming our biases.

Lindzen Illusion #2: Lindzen vs. Hansen - the Sleek Veneer of the 1980s

Tom Curtis at 12:43 PM on 8 May, 2017

JME @111, the relevant quotes are:

"I personally feel that the likelihood over the next century of
greenhouse warming reaching magnitudes comparable to natural variability seems small," he said. "And I certainly feel that there is time and need for research before making major policy decisions."

"What does the temperature record already show about global
warming? Do the data conclusively indicate about one-half degree centigrade (plus or minus 0.2 degree) global warming over the last century, as some proponents suggest? No, contends Professor Lindzen."

"The trouble with many of these records," he said, "is that the
corrections are of the order of the effects, and most of us know that when we're in that boat we need a long series and great care to derive a meaningful signal."

"Nor, he said, was the temperature data collected in a very
systematic and uniform way prior to 1880, so comparisons often begin with temperatures around 1880. "The trouble is that the earlier data suggest that one is starting at what probably was an anomalous minimum near 1880. The entire record would more likely be saying that the rise is 0.1 degree plus or minus 0.3 degree."

From (4) you can project Lindzen's estimated trend temperature increase since about 1850. Strictly for comparison purposes, this requires that you use either HadCRUTv4 of the Berkely Earth LOTI both of which extend back to 1850. The GISTEMP LOTI only extends back to 1880, a time of which Lindzen says "... probably was an anomalous minimum ...". Using a GISTEMP decadal or multidecadal average starting in 1880 to establish the baseline for Lindzen's predictions would underestimate his predicted temperature. It also, however, overestimates his trend in that the 0.1 C rise is taken to be over a 30 year shorter interval.

Further, for Lindzen to consider there to be an "anomalous minimum", he obviously considers there to be more natural variability (see (1)) than that generated by the ENSO cycle, plus volcanism and other short term effects. That, however, is what is portrayed in the OP above. Ergo, arguably the graph understates the prediction for global warming.

To see to what extent this is true, I made a comparison between the Lindzen prediction and the BEST LOTI:

Comparing this graph to those above, it appears that the errors made worked in Lindzen's favour. That is primarilly because 1880 was not "...an anomalous minimum..." relative to 1850, contrary to Lindzen's claim. Consequently the increased trend generated by using an 1880 start date brings the Lindzen prediction closer to observations than do the graphs above. The only thing better for Lindzen in this more accurate comparison is the better fit with long term variability. On the other hand, the complete failure to capture the continuation of the temperature trend from the 1970s to late 1980s by Lindzen makes his prediction absurd, if the overall under prediction of temperatures throughout the 20th century had not already.

Lindzen commented on the observational record, saying:

"Professor Lindzen cited many problems with the temperature
records, an example being the representation of the Atlantic Ocean with only four island measurement sites. Urbanization also creates problems in interpreting the temperature record, he said. There is the problem of making corrections for the greater inherent warming over cities--in moving weather stations from a city to an outlying airport, for example."

These were fair comments in 1989, when the GISS temperature record was based on meteorological stations only. Now, however, the GISS LOTI and BEST LOTI include ship and bouy data for Sea Surface Temperatures. What is more, BEST does not adjust for station moves, but rather treats any such move as resulting in a different station. BEST also relies on far more meteorological stations than GISS even now, and certainly in comparison to the GISS product of 1989.

Further, rather than "the corrections [being] of the order of the effects", as claimed by Lindzen in 1989, in the modern LOTI temperature series, the corrections reduce the effects:

(See here)

There is, therefore, no reason to doubt the essential accuracy of the modern observations. Ergo, Lindzen was wrong - calamatously wrong, in his implied prediction of 1989.

(Small note: Lindzen predicts future warming as being small in terms of natural variability. I took that to mean less than half of a standard deviation of the 1850-1950 temperature data, taken for the excercise as being entirely natural or nearly so. That exagerates Lindzen's natural variability as anthropogenic forcing was a significant factor over that period. Base on that yardstick, Lindzen's prediction for the trend from 1990-2100 is a trend of 0.008 C/decade, or 111% of his retrodiction of the observed trend from 1850-1989. That is, his predicted trend rises by only 11% from his retrodicted trend.)

NY Times hired a hippie puncher to give climate obstructionists cover

Tom Curtis at 22:14 PM on 3 May, 2017

macquigg @20, I think you are being all together too generous to Bret Stephens. As recently as 2010 he was writing:

"So global warming is dead, nailed into its coffin one devastating disclosure, defection and re-evaluation at a time. Which means that pretty soon we're going to need another apocalyptic scare to take its place."

and reffering to environmentalists as making "quasi-totalitarian demands".

In 2011 he was writing:

"Consider the case of global warming, another system of doomsaying prophecy and faith in things unseen.
As with religion, it is presided over by a caste of spectacularly unattractive people pretending to an obscure form of knowledge that promises to make the seas retreat and the winds abate."

In 2015 he referred to global warming as:

"The hysteria generated by an imperceptible temperature rise of 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880—as if the trend is bound to continue forever, or is not a product of natural variation, or cannot be mitigated except by drastic policy interventions."

And finished, the article by writing:

"Here’s a climate prediction for the year 2115: Liberals will still be organizing campaigns against yet another mooted social or environmental crisis. Temperatures will be about the same."

On that evidence he has consistently considered global warming to be based on hyped and fabricated studies, with what actual warming exists being due to natural variation, a view he is sufficiently confident in as to predict effectively no temperature change over the coming century.

Three record annual temperatures in a row have made that view untenable for anybody who wants to pretend they are a serious commentator; but I have no doubt he was not convinced by the science (which has not changed over the two years) and hence that come the next La Nina he will revert back to what is essentially AGW denialism.

Further, it is plain from the articles that he is very happy to insult those pressing for action on AGW, and indeed insult working climate scientists who take no role in the policy debate as well. Given the liberality with which he insults, he would be a precious petal indeed if he took offense at the comments here.

In short, I think the evidence shows you are wrong in thinking Stephens is open to persuasion on any terms. He is prepared to run up and down the levels of denial as suits the circumstance, but nothing will persuade him that AGW represents a serious threat that merits any policy response.

Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera

Tom Curtis at 20:24 PM on 17 April, 2017

curiousd @various, it was established in 1997 by Myhre and Stordal that using a single atmospheric profile in LBL and broadband radiative models will introduce inaccuracies to the calculation. That result was confirmed by Freckelton et al (1998). Myhre and Stordal state:

"The averaging in time and space reduce the radiative forcing in the clear sky case by up to 2%. This is due to the fact that blackbody emissions are proportional to T⁴ and that averaging reduce or remove spatial or temporal variations."

It follows that if you really want to test Modtran for bias, you would need to use (ideally) 2.5^o x 2.5^o cells based on weekly averages, and take the means. Failing to do so will introduce a bias, which based in Myhre and Stordal, is approximately equal to 50% of the bias you claim to have detected.

The University of Chicago version of Modtran does not permit that, restricting choices of atmospheric profiles to a Tropical zone, two Mid Latitude zones (summer and winter) and two Subarctic zones (summer and winter). Using default values for a clear sky, and with no GHG I found the difference between the OLWR at 70 km for each case, and for a areal and temporally weighted zonal means, and for the US standard atmosphere at default temperatures, and at a temperature adjusted to match OLWR to the average incoming radiation to have a mean bias of 5.35 +/- 3.69%. Tellingly, the least bias (2.33%) was found with the weighted means. The US standard atmosphere with surface temperature set to 254.5 K showed a bias of 4.19%. Given this, the case for any significant bias in the calculation of OLWR over the range of wave numbers covered by the model is unproven. Given the wide range of biases in different scenarios, it is not clear a single correction factor would work in any case.

Further, the idea that Modtran should be adjusted to determine a single OLWR value seems wrongheaded. Modtran is intended to predict observed IR spectrums given a knowledge of surface conditions, and trace gas and temperature profiles. Here is an example of such a prediction (strictly a retrodiction):

Clearly the University of Chicago version of Modtran is capable of reasonable but imperfect predictions of such observed spectrums. Given the limited ability to reproduce actual conditions (ie, site specific surface emissivity, specific temperature profiles, density profiles, etc) we do not expect anything else, in what is simply a teaching tool. Nor is any explicit bias obvious from the example above, with OLWR at specific wave numbers sometimes being over estimated and sometimes under estimated by the model. If you trully wanted to test Modtran 6 for bias (or for error margin), you would need to compare by wavenumber across a large, but representative range of such site specific profiles.

I have not been following the technical discussion above at any depth, but it seems to me that before you get to that discussion, you need to allow for the known constraints on any radiative transfer model, regadless of its accuracy line by line. Further, you would be better directing the technica discussion to the actual use of radiative transfer models rather than their use (and potential misuse) in testing zero dimensional first approximations of the greenhouse effect.

Models are unreliable

scaddenp at 12:44 PM on 31 March, 2017

I am not quite sure what you mean by "error rates in prediction"? What do you regard as "error"? Strawman arguments are favourite denier attack - eg . "climate model predict this (cue cooked graph), actual is this, therefore climate science is wrong". The important point to consider is what do climate models actually predict here. The answer is climate, not weather. They have no skill at decadal level prediction and dont pretend to. What they do predict with considerable skill is what 30 year weather averages will do. In the graph at the above comment you will see the grey area is "weather uncertainity". What this means is that any wriggly line in that grey area is consistant with the climate models. The solid black line is model average. You can see this more clearly on this AR4 graph.

Every single line is an individual run of the model. Every one of them, a possible climate future. Discussed in more detail here.

Furthermore, whatever their imperfections, (and modellers would be first to list them), they remain our best predictor for what future climate will look like. Yes, we would very much prefer to know whether climate sensitivity is closer to 2.5 or 4.5, but this is best possible at moment. Dont assume errors will be on the side of least effect. Uncertainity is not your friend.

"with far-reaching negative economic ramifications". Hmm, sounds like drinking the FF propoganda to me. Certainly negative for some industry sectors, but what are you using as the basis your assertion on negative consequence? Want to compare them with the costs on doing nothing and even a low sensitivity of say 2.5?

Also, please dont confuse physical models for predicting the future with statistical models (eg polls). Not a lot in common for functionality.

Models are unreliable

DavidShawver at 10:01 AM on 31 March, 2017

Skeptical questions from a lay person: What if the accuracy of climate models does not continue to improve as is claimed, and the current error rates in predictions of global temperature each year continue at their current rate? Is it possible that the aggregative upshot of serial errors in temperature prediction could lead to a very different result than that which is currently being predicted by the present day models? And isn't the only relevant question for members of the public whether the climate models can accurately predict what happens in the future?

I am not denying that the physical science and math and statistics that goes into climate models are not scientifically valid and independently accurate in other applications. What I am questioning is whether they have ever been demonstrated to have the level of predictive value which would be necessary to project policy 50 years into the future and beyond.

An analogy: In the realm of medicine, prior to a treatment or test being administered it must be shown that the treatment or test is effective. When we are talking about a particular method which is in essence a test (to predict increased planetary temperature) the test must be capable of predicting what it is meant to predict. For example, the law does not allow pregnancy tests to be placed on the market, when such tests have not been consistently shown effective at predicting that a woman will eventually have a baby in actual real world clinical trials.

In my mind, climate science is similar. Climate science is an amalgum of scientific techniques and human judgments that can be thought of as a particular test (albeit much more complex than a pregnancy test) which is being used in order to predict the planet's future temperature. The lay people of the world are being asked to make serious policy changes with far-reaching negative economic ramifications on the basis of this particular "test" or methodology. Therefore it stands to reason that this "test" of climate change must be able to demonstrate that it has a record of being successful in predicting global temperature changes. Can we really say that? The discrepancy in the above graph between predicted and actual seems to belie that the "test" is really there yet. By the way, the same problem of lack of sufficient demonstrated predictive value for the purposes asked also exists in the political world, where everyone was wrong about Trump's chances.

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

sauerj at 00:13 AM on 16 March, 2017

Yes, nearly all of Scott Adams points are misinformed or flat-out wrong. And, as for his general state of mind, his past explanations of why Trump is "persuasive" (see YT) does not, in the least, resonant w/ me. I don't get his logic whatsoever (so I think his reasoning skills are 'in question').

But, there is a very small piece of what Adams is saying that has a thin veneer of truth to it, and I think we should step back and consider this point. I might get slammed on this point. Here it is: I think, in many cases (though not always), that scientists explain the science in a way that is a bit obtuse, in a way that simply doesn't register to the average person, it doesn't speak in a language that "means" anything to them.

Here are a couple examples: 1) a recent article (HERE) put the heat imbalance in terms of zeta-joules (yes, it explained that's 10^21 joules, even saying that's 10 with 21 zeros after it), but that still doesn't really mean anything to people. Yes, it's a big number; but it still doesn't speak in ways that people can relate to. The author probably thought this was an effective way to get the point across, sorry, not so! It's still just a big black box of numbers to the average person.

Another example: 2) When James Hansen & many others talk about the heat imbalance, they will say things like, it's 1watt/m^2 (Storms book). And, then they will step back like that means something to people. Sorry, not so. It's like they just said something in greek.

This is partly why ridiculous gimmicks like James Inhofe's snowball is so effective. It speaks on the level where the average person is at. And, when you compare that to complicated charts that explain the heat imbalance or else charts that dissect the details of the satellite surface temperature data or an array of model predictions, people just tune out. The silly but direct Inhofe presentation wins the day for the average person. ... Unfortunately, we have to cross this chasm (& I think we can) if we want to build political will that truly gets us where we need to be, transition to a sustainable economy.

It is hard to dumb-down the science so that it talks in the same language as the average person but I do believe it is possible. You just have to re-think your presentation into a way that talks in a language that they can relate to. And you have to do it in a way that is very respectful (genuinely so), and not in overly "alarmist" terms either (let the alarm bells go off in their own minds).

I have done something like this, and have personally voiced this to the engineers that I work with. Prior to my explanations to these technically savvy people, they had not spent any quality time delving into the science mainly because it hadn't grabbed their attention (well, enough for them to fret out the right from the wrong). And, they were like Adams, full of lots of right & wrong misinformation, but none of the truth potent enough to lure them into digging deeper. We have to grab their attention in a way that is both truthful but instantly talks their language & instantly gets past the murkiness of the darts of confusion that compete with the truth.

True, these engineers, that I have spoken to, speak in a "technical language" so my 'new language' speaks in their 'engineer' language, but I have given this same explanation to a few non-engineers, and it seemed to be moderately persusaive too (jury still out though). After hearing my spiel, many of these people have expressed a new & clearer understanding of the science with this sort of explanation; and I think it genuinely broke thru the web of misinformation that blocks truth from coming in, and peaked their possible acceptance of the truth (of the body of science) so to get them to genuinely to think twice on the matter.

Yes, this message/style is dumbed down, but it is still truthful. It works because it puts what's going on into terms that the average people can relate to. And, that maybe is the worthy take-away here from Adams' implicit (if only unconscious) points buried behind his words. I think, in one small way, if the presentation was put in this way, that then even folks like Adams might (that's a big might) not get so confused & tripped-up on other misinformation that clouds their understanding.

HERE is link to my recent written down point-by-point summary on how I try to "get the point across" in the most persuasive means possible. I am in the process of massing publishing this out to local & state community and policital leaders with the hope of building political will (pending local CCL chapter approval).

Models are unreliable

SemiChemE at 15:00 PM on 13 March, 2017

I'm new here, but here's a quick intro, I'm a chemical engineer with approximately 20 years experience in the semiconductor industry. A significant portion of that time involved computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling of reacting flows. Thus, I'm quite familiar with the capabilities and limitations of CFD models. All GCMs are at heart, large-scale CFD models.

@1003 - The video gives a nice overview of the climate models for the layman, but I can't help but think the scientists are downplaying many of the model limitations.

Yes, for most of the phenomena of interest the basic physics are pretty well understood, but to model them on a planetary scale, gross simplifying assumptions must be made due to computational limitations. The skill of the model is intimately tied to the accuracy of these assumptions and that is where the model can easily go astray.

Dr. Judith Curry gives a pretty good summary for the layman of some of the most salient model limitations in an article linked here:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/21/curry-computer-predictions-of-climate-alarm-are-flawed/

The bottom line is that while some of the approximations are extremely accurate, by necessity the models for some processes are quite crude. This latter set, varies from model to model depending on the specific model purpose and is one reason for the spread in reported model results. It is these crude approximations that ultimately must be tuned to fit the available data, but with such tuning comes the ever present risk of getting the right answer for the wrong reason, in which case there is no guarantee that the model will be useful for future predictions.

If we had several earths to experiment on, we could run multiple experiments with different forcing conditions and sort out the various contributions of different effects, but since we have only one earth, we don't have any way to completely distinguish the impact of the various forcings (eg. CO2 levels, solar radiation, cloud formation, SO2 and aerosols, Natural variability, etc...) from each other. This means we have to make educated guesses about the various sensitivities. Over time, these guesses will get better, as we get more data to compare them to and we better understand the various sources of natural variaton (eg El Nino/La Nina).

However, at the moment, we really only have about 40 years of reliable, high-density data (the satellite era) and we're trying to decouple the impact of increasing CO2 from a natural variability signal that also seems to have a 30-60 year period. Dr. Curry contends that the due to such factors, the IPCC has over-estimated the sensitivity of the climate to CO2, possibly by as much as a factor of two.

If true, this means that climate change will happen much more slowly and to a lesser degree than originally predicted.

Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes

MA Rodger at 23:16 PM on 11 March, 2017

coyote @25 is actually a cut&paste of part of a web-page from the commenter's website. What he doesn't bring here is the start of this web-page. In it he is suggesting that the climate forcing since pre-industrial is incompitable with the temperature record given IPCC ECS values. As well as some seriously trivial stuff, he presents two graphics to demonstrate how models cannot be (entirely) trusted. Thus the commenter tells his flock with emphasis "There are good reasons to distrust models. ... There are also good reasons to distrust climate models and forecasts" and less-forcefully "These forecast failures are not meant as proof the theory is wrong, merely that there is good reason to be skeptical of computer model output as somehow the last word in a debate."

The first graphic shown compares the trends from Hansen (1988) Scenario A & B (but not Scenario C) with HadCRUT4 & UAH TLTv6.0. The second is the second-order-draft AR5 Fig1.4 (below), a graphic oft annotated by denialists and so it could perhaps do with some sensible annotating for once - pehaps with a plot of the temperature record 2012-16. Suitably adjusting GISS & NOAA for a 1961-90 anomaly, by 2015 they and HadCRUT are showing respectively anomalies of +0.76ºC, +0.78ºC, +0.76ºC, which are smack the centre of the AR4 projection. Of course 2016 was warmer still, but that was an El Nino year. AR5 s-o-d Fig1.4

Global warming theory isn't falsifiable

SyntheticOrganic at 05:46 AM on 7 March, 2017

Tom Dayton said: "You are incorrect that falsifiability is "the very definition of science." That is something you would know if you had gotten past introductory science classes in college. (It is sad that such fundamentals of science are inadequately taught at the introductory course level."

I resent your comment. First of all, it is an ad hominem (and hence should have been deleted), because it clearly implies that PanicBusiness never got past an introductor science class n college. Also, it implies that PanicBusiness was never taught the fundamentals of science.

Your argument is also fallacious because it asserts that PanicBusiness' statement is wrong without explaining why. Rather, you simply assert that his statement is false, then go on to conclude that he hadn't gotten past introductory science in college. Whether PanicBusiness even has a high school diploma or not is irrelevant. What is relevant are his reasons for claiming that falsifiability is "the very definition of science."

I assure you that I got well past introductory science course, so I must say that I am offended by your implication because by extension I believe you are also suggesting that I never got past introductory science classes in university or that I do not understand the fundamentals of science. I believe that your ad hominem extends to me because I basically agree that falsifiability is an excellent criteria for differentiating between science and non-science.

The wordpress article you linked to does not really explain why you are so disdainful of PanicBusiness' idea that falsifiability is "the very definition of science." I disagree that it is "the very definition of science" but your response is just a dismissive ad hominem that doesn't explain or clarify.

I am also a little disappointed by the "Response" (in green) found within PanicBusiness' comment. I think the idea of falsifiability being crucial for differentiating between science and non-science is well enough know that a source should not be required and it would have been more appropriate to clarify or explain that Karl Popper wasn't suggesting that falsifiability is "the very definition of science itself."

I am disappointed that Tom's post wasn't deleted because I think it is clearly an ad hominem, but I suspect that it was allowed to stand because PanicBusiness seems to be arguing that the theory of anthropomorphic global warming (AGW) is not scientific. This appears to me to be a bias in the application of the rules.

I think PanicBusiness is wrong to say that the AGW theory is unfalsifiable because it clearly makes predictions which are falsifiable.

In addition, alternative explanations for global warming often make predictions which are simply false, so the AGW theory stands as the best explanation.

The AGW theory of global warming is falsifiable, hence it meets that very crucial criteria of a scientific hypothesis or theory. The AGW theory is also the best explanation for global warming.

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

stephen baines at 14:34 PM on 1 March, 2017

"My point is, based on my “lake rolling over” and “tree-line” statements, it is concentrated closer to the surface."

The constant mixing ratio to 90km in the atmopshere, provided by Tom, is measured. Your contrary evidence from periodic overturn of meromictic lakes and tree lines is purely circumstantial. You hypothesize a pattern in CO₂ from those observations, but the measurements disagree with your predictions, so your hypotheses are wrong. The effect of CO₂ emitted by lakes and the location of treelines are easily explained by other hypotheses (lag in mixing, and temperature).

"The levels of CO₂ needed to cause the types of changes specified, would have to be much higher. Absorption, molecular structure, and the carbon cycle itself prevents the levels getting high enough to cause a significant change."

This is assertion with no evidence. Measurements show O₂ and N₂ have little effect on IR radiation, while CO₂ and H₂O do. Models based on physics of CO₂ predict a clear effect. You have to understand why they do so, before you can question those assumptions. Warning: those models are based on an enormous body of observations.

"If you throw in hundreds of volcanic eruptions where the Carbon cycle cannot keep up then maybe, but eventually it will even out."

Again, assetion without evidence. Annual human emissions of CO₂ are in fact on the order of 100x the contribution by volcanic eruptions. The carbon cycle can't keep up with that. The increase is measured. The carbon can be attributed to humans using multiple lines of evidence.

"Isn’t it more feasible that the solar minimum/maximum cycles with the maunder minimums that happen control the temperature, which then affect the CO2 levels based on the things already mentioned?"

No. This hypothesis has been addressed and found wanting. Solar inputs are flat or declining since the temperature began increasing in earnest in the 1980s, when CO₂ levels began taking off and CO₂ effects rose above natural variation. Patterns of warming (night/day, troposphere/ stratosphere) have the fingerprints of warming due to greenhouse gasses. No model can recreate current temperature increases and these fingerprints from natural solar or albedo variations.

At this point. I'm going to stop, because I have barely got through a few paragraphs and addressed all your questions with links to this site that clearly show you are working on false premises and drawing false conclusions. You need to start with the data and work through the resulting theory. I suggest you list your questions and read the relevant posts. Then post questions if you still have them.

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

MA Rodger at 21:39 PM on 27 February, 2017

Rudmop @various.

May I offer firstly a question, secondly a prediction, thirdly some advice and fourthy why none of this is actually relevant to reality as we know it.

Firstly, a question at the most basic level. What is it you want here? It is not at all clear what that is. You have a grand theory. You tell us @249 that your grand theory has been sent off, submitted for publication 'Feb 21, 2016' which is before your first comment here. So why do you then add @249 “I am also ready for talks”? Your theory has been sent off for publication. Surely that is end of story.
(Of course, there has been since submission the small but significant amendment to your theory resulting from input from Tom Curtis replying to your initial comment here @SkS on a different thread. You will of course be submitting a corrected paper to the publishers, complete with proper acknowledgement for the correction.)
But if your theory has been sent off, why would you be “told by a scientist at Oak Ridge Laboratories to find answers to (your) questions on the effects of CO2 on heating the climate, to come to this site (ie SkS).”? What specific questions are you asking?
I look back at your initial comments here @SkS and I see no questions whatever! So what actually is it you want here?

Secondly, the chances are that your grand work will not be entered into the publications submission process but will be rejected at the first hurdle. But let us imagine that it is seriously considered for publication and is successful. Let us imagine it is published. What then?
There are scientists who regularly publised in the scientific press, scientists who are also misguided fools and just like you write up nonsense on subjects outside their competence. Being published scientists they do on occasion get published. It is not so difficult, especially if you chose your publication. As an example of such obvious nonsense consider Hermann Harde who is presently making a total twit of himself with his latest pack of twaddle - H. Harde (2017) 'Scrutinizing the carbon cycle and CO2 residence time in the atmosphere', Global and Planetary Change.
This is not the first time Harde has published denialist rubbish. In 2014 he published something not dissimilar in its implications to your grand theory. This was Harde's grand version of the GH effect & CO2's imact on climate - H. Harde (2014) 'Advanced Two-Layer Climate Model for the Assessment of Global Warming by CO2', Open Journal of Atmospheric & Climate Change. And what happened? If you visit Google Scholar you will find the impact of Harde (2014) has been sweet fanny adams.-
It has been cited by just five fellow-denialists in two years. Within proper science, Harde's nonsense does not even merit a serious rebutal.
Now you may feel it would be incredibly wrong when, if your grand work did somehow get published, it were to be simply ignored. But it will be because you have so far failed to do a very essential piece of work. You have to show not just that your sums add up, not just that your sums are valid (which remains work-in-progress for you): you have to additionally set out the argument as to why the sums being used by everybody else I the whole wide world are flat wrong. If you cannot do that, you are on a hiding to nothing. Your grand theory will simply be ignored.
And don't be surprised. Why should busy scientists have to spend time rebutting your nonsense. You have to convert your nonsense into compelling science. And the best of luck with that!!

Thirdly, ad hominem is something you will have to rise above if you work in science. Do not ignore people because they call you a fool. Ignore them only if they have nothing sensible to say. You say you are a scientist so you should already know this. So why then all this pathetic bleating about ad hominem? (I ask in this manner as you evidently need a lot more practice in dealing with the sticks and stones of the scientific process.)

And finally, why none of this matters a jot. Why isn't your grand theory worth a bean? It is because your grand theory rests entirely on the proposition that the GH-effect is additive. It is not additive. Do you not see all those non-linear equations you use? And on top of that there are a whole bunch of non-linear equations that you fail to use. You cannot just add them up and divide by the total to gain a CO2 contribution to the GH-effect.
Certainly one area where your model departs into pure fantasy is the effect of CO2 at altitudes where H2O is largely absent. @238 your explanation is silly and non-quantative in nature. (Indeed as I set out @242, I conld not make head-nor-tail of what you were trying to describe with your “CO2 is more concentrated at higher altitudes” description.)
In this regard, you have already dodged one piece of reality which was presented tp you @243. It is not the only fatal problem with your grand theory but I would suggest it is simpler to define than most. (Tom Curtis @281 calls this problem "very damning to your theory.") Here is the reality presented again.

TOA IR You need to explain to the big wide world why there is a stonking-great dip in the TOA upward LR. So far your grand theory flies in the face of the existence of that stonking-great dip. If you cannot explain it in terms of your grand theory, then your grand theory is dead.
So, can you provide said explanation?

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

Rudmop at 17:31 PM on 27 February, 2017

275 ad hominem Rob. There is no benifit to have this in a scientific discussion; it comes across as an attempt at forcing a model that has failed on its predictions to fit in the true/true square of the truth table, when all along it was the false/true square. In the scientific truth table a true hypothesis will always give rise to a true prediction; whereas a false hypothesis may give rise to a true or false prediction. It could also be that the evidence coming from the experiment may either be true or false. In otherwords, you can get evidence that will seem to support your hypothesis, even though your hypothesis is wrong. I think it is well established that we all have the same hypothesis; carbon dioxide traps in IR photons and sets a new equilibrium for the rate of incoming solar radiation and emitted blackbody radiation from the surface. The disagreement is in the value for this equilbirium. For the past half century, Scientists have performed simple enough experiments that measure the differences in radiance of peak IR absorption for CO2 at the surface and at TOA. I think they forgot to include an effect similiar to compton scattering, only not with x-rays, rather with IR waves. Water molecules in the liquid state can absorb these rays. The liquid surface can absorb rays reflected to it, and liquid in condensation nuclei of clouds can absorb rays passed through them. Ignoring this feature can lead to the appearance that CO2 is trapping in more heat than it actually does. Of course time holds the answer, securely locked away behind the wizzards curtain, in a time capsual box. The box gets opened when predictions come true. We have not melted the Arctic, we have not risen the seas, we have not caused California to stay in a drought, we have not been able to maintain an ever increasing pattern in the temperature anomaly. There have been pauses and there is going to be a huge one this year. It has already started. So do observations support my results. YES! They even work well with Venus.

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

Tom Curtis at 01:37 AM on 25 February, 2017

Rudmop @241 states:

"My model does not violate any of the laws, and it serves as an alternative answer to a model that has failed on its predictions."

The models (plural) that Rudmop claims to have failed are the Line By Line (LBL), or lower resolution radiation models (or the modules within GCMs that serve the same function). It is they, not GCMs as a whole that determine relative contribution to the Total Greenhouse Effect of various gases. These models have produced such obviously failed predictions as this one from 1969:

Or these (all 134,862 of them) from 2008:

Here is the preceding data binned by surface temperature (a) and latitude (b):

In contrast to the LBL models, which predict easilly discriminable data for clear comparison with reality, Rudmop's model does not predict any observable quantity. Rather, it only predicts a quantity that cannot be directly observed. That is, its only prediction is not falsifiable by direct observation.

It can be known to be wrong, however, because the LBL radiation models with their copious directly observable predictions, which are falsifiable but unfalsified, also make predictions about the value which is the sole prediction of Rudmop's model.

It is no wonder he wants to take his model before an uninformed public rather than to a group of experts in the field. It is hard to hoodwink those who know what they are talking about.

CO2 lags temperature

MA Rodger at 01:06 AM on 24 February, 2017

Adri Norse Fire @558.

You will appreciate that I am only able to interpret your written words. @532 you appear quite definite saying “The question is whether we have the highest concentration of atmospheric CO2 in 800,000 years, without going further, why the current temperature is 1.5 ° lower than the medieval warm period?“ I did point out that the value “1.5 ° lower” was not properly defined as the units of degree were absent. But if you have modified your position to be now arguing that “500 to 1000 years ago, temperatures were warmer than today,” that is fine. However do note you are wrong to say that such a statement is “valid for (your) initial question.” It is not.

Also it is wrong to cite Broecker (2001) in the manner that you do. Broecker do reference Huang et al (1997) in the manner you quote and Huang et al do set out that data supporting their findings. Indeed, Huang et al do provide a significant portion of the evidence for a global MWP presented by Broecker. However Broecker (2001) concludes “The case for a global Medieval Warm Period admittedly remains inconclusive.” And the graphic you provided @532 which attempts to use Broecker (2001) to support itself is, as explained @543, utter garbage.

Your defence of the second graphic you presented @532 doesn't explain why the Dye 3 temperature profile developed by Dahl-Jensen et al (2009) is omitted. Nor does it explain the second trace on the graphic you presented. Nor does it provide any resolution to the case for a global MWP. As set out @543, that graphic is also utter garbage.

The data presented in the third graphic @532 ends at 1935. I thought mention of the global warming 1935-to-date establshed by the global thermometer record would prevent your use of the 1935 end-point of that graphic to support your unsupported assertions. I can but repeat that you are wrong to do so.

And the fourth you now agree is garbage.

Your final point in this particular list @558 seems to be saying that someone can misuse data if it comes from a legitimate source. That is very wrong. You do require to show use of legitimate data by “those who did it,” with “it” being the proper use of NASA data to predict "a new short cold period ... between 2030 and 2050." The best of luck with that fool's errand!!

But I should make plain that this discussion of individual data sets (and the garbage) is not the proper way to develop a case for asserting that “500 to 1000 years ago, temperatures were warmer than today.” Always the first step should be to assess the present state of the science on the subject. Although it is a few years old now IPCC AR5 is surely the place to start, particularly Chapter 5 - Section 5.3.5 or perhaps more helpfully the Technical Summary Section TS.2.2.1. You will quickly see that you will have quite a job on your hands asserting that “500 to 1000 years ago, temperatures were warmer than today.”

Your additional web-links @558 add nothing to this situation. They concern the future, not the past. And in this, Zharkova et al (2015) is solely talking about the sun not our climate. The garbage you link to in the English-speaking press is entirely wrong in suggesting there is a prediction of climate within this work. Indeed, does not your German link say “Kein Effekt auf globale Erwärmung “?
And if you think Abdussamatov (2013) is worth quoting (as your Forbes link does), do note the scientific response since publication – he has gained the attentions of nothing but a tiny pile of denialists. And that is because Abdussamatov (2013) spouts garbage.

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