Guest commentary by Barry R. Bickmore, Brigham Young University
If you look around the websites dedicated to debunking mainstream climate science, it is very common to find Lord Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount of Brenchley, cited profusely. Indeed, he has twice testified about climate change before committees of the U.S. Congress, even though he has no formal scientific training. But if he has no training, why has he become so influential among climate change contrarians? After examining a number of his claims, I have concluded that he is influential because he delivers “silver bullets,” i.e., clear, concise, and persuasive arguments. The trouble is his compelling arguments are often constructed using fabricated facts. In other words, he makes it up. (Click here to see a number of examples by John Abraham, here for a few by myself, and here for some by Tim Lambert).
Here I’m going to examine some graphs that Lord Monckton commonly uses to show that the IPCC has incorrectly predicted the recent evolution of global atmospheric CO2 concentration and mean temperature. A number of scientists have already pointed out that Monckton’s plots of “IPCC predictions” don’t correspond to anything the IPCC ever predicted. For example, see comments by Gavin Schmidt (Monckton’s response here,) John Nielsen-Gammon (Monckton’s response here,) and Lucia Liljegren. Monckton is still happily updating and using the same graphs of fabricated data, so why am I bothering to re-open the case?
My aim is to more thoroughly examine how Lord Monckton came up with the data on his graphs, compare it to what the IPCC actually has said, and show exactly where he went wrong, leaving no excuse for anyone to take him seriously about this issue.
Atmospheric CO2 Concentration
By now, everyone who pays any attention knows that CO2 is an important greenhouse gas, and that the recent increase in global average temperature is thought to have been largely due to humans pumping massive amounts of greenhouse gases (especially CO2) into the atmosphere. The IPCC projects future changes in temperature, etc., based on projections of human greenhouse gas emissions. But what if those projections of greenhouse gas emissions are wildly overstated? Lord Monckton often uses graphs like those in Figs. 1 and 2 to illustrate his claim that “Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the air at less than half the rate the UN had imagined.”
Figure 1. Graph of mean atmospheric CO2 concentrations contrasted with Monckton’s version of the IPCC’s “predicted” values over the period from 2000-2100. He wrongly identifies the concentrations as “anomalies.” Taken from the Feb. 2009 edition of Lord Monckton’s “Monthly CO2 Report.”
Figure 2. Graph of mean atmospheric CO2 concentrations contrasted with Monckton’s version of the IPCC’s “predicted” values over the period from Jan. 2000 through Jan. 2009. Taken from the Feb. 2009 edition of Lord Monckton’s “Monthly CO2 Report.”
It should be noted that Lord Monckton faithfully reproduces the global mean sea surface CO2 concentration taken from NOAA, and the light blue trend line he draws through the data appears to be legitimate. Unfortunately, nearly everything else about the graphs is nonsense. Consider the following points that detail the various fantasies Monckton has incorporated into these two graphics.
Fantasy #1.
Lord Monckton claims the light blue areas on his graphs (Figs. 1 and 2) represent the IPCC’s predictions of atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
Reality #1.
The IPCC doesn’t make predictions of future atmospheric CO2 concentrations. And even if we ferret out what Lord Monckton actually means by this claim, he still plotted the data incorrectly.
The IPCC doesn’t really make predictions of how atmospheric CO2 will evolve over time. Rather, the IPCC has produced various “emissions scenarios” that represent estimates of how greenhouse gas emissions might evolve if humans follow various paths of economic development and population growth. The IPCC’s report on emissions scenarios states, “Scenarios are images of the future, or alternative futures. They are neither predictions nor forecasts. Rather, each scenario is one alternative image of how the future might unfold.” Lord Monckton explained via e-mail that he based the IPCC prediction curves “on the IPCC’s A2 scenario,which comes closest to actual global CO2 emissions at present” (2). In his “Monthly CO2 Report” he added, “The IPCC’s estimates of growth in atmospheric CO2 concentration are excessive. They assume CO2 concentration will rise exponentially from today’s 385 parts per million to reach 730 to 1020 ppm, central estimate 836 ppm, by 2100,” which is consistent with the A2 scenario. In other words, Monckton has picked one of several scenarios used by the IPCC and misrepresented it as a prediction. This is patently dishonest.
Monckton’s misrepresentation of the IPCC doesn’t end here, however, because he has also botched the details of the A2 scenario. The IPCC emissions scenarios are run through models of the Carbon Cycle to estimate how much of the emitted CO2 might end up in the atmosphere. A representative (i.e., “middle-of-the-road”) atmospheric CO2 concentration curve is then extracted from the Carbon Cycle model output, and fed into the climate models (AOGCMs) the IPCC uses to project possible future climate states. Figure 3 is a graph from the most recent IPCC report that shows the Carbon Cycle model output for the A2 emissions scenario. The red lines are the output from the model runs, and the black line is the “representative” CO2 concentration curve used as input to the climate models. I digitized this graph, as well, and found that the year 2100 values were the same as those cited by Monckton. (Monckton calls the model input the “central estimate.” )
Figure 3. Plot of atmospheric CO2 concentrations projected from 2000-2100 for the A2 emissions scenario, after the emissions were run through an ensemble of Carbon Cycle models. The red lines indicate model output, whereas the black line represents the “representative” response that the IPCC used as input into its ensemble of climate models (AOGCMs). Taken from Fig. 10.20a of IPCC AR4 WG1.
Now consider Figure 4, where I have plotted the A2 model input (black line in Fig. 3), along with the outer bounds of the projected atmospheric CO2 concentrations (outer red lines in Fig. 3). However, I have also plotted Monckton’s Fantasy IPCC predictions in the figure. The first thing to notice here is how badly Monckton’s central tendency fits the actual A2 model input everywhere in between the endpoints. Monckton’s central tendency ALWAYS overestimates the model input except at the endpoints. Furthermore, the lower bound of Monckton’s Fantasy Projections also overestimates the A2 model input before about the year 2030. What appears to have happened is that Lord Monckton chose the correct endpoints at 2100, picked a single endpoint around the year 2000-2002, and then made up some random exponential equations to connect the dots with NO REGARD for whether his lines had anything to do with what the IPCC actually had anywhere between.
Figure 4. Here the black lines represent the actual A2 input to the IPCC climate models (solid) and the upper and lower bounds of the projected CO2 concentrations obtained by running the A2 emissions scenario through an ensemble of Carbon Cycle models. This data was digitized from the graph in Fig. 3, but a table of model input concentrations of CO2 resulting from the different emissions scenarios can be found here. The red lines represent Monckton’s version of the IPCC’s “predicted” CO2 concentrations. The solid red line is his “central tendency”, while the dotted lines are his upper and lower bounds. Monckton’s data was digitized from the graph in Fig. 1.
John Nielsen-Gammon also pointed some of this out, but Lord Monckton responded:,
[Nielsen-Gammon] says my bounds for the 21st-century evolution of CO2 concentration are not aligned with those of the UN. Except for a very small discrepancy between my curves and two outliers among the models used by the UN, my bounds encompass the output of the UN’s models respectably, as the blogger’s own overlay diagram illustrates. Furthermore, allowing for aspect-ratio adjustment, my graph of the UN’s projections is identical to a second graph produced by the UN itself for scenario A2 that also appears to exclude the two outliers.
It is fair enough to point out that Fig. 10.26 in IPCC AR4 WG1 has a plot of the projected A2 CO2 concentrations that seems to leave out the outliers. However, Monckton’s rendition is still not an honest representation of anything the IPCC ever published. I can prove this by blowing up the 2000-2010 portion of the graph in Fig. 4. I have done this in Fig. 5, where I have also plotted the actual mean annual global CO2 concentrations for that period. The clear implication of this graph is that even if the A2 scenario did predict atmospheric CO2 evolution (and it doesn’t,) it would actually be a good prediction, so far. In Figures 1 and 2, Lord has simply fabricated data to make it seem like the A2 scenario is wrong.
Figure 5. This is a blow-up of the graph in Fig. 4 for the years 2000-2010. I have also added the annual global mean atmospheric CO2 concentrations (blue line), obtained from NOAA.
Fantasy #2.
Monckton claims that “for seven years, CO2 concentration has been rising in a straight line towards just 575 ppmv by 2100. This alone halves the IPCC’s temperature projections. Since 1980 temperature has risen at only 2.5 °F (1.5 °C) per century." In other words, he fit a straight line to the 2002-2009 data and extrapolated to the year 2100, at which time the trend predicts a CO2 concentration of 575 ppm. (See the light blue line in Fig. 1.)
Reality #2.
It is impossible to distinguish a linear trend from an exponential trend like the one used for the A2 model input over such a short time period.
I pointed out to Lord Monckton that it’s often very hard to tell an exponential from a linear trend over a short time period, e.g., the 7-year period shown in Fig. 2. He replied,
I am, of course, familiar with the fact that, over a sufficiently short period (such as a decade of monthly records), a curve that is exponential (such as the IPCC predicts the CO2 concentration curve to be) may appear linear. However, there are numerous standard statistical tests that can be applied to monotonic or near-monotonic datasets, such as the CO2 concentration dataset, to establish whether exponentiality is being maintained in reality. The simplest and most direct of these is the one that I applied to the data before daring to draw the conclusion that CO2 concentration change over the past decade has degenerated towards mere linearity. One merely calculates the least-squares linear-regression trend over successively longer periods to see whether the slope of the trend progressively increases (as it must if the curve is genuinely exponential) or whether, instead, it progressively declines towards linearity (as it actually does). One can also calculate the trends over successive periods of, say, ten years, with start-points separated by one year. On both these tests, the CO2 concentration change has been flattening out appreciably. Nor can this decay from exponentiality towards linearity be attributed solely to the recent worldwide recession: for it had become evident long before the recession began.
In other words, the slope keeps getting larger in an exponential trend, but stays the same in a linear trend. Monckton is right that you can do that sort of statistical test, but Tamino actually applied Monckton’s test to the Mauna Loa observatory CO2 data since about 1968 and found that the 10-year slope in the data has been pretty continuously rising, including over the last several years. Furthermore, look at the graph in Fig. 5, and note that the solid black line representing the A2 climate model input looks quite linear over that time period, but looks exponential over the longer timeframe in Fig. 4. I went to the trouble of fitting a linear trend line to the A2 model input line from 2002-2009 and obtained a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.99967. Since a perfectly linear trend would have R2 = 1, I suggest that it would be impossible to distinguish a linear from an exponential trend like that followed by the A2 scenario in real, “noisy” data over such a short time period.
Temperature Projections
Atmospheric CO2 concentration wouldn’t be treated as such a big deal if it didn’t affect temperature; so of course Lord Monckton has tried to show that the Fantasy IPCC “predictions” of CO2 concentration he made up translate into overly high temperature predictions. This is what he has done in the graph shown in Fig. 6.
Figure 6. Lord Monckton’s plot of global temperature anomalies over the period January 2002 to January 2009. The red line is a linear trend line Monckton fit to the data, and the pink/white field represents his Fantasy IPCC temperature predictions. I have no idea what his base period is. Taken from the Feb. 2009 edition of Lord Monckton’s “Monthly CO2 Report.”.
FANTASY #3. Lord Monckton uses graphs like that in Fig. 6 to support his claim that the climate models (AOGCMs) the IPCC uses to project future temperatures are wildly inaccurate.
REALITY #3.
Monckton didn’t actually get his Fantasy IPCC predictions of temperature evolution from AOGCM runs. Instead, he inappropriately fed his Fantasy IPCC predictions of CO2 concentration into equations meant to describe the EQUILIBRIUM model response to different CO2 concentrations.
Monckton indicated to me (5) that he obtained his graph of IPCC temperature predictions by running his Fantasy CO2 predictions (loosely based on the A2 emissions scenario) through the IPCC’s standard equation for converting CO2 concentration to temperature change, which can be found here.
The problem is that the equation mentioned is meant to describe equilibrium model response, rather than the transient response over time. In other words, they take the standard AOGCMs, input a certain stabilized CO2 concentration, and run the models until the climate output stabilizes around some new equilibrium. But it takes some time for the model systems to reach the new equilibrium state, because some of the feedbacks in the system (e.g., heat absorption as the ocean circulates) operate on fairly long timescales. Therefore, it is absolutely inappropriate to use the IPCC’s equation to describe anything to do with time evolution of the climate system. When I brought this up to Lord Monckton, he replied that he knows the difference between equilibrium and transient states, but he figures the equilibrium calculation comes close enough. But since the IPCC HAS published time-series (rather than just equilibrium) model output for the A2 scenario (see Fig. 7,) why wouldn’t he just use that?
Figure 7. Ensemble AOGCM output for the A2 emissions scenario, taken from Fig. 10.5 of IPCC AR4 WG1.
The answer is that if Lord Monckton had used the time-series model output, he would have had to admit that the IPCC temperature projections are still right in the ballpark. In Fig. 8, I have digitized the outer bounds of the model runs in Fig. 7, and also plotted the HadCRUT3 global annual mean temperature anomaly over the same period. The bottom line is that Monckton has put the wrong data into the wrong equation, and (surprise!) he got the wrong answer.
Figure 8. The blue and green lines represent the upper and lower bounds of the global average temperature anomaly from AOGCM output for the A2 emissions scenario during the 2002-2010 period. The black line represents the HadCRUT3 global temperature anomalies for that timeframe, normalized to the same base period.
Summary
I have shown here that in order to discredit the IPCC, Lord Monckton produced his graphs of atmospheric CO2 concentration and global mean temperature anomaly in the following manner:
- He confused a hypothetical scenario with a prediction.
- He falsely reported the data from the hypothetical scenario he was confusing with a prediction.
- He plugged his false data into the wrong equation to obtain false predictions of time-series temperature evolution.
- He messed up the statistical analyses of the real data.
These errors compound into a rather stunning display of complete incompetence. But since all, or at least nearly all, of this has been pointed out to Monckton in the past, there’s just no scientifically valid excuse for this. He’s just making it up.
And there’s always more, e.g.
http://www.awi.de/en/news/press_releases/detail/item/new_fossil_finds_as_witnesses_for_fluctuations_of_arctic_sea_ice_cover_during_the_past_30000_years/?cHash=fe838e2dae410129b466d627c712e308
(nicely illustrated press release)
‘oogle and Scholar for: arctic sediment biomarker climate
@ sambo
http://www.geus.dk/publications/bull/nr10/nr10_p61-64.pdf “Planktonic foraminiferal assemblages are used as a key palaeoceanographic proxy, and a surprisingly large variability of these foraminifers was observed for an interior Arctic Ocean site. The discovery of abundant numbers of the small subpolar foraminifers Turborotalita quinqueloba in two core sections, corresponding to the last interglacial and a younger warm interstadial (Fig. 3), is an enigma, as this species indicates fairly strong subsurface Atlantic water advection and possibly a much reduced summer sea-ice cover in the area compared to present-day conditions. The youngest part of the retrieved sediment record is condensed, but samples taken from close to the surface, representing Holocene and Recent conditions, lack the subpolar foraminifer species and thus indicate a consistent thick perennial sea-ice cover in accordance with present-day conditions.”
esp.cr.usgs.gov/research/alaska/PDF/KaufmanAger2004QSR.pdf This paper figure 5b – Bowhead whale bones – shows that the Northwest passage may have been open in the Roman Warm period & the MWP – but the resolution is low – data was grouped into 500 year and large geographci bins because of relative sparseness. Figure 5a and 5c don’t show the same pattern, but a more continuous decline since ~10k years ago.
http://www.geographie.uottawa.ca/PDF/blauriol/Kinnard_et_al_(2008).pdf Is a paper related to the 2006 glacial sea salt/sea ice variability paper, but mostly about instrumental techniques. They do say “We propose that the varying influence of cyclonic conditions in Baffin Bay and associated steep lapse rates, as well as the intermittent opening and closing of the adjacent NOW polynya are the major control on the POW Icefield melt history.” Maybe this also contributes to the differences between the bowhead bone, mollusc, and some ice cap seasonal melt records.
An interesting area to ponder is that Polyak mentions “Sewall and Slo_an (2004) found that reduced ice cover led to less rainfall in the American west.” and around the time of the MWP, the Anasazi civilization experienced a severe extended period of drought with soci_al consequences – mass migrations, especially to areas with more reliable water, and fragmentation into antecedents of modern cultures (Navaho, Hopi, Zuni, Pueblo).
Septic Matthew says: “I don’t know whether you are wrong or right. We never before had a long term melting trend, or long-term stationarity, documented.”
OK, now I want you to read that back to yourself. Think about what it says. Now, ask yourself, if you were to be completely honest: Shouldn’t that tell you something?
Septic Matthew:
Yes, that was my point, responding to your assertion for which there is no evidence:
Re examples of decisions made without mathematical/philosophical proof –
Part of the reason of pointing out that people get into cars, thus taking some risks with their lives and health, is just to point out a case that many people in at least some parts of the world are familiar with.
One of the contrasts between that and the example of a textbook is that with driving, people are (should be) actually aware of some real chance of being injured or killed, and in fact (though it will depend somewhat on individual driving skill and behavior, of course) there are statistics available, whereas you don’t introduce material to a textbook if you are aware of some particular possibility of it being erroneous (as opposed to the general awareness of not knowing much for certain) – of course, there is a way around this, wherein the error bars are included as part of the description of reality. Examples can be found in the way the IPCC describes their conclusions (they don’t say climate sensitivity is precisely 3.105532 K/doubling CO2). If a person has an opinion, it may be a matter of fact that that person has that opinion, for whatever it’s worth. To some extent, policies can be crafted in a similar way – with acknowledgement of uncertainties. Different actions may have different actionable levels of inteligence.
Of course the precautionary principle could argue both for and against a number of actions if taken too far, but I think the point is that you don’t always need a prior established record of consequences in order to consider some policy. There is such a thing as considering expectations. With regard to legal cases – here I’m not sure – one might be under the impression that you can’t generally get court action to block somebody from doing something risky if that particular type of something has no established record of consequences, but I would think that some consideration of reasonable expectations should apply. If your equations tell you that some novel substance (that has never before been tested) is going to be explosive, then preparing that novel substance, you generally ought to be using a level of caution appropriate for work with something known to be explosive.
Regarding climate policy, you have to consider both the possibility that a particular policy goes to far, as well as the possibility that it does not go far enough. In a more black-and-white framing of the issue, even if there’s a 5 % (supposing something can be quantified as such, for the sake of illustrating the concept) chance that we’re wrong, does it make more sense to bet the house on that, rather than on the 95 % chance that we’re right?
… On a related note, while some particular aspect of AGW might not be proovable beyond any teensy-tiny shadow of a molecule of doubt, there are claims that have been made about AGW that can be proven false, or at least it can be shown that their is no justification for those claims. Lack of certainty in truth does not necessarily allow lack of certainty of all falsehoods.
… just to be clear, when I said they don’t say climate sensitivity is precisely 3.105532 K/doubling CO2, I was not trying to imply some significance to that particular number (besides its falling within the expected range of values, nearer the center than the fringes).
497 Nick : Oh I’m sure he CAN say what he meant … but I’m not so gifted so I’m curious to know what is really proved concerning AGW.
Other question : if the Arctic ice sea has experiences strong fluctuations in the past, how can we prove that the origin of the current one is mainly anthropogenic ?
can the recent melting of northern sea ice be related with the recently measured acceleration of the Gulf stream, which I understood was not predicted by the current models ?
503, Ray Ladbury: OK, now I want you to read that back to yourself. Think about what it says. Now, ask yourself, if you were to be completely honest: Shouldn’t that tell you something?
Hm. If I am being dishonest, can I imagine what I would read into that comment if I were completely honest? The topic was the Arctic ice melt of summer 2007, and as far as I can tell I was emphasizing the fact that the recorded history does not permit us to make inferences about when that last such extreme summer Arctic ice melt occurred. Your personal testimony was that it had to have been an extremely long time ago, which is fine as long as it is recognized as personal testimony.
I expect that it will be one of the topics of review articles in Science or Nature, or both. If in Science, then I’ll read it on my own when it is hot off the presses.
“if the Arctic ice sea has experiences strong fluctuations in the past, how can we prove that the origin of the current one is mainly anthropogenic ?”
Gilles – Suggest you go and look at “Detection and attribution”. The IPCC AR4 (Working Group 1) had an entire Chapter on this, if I’m not wrong. The references cited therein would answer your question.
Silk, thx, but the paper I was referring to has been published in 2010, 3 years after the AR4 release
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL042372.shtml
it suggests an increase of around 15 % in the AMOC flow since 1993, I was wondering if this could be a new element in the debate.
Patrick 027, your comment #505 is the key question. The rub is that it boils down to a subjective judgement with one deciding on the downside to mitigation versus the downside of business as usual (and upsides, too). All while trying to assess the quantification of the downsides along side the probability of either (and maybe stuff in between). The latter is also, at least in the final analysis — it begins as an objective assessment — a subjective judgement based (as just one example) on the input of someone measuring the width of the Atlantic with a micrometer and declaring with 95% certainty that the width of the Pacific in the next decade will be X.
Still, it is the key question. 100% certainty is not the metric. Assessing and making judgements on what the climate scientists say — trying to understand the science as best we can, which is short of competence and a way off perfection — along with some political/economic factors is the metric.
Giles@508,
Garbage. “The scientific reality of anthropogenic global warming — and many of the specific components of our understanding of that reality — have indeed been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”, is entirely clear. You’re just playing your usual stupid games.
Rod B. says: “The rub is that it boils down to a subjective judgement with one deciding on the downside to mitigation versus the downside of business as usual (and upsides, too).”
WRONG!!! Probabilistic risk assessment is NOT subjective, and probabilistic is not synonymoous with subjective! We can bound the risk on the side of mitigation/avoidance. We can not bound it on the side of complacency and inaction. This is a clear and important distinction between the two sides. If you do not understand this, then you do not understand the most important lesson of risk management. LEARN IT!
Ray Ladbury (514), Probablistic risk assessment most certainly be subjective, at least in the final analysis, depending on the context and certainty of the future environment. Confidence levels from least square regression is pretty good stuff, but it was not bestowed by God and depends significantly on the context and scientific interpretation of the observations and projections.
I do not agree that the risk on the side of mitigation/avoidance is [easily] bounded, but I would agree that it is closer to being bound than is the side of inaction, which, as you say, is most likely unbounded. (I omitted your “complacency ” as an irrelevant pejorative; but your point remains.) We can make rough estimates of the former but have no way of determining how bad (and fast) the latter might be. It might not be bad at all. However, the current climate science does not allow good risk calculations either way (though could likely make a solid case for worse than ‘not bad at all.’) The unbounded risk of inaction is not a sole game decider, but does carry significant weight in the judgement process.
ps, that should be “can be subjective.
Re Rod B 515 – nonetheless, it seems foolish to base our policies on only the unlikely outcomes and ignore the likely outcomes.
Suppose for example our best calculation were that a $52/ton CO2eq is optimal. While concave PPCs can occur, would you argue that choosing a $10/ton CO2eq would be less wise than $0/ton CO2eq, not given any specific expectation of concavity within that range?
I think (and therein may lie some subjectivity, though I could provide some rational for this) we’d see the worst of the undesired effects of a policy in the short term, so if we introduce a tax and gradually ramp it up toward some predicted optimal value, if the economic behavior were worse then expected, we could respond and adjust policy accordingly. We can also adjust policy as climate science and understanding of the effects of climate on ecosystems and economics are improved and clarified. So I don’t see any need to simply wait for any such policy for any additional information relative to what we know as of 1999.
There are some actions that can’t be justified with the information available now (maybe some specifics about where to build aquaducts?), but there are some actions that can be justified with what we know now , even just knowing the climate sensivity seems to be around 2 to 4 K/doubling CO2, etc.
I think (and therein may lie some subjectivity, though I could provide some rational for this)
Of course it should be pointed out that a subjective opinion from one person might be substituted with the expertise of some other people – some subjectivity might remain but it may be more anchored to facts and reason, so the product is of better value.
513 : Nick : if it is entirely clear for you, why do you spend your time saying that it is clear, instead of simply answering my question about what had really been proved beyond any reasonable doubt ? even in AR4 the official sentence is : “It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica (see Figure SPM.4).”. Following my knowledge of English language, “likely” can hardly been transcribed as “proved beyond any reasonable doubt”.
517 Patrick : Suppose for example our best calculation were that a $52/ton CO2eq is optimal.
Barring the problem of how a tax is supposed to modify the total amount of FF extracted from the ground (which is really a weird idea in my opinion), the computation of an optimal value requires to define a indicator to be optimized, but the choice of this indicator is itself subjective. Could you find an objective manner to compare the decrease of polar bear population with the amount of electricity per inhabitant in the Sichuan ? even the quantification by a “monetary value” seems difficult. I already mentioned that following the same criteria that are invoked to measure the damage of a possible GW to the populations, the cars should be simply totally banned since they produce a considerable amount of casualties, injuries, and physical destructions. And this is not a sophism.
Rod, when you’re thinking about risk, this particular one or any other, put yourself in other shoes.
What if you were not a scientist but an actuary. You have to advise your insurance company about the risks of something or other. How severe is the risk? Should we cover it at all? If we do, what premiums would we need to charge to cover this level of risk?
The risks? Flood, crop damage, fire, running the Olympics in 8 or 12 years time, storm and wind damage. How do you assess? You look at the history of the location and the activity. You ask experts, meteorologists, agricultural scientists, climate scientists.
Now, write your report.
Gilles – I can only see the abstract of the paper you reference at post #511, but it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Arctic Ice.
You asked the question “if the Arctic ice sea has experiences strong fluctuations in the past, how can we prove that the origin of the current one is mainly anthropogenic ?”
By reading the Chapter on detection and attribution in the AR4, you can understand the answer, irrespective of what has been published since. Have you read that Chapter? Do you understand the concept of detection and attribution? If so, you can answer your own question.
Patrick 027 wrote: “There are some actions that can’t be justified with the information available now … but there are some actions that can be justified with what we know now”
The basic underlying position of the deniers is that nothing we know now or could possibly know can justify any action that even slightly reduces the fossil fuel corporations’ billion-dollar-per-day profits. All of their sophistry, pseudo-science and outright dishonesty boils down to that, always.
Sorry, I just noticed I omitted a word at #520.
The risks? …running the *WINTER* Olympics in 8 or 12 years time….
“even the quantification by a “monetary value” seems difficult”
Of course it’s difficult. It’s not, by any stretch of the imagination, impossible. It’s been done by Stern, for example.
There’s masses and masses of economic work on environmental issues.
It’s difficult to quanitfy the monetary value of the ozone layer. Yet we managed to deal with the problem, at considerable cost.
Finally, a $52 per ton carbon price would provide a very significant incentive for all sortsd of activities to reduce CO2 emissions, from renewables to energy efficiency to CCS.
Gilles,
Nick : if it is entirely clear for you, why do you spend your time saying that it is clear, instead of simply answering my question about what had really been proved beyond any reasonable doubt ?
Because I’m not going to play your stupid games. The sentence as written by SecularAnimist is entirely clear. Look at it again:
The scientific reality of anthropogenic global warming — and many of the specific components of our understanding of that reality — have indeed been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
First, try cutting out the bit between the dashes. We then get:
The scientific reality of anthropogenic global warming [has] indeed been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Now, that says that it has been proved scientifically beyond reasonable doubt that human activities have warmed the global climate. It says nothing about how, or how much, or what proportion of recent warming, or what the effects would be, does it? So it is entirely clear. (It is also true: we know the climate has warmed, we know human activities have increased GHG concentrations, we understand the mechanisms involved, we see the pattern of warming and cooling we would expect if it is true, and we see that solar activity has not changed enough to account for the warming – but here I am only concerned with its clarity.)
Now let’s take the part between the dashes:
and many of the specific components of our understanding of that reality
This is also entirely clear. SecularAnimist does not say, and need not say, in order for the statement to be both entirely clear, and true, which components of our understanding are proved beyond a reasonable doubt. To be entirely clear, and true, a statement does not have to be absolutely precise. If I say “I saw a tall man near the park”, that is entirely clear, and can be completely true, without me saying, or even being able to say, exactly how tall or how near. SecularAnimist is under no obligation to specify any further. Got it yet?
even in AR4 the official sentence is : “It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica (see Figure SPM.4).”. Following my knowledge of English language, “likely” can hardly been transcribed as “proved beyond any reasonable doubt”.
Even if your understanding of English is not as good as you think, I do not quite see how you could have managed to misunderstand this, given the context of the figure that you yourself note. The statement “there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica” would be false if there had been such warming over, for example, Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and South America, but not Australia. The statement “there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica” could be false while the statement that “there has been significant anthropogenic global warming over the past 50 years” was true (and for that matter, the first could be true and the second false, if Antarctica had got much, much colder).
This is all a very good illustration of what I mean by your “stupid games”: you persistently and perversely misinterpret the words of both commenters here, and climate scientists.
Re :#520 Specifying risks.
How about the standard argument for nuclear weapons in the UK? i.e. “we don’t know what the risks are, or what the world will be like when these systems are ready, so therefore we must spend billions of dollars on Trident” even though we must cut cut cut…. expenditure on most other items.
If you don’t believe that these arguments are being used, come to the UK.
Silk :”By reading the Chapter on detection and attribution in the AR4, you can understand the answer, irrespective of what has been published since. Have you read that Chapter? Do you understand the concept of detection and attribution? If so, you can answer your own question.’
Yes, but I elaborate a little bit more : if new phenomena have been discovered since the writing of this report, could they influence the conclusion ? may be the acceleration of Gulf stream has absolutely nothing to do with Arctic sea ice melting… but is it true ?
Nick “Now, that says that it has been proved scientifically beyond reasonable doubt that human activities have warmed the global climate.”
That’s the kind of answer I was expecting from the beginning. Now if my understanding of English is good enough, it means that it is almost certain that anthropic activities have contributed to warm the climate … but not much more than that ?
concerning the rest of your message, I was commenting the “likely”, not the warming of continents in itself. I understand that the warming is almost certain, but that the significance of the anthropogenic component is only likely. Meaning that
* there has been a warming.
* the contribution of anthropic activities to this warming is positive.
* its exact amount is likely to be significant, but [implicitely] there is still some room for discussion;
Is it a fair traduction of what lies in the AR4 summary?
As the discussion goes on the cost/benefit calculation of mitigation, I don’t think that these remarks are quite immaterial. Of course if mitigation were absolutely cost-free, well the likelihood wouldn’t be that important. But if it had absolutely no cost, there wouldn’t be any discussion about it as well, since the finitude of the resource would be in itself enough to justify it, even not speaking of GW. Lord Monckton may do some mistakes, but I don’t think that the issues he raises are quite irrelevant.
SecularAnimist (522), your characterization of so-called “deniers” is a cleaver sounding demonizing meme that has no connection to real stuff — though it’s probably not intended to. Now if you’re talking about skeptics, well, that would be unmitigated crap, too.
“It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica (see Figure SPM.4).”
It is also likely that catastrophic floods like those of this summer in Pakistan and China (where they were less catastrophic because of China’s flood control system) will recur in the future as they have in the past, independently of any human additions or reductions of atmospheric CO2.
Is the flooding more likely than the continued warming, or less likely than the continued warming? Since money at any time is not infinite, and its availability depends on donors and willing taxpayers, is it better to invest more money in flood control systems for Pakistan (and India and Bangladesh), or is it better to invest more money in reducing anthropogenic CO2?
Pakistan is not the only place where natural disasters are “likely” to recur: earthquakes in Haiti; earthquakes and volcanoes all along the Pacific Rim from Chile through Alaska and down to Indonesia; earthquakes, tsunamis and tropical cyclones around the Bay of Bengal; tropical cyclones on the US East Coast and in the Caribbean Sea including all the islands, the peninsulas of Florida and Yucatan, and the entire coast between; floods and droughts in too many places to mention.
The word “likely” implies a need for rigorous comparisons of likelihood, and the assessment of risks implies a need for rigorous comparisons of risks, and their alleviation. Catastrophic floods will recur in Pakistan (anyone doubt that), even if the entire industrial world replaces its entire energy economy with non-CO2-generating energy; it would be unconscionable to address energy only without building a flood control system in Pakistan at least as competent as the flood control system in China.
Wouldn’t it?
Gilles,
I see you are still determined to continue your stupid games.
That’s the kind of answer I was expecting from the beginning. Now if my understanding of English is good enough, it means that it is almost certain that anthropic activities have contributed to warm the climate … but not much more than that ?
No, of course it doesn’t; and you know it. First, because SecularAnimist said more than that. Second, because what SecularAnimist says does not (as I’m sure he would agree) define the current state of scientific knowledge in any case.
concerning the rest of your message, I was commenting the “likely”, not the warming of continents in itself. I understand that the warming is almost certain, but that the significance of the anthropogenic component is only likely. Meaning that
* there has been a warming.
* the contribution of anthropic activities to this warming is positive.
* its exact amount is likely to be significant, but [implicitely] there is still some room for discussion;
Is it a fair traduction of what lies in the AR4 summary?
You quoted the sentence in the AR4 summary with the implication that it threw doubt on what SecularAnimist said. It doesn’t, as I have already explained – because “there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica” does not have to have been proved beyond reasonable doubt, for the reality of anthropogenic global warming to have been proved beyond reasonable doubt. It doesn’t, in fact, even have to be likely, for the reality of anthropogenic global warming to have been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
I’ve no doubt you will be able to keep up your stupid games longer than I have patience to answer. I’ve no doubt you think these stupid games prove how clever you are. On this point, however, you are mistaken.
Gilles claims above that Josh Willis’s paper
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL042372.shtml
“suggests an increase of around 15 % in the AMOC flow since 1993”
and later refers to “the acceleration of Gulf stream” as though it were a fact, then asserts something about arctic sea ice not in the paper.
The abstract discusses data from floating buoys and other data sources, and says “There is no significant trend in overturning …” and “substantial slowing of the AMOC did not occur …”
Gilles isn’t reading what’s there, he’s seeing what he wants to claim.
I see the usual suspects are wasting everyone’s time again.
I wanted to say something substantive, but there is absolutely nothing substantive to answer. The nice thing about scientific language is it is very specific, and, like legal language, aims to be unambiguous. So, the silly word games and wilful blindness are pure sophistry: the meaning of the IPCC reports is painfully clear, and terms are defined in exhausting detail. And then everything is repeated in language even politicians can understand.
So, all you people struggling to understand: stop posting for two minutes and spend some quality time with the source material.
And dear PTB: an open thread would be nice. It would allow commenters to start a fresh topic when current threads go stale, and you have no time to feed the beast with a new posting.
Rod B wrote: “… your characterization of so-called ‘deniers’ is a cleaver sounding demonizing meme …”
Cleaver sounding?
I like it.
Whack whack! Le Maniac!
SecularAnimist, I wanted to correct the spelling but decided I liked it!
BTW, it seems to have died, but your point in 479 about how the public could react to the internal debate of “proof” is quite accurate.
Hank, the abstract says :”There is no significant trend in overturning strength between 2002 and 2009. Altimeter data, however, suggest an increase of 2.6 Sv since 1993″. So it may be just a question of signal to noise ratio, just like no significant warming has been observed between 2002 and 2009 ;). I didn’t make any assertion concerning a link with Arctic ice, I just asked a question whether it could be related.
Another question : in the AR4 the attribution of the anthropogenic origin of the sea ice melting is based on the lack of enough variability in computer models, which is in my sense always a little bit doubtful
(9.5.5.1)
”
Gregory et al. (2002b) show that a four-member ensemble of HadCM3 integrations with all major anthropogenic and natural forcing factors simulates a decline in arctic sea ice extent of about 2.5% per decade over the period 1970 to 1999, which is close to the observed decline of 2.7% per decade over the satellite period 1978 to 2004. This decline is inconsistent with simulated internal climate variability and the response to natural forcings alone (Vinnikov et al., 1999; Gregory et al., 2002b; Johannssen et al., 2004), indicating that anthropogenic forcing has likely contributed to the trend in NH sea ice extent. ” (emphasis from myself).
I understand that the only significant argument is the lack of enough natural variability IN COMPUTER SIMULATIONS. My question was more or less the following : since new data have been found after this release (increase in Guf stream overturning), did the models cited in AR4 predict this increase before it was observed, yes or no ? (the answer should be simple …) And if no, which credibility do they have and how reliable are their conclusions?
Note that even in AR4, it is stated that :
“Simulations of historical arctic ice thickness or volume (Goeberle and Gerdes, 2003; Rothrock et al., 2003) show a marked reduction in ice thickness starting in the late 1980s, but disagree somewhat with respect to trends and/or variations earlier in the century.” , so even the natural, preanthropogenic variability is not well reproduced.
I do not contest anything written in AR4, I’m just asking a question : is the attribution really mainly based on this kind of computations , and is it what you really mean by “proved beyond any reasonable doubt ” ?
“Silk :”By reading the Chapter on detection and attribution in the AR4, you can understand the answer, irrespective of what has been published since. Have you read that Chapter? Do you understand the concept of detection and attribution? If so, you can answer your own question.’
Yes, but I elaborate a little bit more : if new phenomena have been discovered since the writing of this report, could they influence the conclusion ? may be the acceleration of Gulf stream has absolutely nothing to do with Arctic sea ice melting… but is it true ?”
Gilles – As Hank has pointed out, the paper you reference does not suggest any new phenomena.
Fundamentally, however, no single observation is likely to significantly impact on the conclusions of the AR4. There isn’t going to be a silver bullet that suddenly destroys climate change (however much people hope there will be).
It is entirely possible that some observations will be made that suggest things are happening that models do not predict. In this case, a sensible first step is to re-check the observations (I recall something about satellite data disagreeing with models, and it turned out this was due to a calibration error in the data collection, rather than a problem with models)
However, even if the new phenomena (if one were observed which is hasn’t been!) disagreed with models, this doesn’t immediately invalidate the models.
I’m not clear as to whether you’ve actually read the AR4 Chapter on detection and attribution (you “yes” there was a little ambigous) but if you have that should explain why it’s a complex process, and it doesn’t rely on a single technique or approach)
The AR4 is the summary of the work of thousands of scientists. A single paper is never going to significantly change the direction of that work.
We KNOW that
Climate sensitivity is 3 degrees plus or minus 1.5 degrees (models not needed to know this)
GHG concentrations in the atmosphere are increasing, and will continue to increase, due to human activity
Knowing those two things is sufficient to know we have a problem we need to deal with.
ReCapatcha – “investigation mornanes”. Indeed.
septic matthew – Re #529
The global effort to address climate change through the UNFCCC deals with BOTH mitgation AND adaptation.
(One of the good reasons for a global carbon tax is that it could be used to fund adaptation efforts – “polluter pays”. Of course, there are arguments against but…)
No one (I hope) on Realclimate would disagree with the fact that adaptation is important and should not be ignored.
The challenge of mitigation is to do it in such a way as to keep the economies of the poorest countries growing so the poor become less poor (and the richest, too, because otherwise they won’t do it)
The fact that this is a challenge does not mean it shouldn’t be done.
And the surest way to destroy the economies, and lives, of the world’s poorest is to pretend climate change isn’t happening, push [CO2] past 550ppm and irreversibly (over the time period of human lifetimes) change the global, and hence local, climate.
537, silk. I agree with most of that post. However, I have not read anything at RealClimate, other than my own posts, that says that more funds should be devoted to flood control in Pakistan (plus all the other things that I listed) than to CO2 reduction. Or even that the funds for such construction should be “in the same ballpark”, say at least 10% as much.
And the surest way to destroy the economies, and lives, of the world’s poorest is to pretend climate change isn’t happening, push [CO2] past 550ppm and irreversibly (over the time period of human lifetimes) change the global, and hence local, climate.
I believe the evidence is insufficient to conclude that is the “surest”. The “surest” might be to spend on CO2 reduction and discover that the other natural process are so large compared to the CO2 effect that global warming continues to happen anyway (or that significant cooling occurs), and there is insufficient reserve to adjust. What is really the most likely outcome of current attempts to curtail CO2 emissions? I doubt that can be known, but the last 20 years have seen the US and EU reduce total emissions (CO2 plus other stuff), and shift manufacturing and growth of material wealth to India, China, the Asian Tigers, Indonesia and Malaysia, etc. Just as western boycotts of western oil companies have facilitated the international growth of SINOPEC, the Chinese state oil monopoly. Consequently, another of the likely outcome of international attempts to curtail CO2 emissions is the continued subsidy of Chinese and Indian pollution by the EU (and perhaps the US).
Of the “clear and present dangers” to Western Civilization (now flourishing in Eastern and Southern Asia), and to the world’s poor, CO2 induced global warming is not necessarily the surest, most costly, or most preventable.
Septic Matthew (#538)
From RC About page “The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.”
Based on the policy above, I don’t think you should technically ever see an argument about how funds should be distributed. While I’m sure there is some discussion of politics/economics in some posts (and certainly in the comments) I’m pretty sure that the focus keeps these discussions to a minimum.
That being said, I think you are right that there are many “sure” ways to destroy to economies and lives of the poorest. I would suggest you could reduce the impact of many of these “sure” events (including AGW) in one swoop. For instance, improving hygiene and hospital conditions will likely reduce the effects of malaria for instance, which is forcast to become more widespread as the climate warms. Also, reducing the poverty of haiti (through economic development) would go a long way to helping that country in times of disaster such as earthquakes or hurricanes (stronger with AGW).
@538–“I believe the evidence is insufficient to conclude [AGW] is the “surest”. The “surest” might be to spend on CO2 reduction and discover that the other natural process are so large compared to the CO2 effect that global warming continues to happen anyway. . .”
Just WHAT “other natural process?” Thirty years of research have failed to find a plausible candidate–barring of course the wild cards of supervolcano eruption or serious solar instability. (I’d say we as yet have no reason to try to hedge against those; too little capacity to respond, too low a probability of ever happening.)
So your “surest” seems to me to be much lower probability–an odd qualification for “surest” indeed.
Oh–I probably should’ve included the wild cards of nuclear conflict and sizable asteroid strike, too. My bad–but still no “surest” in sight.
Really, Judith?
Judith Curry: On Antarctic sea ice, Climategate and skeptics
“I believe the evidence is insufficient to conclude that is the “surest”.”
Well, you’re wrong on that. As usual. Read the Stern Review.
“The “surest” might be to spend on CO2 reduction and discover that the other natural process are so large compared to the CO2 effect that global warming continues to happen anyway (or that significant cooling occurs), and there is insufficient reserve to adjust.”
Yeah. And it’s also possible we could spend the money on flood defences, and all turn into chickens due to a freak reality storm. But how likely is that.
There is /zero/ evidence for any ‘natural processes’ that can drive rapid climate change over a decadal timescale. There is /ample/ evidence that human induced climate change will do just that.
“What is really the most likely outcome of current attempts to curtail CO2 emissions?”
That has nothing to do with the fact we need to reduce emissions. It’s hard. So what? It’s also known to be possible.
“I doubt that can be known, but the last 20 years have seen the US and EU reduce total emissions (CO2 plus other stuff)”
Wrong. The US has not reduced its emissions over the last 20 years.
“and shift manufacturing and growth of material wealth to India, China, the Asian Tigers, Indonesia and Malaysia, etc.”
Any evidence, whatsoever, that this is due to efforts to reduce emissions? No, thought not.
“Just as western boycotts of western oil companies have facilitated the international growth of SINOPEC, the Chinese state oil monopoly.”
Any evidence for this statement? Looks like nonsense to me.
“Consequently, another of the likely outcome of international attempts to curtail CO2 emissions is the continued subsidy of Chinese and Indian pollution by the EU (and perhaps the US).”
Really? Not only are you an expert in climate change science, but /also/ in the negotiations. Wow.
Would you care to explain to me how the EU is ‘subsidising’ Chinese pollution?
“Of the “clear and present dangers” to Western Civilization (now flourishing in Eastern and Southern Asia), and to the world’s poor, CO2 induced global warming is not necessarily the surest, most costly, or most preventable.”
Would you care to present some other dangers?
540, Kevin McKinney: serious solar instability
Soon to be a denialist talking point, but not yet, to my knowledge:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=117580&org=NSF&from=news
[Response: Why? Surely they aren’t as silly as to equate a solar effect 200 miles up in the atmosphere with climate change? Especially an effect attributed using computer models! What am I thinking, of course some of them will be that silly…. – gavin]
I do not know what the surest way to end the economies of the world and devastate the world’s poor people is, as I wrote.
Silk : “There is /zero/ evidence for any ‘natural processes’ that can drive rapid climate change over a decadal timescale.”
do you mean that the warming during the 1900-1940 period wasn’t natural, or that it wasn’t rapid ?
Re: Jim Galasyn @ 27 August 2010 at 4:11 PM
Thanks, I think, for that link to the interview with JC. A painful and depressing read. Like when Old Yeller died…
The train wreck continues.
The Yooper
Rod B., The fact that you insist that probability is inherently subjective illustrates that you know JACK abut probability. Go crack a [edit] book. Google Akaike Information Criterion and start following links. This stuff is [edit] MATHEMATICS. It is part of the [edit] structure of the [edit] UNIVERSE. NOW [edit] LEARN IT!!!
PS (I say this out of frustration, but really Rod, you would get so much more out of this discussion if you stopped pretending to understand and cracked a book to increase your understanding.
Re 529 Septic Matthew
It is also likely that catastrophic floods like those of this summer in Pakistan and China (where they were less catastrophic because of China’s flood control system) will recur
YES.
in the future as they have in the past, independently of any human additions or reductions of atmospheric CO2.
Not so fast! As weather patterns shift, some areas will get dryer and some will get wetter. With respect to the prior climate, this tends to lead toward more numerous or intense/prolonged droughts and floods. ‘Full’ adaptation to the new climate would eliminate that effect as the amounts of precipitation and evaporation, and such things as river and lack levels, etc, would just become a new normal – which doesn’t mean it’s just as well, of course, and there is the cost and time of adaptation.
But on top of a shift in climatic averages, there are some expected changes to variability.
is it better to invest more money in flood control systems for Pakistan (and India and Bangladesh), or is it better to invest more money in reducing anthropogenic CO2?
Money should be invested in water management (flood and drought amelioration). There is some amount that would be justified without the issue of AGW. AGW changes that amount and AGW mitigation is one way to invest in water management.
A sufficient AGW emissions tax would not require much sustained (as opposed to near-term investments to help some industries scale-up and grow towards being competitive, break some economic behaviors out of their ruts, etc., and aside from some R&D) public investment in emissions-efficiency; the funds would generally be appropriately directed towards paying for the portion of costs associated with adaptation to AGW effects. The portion of costs that would have been present without AGW are not what justifies the tax and thus not where the funds from the tax should go, at least in such a simple formulation. Of course, if we use a smaller emissions tax rate, than more of that revenue could be justifiably spent on mitigation investmensts…
PS if we have no AGW policy, where would the funds for flood management, etc, come from?
(PS good that you’re concerned for the welfare of people globally. Some opposition to AGW policies are rooted in either apathy for all but people in the U.S. or whatever country hosts the opposition (hence, for these people, raising the issue of such alternative use of funds is hypocrisy), or misunderstanding of how a fair system works.)
——–
Re 538 Septic Matthew
What is really the most likely outcome of current attempts to curtail CO2 emissions? I doubt that can be known, but the last 20 years have seen the US and EU reduce total emissions (CO2 plus other stuff), and shift manufacturing and growth of material wealth to India, China, the Asian Tigers, Indonesia and Malaysia, etc. Just as western boycotts of western oil companies have facilitated the international growth of SINOPEC, the Chinese state oil monopoly. Consequently, another of the likely outcome of international attempts to curtail CO2 emissions is the continued subsidy of Chinese and Indian pollution by the EU (and perhaps the US).
Aside from the problems in your representation of what has thus far occured (though it is true that lax regulations (environmental, consumer safety, labor, etc.) in some countries will tend to pull some industries towards those countries and thus stricter regulations will tend to repel some industries), there is the problem that you are assuming that there is a large loophole in the policy that will be adopted without correction. The cynicism is understandable, but please realize that there are rather obvious solutions to such problems and many are aware of such issues.
Ray Ladbury, first (and maybe all….) I NEVER said that probability is inherently subjective. The normal process is 1) draw, 2) aim, 3) shoot. Not usually helpful when #2 is left off.
What I said was probabilistic risk assessment (not the same as “probability” period) CAN be (not “is”) subjective, at least IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS (not throughout the process), DEPENDING (not “is” period) on the context and certainty of the future environment.
I was basically referring to the projections of forcing and sensitivity from the current situation into the future, which, while based heavily on science, none-the-less in the end requires a projection into an environment that is short of supporting scientific data. A statistical 95% confidence level IN THIS CASE is a purely mathematical construct and exists, in essence, through a purely mathematical extension of the historical temperature record. Adjusting that extension is a subjective surmise, albeit based on a personal assimilation of a lot of physics — but still, IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS, a subjective surmise.
You might still disagree with my assertion. If so please rebut my assertion, not something I never said.
549, Patrick027: PS if we have no AGW policy, where would the funds for flood management, etc, come from?
Nations as diverse as China, Tibet (a few hundred years ago), Cambodia (the Khmer hundreds of years ago), the Central American Societies, Indonesia, US, Brazil, Egypt, USSR, Turkey, Syria, Iraq have built substantial water control projects without any AGW policy. Not all have been without problems, but lack of AGW policy has not been a problem.
I hate to blame the victims, but Pakistan’s negligence since the floods of the first half of the 20th century was not enforced on them by a lack of funds.
You are correct that I expect any CO2 treaty to continue to exempt India, China, and other industrializing nations, or that attempts to include them will have negligible effects before about 2050, by which time most industrializing and industrialized nations will have boosted their non-fossil fuel energy industries to where they provide a majority of power. In light of recent history, I don’t see how you can call that “cynical”.
To support the transition to a mostly non-fossil fuel energy industry, I support a CO2 tax.