Earlier today, I received the Secretary of State’s recommendation on the pending application for the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment. As a result, the Secretary of State has recommended that the application be denied. And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree.
This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people. I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil. Under my Administration, domestic oil and natural gas production is up, while imports of foreign oil are down. In the months ahead, we will continue to look for new ways to partner with the oil and gas industry to increase our energy security –including the potential development of an oil pipeline from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf of Mexico – even as we set higher efficiency standards for cars and trucks and invest in alternatives like biofuels and natural gas. And we will do so in a way that benefits American workers and businesses without risking the health and safety of the American people and the environment.
#251–I’m pleased–but it seems pretty clear that this skirmishing is almost entirely about political tactics, and very little about energy policy.
Nick Gottssays
“Frankly, I think we could stabilize global population and resolve climate change and develop a sustainable energy infrastructure before 2050 without any sort of draconian measures. I just think humans are too stupid to do so.”
That’s completely different from anything Malthus ever said, and quite different from what you have appeared to be saying.
“The problem is that we are dependent on the bottom 50% of the IQ curve–The Revenge of the C Students.”
Tosh. The problem is the greed and mendacity of ruling elites. It was “C students”, in your contemptuous phrase, who voted overwhelmingly for egalitarian policies in the post-WWII period.
[edit – religious attitudes to contraception are completely off-topic here. Please no more on this]
Mann wrote; Meanwhile, I suspect you’ve both seen the latest attack against his Yamal work by McIntyre. Gavin and I (having consulted also w/ Malcolm) are wondering what to make of this, and what sort of response—if any—is necessary and appropriate. So far, we’ve simply deleted all of the attempts by McIntyre and his minions to draw attention to this at RealClimate.
[Response: Except that this was all debated and at length (over 600 comments). Sometimes responses take time (well, at least they do if you want to get it right). Scattering comments about this as off-topic diversions is not a useful way of archiving discussions. – gavin]
“…. eminent climate scientists, social scientists and journalists assembled in SoCal this week, in part to ask the question: “What will it take to precipitate meaningful policy responses to climate change?” The answer from author Stewart Brand was succinct: “It takes warfare.” Brand was part of a panel at “Moving By Degrees,” a day-long forum hosted by American Public Media’s Marketplace program. Brand, who describes himself as an “ecopragmatist,” has concluded that when the planet’s “carrying capacity” is strained to the point where nations and peoples are fighting over dwindling resources, only then will coordinated international action begin in earnest.
Brand’s dim view was shared by physicist-turned-blogger Joe Romm, who said that while current US policy is driven by “denial,” he sees a coming shift in which people move “from denial to desperation.” That, says Romm, will be the catalyst. “Denial makes easy things hard and desperation makes hard things easy,” he said. Romm says he expects the desperation phase to set in about a decade from now …
Most of you will know that the major US science-funding agencies require the work they fund (from the public purse) to be made available as open-access to the public that funded it. And it’s hard for me to imagine anyone sees that requirement as anything other than straightforwardly just.
But you may not know about the Research Works Act (http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=807), a truly vile piece of legislation being proposed by two Elsevier-funded shills in the US Congress, which would make it illegal for funding bodies to impose this perfectly natural requirement….
Hank@235,
Thanks! I had no idea Gavin had written about this before.
Ray Ladbury@240,
Oh, he wasn’t merely “an idiot”; he revealed a range of crank ideas that would make Christopher Monckton blush. As I said, he was an opinionated blowhard who’d jumped into the deep end of crankdom. He was also one of those dishonest people who will willingly embrace contradictory positions if they further their argument in the short-term (waxing lyrical about Segalstad’s analysis of ice cores, and then insisting that ice cores don’t tell us anything – the Jaworowski thesis – when I called him on it). I never for a moment entertained his notion – even a mathematical ignoramus like me could tell that waste heat was insignificant relative to the Earth’s surface area (and thus the area receiving solar radiation). I was just interested to know what the calculation was for its own sake.
With someone like that, getting them to search the internet to prove themselves wrong is a vain hope.
Somewhat off-topic but since it’s in the blogoshphere ans since it mentions ‘Real Climate’ by name;
.
Email 2743, Sept 2009, Michael Mann: “So far, we’ve simply deleted all of the attempts by McIntyre and his minions to draw attention to this at RealClimate.”
Is this true? And what were you trying to hide/delete? This looks just awful to the casual observer of the climate debate.
[Response: Nothing was being hidden or deleted. The issue in question was McIntyre’s appalling post on the Yamal reconstruction (which caused a a bit of furore at the time because of his unfounded insinuations of scientific misconduct – where have we heard that before?). Rather than have comments on that be scattered around the site as off-topic digressions with rushed or unprepared responses, we waited until we had looked at the issues, and then had all comments (600+) and plenty of debate on a specific thread (which was here). Since people expect us (rather unreasonably) to be the automatic rebuttal to every new blogospheric eruption, we need to be sure of the issues before responding – that inevitably means a delay between the beginning of the excitement and the response. Keeping comments on-topic on other threads in the meantime is tricky, and if you run a blog you can make your choices on how to do that. – gavin]
NCDC has updated, and has the December and annual reports up. Kind of a “meh” year for temperature–tied for 11th-warmest ever, a bit warmer than 2008, and thus the warmest La Nina year on record. Second-highest global precipitation ever.
“Makani Power is developing Airborne Wind Turbines (AWT) to extract energy from the powerful, consistent winds at high altitudes. Makani’s AWT is a rigid wing that flies at altitudes between 300 and 600 meters. Turbines on the leading edge of the wing face into the wind as it flies and generate energy, which is transmitted to the ground along a tether. Makani AWTs will produce energy at an unsubsidized real cost competitive with coal-fired power plants, the current benchmark of the lowest cost source of power.”
I wonder if their software could autopilot a hang glider….
It won’t. I expect the revolt of the humans or as Romm puts it the shift from denial to desperation to occur with CO2 not far above 400 ppm. Then frenetic “mitigation” i.e. ceasing to burn carbon and both conserving and rapidly installing other energy sources will keep CO2 below 550.
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#4–“It won’t. I expect the revolt of the humans or as Romm puts it the shift from denial to desperation to occur with CO2 not far above 400 ppm.”
Or about 3-4 years from now, given that we hit 392 ppm in 2011. You could be right; it would seem that a new ‘warmest year’ is reasonably likely during that span (cf. Dr. Hansen), along with a few more climate-related disasters, and possibly the first sub-1 million km2 Arctic sea ice minimum. (That’s presuming Dr. Maslowski was right, which I think quite possible.)
> the shift from denial to desperation
That’s part of Joe Romm’s observation that the public conversation is nowadays mostly between denial and exaggerated alarm
(Yes, it’s possible to exaggerate the alarm — any alarmist lacking good science will be successful getting the media attention, because it prolongs the “debate” and “controversy” which serves our heat-loving reptilian secret masters …. oops, strike that last bit ….)
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SecularAnimistsays
Hank Roberts wrote: “Joe Romm’s observation that the public conversation is nowadays mostly between denial and exaggerated alarm”
Actually, Joe Romm and other writers at the ClimateProgress blog have noted that the public conversation mostly ignores the plausible worst-case scenarios, and ignores as well the growing evidence that actual climate change impacts are worse than predicted, with the result that the public conversation is mostly between denial and the most conservative underestimates of likely impacts.
For example, an October 2011 article at ClimateProgress (by Douglas Fischer of DailyClimate, with supportive comments from Joe Romm) entitled “Evidence Builds That Scientists Underplay Climate Impacts”, asserts that “far from being ‘alarmist,’ predictions from climate scientists in many cases are proving to be more conservative than observed climate-induced impacts”, and quotes Naomi Oreskes thusly:
“We’re seeing mounting evidence now that the scientific community, rather than overstating the claim or being alarmist, is the opposite. Scientists have been quite conservative … in a lot of important and different areas … Many people in the scientific community have felt that it’s important to be conservative – that it protects your credibility. There’s a low-end bias. It has led scientists to understate, rather than overstate, the impacts.”
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[Response:Unfortunately, Fischer states in that piece: “As for extinctions, earlier this year two scientists at the University of Exeter paired predicted versus observed annihilation rates. The real-world rates are more than double what the best computer modeling showed: While the studies, on average, warned of a 7 percent extinction rate, field observations suggested the rate was closer to 15 percent.”[my added italics] Aside from the critically problematic scientific issues with the content of this statement, using the word “annihilation” to describe extinction is, at best, a very careless use of words, and I would say, intentionally inflammatory and counterproductive. His piece has a number of other problems as well–Jim]
Dan H.says
The public conversation being between denial and exaggerated alarmism seems to be the way the media likes to paint issues nowadays: black and white, and towards both poles. Most scientists will be likely be closer towards the middle.
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Ray Ladburysays
The discussion of how scientists approach risk reminds me of a few stories.
On the Manhattan project, when they had constructed the first nuclear pile under the stadium at U. of Chicago, the entire venture depended on being able to re-insert the control rods after observing criticality. One of Fermi’s grad students asked him what he would do if they couldn’t re-insert the rods. Fermi thought for awhile and then reminded his student that some of the U-235 fission events were delayed for up to a minute. “So,” Fermi said, “I would walk slowly and purposefully out that door and down the street.”
Later, based on a calculation Teller had made, Fermi was taking bets on the whether the trinity blast might ignite a chain reaction and incnerate the state of New Mexico.
I tell these stories to point out that physicists take a somewhat macabre interest in the risks their work entails, but it is not a cavalier attitude. It is informed by knowledge of the probabilities.
So finally a joke:
A chemist, a mathematician and a physicist are all sentenced to be guillotined during the French Revolution. The Captain who is in charge of the proceedings taunts them saying they can either be beheaded face down or face their death like a man and lie face up.
The chemist has no desire to spend his last moments watching the instrument of his demise, so he opts for face down. The captain cuts the rope, and the blade doesn’t move. The captain says, “Mon Dieu, it is a miracle!” And he helps the chemist up, kisses him on both cheeks and tells him he is free to go.
The mathematician also opts for the face down position. Again the rope is cut. Again the blade hangs and doesn’t fall. “Mon Dieu,” the captain cries again. “It is another miracle.” Agian with the kisses to the cheek, and the mathematician is set free.
Finally, the physicist faces the blade, but being a curious sort, he opts to lie face up so he can see the mechanism at work. The rope is cut. The blade hangs. “Oh,” says the physicist. “I think I see your problem!”
“… when Fermi got his copy of Physical Review, he would first read the abstracts to see what the problems were. Then he worked out the solutions, and finally read the articles to see if the authors got it right….” http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/logos20-1/fermi01.htm
Some of our skeptical brethren and cistern do that too — excepting the “worked out” part.
dhogazasays
On the Manhattan project, when they had constructed the first nuclear pile under the stadium at U. of Chicago, the entire venture depended on being able to re-insert the control rods after observing criticality. One of Fermi’s grad students asked him what he would do if they couldn’t re-insert the rods. Fermi thought for awhile and then reminded his student that some of the U-235 fission events were delayed for up to a minute. “So,” Fermi said, “I would walk slowly and purposefully out that door and down the street.”
Which, of course, is why many are happy that we have engineers who put together designs, including failure modes, that lead to evacuation plans so that more people than the chief scientist (Fermi) will survive …
“Finally, the physicist faces the blade, but being a curious sort, he opts to lie face up so he can see the mechanism at work. The rope is cut. The blade hangs. “Oh,” says the physicist. “I think I see your problem!””
LOL.
But, having enjoyed the joke (and what it says about the physicist’s mindset), and just as an historical curiosity, the “mathematician” was almost Joseph Fourier. . . (And the chemist Lavoisier really *was* guillotined.)
Re comments 265-268.
The denialist wing of the AGW debate is evidently away with the fairies. The alarmist wing featured in mainstream media are nothing like as extreme in their views. This very morning, I found myself listening to the BBC’s prestigious Today Programme featuring Baron Lawson of Blaby, founder of the GWPF (Is that the Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantacy? I can never remember!) and Tony Juniper of Friends of he Earth. I do not call that ‘balanced coverage’.
Ray Ladburysays
Kevin@273,
Note to self: It’s not good to be the King’s taxman in a revolution.
Another mathematician (LaGrange) said: “It took them only an instant to cut off that head, but France may not produce another like it in a century.”
Humans have always been idjits.
Dan H.says
MA,
Neither the denialist wing nor the alarmist wing are anywhere near what most scientists claim. The factions simply make for juicy media coverage. While scientists think that the difference between a 1 and 2 degree temperature rise is huge, the media pundits do not see it that way, and look for greater disparities. Those that show resulting disasters of the greatest magnitude, or conspiracies to the highest degree will get the most press. Two scientists aguing whether the climate sensitivity is 1.8 or 2.7 does not attract media headlines.
Dsays
I hope the open thread is an appropriate place to ask this, but this is something that has confusing me for awhile: I gather the main effect of CO2 emissions is that it slightly warms the globe, increasing water vapor, which is a stronger greenhouse gas. But isn’t this a positive feedback cycle? If more water in the atmosphere increases the temperature, wouldn’t that increase the amount of water, and so on? What is the limiting factor here? -Thanks.
Anonymous Cowardsays
D (#277),
Yes, there’s a feedback cycle. But every succeeding step is smaller so that you end up with a limited increase in temperatures after a while.
The limiting factor is infrared radiation. The hotter stuff is, the more energy it sends away as infrared over time. Greenhouse gases cath some of these infrared rays but not all. So the hotter the Earth is, the more energy it loses to outerspace. That insures that the warming caused by greenhouse gases is limited.
The short answer is no, it will not lead to ever-increasing temperatures (i.e. runaway feedback), the “why” is explained well at the link above.
Ray Ladburysays
D,
Infinite sums can converge to finite results. As long as the subsequent terms to feedback converge to zero quickly enough you wind up with a finite result.
Pete Wirfssays
@#277 D;
I’m a novice myself, but my understanding is that the main effect of CO2 is that it doesn’t allow as much heat to escape at night time.
World harvests will all fail no later than 2056, according to my research. Unfortunately, I can’t get my paper on the subject published or even peer-reviewed, so it’s pointless to cite it.
That assumes civilization doesn’t fall earlier, of course. The estimate above assumes drought is the only problem.
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Pete Dunkelbergsays
D – Good question. Luckily a sum of infinitely positive terms can converge to a small result. The simplest case is a geometric series (you probably remember it from school now that I use the word) like one half + one fourth plus one eighth …
And the big negative feedback (things radiate energy away in proportion to the fourth power of the temperature) really keep things under control.
But the most interesting thought for you may be this: throughout earth’s history CO2 has gone down (to about 190 ppm at the last glacial maximum I think) and come up, and there has been no runaway. So positive feedbacks clearly do not just keep on growing.
Dsays
Thanks folks, I get it now. Much appreciated!
Anna Haynessays
What organization in the U.S. (or site online) is devoted to identifying (and ideally, tracking the fixes to) roadblocks to effective climate communication?
Some particular climate communication trouble spots now have orgs devoted to them – the NCSE for schools, the “forecast the facts” org for meteorologists – but shouldn’t there be an umbrella org or site, for reporting/addressing other roadblocks?
It could just be something akin to MediaBugs.org, but for reporting & tracking structural problems – some of which are simple (the one I have in mind is) – that have hindered climate communication.
(though it’s likely not everything will fit neatly into such a reportable format; but it’d be helpful to have a place to file such a “structural bug report”, that someone else would follow up on.)
Anna Haynessays
(the case I have in mind involves a publicly-funded science org.)
Hank #287, my communication skills aren’t up to par, sorry.
Yes, I expect the entities you mentioned do good climate communication. But my comment was asking whether an org exists that’ll intervene, to address other entities’ patterns of (likely-unintended) misleading climate communication. These patterns could be improved if a dedicated org with a modicum of clout were to intervene – which would entail pointing out that a particular form of communication is misleading, advising the practitioner org on a simple fix, then seeing (& documenting) whether they do it.
(This isn’t what CC or SciFri does.)
I guess it’d help to provide the case in point. The NOAA/NWS Climate Prediction Center predicts “likely weather” (which they call climate) up to a few months out. Clearly, the stuff that influences what they predict will be natural cycles & other natural variability. Yet an interview with a C.P.C. rep. called what they’re predicting “climate”, talked about these natural influences on it, and (since climate-as-in-30+-years is not their purview, thus is likely not on their intellectual radar) made no mention (caveat: that I noticed) of GHGs or other human influences (or of the likely changes we should expect) on climate in the decades to come.
So anyone casually listening just hears “climate” associated with “natural cycles, natural variability”.
IMO this overloading of the term “climate”, without disambiguation, is a problem that needs addressing, at least in taxpayer-funded outreach. And while I can email the CPC folk (& have done so) asking what outreach policy they have that ensures they don’t create public confusion between short & long term climate change (and the different causes and magnitudes of the two), still I’m just one person. If they hear it from an organization, it’s more likely to have positive results.)
(sorry for initial confusion; I hope that’s clearer)
Dan H.says
BPL,
For what reason(s) do you expect world harvests to fail by then? I am always suspect of this claim, as I have heard it many times in the past decades.
Nick Gottssays
“religious attitudes to contraception are completely off-topic here. Please no more on this” – editorial response to my #253
For future information, is human demography as a whole regarded as OT on the “Unforced Variations” threads? I realise it’s not climate science, but it is highly relevant both to projections of GHG emissions, and to climate change impacts.
Dan H. @276
I suggest you reappraise your understanding of “…what most scientists claim.” A difference in resultant warming (eg in climate sensitivity) of one degree celsius makes a big difference to climatic outcomes (and gives ample room for alarm). But your talk of a 1 or 2 degree “temperature rise” – that is denialist speak. And do remind me which are the scientists arguing for a sensitvity of 1.8 (assume dec C)?
“Most scientists” can be equated to the IPCC which gives the headline sensitivity as 3 deg C with a likely range of 1.5-4.5 deg C and higher outcomes not ruled out.
Thus, given that a 1 deg C difference in sensitivity makes a big difference, the ‘alarm’ engendered in the message of the IPCC (and thus “most scientists”) is considerable. Either Dan H. fails to appreciate this point or he is referring to media the likes of which is unknown to me.
I gave an example of the media inbalance I experience @274. Baron Blaby is of the view that overall AGW is beneficial and where it does cause potential harm, adaption measures will prevail. Spending our hard-earned money cutting CO2 emissions will stop us spending money fighting terrorists and famine in Africa. And why should we spend our money when the future world will be so much richer than us and be well positioned to afford any expensive adaption measure that may turn out to be required. So says Blaby.
That is the measure of the lunatic inviited onto a prestigious BBC radio programme. Dan H. – who (or what view) would you see as providing balance when Blaby (or some other GWPF creature) is in the studeo?
Dan H.says
MA
Since I said that a 1 degree difference is “huge,” how does that fail to appreciate the difference? I do not know to what “denialist speak” you are referring.
BPL has a list of publications concerning climate sensitivity. You can check it out:
I disagree with your statement that most scientists can be equated with the IPCC, etc.
Just like in politics, where many on the left and right think that most people think like they do, and therefore, do not consider themselves to be on the extreme, those scientists on either extreme, do not view themselves as such.
Just like in politics, where many on the left and right think that most people think like they do, and therefore, do not consider themselves to be on the extreme, those scientists on either extreme, do not view themselves as such.
Just like in science, since you haven’t properly defined and quantified ‘left’, ‘right’ and ‘extreme’, I find it difficult to take you seriously.
Dan H. @292
You say @276 that “Neither the denialist wing nor the alarmist wing are anywhere near what most scientists claim.” and @292 “I disagree with your statement that most scientists can be equated with the IPCC, etc.”
These ‘most scientists’ of yours: far from the wings but not with the IPCC. So where are they all? Perhaps you could express your answer it terms of climate sensitivity (as that is easy to express succinctly and introduced into this topic by yourself @276).
Dan H.says
Thomas,
The political left and right are already properly defined. However, if you need a refresher, here is a nice summary.
BPL,
For what reason(s) do you expect world harvests to fail by then? I am always suspect of this claim, as I have heard it many times in the past decades.
Dan H.- that sounds like interesting reading. Can you link to any peer-reviewed papers from prior decades that predict world harvest failures because of climate change?
Breaking: Obama Denies Keystone XL Permit, But Allows TransCanada to Reapply With Alternate Pipeline Route.
President Obama’s press release:
#251–I’m pleased–but it seems pretty clear that this skirmishing is almost entirely about political tactics, and very little about energy policy.
“Frankly, I think we could stabilize global population and resolve climate change and develop a sustainable energy infrastructure before 2050 without any sort of draconian measures. I just think humans are too stupid to do so.”
That’s completely different from anything Malthus ever said, and quite different from what you have appeared to be saying.
“The problem is that we are dependent on the bottom 50% of the IQ curve–The Revenge of the C Students.”
Tosh. The problem is the greed and mendacity of ruling elites. It was “C students”, in your contemptuous phrase, who voted overwhelmingly for egalitarian policies in the post-WWII period.
[edit – religious attitudes to contraception are completely off-topic here. Please no more on this]
Record snow in Seattle. The Arctic Oscillation has stopped being highly positive and has allowed some serious cold air to escape toward North America.
The reason there is no debate!
Mann wrote; Meanwhile, I suspect you’ve both seen the latest attack against his Yamal work by McIntyre. Gavin and I (having consulted also w/ Malcolm) are wondering what to make of this, and what sort of response—if any—is necessary and appropriate. So far, we’ve simply deleted all of the attempts by McIntyre and his minions to draw attention to this at RealClimate.
[Response: Except that this was all debated and at length (over 600 comments). Sometimes responses take time (well, at least they do if you want to get it right). Scattering comments about this as off-topic diversions is not a useful way of archiving discussions. – gavin]
A bit old but worth a look:
http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch/2010/06/10/what-will-it-take/
“…. eminent climate scientists, social scientists and journalists assembled in SoCal this week, in part to ask the question: “What will it take to precipitate meaningful policy responses to climate change?” The answer from author Stewart Brand was succinct: “It takes warfare.” Brand was part of a panel at “Moving By Degrees,” a day-long forum hosted by American Public Media’s Marketplace program. Brand, who describes himself as an “ecopragmatist,” has concluded that when the planet’s “carrying capacity” is strained to the point where nations and peoples are fighting over dwindling resources, only then will coordinated international action begin in earnest.
Brand’s dim view was shared by physicist-turned-blogger Joe Romm, who said that while current US policy is driven by “denial,” he sees a coming shift in which people move “from denial to desperation.” That, says Romm, will be the catalyst. “Denial makes easy things hard and desperation makes hard things easy,” he said. Romm says he expects the desperation phase to set in about a decade from now …
Call for quick action: Elsevier trying to restrict open access to US-government-funded research!
HT DML
Hank@235,
Thanks! I had no idea Gavin had written about this before.
Ray Ladbury@240,
Oh, he wasn’t merely “an idiot”; he revealed a range of crank ideas that would make Christopher Monckton blush. As I said, he was an opinionated blowhard who’d jumped into the deep end of crankdom. He was also one of those dishonest people who will willingly embrace contradictory positions if they further their argument in the short-term (waxing lyrical about Segalstad’s analysis of ice cores, and then insisting that ice cores don’t tell us anything – the Jaworowski thesis – when I called him on it). I never for a moment entertained his notion – even a mathematical ignoramus like me could tell that waste heat was insignificant relative to the Earth’s surface area (and thus the area receiving solar radiation). I was just interested to know what the calculation was for its own sake.
With someone like that, getting them to search the internet to prove themselves wrong is a vain hope.
> to search the internet
The way to start is to ask a librarian for help.
Somewhat off-topic but since it’s in the blogoshphere ans since it mentions ‘Real Climate’ by name;
.
Email 2743, Sept 2009, Michael Mann: “So far, we’ve simply deleted all of the attempts by McIntyre and his minions to draw attention to this at RealClimate.”
Is this true? And what were you trying to hide/delete? This looks just awful to the casual observer of the climate debate.
[Response: Nothing was being hidden or deleted. The issue in question was McIntyre’s appalling post on the Yamal reconstruction (which caused a a bit of furore at the time because of his unfounded insinuations of scientific misconduct – where have we heard that before?). Rather than have comments on that be scattered around the site as off-topic digressions with rushed or unprepared responses, we waited until we had looked at the issues, and then had all comments (600+) and plenty of debate on a specific thread (which was here). Since people expect us (rather unreasonably) to be the automatic rebuttal to every new blogospheric eruption, we need to be sure of the issues before responding – that inevitably means a delay between the beginning of the excitement and the response. Keeping comments on-topic on other threads in the meantime is tricky, and if you run a blog you can make your choices on how to do that. – gavin]
NCDC has updated, and has the December and annual reports up. Kind of a “meh” year for temperature–tied for 11th-warmest ever, a bit warmer than 2008, and thus the warmest La Nina year on record. Second-highest global precipitation ever.
Details here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-monitoring/#global-icon
Interesting, and they are flying hardware
http://www.makanipower.com/
“Makani Power is developing Airborne Wind Turbines (AWT) to extract energy from the powerful, consistent winds at high altitudes. Makani’s AWT is a rigid wing that flies at altitudes between 300 and 600 meters. Turbines on the leading edge of the wing face into the wind as it flies and generate energy, which is transmitted to the ground along a tether. Makani AWTs will produce energy at an unsubsidized real cost competitive with coal-fired power plants, the current benchmark of the lowest cost source of power.”
I wonder if their software could autopilot a hang glider….
ScienceOnline2012 is this week!
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/2012/01/17/scio12-multitudes-of-sciences-multitudes-of-journalisms-and-the-disappearance-of-the-quote/
Plenary Panel: Check, check, 1, 2…The sticky wicket of the scientist-journalist relationship
“When will atmospheric CO2 exceed 550 ppm?”
It won’t. I expect the revolt of the humans or as Romm puts it the shift from denial to desperation to occur with CO2 not far above 400 ppm. Then frenetic “mitigation” i.e. ceasing to burn carbon and both conserving and rapidly installing other energy sources will keep CO2 below 550.
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#4–“It won’t. I expect the revolt of the humans or as Romm puts it the shift from denial to desperation to occur with CO2 not far above 400 ppm.”
Or about 3-4 years from now, given that we hit 392 ppm in 2011. You could be right; it would seem that a new ‘warmest year’ is reasonably likely during that span (cf. Dr. Hansen), along with a few more climate-related disasters, and possibly the first sub-1 million km2 Arctic sea ice minimum. (That’s presuming Dr. Maslowski was right, which I think quite possible.)
None too soon, if so.
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> the shift from denial to desperation
That’s part of Joe Romm’s observation that the public conversation is nowadays mostly between denial and exaggerated alarm
(Yes, it’s possible to exaggerate the alarm — any alarmist lacking good science will be successful getting the media attention, because it prolongs the “debate” and “controversy” which serves our heat-loving reptilian secret masters …. oops, strike that last bit ….)
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Hank Roberts wrote: “Joe Romm’s observation that the public conversation is nowadays mostly between denial and exaggerated alarm”
Actually, Joe Romm and other writers at the ClimateProgress blog have noted that the public conversation mostly ignores the plausible worst-case scenarios, and ignores as well the growing evidence that actual climate change impacts are worse than predicted, with the result that the public conversation is mostly between denial and the most conservative underestimates of likely impacts.
For example, an October 2011 article at ClimateProgress (by Douglas Fischer of DailyClimate, with supportive comments from Joe Romm) entitled “Evidence Builds That Scientists Underplay Climate Impacts”, asserts that “far from being ‘alarmist,’ predictions from climate scientists in many cases are proving to be more conservative than observed climate-induced impacts”, and quotes Naomi Oreskes thusly:
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[Response:Unfortunately, Fischer states in that piece: “As for extinctions, earlier this year two scientists at the University of Exeter paired predicted versus observed annihilation rates. The real-world rates are more than double what the best computer modeling showed: While the studies, on average, warned of a 7 percent extinction rate, field observations suggested the rate was closer to 15 percent.”[my added italics] Aside from the critically problematic scientific issues with the content of this statement, using the word “annihilation” to describe extinction is, at best, a very careless use of words, and I would say, intentionally inflammatory and counterproductive. His piece has a number of other problems as well–Jim]
The public conversation being between denial and exaggerated alarmism seems to be the way the media likes to paint issues nowadays: black and white, and towards both poles. Most scientists will be likely be closer towards the middle.
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The discussion of how scientists approach risk reminds me of a few stories.
On the Manhattan project, when they had constructed the first nuclear pile under the stadium at U. of Chicago, the entire venture depended on being able to re-insert the control rods after observing criticality. One of Fermi’s grad students asked him what he would do if they couldn’t re-insert the rods. Fermi thought for awhile and then reminded his student that some of the U-235 fission events were delayed for up to a minute. “So,” Fermi said, “I would walk slowly and purposefully out that door and down the street.”
Later, based on a calculation Teller had made, Fermi was taking bets on the whether the trinity blast might ignite a chain reaction and incnerate the state of New Mexico.
I tell these stories to point out that physicists take a somewhat macabre interest in the risks their work entails, but it is not a cavalier attitude. It is informed by knowledge of the probabilities.
So finally a joke:
A chemist, a mathematician and a physicist are all sentenced to be guillotined during the French Revolution. The Captain who is in charge of the proceedings taunts them saying they can either be beheaded face down or face their death like a man and lie face up.
The chemist has no desire to spend his last moments watching the instrument of his demise, so he opts for face down. The captain cuts the rope, and the blade doesn’t move. The captain says, “Mon Dieu, it is a miracle!” And he helps the chemist up, kisses him on both cheeks and tells him he is free to go.
The mathematician also opts for the face down position. Again the rope is cut. Again the blade hangs and doesn’t fall. “Mon Dieu,” the captain cries again. “It is another miracle.” Agian with the kisses to the cheek, and the mathematician is set free.
Finally, the physicist faces the blade, but being a curious sort, he opts to lie face up so he can see the mechanism at work. The rope is cut. The blade hangs. “Oh,” says the physicist. “I think I see your problem!”
> Fermi
maybe only apocryphal:
“… when Fermi got his copy of Physical Review, he would first read the abstracts to see what the problems were. Then he worked out the solutions, and finally read the articles to see if the authors got it right….”
http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/logos20-1/fermi01.htm
Some of our skeptical brethren and cistern do that too — excepting the “worked out” part.
Which, of course, is why many are happy that we have engineers who put together designs, including failure modes, that lead to evacuation plans so that more people than the chief scientist (Fermi) will survive …
> denial/alarmist polarity:
This one: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/01/11/401093/realclimate-alarmed-by-arctic-methane/
“… other areas of climate science, many of which are, for me, considerably more “alarming” ….
The thing is, we don’t need no stinking methane bubbles to be …. Business as usual is beyond catastrophic …”
“Finally, the physicist faces the blade, but being a curious sort, he opts to lie face up so he can see the mechanism at work. The rope is cut. The blade hangs. “Oh,” says the physicist. “I think I see your problem!””
LOL.
But, having enjoyed the joke (and what it says about the physicist’s mindset), and just as an historical curiosity, the “mathematician” was almost Joseph Fourier. . . (And the chemist Lavoisier really *was* guillotined.)
Re comments 265-268.
The denialist wing of the AGW debate is evidently away with the fairies. The alarmist wing featured in mainstream media are nothing like as extreme in their views. This very morning, I found myself listening to the BBC’s prestigious Today Programme featuring Baron Lawson of Blaby, founder of the GWPF (Is that the Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantacy? I can never remember!) and Tony Juniper of Friends of he Earth. I do not call that ‘balanced coverage’.
Kevin@273,
Note to self: It’s not good to be the King’s taxman in a revolution.
Another mathematician (LaGrange) said: “It took them only an instant to cut off that head, but France may not produce another like it in a century.”
Humans have always been idjits.
MA,
Neither the denialist wing nor the alarmist wing are anywhere near what most scientists claim. The factions simply make for juicy media coverage. While scientists think that the difference between a 1 and 2 degree temperature rise is huge, the media pundits do not see it that way, and look for greater disparities. Those that show resulting disasters of the greatest magnitude, or conspiracies to the highest degree will get the most press. Two scientists aguing whether the climate sensitivity is 1.8 or 2.7 does not attract media headlines.
I hope the open thread is an appropriate place to ask this, but this is something that has confusing me for awhile: I gather the main effect of CO2 emissions is that it slightly warms the globe, increasing water vapor, which is a stronger greenhouse gas. But isn’t this a positive feedback cycle? If more water in the atmosphere increases the temperature, wouldn’t that increase the amount of water, and so on? What is the limiting factor here? -Thanks.
D (#277),
Yes, there’s a feedback cycle. But every succeeding step is smaller so that you end up with a limited increase in temperatures after a while.
The limiting factor is infrared radiation. The hotter stuff is, the more energy it sends away as infrared over time. Greenhouse gases cath some of these infrared rays but not all. So the hotter the Earth is, the more energy it loses to outerspace. That insures that the warming caused by greenhouse gases is limited.
D – This article at Skeptical Science (a great resource for mainstream cilmate science) should answer your question.
The short answer is no, it will not lead to ever-increasing temperatures (i.e. runaway feedback), the “why” is explained well at the link above.
D,
Infinite sums can converge to finite results. As long as the subsequent terms to feedback converge to zero quickly enough you wind up with a finite result.
@#277 D;
I’m a novice myself, but my understanding is that the main effect of CO2 is that it doesn’t allow as much heat to escape at night time.
World harvests will all fail no later than 2056, according to my research. Unfortunately, I can’t get my paper on the subject published or even peer-reviewed, so it’s pointless to cite it.
That assumes civilization doesn’t fall earlier, of course. The estimate above assumes drought is the only problem.
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D – Good question. Luckily a sum of infinitely positive terms can converge to a small result. The simplest case is a geometric series (you probably remember it from school now that I use the word) like one half + one fourth plus one eighth …
And the big negative feedback (things radiate energy away in proportion to the fourth power of the temperature) really keep things under control.
But the most interesting thought for you may be this: throughout earth’s history CO2 has gone down (to about 190 ppm at the last glacial maximum I think) and come up, and there has been no runaway. So positive feedbacks clearly do not just keep on growing.
Thanks folks, I get it now. Much appreciated!
What organization in the U.S. (or site online) is devoted to identifying (and ideally, tracking the fixes to) roadblocks to effective climate communication?
Some particular climate communication trouble spots now have orgs devoted to them – the NCSE for schools, the “forecast the facts” org for meteorologists – but shouldn’t there be an umbrella org or site, for reporting/addressing other roadblocks?
It could just be something akin to MediaBugs.org, but for reporting & tracking structural problems – some of which are simple (the one I have in mind is) – that have hindered climate communication.
(though it’s likely not everything will fit neatly into such a reportable format; but it’d be helpful to have a place to file such a “structural bug report”, that someone else would follow up on.)
(the case I have in mind involves a publicly-funded science org.)
for Anna
https://www.google.com/search?q=science+climate+communication+problems
turns up at the top of the first page of results the
Climate Communication | Science & Outreach
http://climatecommunication.org/
I also like Science Friday:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/author/NeilWagner/
Hank #287, my communication skills aren’t up to par, sorry.
Yes, I expect the entities you mentioned do good climate communication. But my comment was asking whether an org exists that’ll intervene, to address other entities’ patterns of (likely-unintended) misleading climate communication. These patterns could be improved if a dedicated org with a modicum of clout were to intervene – which would entail pointing out that a particular form of communication is misleading, advising the practitioner org on a simple fix, then seeing (& documenting) whether they do it.
(This isn’t what CC or SciFri does.)
I guess it’d help to provide the case in point. The NOAA/NWS Climate Prediction Center predicts “likely weather” (which they call climate) up to a few months out. Clearly, the stuff that influences what they predict will be natural cycles & other natural variability. Yet an interview with a C.P.C. rep. called what they’re predicting “climate”, talked about these natural influences on it, and (since climate-as-in-30+-years is not their purview, thus is likely not on their intellectual radar) made no mention (caveat: that I noticed) of GHGs or other human influences (or of the likely changes we should expect) on climate in the decades to come.
So anyone casually listening just hears “climate” associated with “natural cycles, natural variability”.
IMO this overloading of the term “climate”, without disambiguation, is a problem that needs addressing, at least in taxpayer-funded outreach. And while I can email the CPC folk (& have done so) asking what outreach policy they have that ensures they don’t create public confusion between short & long term climate change (and the different causes and magnitudes of the two), still I’m just one person. If they hear it from an organization, it’s more likely to have positive results.)
(sorry for initial confusion; I hope that’s clearer)
BPL,
For what reason(s) do you expect world harvests to fail by then? I am always suspect of this claim, as I have heard it many times in the past decades.
“religious attitudes to contraception are completely off-topic here. Please no more on this” – editorial response to my #253
For future information, is human demography as a whole regarded as OT on the “Unforced Variations” threads? I realise it’s not climate science, but it is highly relevant both to projections of GHG emissions, and to climate change impacts.
Dan H. @276
I suggest you reappraise your understanding of “…what most scientists claim.” A difference in resultant warming (eg in climate sensitivity) of one degree celsius makes a big difference to climatic outcomes (and gives ample room for alarm). But your talk of a 1 or 2 degree “temperature rise” – that is denialist speak. And do remind me which are the scientists arguing for a sensitvity of 1.8 (assume dec C)?
“Most scientists” can be equated to the IPCC which gives the headline sensitivity as 3 deg C with a likely range of 1.5-4.5 deg C and higher outcomes not ruled out.
Thus, given that a 1 deg C difference in sensitivity makes a big difference, the ‘alarm’ engendered in the message of the IPCC (and thus “most scientists”) is considerable. Either Dan H. fails to appreciate this point or he is referring to media the likes of which is unknown to me.
I gave an example of the media inbalance I experience @274. Baron Blaby is of the view that overall AGW is beneficial and where it does cause potential harm, adaption measures will prevail. Spending our hard-earned money cutting CO2 emissions will stop us spending money fighting terrorists and famine in Africa. And why should we spend our money when the future world will be so much richer than us and be well positioned to afford any expensive adaption measure that may turn out to be required. So says Blaby.
That is the measure of the lunatic inviited onto a prestigious BBC radio programme. Dan H. – who (or what view) would you see as providing balance when Blaby (or some other GWPF creature) is in the studeo?
MA
Since I said that a 1 degree difference is “huge,” how does that fail to appreciate the difference? I do not know to what “denialist speak” you are referring.
BPL has a list of publications concerning climate sensitivity. You can check it out:
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ClimateSensitivity.html
I disagree with your statement that most scientists can be equated with the IPCC, etc.
Just like in politics, where many on the left and right think that most people think like they do, and therefore, do not consider themselves to be on the extreme, those scientists on either extreme, do not view themselves as such.
Just like in politics, where many on the left and right think that most people think like they do, and therefore, do not consider themselves to be on the extreme, those scientists on either extreme, do not view themselves as such.
Just like in science, since you haven’t properly defined and quantified ‘left’, ‘right’ and ‘extreme’, I find it difficult to take you seriously.
Dan H. @292
You say @276 that “Neither the denialist wing nor the alarmist wing are anywhere near what most scientists claim.” and @292 “I disagree with your statement that most scientists can be equated with the IPCC, etc.”
These ‘most scientists’ of yours: far from the wings but not with the IPCC. So where are they all? Perhaps you could express your answer it terms of climate sensitivity (as that is easy to express succinctly and introduced into this topic by yourself @276).
Thomas,
The political left and right are already properly defined. However, if you need a refresher, here is a nice summary.
http://www.infographicsblog.com/left-vs-right-david-mccandless-stefanie-posavec/#more-183
Dan H. says:
BPL,
For what reason(s) do you expect world harvests to fail by then? I am always suspect of this claim, as I have heard it many times in the past decades.
Dan H.- that sounds like interesting reading. Can you link to any peer-reviewed papers from prior decades that predict world harvest failures because of climate change?
New topic – why no comments on Observed changes in top-of-the-atmosphere radiation and upper-ocean heating consistent within uncertainty
Hmmm
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/features/news/20120125p2a00m0na020000c.html
Dan H:
“… scientists think that the difference between a 1 and 2 degree temperature rise is huge …. whether the climate sensitivity is 1.8 or 2.7 ….”
Dan H:
“I said that a 1 degree difference is ‘huge,’ … I do not know to what ‘denialist speak’ you are referring.
Yes, you do know. You’re getting smoother and slicker in presenting the talking points, the more people try to help you. Getting what you want here?
Very interesting paper, may be of interesting in light of Stefan’s work.
“Reconciling two approaches to attribution of the 2010 Russian heat wave”
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2011GL050422.shtml
Apologies for the slight incoherence in the above post. It’s late here!