I don’t know how ‘informed’ my opinion is, but I’ve visited a number of times and found it useful. It’s more technical than RC, so you have to be prepared for that; my forays there were mostly around back-radiation. SOD did a multi-part series on that that went pretty far into the technical ‘weeds’. Comments were–interesting.
Chuck Hughessays
Why no comments here about the Pope? Upstaged? His comments on AGW are not new, but the recent publicity, associated with his USA visit, is very important.
Comment by t marvell — 24 Sep 2015
RC already did a piece on the Pope’s Encyclical “Heaven Belongs to us All” down thread. Pope Francis I believe, has shamed the GOP deniers already. Bohner’s resignation today indicates to me that he has no control over the Teapublicans in Congress and he’s tired of the fight. If Loui Gohmert ascends to the position of Speaker, all bets are off. Having said that I think President Obama is through dealing with the GOP.
This next election cycle will tell the story along with the Paris Summit in December as to what happens on the Climate Change front. I can’t think of a GOP candidate for President who accepts the science of Climate Change. At least one member of the GOP is starting to sound like Adolph Hitler to me but instead of the Jews, this time it’s the Hispanic population that are the cause of all our misery. And I suspect that soon they’ll be migrating Northward as climate refugees, much like what’s happening in Europe now. Just a guess tho.
I posted a video above of what some in the TEAPublican party think of this Pope. You should watch it.
Thomas O'Reillysays
#200 Rafael Garcia
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” – Aldous Huxley
That and, a troll is a troll is a troll – nothing will ever change that either.
Pete Bestsays
Lets talk about our doom (sorry about this again) but Kevin Anderson speaks again on our carbon present and future
Re 195 the writer was probably right not to mention global warming. After all confusing weather and climate is something deniers are usually criticised for. Mention would have opened the writer for criticism especially as it happened in a part of the World where droughts and wild fires are fairly common.
Yeah, that’s a real “pick-me-up” of a story there. I wonder if there’s a transcript of that presentation somewhere. He has a heavy British accent and talks fast. I’m from the South. Some of the details of what he’s saying are a bit hard to understand for me, other than we’re pretty well finished.
I wonder when the food fights will start in earnest?
Harvey Moseleysays
I see the results from Spencer’s satellite data, which I think is supposed to be measuring the troposphere. I recall earlier that there were some issues, and the temperatures they were measuring had a significant stratospheric contribution, and were biased significantly on the cool side. Are there model predictions that provide an expected tropospheric temperature given the observed amount of surface warming? It seems that there is an entire community which latches onto the Spencer data as if they imply that there is no surface warming. This is obviously incorrect, since his temperatures exist in a world where significant surface warming is occurring. It would be helpful if someone could provide info on what relationship we expect to see between these data sets.
Does anybody have an informed opinion on the “Science of Doom” website? Thanks.
SoD appears to be one of the few climate-related blogs that is well regarded by both genuine and pseudo skeptics. My own experience is limited to a post last February, titled The Holocaust, Climate Science and Proof. It was chiefly a mathematical presentation of the physics underpinning the scientific consensus for AGW. When finished, the blogger said:
I thought about putting a photo of the Holocaust from a concentration camp next to a few pages of mathematical equations – to make a point. But that would be truly awful.
That would trivialize the memory of the terrible suffering of millions of people under one of the most evil regimes the world has seen.
And that, in fact, is my point.
I can’t find words to describe how I feel about the apologists for the Nazi regime, and those who deny that the holocaust took place. The evidence for the genocide is overwhelming and everyone can understand it.
He then made this astonishing observation:
On the other hand, those who ascribe the word ‘denier’ to people not in agreement with consensus climate science are trivializing the suffering and deaths of millions of people. Everyone knows what this word means. It means people who are apologists for those evil jackbooted thugs who carried the swastika and cheered as they sent six million people to their execution.
The concluding paragraphs were only slightly mollifying:
By comparison, understanding climate means understanding maths, physics and statistics. This is hard, very hard. It’s time consuming, requires some training (although people can be self-taught), actually requires academic access to be able to follow the thread of an argument through papers over a few decades – and lots and lots of dedication.
The worst you could say is people who don’t accept ‘consensus climate science’ are likely finding basic – or advanced – thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer and statistics a little difficult and might have misunderstood, or missed, a step somewhere.
The best you could say is with such a complex subject straddling so many different disciplines, they might be entitled to have a point.
If you have no soul and no empathy for the suffering of millions under the Third Reich, keep calling people who don’t accept consensus climate science ‘deniers’.
In the comments, he was warmly thanked by some well-known apologists for AGW denial, but was roundly criticized by climate realists, who pointed out that almost nobody who describes a pseudoskeptic of climate science as a “denier” is making an association with “Holocaust-denier”. To his credit, he responded by walking back the association:
From the many comments, not just this one by MikeH, it looks like I was wrong…Perhaps most people using the term ‘d..r’ are simply trying to say ‘you are denying basic science’ and would be horrified to find that most/some/a few recipients of said term associate it with people who deny the Holocaust took place.
Naturally, the discussion didn’t stop there. It was pointed out that “people who don’t accept ‘consensus climate science’ are likely finding basic – or advanced – thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer and statistics a little difficult” is far from the worst you could say about them, since it ignores the well-funded campaign to protect the revenue streams of fossil-fuel investors by deliberately spreading disinformation about AGW. Nor should it be said that “with such a complex subject straddling so many different disciplines, they might be entitled to have a point“, since a true skeptic acknowledges that although she may not be competent in climate science, there may be people who are, and that an argument isn’t necessarily wrong just because she doesn’t understand it. Mere scientific ignorance most certainly doesn’t justify truculent adherence to sciency-sounding objections that are “not even wrong”, arguments from consequences and other obvious logical fallacies, or the preposterous notion that AGW is a conspiracy enlisting thousands of scientists over two centuries.
This blog will try and stay away from guessing motives and insulting people because of how they vote or their religious beliefs.
IMHO, the best you can say about AGW-deniers is that they are in denial in the specialized vocabulary of Psychology:
In which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.
AGW-deniers who complain about being compared to Holocaust-deniers are really just insulted at having their denial called out. Speaking for myself, they’re getting that much right. When I call someone an AGW-denier, I want them to understand that while AGW-denial isn’t the same as Holocaust-denial, that doesn’t make it any more respectable, regardless of their true motives.
There are actually two, I believe: Jon Kasich of Ohio and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. I don’t think either has a real shot, so it’s kind of moot, but hey, I thought it was worth saying for the record. (And, inveterate optimist that I am, I think we’ll see a much higher percentage in 2020. I suppose that it’s also worth mentioning that Kasich wants clean coal and is concerned about the economic effects of mitigation.)
Several others, including Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina, have waffled. Here’s what CBS has on the question, for those who care (if any):
Dears Stefan and Mike. Hi. Aren’t you guys writing a post on the AMOC …Comment by Rafael Garcia
In the upper right corner of the page is a white rectangle labeled “Search” — below that pick the left button titled “Site” and type
AMOC
into the white rectangle and hit Enter. That will find the recent post discussing the AMOC and cold spot in the Atlantic that you’re looking for.
If their Rover camera optics is really really good, with very high resolution capacities, if they can zoom the horizon without moving at all for 24 hours, they will detect permafrost instantly. They might want to go on a mound or hill to have a better chance, because the rovers don’t have telescopes on board.
Edward Greischsays
209 Mal Adapted: There is no trivializing of the Nazi holocaust in saying that GW is a holocaust. GW will kill 1000 times as many people, and starvation is not a pleasant way to die. By the way, the total deaths by genocide in the 20th century was 144 million, not 6.5 million. 4.5% died in the nazi holocaust. The GW denialists are murdering people just as surely as the nazis did, and they know it.
List of papers predicting worldwide famine due to Global Warming between 2022 and 2040. We humans will probably be extinct by 2040.
“It’s now believed that drought and crop failures and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria, which descended into civil war in the heart of the Middle East,” Obama said.
Mark Levy, a national security consultant who teaches at Columbia University, says Obama’s reference to the link between climate change and international instability is an understatement.”
Thank you, President Obama and Mark Levy.
“I think a more accurate portrayal would be that the evidence is now overwhelming that climate change is responsible for a significant amount of the political violence that’s taking place around the world, however there’s uncertainty about the exact relative magnitude………”
continues.
#206 Edward Greisch:
There are obvious parallels.
But the most difficult part of the case against Exxon will be proof of damages … because the greatest effects of their malfeasance won’t be felt for many years. Compare this to the visibility of health effects of tobacco.
Exxon has the best attorneys money can buy. They have probably advised the Exxon managers that they have a good 20 years to buy politicians to pass favorable laws; to loot and despoil the planet; to amass vast wealth and gated citadels; and to devise complex asset protection strategies.
Mal Adapted: There is no trivializing of the Nazi holocaust in saying that GW is a holocaust. GW will kill 1000 times as many people, and starvation is not a pleasant way to die… The GW denialists are murdering people just as surely as the nazis did, and they know it.
I most certainly agree, and I’m puzzled that SoD doesn’t acknowledge that. It’s still fallacious, however, to insist that “denial” must always imply “Holocaust denial”, as if the Nazi Holocaust is the only unpleasant reality that can be denied.
Edward Greischsays
218 S.B. Ripman: In 20 years, civilization will have collapsed. GW is killing people NOW, but only 1/3 million people per year. We have plenty of proof of future damages. When being shot at, you can’t wait until you are dead to fight back. True that the legal system is nonsense. Tell the president to apply RICO immediately.
Victorsays
#216 (et al.)
“Here we show that the previously reported increase in global drought is overestimated because the PDSI uses a simplified model of potential evaporation that responds only to changes in temperature and thus responds incorrectly to global warming in recent decades. More realistic calculations, based on the underlying physical principles that take into account changes in available energy, humidity and wind speed, suggest that there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.”
In the Kevin Anderson talk, that Pete Best linked to, KA mentions discussions he had with Gavin, at that same event, about (I think) the possibility of making the necessary reductions to stay within 2C. I wonder if Gavin has any comments on that? I assume that Gavin thinks it is possible to make the necessary reductions (and Kevin talks about budgets for only a 66%-33% chance of staying within 2C), is that right? And, if so, would that be for a 66% chance or a 33% chance of staying within 2C and would that be commensurate with economic growth?
S.B. Ripmansays
#221 Edward Greisch:
It would be a huge undertaking for the DOJ to bring a RICO case against Exxon. They would face a team of the best lawyers on the planet. They would have to prove all the elements of the crime, including injury and causation, beyond a reasonable doubt. They would have to show a connection between the flooding caused by Sandy and Exxon’s contributions to the Heartland Institute. They would have to show that the California draught wouldn’t have happened without Exxon’s decision to bury the results of their own scientific research.
It’s a very tough one. Particularly in this political climate. Your typical jury has a disproportionate number of senior citizens. And a disproportionate number of Republicans. If you were the Attorney General, with a limited budget, and with plenty of other urgent matters on your plate, would you be willing to devote tremendous resources to such a case?
Counting on the legal system to mete out global warming justice is not advisable. Working to install informed elected officials, and other forms of political action, are far more likely to produce results.
SecularAnimistsays
Related to earlier discussion —
On September 1 a number of scientists, led by Jagadish Shukla of George Mason University, wrote to President Obama, Attorney General Lynch, and OSTP Director Holdren, endorsing Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s call for “a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change…”
Their letter cites the 1999-2006 RICO investigation that “played an important role in stopping the tobacco industry from continuing to deceive the American people about the dangers of smoking.”
The full text of the letter with the list of signatories can be found at the link below.
V 222: From “Little change in global drought over the past 60 years,” by Justin Sheffield, Eric F. Wood & Michael L. Roderick. As published in NATURE, Nov. 2012.
BPL: Yes, but 3 years later I showed he was wrong:
From EOS v. 88 n. 18, May 2007, by Christopher W. Landsea, NOAA National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center, Miami, Florida – Counting Atlantic Tropical Cyclones Back to 1900:
“This article will show . . . that improved monitoring over recent years is responsible for most, if not all, of the observed trend in increasing frequency of tropical cyclones. . . . Thus large, long term ‘trends’ in tropical cyclone frequency are primarily manifestations of increased monitoring capabilities and likely not related to any real change in the climate from which they develop . . .”
From the Washington Post, April 2015, “What’s driving our major hurricane landfall drought? Study says it’s just dumb luck” http:// http://www.washingtonpost.com/ blogs/ capital-weather-gang/ wp/ 2015/ 04/ 30/ whats-driving-our-major-hurricane-landfall-drought-study-says-its-just-dumb-luck/
. It has been nearly a decade since the last major hurricane, category 3 or stronger, has made landfall in the United States. That’s not to say that we haven’t seen any strong or destructive storms — hurricanes Ike in 2008 and Sandy in 2012, for example — but in terms of brute tropical strength washing ashore, the coastal United States has been extremely, even historically, lucky. . . .
the last time a major hurricane made landfall in the United States was Hurricane Wilma in the record-setting season of 2005, when it roared ashore in southwest Florida as a category 3 with powerful sustained winds of 120 mph. But since then, it’s been a quiet decade on the major hurricane front. Although the landfall record gets muddy before the early 20th century, this is the first time since hurricane record-keeping began in 1851 that the United States has gone so long without at least a category 3 landfall. The previous streak was eight years, from 1861 to 1868.
Victorsays
From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), 2013, Historical Records and Trends:
With increased National Doppler radar coverage, increasing population, and greater attention to tornado reporting, there has been an increase in the number of tornado reports over the past several decades. This can create a misleading appearance of an increasing trend in tornado frequency. . . . The bar charts below indicate there has been little trend in the frequency of the stronger tornadoes over the past 55 years.”
The Nature article Victor links above should be worth reading, along with the accompanying and citing articles.
In the present study, this is investigated using a revised Palmer Drought Severity Index dataset (sc_PDSI_pm). We find that the effect of ENSO on dry–wet changes varies with the PDO phase. When in phase with the PDO, ENSO-induced dry–wet changes are magnified with respect to the canonical pattern. When out of phase, these dry–wet variations weaken or even disappear. This remarkable contrast in ENSO’s influence between the two phases of the PDO highlights exciting new avenues for obtaining improved global climate predictions….
…
… The dynamics of the PDO remains very complex and climate models can’t predict the future evolution of the PDO, especially the shift from one PDO phase to another. Even in the absence of a theoretical understanding, the PDO signal improves the climate forecasts combined with ENSO for different regions of the world ….
…
… the increased risk of ever-worsening drought in the US will persist in the coming decades, implying that the American drought is not likely to ease until the interdecadal PDO returns to a warm phase. Over the past decade, China has also experienced a dry–wet pattern turnaround — the pattern of “southern flood and northern drought” has become “southern drought and northern flood” — which seems likely to continue for another decade. Countries in southern Africa will experience rainfall and suffer more floods, and the semi-arid climate in the Sahel region will be abated. Central and southwest Asia will experience a persistent drought in the coming decades. In addition, floods and abnormally high rainfall are more likely in India, from the Indonesian islands to eastern Australia, and in equatorial South America. Meanwhile, southern Brazil and Uruguay have been prone to drought in recent decades. All of these effects of ENSO on global dry–wet changes as the interdecadal PDO enters a cold phase should be taken seriously in the coming decades, especially over the fragile dryland regions….
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep06651
Combined effects of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and El Niño-Southern Oscillation on Global Land Dry–Wet Changes
Scientific Reports 4, Article number: 6651 (2014)
doi:10.1038/srep06651
Kevin Anderson makes the point that politicians will not accept sacrificing the benefits of economic growth and rising prosperity to keep global average temperature rise close to 2C.
All those who are comparing global warming to the Nazi holocaust are not helpful. The analogy is weak and, to a bystander, looks like an exaggeration.
Best to stick to a close analogy – tobacco and cancer. Same dynamics: the scientific community vs. business interests. Same tactics: saying the case for damage is speculative. Same time line: the effect shows up decades later.
Mike Roddysays
Mike, I’m glad you’re keeping your sense of fun, we all need it these days. The media is a huge problem, especially TV and radio. Asking FCC for a redo won’t change things any more than repealing Citizens United would stop corporations from buying Congress.
We need to name and shame villainous corporations such as Exxon and Koch via product boycotts. This is a proven tactic, well executed by Rainforest Action Network years ago, but today’s “green” outfits are mostly cowed or bought. We need to revive this form of attack.
On another note, I’m working on a new Global Warming Museum in the Bay Area, probably Berkeley. It will include prints of German Expressionist artists like Ernst, Grosz, Dix, and Beckmann. They didn’t stop Hitler, but they bore witness. We still have a chance to persuade people to stop talking about peaking in 2040 and getting off fossil fuels in 2100. That’s another way of writing humans’ obituaries.
The museum will include a theater, edgy sculptures, a 3D sea level rise exhibit (showing San Pablo Bay inundation at 1M SLR), and much else. Interested parties can email me, mike.greenframe@gmail.com
Tony Weddlesays
Regarding the US hurricane landfall drought, hurricane Joaquin may bring that to an end.
Edward Greischsays
235 t marvell: The analogy is not weak and the bystander doesn’t get it. The bystander won’t get it until he walks into a grocery store and finds no groceries. There is nothing we can do about that. The smoking analogy is weak because smoking is avoidable. Famine is not avoidable.
Network scientists have discovered how social networks can create the illusion that something is common when it is actually rare
Lauren Weinstein
Mon, 28 Sep 2015 12:00:47 -0700
Today, we get an insight into why this happens thanks to the work of
Kristina Lerman and pals at the University of Southern California. These
people have discovered an extraordinary illusion associated with social
networks which can play tricks on the mind and explain everything from why
some ideas become popular quickly to how risky or antisocial behavior can
spread so easily.
Victorsays
My apologies if this has already gone through, but something went wrong, so I’m giving it another try:
#227 BPL, with all due respect, your paper is concerned with predicting the future (always a dicey effort) while the Sheffield paper evaluates what’s happened in the past. Also, I’m sorry but a couple sentences expressing disagreement over a technical issue is hardly a refutation.
Certain weather and climate extremes, such as more frequent or severe floods and droughts, are predicted to be more likely with climate change. However, the role of climate change in this drought is uncertain. Conditions have been as bad, or worse, than the current drought numerous times in our instrumental record, maintained by NOAA. According to the recent IPCC (2012) report on extreme events and disasters, there is medium confidence that some regions of the world have witnessed more intense and longer droughts, but in some regions including central North America, droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter in duration since about 1950. Conditions over the Great Plains and Midwest have been as bad, or worse, than the current drought numerous times in our instrumental record.
Françoissays
This really should be a topic for this coming month’s thread…
UAH, RSS give us temperatures for the “lower troposphere”. Actually, no : they are not temperatures, but something which is inferred from irradiance, we get anomalies, but with no relation to any absolute figures. GISSTP’s LOTI states that the “best estimate” for a yearly temperature is 14°C, within the referenced thirty year’s base.
The question is : what is the base reference temperature of the above-mentionned “anomalies”, and what is the “global lower troposphere” mean temperature; is is a mean temperature for the whole world (the atmosphere from mean sea level or just above ground, upto 12 000 m high (the jet stream area, where temperatures are usually in the -50°).
Another strange thing : the huge difference in anomalies (several dozens .°C, when on would intuitively, think there is some inertia in the system.
HadCRUT4 has posted for August 2015 with the hottest August on record, it also being the 3rd hottest anomaly of any month on record and all 2015 months are top 20 anomalies on record. “Mucho scorchio!!!”
Wow: the tactic of making a claim, and giving a citation to a science paper that doesn’t support the claim made, as done by four consultants for the coal industry — called out in clear simple language
RESPONSE TO DR. ROY SPENCER
RESPONSE TO DR. RICHARD LINDZEN
RESPONSE TO DR. WILLIAM HAPPER
RESPONSE TO DR. RICHARD TOL
Hat tip to Gavin on Twitter for the pointer to this one
AGU Global Biochemical Cycles
Research Article
Explicitly representing soil microbial processes in Earth system models
doi: 10.1002/2015GB005188
Abstract
Microbes influence soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition and the long-term stabilization of carbon ( C ) in soils. We contend that by revising the representation of microbial processes and their interactions with the physicochemical soil environment, Earth system models (ESMs) will make more realistic global C cycle projections. Explicit representation of microbial processes presents considerable challenges …. We present a roadmap for how to begin building, applying, and evaluating reliable microbial-explicit model formulations that can be applied in ESMs. …. With contributions across scientific disciplines, we feel this roadmap can advance our fundamental understanding of soil biogeochemical dynamics and more realistically project likely soil C response to environmental change at global scales.
“Does anybody have an informed opinion on the “Science of Doom” website?”
Thanks. – See more at: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/09/unforced-variations-sept-2015/comment-page-4/#comment-636072
I don’t know how ‘informed’ my opinion is, but I’ve visited a number of times and found it useful. It’s more technical than RC, so you have to be prepared for that; my forays there were mostly around back-radiation. SOD did a multi-part series on that that went pretty far into the technical ‘weeds’. Comments were–interesting.
Why no comments here about the Pope? Upstaged? His comments on AGW are not new, but the recent publicity, associated with his USA visit, is very important.
Comment by t marvell — 24 Sep 2015
RC already did a piece on the Pope’s Encyclical “Heaven Belongs to us All” down thread. Pope Francis I believe, has shamed the GOP deniers already. Bohner’s resignation today indicates to me that he has no control over the Teapublicans in Congress and he’s tired of the fight. If Loui Gohmert ascends to the position of Speaker, all bets are off. Having said that I think President Obama is through dealing with the GOP.
This next election cycle will tell the story along with the Paris Summit in December as to what happens on the Climate Change front. I can’t think of a GOP candidate for President who accepts the science of Climate Change. At least one member of the GOP is starting to sound like Adolph Hitler to me but instead of the Jews, this time it’s the Hispanic population that are the cause of all our misery. And I suspect that soon they’ll be migrating Northward as climate refugees, much like what’s happening in Europe now. Just a guess tho.
I posted a video above of what some in the TEAPublican party think of this Pope. You should watch it.
#200 Rafael Garcia
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” – Aldous Huxley
That and, a troll is a troll is a troll – nothing will ever change that either.
Lets talk about our doom (sorry about this again) but Kevin Anderson speaks again on our carbon present and future
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF1zNpzf8RM
have fun watching
Re 195 the writer was probably right not to mention global warming. After all confusing weather and climate is something deniers are usually criticised for. Mention would have opened the writer for criticism especially as it happened in a part of the World where droughts and wild fires are fairly common.
191 S.B. Ripman: Thank you. It should work then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF1zNpzf8RM
have fun watching
Comment by Pete Best — 26 Sep 2015
Yeah, that’s a real “pick-me-up” of a story there. I wonder if there’s a transcript of that presentation somewhere. He has a heavy British accent and talks fast. I’m from the South. Some of the details of what he’s saying are a bit hard to understand for me, other than we’re pretty well finished.
I wonder when the food fights will start in earnest?
I see the results from Spencer’s satellite data, which I think is supposed to be measuring the troposphere. I recall earlier that there were some issues, and the temperatures they were measuring had a significant stratospheric contribution, and were biased significantly on the cool side. Are there model predictions that provide an expected tropospheric temperature given the observed amount of surface warming? It seems that there is an entire community which latches onto the Spencer data as if they imply that there is no surface warming. This is obviously incorrect, since his temperatures exist in a world where significant surface warming is occurring. It would be helpful if someone could provide info on what relationship we expect to see between these data sets.
Thanks,
H
Shelama:
SoD appears to be one of the few climate-related blogs that is well regarded by both genuine and pseudo skeptics. My own experience is limited to a post last February, titled The Holocaust, Climate Science and Proof. It was chiefly a mathematical presentation of the physics underpinning the scientific consensus for AGW. When finished, the blogger said:
He then made this astonishing observation:
The concluding paragraphs were only slightly mollifying:
In the comments, he was warmly thanked by some well-known apologists for AGW denial, but was roundly criticized by climate realists, who pointed out that almost nobody who describes a pseudoskeptic of climate science as a “denier” is making an association with “Holocaust-denier”. To his credit, he responded by walking back the association:
Naturally, the discussion didn’t stop there. It was pointed out that “people who don’t accept ‘consensus climate science’ are likely finding basic – or advanced – thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer and statistics a little difficult” is far from the worst you could say about them, since it ignores the well-funded campaign to protect the revenue streams of fossil-fuel investors by deliberately spreading disinformation about AGW. Nor should it be said that “with such a complex subject straddling so many different disciplines, they might be entitled to have a point“, since a true skeptic acknowledges that although she may not be competent in climate science, there may be people who are, and that an argument isn’t necessarily wrong just because she doesn’t understand it. Mere scientific ignorance most certainly doesn’t justify truculent adherence to sciency-sounding objections that are “not even wrong”, arguments from consequences and other obvious logical fallacies, or the preposterous notion that AGW is a conspiracy enlisting thousands of scientists over two centuries.
SoD’s blogging position is:
IMHO, the best you can say about AGW-deniers is that they are in denial in the specialized vocabulary of Psychology:
AGW-deniers who complain about being compared to Holocaust-deniers are really just insulted at having their denial called out. Speaking for myself, they’re getting that much right. When I call someone an AGW-denier, I want them to understand that while AGW-denial isn’t the same as Holocaust-denial, that doesn’t make it any more respectable, regardless of their true motives.
#200 Rafael Garcia:
Regarding the topic you mention, there’s an intriguing article by Jim Hansen and his associate at: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2015/20150921_IceMeltPredictions.pdf
“I can’t think of a GOP candidate for President who accepts the science of Climate Change.”
– See more at: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/09/unforced-variations-sept-2015/comment-page-5/#comment-636114
There are actually two, I believe: Jon Kasich of Ohio and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. I don’t think either has a real shot, so it’s kind of moot, but hey, I thought it was worth saying for the record. (And, inveterate optimist that I am, I think we’ll see a much higher percentage in 2020. I suppose that it’s also worth mentioning that Kasich wants clean coal and is concerned about the economic effects of mitigation.)
Several others, including Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina, have waffled. Here’s what CBS has on the question, for those who care (if any):
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/where-the-2016-republican-candidates-stand-on-climate-change/
In the upper right corner of the page is a white rectangle labeled “Search” — below that pick the left button titled “Site” and type
AMOC
into the white rectangle and hit Enter. That will find the recent post discussing the AMOC and cold spot in the Atlantic that you’re looking for.
hi guys,
what’s your take on this issue?
http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2015/09/25/climate-change-brings-more-pests-weeds-disease-the-arctic-shows-this-right-now/
Cool stuff on Mars which has a lot to do with Arctic or Antarctic geophysics minus the thinner atmosphere:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/28/nasa-scientists-find-evidence-flowing-water-mars
I suggest the NASA guys to literally look carefully with cameras from present rovers at the horizon in order to detect the presence of permafrost:
http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/2015/04/how-to-find-underground-frozen-water-on_25.html
If their Rover camera optics is really really good, with very high resolution capacities, if they can zoom the horizon without moving at all for 24 hours, they will detect permafrost instantly. They might want to go on a mound or hill to have a better chance, because the rovers don’t have telescopes on board.
209 Mal Adapted: There is no trivializing of the Nazi holocaust in saying that GW is a holocaust. GW will kill 1000 times as many people, and starvation is not a pleasant way to die. By the way, the total deaths by genocide in the 20th century was 144 million, not 6.5 million. 4.5% died in the nazi holocaust. The GW denialists are murdering people just as surely as the nazis did, and they know it.
List of papers predicting worldwide famine due to Global Warming between 2022 and 2040. We humans will probably be extinct by 2040.
Study Predicts Impending Collapse Of Industrial Civilization
http://upriser.com/posts/study-predicts-impending-collapse-of-industrial-civilization
Scientific Model Indicates Climate Change-Induced Collapse of Civilization by 2040
http://planetsave.com/2015/06/25/climate-change-induced-collapse-of-civilization-by-2040-reports-uk-foreign-office/
Extreme weather could trigger frequent global food shocks
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28046-extreme-weather-could-trigger-frequent-global-food-shocks/
“Accuracy Check on Predictions of Near-Term Collapse” by Barton Paul Levenson
http://www.ajournal.co.uk/pdfs/BSvolume13(1)/BSVol.13%20(1)%20Article%202.pdf
233 Barton Paul Levenson says:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/03/unforced-variations-march-2015/comment-page-5/#comment-627687
“Food System Shock” Food prices go up 500% by 2030. Lloyd’s of London insurance
http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/files/news%20and%20insight/risk%20insight/2015/food%20system%20shock/food%20system%20shock_june%202015.pdf
“Drought Under Global Warming: a Review” by Aiguo Dai
http://www.atmos.albany.edu/facstaff/adai/
“Preliminary Analysis of a Global Drought Time Series” by Barton Paul Levenson, not yet published, but amended to say 2028.
“Is global warming contributing to the current refugee crisis?”
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-09-27/global-warming-contributing-current-refugee-crisis#comments
“It’s now believed that drought and crop failures and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria, which descended into civil war in the heart of the Middle East,” Obama said.
Mark Levy, a national security consultant who teaches at Columbia University, says Obama’s reference to the link between climate change and international instability is an understatement.”
Thank you, President Obama and Mark Levy.
“I think a more accurate portrayal would be that the evidence is now overwhelming that climate change is responsible for a significant amount of the political violence that’s taking place around the world, however there’s uncertainty about the exact relative magnitude………”
continues.
Re #207
http://slideplayer.com/slide/4222873/
From 2014 but on the same topic
#206 Edward Greisch:
There are obvious parallels.
But the most difficult part of the case against Exxon will be proof of damages … because the greatest effects of their malfeasance won’t be felt for many years. Compare this to the visibility of health effects of tobacco.
Exxon has the best attorneys money can buy. They have probably advised the Exxon managers that they have a good 20 years to buy politicians to pass favorable laws; to loot and despoil the planet; to amass vast wealth and gated citadels; and to devise complex asset protection strategies.
Have to agree with Ed at 215. AGW will also bring mass death to innocent people.
Edward Greisch:
I most certainly agree, and I’m puzzled that SoD doesn’t acknowledge that. It’s still fallacious, however, to insist that “denial” must always imply “Holocaust denial”, as if the Nazi Holocaust is the only unpleasant reality that can be denied.
218 S.B. Ripman: In 20 years, civilization will have collapsed. GW is killing people NOW, but only 1/3 million people per year. We have plenty of proof of future damages. When being shot at, you can’t wait until you are dead to fight back. True that the legal system is nonsense. Tell the president to apply RICO immediately.
#216 (et al.)
“Here we show that the previously reported increase in global drought is overestimated because the PDSI uses a simplified model of potential evaporation that responds only to changes in temperature and thus responds incorrectly to global warming in recent decades. More realistic calculations, based on the underlying physical principles that take into account changes in available energy, humidity and wind speed, suggest that there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.”
From “Little change in global drought over the past 60 years,” by
Justin Sheffield, Eric F. Wood & Michael L. Roderick. As published in NATURE, Nov. 2012. (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/full/nature11575.html)
In the Kevin Anderson talk, that Pete Best linked to, KA mentions discussions he had with Gavin, at that same event, about (I think) the possibility of making the necessary reductions to stay within 2C. I wonder if Gavin has any comments on that? I assume that Gavin thinks it is possible to make the necessary reductions (and Kevin talks about budgets for only a 66%-33% chance of staying within 2C), is that right? And, if so, would that be for a 66% chance or a 33% chance of staying within 2C and would that be commensurate with economic growth?
#221 Edward Greisch:
It would be a huge undertaking for the DOJ to bring a RICO case against Exxon. They would face a team of the best lawyers on the planet. They would have to prove all the elements of the crime, including injury and causation, beyond a reasonable doubt. They would have to show a connection between the flooding caused by Sandy and Exxon’s contributions to the Heartland Institute. They would have to show that the California draught wouldn’t have happened without Exxon’s decision to bury the results of their own scientific research.
It’s a very tough one. Particularly in this political climate. Your typical jury has a disproportionate number of senior citizens. And a disproportionate number of Republicans. If you were the Attorney General, with a limited budget, and with plenty of other urgent matters on your plate, would you be willing to devote tremendous resources to such a case?
Counting on the legal system to mete out global warming justice is not advisable. Working to install informed elected officials, and other forms of political action, are far more likely to produce results.
Related to earlier discussion —
On September 1 a number of scientists, led by Jagadish Shukla of George Mason University, wrote to President Obama, Attorney General Lynch, and OSTP Director Holdren, endorsing Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s call for “a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change…”
Their letter cites the 1999-2006 RICO investigation that “played an important role in stopping the tobacco industry from continuing to deceive the American people about the dangers of smoking.”
The full text of the letter with the list of signatories can be found at the link below.
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2015/09/19/letter-to-president-obama-investigate-deniers-under-rico/
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/emission-reductions/#comment-63810
Good article from attp regarding emissions and what is needed.
V 222: From “Little change in global drought over the past 60 years,” by Justin Sheffield, Eric F. Wood & Michael L. Roderick. As published in NATURE, Nov. 2012.
BPL: Yes, but 3 years later I showed he was wrong:
http://www.ajournal.co.uk/pdfs/BSvolume13(1)/BSVol.13%20(1)%20Article%202.pdf
Tom Toles: https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_250w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2015/09/28/Editorial-Opinion/Images/toles09272015.jpg
From EOS v. 88 n. 18, May 2007, by Christopher W. Landsea, NOAA National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center, Miami, Florida – Counting Atlantic Tropical Cyclones Back to 1900:
“This article will show . . . that improved monitoring over recent years is responsible for most, if not all, of the observed trend in increasing frequency of tropical cyclones. . . . Thus large, long term ‘trends’ in tropical cyclone frequency are primarily manifestations of increased monitoring capabilities and likely not related to any real change in the climate from which they develop . . .”
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea-eos-may012007.pdf
From the Washington Post, April 2015, “What’s driving our major hurricane landfall drought? Study says it’s just dumb luck” http:// http://www.washingtonpost.com/ blogs/ capital-weather-gang/ wp/ 2015/ 04/ 30/ whats-driving-our-major-hurricane-landfall-drought-study-says-its-just-dumb-luck/
. It has been nearly a decade since the last major hurricane, category 3 or stronger, has made landfall in the United States. That’s not to say that we haven’t seen any strong or destructive storms — hurricanes Ike in 2008 and Sandy in 2012, for example — but in terms of brute tropical strength washing ashore, the coastal United States has been extremely, even historically, lucky. . . .
the last time a major hurricane made landfall in the United States was Hurricane Wilma in the record-setting season of 2005, when it roared ashore in southwest Florida as a category 3 with powerful sustained winds of 120 mph. But since then, it’s been a quiet decade on the major hurricane front. Although the landfall record gets muddy before the early 20th century, this is the first time since hurricane record-keeping began in 1851 that the United States has gone so long without at least a category 3 landfall. The previous streak was eight years, from 1861 to 1868.
From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), 2013, Historical Records and Trends:
With increased National Doppler radar coverage, increasing population, and greater attention to tornado reporting, there has been an increase in the number of tornado reports over the past several decades. This can create a misleading appearance of an increasing trend in tornado frequency. . . . The bar charts below indicate there has been little trend in the frequency of the stronger tornadoes over the past 55 years.”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-information/extreme-events/us-tornado-climatology/trends
What do you think about:
http://climatemigration.org.uk/video-presentation-climate-change-and-the-refugee-crisis/
The Nature article Victor links above should be worth reading, along with the accompanying and citing articles.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep06651
Combined effects of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and El Niño-Southern Oscillation on Global Land Dry–Wet Changes
Scientific Reports 4, Article number: 6651 (2014)
doi:10.1038/srep06651
Kevin Anderson makes the point that politicians will not accept sacrificing the benefits of economic growth and rising prosperity to keep global average temperature rise close to 2C.
That is why the equivalent amount of energy to what we currently derive from fossil fuels that <a href=" in turn will keep temperature rise to less than 2C, is the only acceptable answer.
All those who are comparing global warming to the Nazi holocaust are not helpful. The analogy is weak and, to a bystander, looks like an exaggeration.
Best to stick to a close analogy – tobacco and cancer. Same dynamics: the scientific community vs. business interests. Same tactics: saying the case for damage is speculative. Same time line: the effect shows up decades later.
Mike, I’m glad you’re keeping your sense of fun, we all need it these days. The media is a huge problem, especially TV and radio. Asking FCC for a redo won’t change things any more than repealing Citizens United would stop corporations from buying Congress.
We need to name and shame villainous corporations such as Exxon and Koch via product boycotts. This is a proven tactic, well executed by Rainforest Action Network years ago, but today’s “green” outfits are mostly cowed or bought. We need to revive this form of attack.
On another note, I’m working on a new Global Warming Museum in the Bay Area, probably Berkeley. It will include prints of German Expressionist artists like Ernst, Grosz, Dix, and Beckmann. They didn’t stop Hitler, but they bore witness. We still have a chance to persuade people to stop talking about peaking in 2040 and getting off fossil fuels in 2100. That’s another way of writing humans’ obituaries.
The museum will include a theater, edgy sculptures, a 3D sea level rise exhibit (showing San Pablo Bay inundation at 1M SLR), and much else. Interested parties can email me, mike.greenframe@gmail.com
Regarding the US hurricane landfall drought, hurricane Joaquin may bring that to an end.
235 t marvell: The analogy is not weak and the bystander doesn’t get it. The bystander won’t get it until he walks into a grocery store and finds no groceries. There is nothing we can do about that. The smoking analogy is weak because smoking is avoidable. Famine is not avoidable.
Cautionary, as found at comp.risks:
My apologies if this has already gone through, but something went wrong, so I’m giving it another try:
#227 BPL, with all due respect, your paper is concerned with predicting the future (always a dicey effort) while the Sheffield paper evaluates what’s happened in the past. Also, I’m sorry but a couple sentences expressing disagreement over a technical issue is hardly a refutation.
Here’s more on the history, from NIDIS (https://www.drought.gov/drought/content/resources-weekly-drought-update/current-conditions-historical-perspective):
Certain weather and climate extremes, such as more frequent or severe floods and droughts, are predicted to be more likely with climate change. However, the role of climate change in this drought is uncertain. Conditions have been as bad, or worse, than the current drought numerous times in our instrumental record, maintained by NOAA. According to the recent IPCC (2012) report on extreme events and disasters, there is medium confidence that some regions of the world have witnessed more intense and longer droughts, but in some regions including central North America, droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter in duration since about 1950. Conditions over the Great Plains and Midwest have been as bad, or worse, than the current drought numerous times in our instrumental record.
This really should be a topic for this coming month’s thread…
UAH, RSS give us temperatures for the “lower troposphere”. Actually, no : they are not temperatures, but something which is inferred from irradiance, we get anomalies, but with no relation to any absolute figures. GISSTP’s LOTI states that the “best estimate” for a yearly temperature is 14°C, within the referenced thirty year’s base.
The question is : what is the base reference temperature of the above-mentionned “anomalies”, and what is the “global lower troposphere” mean temperature; is is a mean temperature for the whole world (the atmosphere from mean sea level or just above ground, upto 12 000 m high (the jet stream area, where temperatures are usually in the -50°).
Another strange thing : the huge difference in anomalies (several dozens .°C, when on would intuitively, think there is some inertia in the system.
HadCRUT4 has posted for August 2015 with the hottest August on record, it also being the 3rd hottest anomaly of any month on record and all 2015 months are top 20 anomalies on record. “Mucho scorchio!!!”
=41 … 2014 … 9 … +0.589ºC
24 …. 2014 … 10 .. +0.626ºC
104 … 2014 … 11 .. +0.489ºC
22 …. 2014 … 12 .. +0.634ºC
10 …. 2015 … 1 … +0.688ºC
17 …. 2015 … 2 … +0.660ºC
11 …. 2015 … 3 … +0.681ºC
19 …. 2015 … 4 … +0.656ºC
=8 …. 2015 … 5 … +0.696ºC
4 ….. 2015 … 6 … +0.730ºC
=8 …. 2015 … 7 … +0.696ºC
3 ….. 2015 … 8 … +0.740ºC
Wow: the tactic of making a claim, and giving a citation to a science paper that doesn’t support the claim made, as done by four consultants for the coal industry — called out in clear simple language
Hat tip to Gavin on Twitter for the pointer to this one
AGU Global Biochemical Cycles
Research Article
Explicitly representing soil microbial processes in Earth system models
doi: 10.1002/2015GB005188
Abstract
Microbes influence soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition and the long-term stabilization of carbon ( C ) in soils. We contend that by revising the representation of microbial processes and their interactions with the physicochemical soil environment, Earth system models (ESMs) will make more realistic global C cycle projections. Explicit representation of microbial processes presents considerable challenges …. We present a roadmap for how to begin building, applying, and evaluating reliable microbial-explicit model formulations that can be applied in ESMs. …. With contributions across scientific disciplines, we feel this roadmap can advance our fundamental understanding of soil biogeochemical dynamics and more realistically project likely soil C response to environmental change at global scales.