This month’s open thread. Pros and cons of celebrity awareness-raising on climate? The end of the cherry-picking of ‘pauses’ in the satellite data? Continuing impacts of El Niño? Your choice (except for the usual subjects to be avoided…).
Climate science from climate scientists...
For Chuck Hughes, seriously, you seem to misread everything I post so I’m not going further down this rabbit hole. Greenland has fast changes; those are not global, they can’t be global, the physics doesn’t work. Please look at the discussion of this, it’s not new.
Don’t respond to this out of context — read the source and the links you’ll find at this page.
https://fractalplanet.wordpress.com/category/science-doing-it-wrong/
To be clear, since CH maybe didn’t see this:
https://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=10412#comment-225215
I didn’t say _you_ said that, Chuck. I said this is the sort of wild claim I criticize because it defeats the attempt to get people to understand how trends are calculated by focusing on the occasional extreme number, like those illustrated there.
OK? Not about you. Seriously. It’s not about you.
Re 1 regarding https://youtu.be/-T22A7mvJoc
Dr. Anderson is an optimist.
The models that the Paris agreement is based on, assume pulses of CH4, that decay with a half-life 10 years. However, if we look at atmospheric CH4, e.g.,
( http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends_ch4/ ) [CH4] goes up over the last few years, not down. Thus, the climate models assume that we are past peak CH4, when observation says otherwise.
Good climate models would consider the 1.8 ppmv of CH4 as the current equivalent of ~ 160 ppmv of CO2, so that current total greenhouse gas is ~560+ ppmve CO2. That is the reality of greenhouse gas forcing warming the Earth in 2016, and the total amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphser will be greater next year. That warming drives carbon feed-backs, which come faster than expected. Likewise, with this level of forcing, water vapor moves into the atmosphere faster than the models predict, and water vapor is a good greenhouse gas.
The Paris carbon budget is a public relations fiction based bad assumptions used in climate models. The other thing that Feynman said was to always check the assumptions and the math.
On the other hand, Anderson’s discussion of energy efficiency and modern economics is mostly spot on. This is problematic in context of the poor assumptions in the models used to estimate rate of warming and maximum time frames for action.
Chuck, someone is wrong on the internet.
I don’t buy that, at all. It’s not even close to plausible to me, given my current understanding (which is mostly ignorant, of course.) The cost should include everything from source to final long term sinking (which I’m currently feeling is most usefully going to be mineral carbonization [I have no real comprehensive view about it, though.])
Could you cite the “academic studies?” (If they are behind paywalls and if they are truly academic and not corporate, I think I can write the lead authors and ask for a copy with some likely chance at success. So paywall paper citations are fine.)
Thanks,
Jon
Did I hear that right? CNC news from China on PBS said that 34 countries are in the third consecutive year of drought. That would include Syria and South Sudan, and both are in chaos and civil war. 3 consecutive years of drought leads to a “Grapes of Wrath” situation where farmers abandon their farms and wander off. That is the civilization crash from GW that we have been worrying about if the drought continues and grows for decades.
Victor – try https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/03/the-most-common-fallacy-in-discussing-extreme-weather-events/
Perhaps you could point to the where in published science are the claims that you think are mistaken or hyperbole.
At this point given the complete and utter failings of our civilization to curtail the production of fossil CO2, in a few decades our grandchildren will be reduced to thirsty sweaty desert bio-char farmers – ploughing as much carbon into the soil as possible.
Lets face it, notwithstanding a few exceptional and minor adoptions of so called green energy, not only has overall fossil CO2 production continued to rise, but so has the per capita emissions.
Perhaps worse, as anyone with even a plausibly honest training in physics understands, because heat capacity largely sets the time constant for a system to reach thermal equilibrium in response to perturbations, thanks to the enormous heat capacity of the oceans there is already enough baked in perturbation to take us well beyond the safe limits, even if the whole of the human race vanished right this instant. We haven’t even begun to see the impacts of the perturbations we introduced decades ago.
Every leader on this planet is a bold faced liar on this crisis, regardless of their “sustainability” caterwauling. We have taken a tens of millions of years carbon cycle and short circuited it down to a couple of centuries; anyone who doesn’t see how this is an extinction event is an ignorant short-sighted self-serving foolish knave.
Here’s a grand article which talks about the Americas during the transition from pre-Columbian to post-Columbian. Those vast bison herds and Passenger pigeon flocks? Perhaps totally unnatural breakouts as their “managers” died from various European diseases. The Amazon? Maybe an artificial construct. Enjoy:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302445/
————-
BPL: Actually, the US Solar investment program has already made back the initial investment
Richard: So instead of speaking to the subject at hand, you completely change the topic? Why? But since you bring it up, I have no problem with loans, as long as they are either at a reasonably high rate of interest or the taxpayer is given a significant share of the resulting IP.
it really shows your integrity and style when you spout insults based on twisting words into those which were never spoken, eh?
———-
Jon Kirwan: Not in extracting CO2 from the atmosphere.
Richard: Thanks for the info. And to speak for the other side, atmospheric extraction has some points. It can use solar energy, just like plants, but it might be far less water-intensive, and it might be just as untethered. However, as you say, until we mop up flue gas, going after something orders of magnitude lower in concentration isn’t in the cards.
————
Greg Simpson: Ideally, yes. We should concentrate on punishing those who emit carbon. Politically, though, that is difficult.
Richard: Agreed. Sometimes the only option is stupidity since effective and logical options aren’t on the table. That’s why we’re busy buying up Canadian tar shipped via expensive, inefficient, and dangerous rail. As if stopping Keystone did anything but change the method of delivery, much like an addict who eventually injects between her toes. I’d rather see effort put into solutions, such as using a nuclear pile (not a reactor) to melt the bitumen and evaporate all the polluted water that results from the process.
—————
Dan Miller: The way to get these systems deployed on a wide scale is to put a rising price on carbon.
Richard: Therefore, it will only be done once every convoluted scheme has failed. But you falsely accuse Jon. Your investment’s owner’s site specifically states that it is for flue gasses, not atmospheric capture.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-03/aaft-msm030716.php
Schaefer et al. reconstructed the global history of methane sources over the past 35 years …. to run multiple different simulations, the authors found that the best explanation for the beginning of the plateau is a reduction in thermogenic emissions, which include emissions from fossil fuel use, as well as a potential increase in the capacity of natural methane sinks.
As for the end of the plateau and resumed increases in methane levels, this can likely be attributed to biogenic sources. Although the exact biological source cannot be determined, the authors propose that agriculture may be a key contributor, based on the distribution of methane sources.
——-
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-03/ci-gg030816.php
“… human-induced emissions of methane and nitrous oxide from ecosystems overwhelmingly surpass the ability of the land to soak up carbon dioxide emissions, which makes the terrestrial biosphere a contributor to climate change….
March 10, 2016, Nature ….
Co-author Anna Michalak of Carnegie’s Department of Global Ecology remarked, “Typically we think of land as a net ‘sink’ of carbon dioxide. But we found that the sign of the human-induced impact is reversed if we also take into account methane and nitrous oxide.”
“The scientists looked at the so-called biogenic fluxes or flow of the three greenhouse gases on land that were caused by human activities over the last three decades and subtracted out emissions that existed “naturally” during pre-industrial times….”
There is a latent assumption in many of these posts that the fossil fuel industry is just too tough to defeat. In fact, they are a house of cards, held up by $5.3 trillion in annual subsidies worldwide. They are already collapsing via stock valuations and bankruptcies. Eliminate the subsidies and they are out of business.
Solar farms have recently been bid at $.04/kwh, and even less. That’s less than coal and almost anything else. I attended the recent Intersolar last summer, and found that PV’s are currently being made for about $.50 a watt, but the top companies project $.40 or less in a few years. A speaker pitched a robotic thin film plant for $.28. Wind prices are similar.
A commenter here suggested that too much land would be required for solar. This is absurd. Fossil fuel leases in the US total 140 million acres. We could power the entire country with solar on 10 million acres. Standing in the way is mischief on the part of the coal and gas industries, utilities, and the politicians they buy:
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2014/07/mike-roddy-solar-sabotage-in-mojave.html
You scientists need to speak out more forcefully against the fossil fuel companies and meat producers. Some of you are doing so, especially our best, Mann and Hansen. If you united in this fight, we might win it. See you at AGU in December, mike.greenframe@gmail.com
143
Another Merchant of Certainty in search of a safe zone.
@146 Thanks Chuck, that entry got a good laugh out of me, something very hard to come by, when absorbing the current UV. Haven’t even dared to open that White presentation :)
FromTheGallery:
Rrr, can someone point me to a link, which has a nice simple graph like DailyIU @ NSIDC on CH4 ? ESRL is good for CO2, but a bit recalcitrant about Methane.
Which plant matter (GM?) consumes most CO2 over the shortest possible time? Now to permaculture. Dig a trench in unwanted area, put lots of carbon in the trench, like trees and plants, a tanker with untreated sewerage, soil back on top, wait for the rain and the rot, now plant the SuperSuck weed and the moment it grows up, mow it down to feed the next trench.
Can we add something to our cars and/or power stations, which rides along with CO2, but behaves better ?
Victor is a troll. Don’t feed the trolls.
I feel pretty sure that there is nothing to worry about given the way this pretty well-informed group dismisses concerns that might be construed as alarmist or sounding an alarm.
Also, I am sure it sells papers to suggest that there is reason for alarm, but, be that as it may:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/10/dangerous-global-warming-will-happen-sooner-than-thought-study
The Guardian is selling papers interpreting this study:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0149406
CO2 levels yesterday at MLO were 403.49. What could go wrong? Why worry. As George W. Bush suggested, when times get tough, the tough need to go shopping.
SecularAnimist claims: Scientists and engineers who study such questions, that’s who.
Richard: Really? Please provide one quote which states that EVs are superior to combined-cycle biofuel engines. Please do not quote non-combined-cycle claims. I’ll bet you a quarter you won’t find even a hint of such a claim. Give it a try.
But Chuck, Jim White was referring to changes shown in the ice core record, in Greenland. So local changes of 1C per year appear to be possible in Greenland, but what of the world as a whole? Also some work by Wright and Schaller (5 degrees in 13 years), at a different location, was shown to be flawed in it’s interpretation of the timing.
As for the single data point, I suspect that is the “paper” from Malcolm Light that was put up on the Arctic-news blogspot, which used a handful of datapoints (about 5, but from the same short time period) at one station, that were subsequently removed from the record as being erroneous. At the time Light wrote the piece, it was clear that the data were erroneous and were not replicated at any other Arctic location, or anywhere else.
Awareness-raising on climate:
The Advertising Council will not allow awareness-raising on GW according to the book: “Endless Propaganda” by Paul Rutherford, copyright 2000. In order to stop GW, we have to take control of the Advertising Council away from the billionaires. The Advertising Council controls propaganda in the US.
An article published in Science (paywalled) is proposing the recent plateau of atmospheric CH4 levels was started by cuts in emissions probably from FF production but ended by increasing emissions from perhaps agriculture.
Schaefer et al (2016) “A 21st century shift from fossil-fuel to biogenic methane emissions indicated by 13CH4”, Science 10 Mar 2016.
chuck at 145: why assume the unexpected until it actually happens?
in risk management jargon a reasonable person would be inclined to consider the “bad possibilities” per Professor Ross Gaurnat. These are low probability, high impact outcomes that we should consider when setting public policy.
want to know more?
http://www.climatecodered.org/2016/03/climate-risk-and-scientific-reticence.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ClimateCodeRed+%28climate+code+red%29
a lot of bad possibilities that come up and are casually dismissed are the product of reasonable risk management analysis. To identify these bad possibilities with the intention of avoiding the bad possibilities is not to predict their occurrence but to acknowledge the high impact with an eye to setting reasonable public policy.
You can walk across a minefield without setting off a mine. It’s possible. Try it if you think it’s a good idea.
Anyone have time to track down the paper behind this?
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/24/warming-climate-megabeast-deaths/
Ed Yong is a good science journalist, but this National Geographic article has the usual vagueness about whether the abrupt “climate” changes described were global or regional climate events.
—excerpts—-
—–end excerpts——
The cited paper is:
Cooper, Turney, Hughen, Brook, McDonald, Bradshaw. 2015. Abrupt warming events drove Late Pleistocene Holarctic megafaunal turnover. Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aac4315
As always, I recommend people read the cited sources, rather than respond solely on the basis of excerpts I post as quotes here. I’m just trying to find useful information, not argue for any particular interpretation.
Oh, and to save others the trouble, here’s the YEEK! quote from the end of that National Geographic story:
But, yeah, we knew that.
#147 Urs Neu: “Thus, finding record extreme events in the past in certain regions that have not (yet) been surpassed is not at all in contradiction to the discussions about an already possible influence of climate change on the frequency or intensity of current extreme events.”
Thank you, Urs, for your very reasonable response. I can’t argue with anything you’ve written. But I think you may have missed my point. I was not addressing the many legitimate climate studies of the sort you mention, where the possible influence of AGW is objectively assessed, but the many hysterical reports emanating from a variety of sources stridently attempting to convince us that any and all instances of extreme or even harsh weather are due to human induced “climate change” and that we are literally doomed unless we do something about it NOW!!!! And I see many instances of such “thinking” on this blog, yes indeed. If the real scientists posting here are not the ones sounding such alarms, then I see no evidence that they are making any attempt to correct such errors either, which is certainly their responsibility.
My point, in a nutshell, was simply as follows: If any of the past extreme events described in the links I offered were to occur in the near future it seems obvious that, as far as the media are concerned, as far as most liberals are concerned, as far as most if not all government officials all over the world are concerned, certainly not excluding the US President himself, they would certainly and beyond any question be attributed to “climate change.” Whether legitimate climate scientists would or would not concur is almost beside the point, because from past experience I see no evidence that the scientists currently supporting the “consensus” AGW view have ever attempted to set the public straight on such issues. On the contrary, from everything I’ve read, they have done everything possible to fan the flames of hysteria.
PPPS — You don’t need to imagine an abrupt temperature rise at all, for Jim White’s AGU presentation
https://youtu.be/hZdhPnsp4Is
That video is about what we’re already committed to — happening now — with uncertainty about how fast it’s going to happen.
He’s presenting, as he says, what Richard Alley has been telling us for a long time.
This is why reality is plenty scary enough.
Seriously, we don’t need to imagine Greenland suddenly jumping by multiple degrees for sea level rise. It’s already committed.
NOAA says:
The annual growth rate of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose more in 2015 than scientists have ever seen in a single year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday.
It was the fourth year in a row that carbon dioxide concentrations grew by more than 2 parts per million, with an annual growth rate of 3.05 parts per million in 2015. The spike comes in the same year that Earth reached an ominous global warming milestone — scientists last year measured the highest atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide ever recorded.
Dr. Michael Mann, an atmospheric science professor and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, who is unaffiliated with NOAA, said the carbon dioxide milestone shouldn’t be over-interpreted.
“This spike is almost certainly due in substantial part to the ongoing El Niño event, which is a fleeting effect that increases carbon dioxide concentrations temporarily,” Mann said. “Carbon dioxide concentrations are a lagging indicator, and they don’t accurately reflect recent trends in the more important variable — our actual carbon emissions.”
Emissions, he said, have stabilized somewhat in recent years and dropped slightly in 2015, reflecting human progress in transitioning away from a fossil fuel economy, he said.
“Those are the numbers to keep a close eye on,” he said. “If they continue to decline, we will see carbon dioxide concentrations beginning to stabilize.
per http://www.climatecentral.org/news/unprecedented-spike-co2-levels-2015-20125
Questions for Dr. Mann:
1. How accurate do you believe the numbers are for actual carbon emissions? What data are you using to calculate the actual carbon emissions and how do you keep a close eye on the actual carbon emissions?
2. When you look back at the numbers that were accepted as “actual carbon emissions” over any discrete period of time in the past and then factor in the time lag before you see a corresponding change in ppm concentration of CO2, do the estimates of “actual carbon emissions” match well with the MLO CO2 level measurements?
Thanks
comment moderation is moving more slowly than increase in atmospheric CO2 levels.
I know we are all busy, but no comments posted in 30 hours?
Should real climate consider adding a couple more moderators? Maybe some of the cooler heads among the regular readers/commenters?
“realclimatescience”
This sounds like trademark infringement to me. Perhaps you guys might want to file a cease and desist order?
#135, Ed–
“128 Kevin McKinney has violated the rules…”
Don’t think so. My comments were (I think pretty clearly) intended to pull together some relevant points about DAC, which we have been talking about. There was no trolling about Ed’s pet peeves. Perhaps his reactions have become a tad Pavlovian.
“…and intentionally misinterpreted his referenced source.”
There was no intent to misrepresent anything. I request Ed to refrain from baseless accusations.
“The title of Paragraph 7.3 of “Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage” is “Industrial uses of carbon dioxide and its emission reduction potential.” Obviously, a source of energy that does not produce CO2 is excluded from making CO2 for use in an industrial process.”
Obviously, Ed hasn’t bothered to read the section in question before sniping at other commenters. The point of the section is USE of CO2, not GENERATION of CO2.
My point was precisely to note that in considering this report it is important to be aware of their assumption that FF power will be used to supply the process energy needed–particularly as 1) that assumption makes a big difference to the analysis, and 2) it’s explicitly not the intention for some of the methods envisioned.
#155 Jon: Here is a link to a study by Kurt House that says DAC should cost $1000. He is wrong, of course, because he assumes a closed system that does not use free energy from the Earth for cooling or drying, for example.
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/51/20428.abstract
I remind everyone freaking out about CO2 El Nino’s typically will raise CO2 an additional 2ppm over the typical 2.0-2.3-ish rise. Thus, the current 403/404 is still 4 ppm below what we should be expecting this year. Yes, we have seen 406 briefly, but not sustained, but that would be the expected-ish peak this year given we hit 204 last year.
Basically, unless we hit significantly over an 808.3-ish peak, the evidence for a massive CO2 bump is probably pretty meager. Said peak should be in May, BTW, not February or March or April.
I’ll get excited if we approach 409 in May.
What has been interesting, though, are a number of very large excursions (2-3 ppm over several days) that I don’t recall seeing in past years. Caveat: I haven’t typically watched CO2 closely in winter.
Cheers
http://www.climatecodered.org/2016/03/climate-risk-and-scientific-reticence.html
Climate Code Red says: “Beware the “fat tail”: Climate risk and scientific reticence”
“The Syrian conflict was preceded by the worst long-term drought and crop failures since civilisation [sic] began in the region*, resulting in 800,000 people losing their livelihoods by 2009, and 2–3 million being driven into extreme poverty. The eastern Mediterranean has experienced significant deceases in winter rainfall over the past four decades, as illustrated in Figure 2.”
*[https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/report/2013/02/28/54579/the-arab-spring-and-climate-change/ “The Arab Spring and Climate Change”]
“Crime-show devotees will be familiar with the idea of a “stressor”—a sudden change in circumstances or environment that interacts with a complicated psychological profile in a way that leads a previously quiescent person to become violent. The stressor is by no means the only cause of the crimes that ensue, but it is an important factor in a complex set of variables that ultimately lead to disaster.
“The Arab Spring and Climate Change” does not argue that climate change caused the revolutions that have shaken the Arab world over the past two years. But the essays collected in this slim volume make a compelling case that the consequences of climate change are stressors that can ignite a volatile mix of underlying causes that erupt into revolution.”
https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ClimateChangeArabSpring.pdf
“The Arab Spring and Climate Change , A Climate and Security Correlations Series” 2.1 megabytes
Care to help me read the rest?
Richard Caldwell @177,
Could it be the similarity of RealClimate.org – RealClimateScience.com is the reason for sad deluded Steve Goddard (aka Tony Heller) being derided so much by his fellow denialists? Even on the poor man’s Wiki page where you’d expect a modicum of respect you read of Blog Mom Judy Curry calling his work “bogus” and (is this unprecedented given all the tosh the Lord High Willard publishes week after week, indeed once this even included Goddard’s tosh) the Lord High Willard of the planet Wattsupia calls Goddard, a fellow denialist, “wrong!!”
Hank Roberts @170.
The odd thing I note about the National Geographic article you link to is that two of the three researchers quoted Jacquelyn Gill and Beth Shapiro are not part of the publishing team behind the work being described (ie Cooper, Turney, Hughen, Brook, McDonald, Bradshaw (2015). ‘Abrupt warming events drove Late Pleistocene Holarctic megafaunal turnover’.) What I don’t see is Dansgaard–Oeschger events as being vague descriptions of the climatic events involved.
mike says:
11 Mar 2016 at 11:31 AM
chuck at 145: why assume the unexpected until it actually happens?
in risk management jargon a reasonable person would be inclined to consider the “bad possibilities” per Professor Ross Gaurnat. These are low probability, high impact outcomes that we should consider when setting public policy.
want to know more?
I was kidding.
Hank Roberts
I am not in the least bit worried about some runaway methane monster, OMFGWAGD moment or have I ever been, so you don’t need to continue posting links about it. I understood that the scenario wasn’t likely when Dr. Peter Ward explained it several years ago. I am not an “alarmist” when it comes to methane.
As far as Greenland is concerned, I don’t expect to see ocean waves topping the Empire State Building any time soon. I do however think that GAT has the ability to rise much faster than the IPCC predicts. What might cause that to happen I have no idea but I bet there’ll be some CH4 involved. I am also pretty sure we’ll hit 4C before the end of the century which is plenty fast enough for me and it’s not because Guy McFearson said so.
I am simply trying to keep up with the latest and most credible information I can find and doing my best to understand it. That is all. A couple of the links you posted were helpful but telling me ‘it’s not about you’ isn’t. Thanks
Methane, permafrost and rapid climate change
Hank@171,
That is indeed the money quote. People do not fully appreciate the significance of the Holocene stability. Literally everything we associate with human civilization dates from the onset of this stability.
Do people really think that suddenly humans just discovered agriculture and ceased their hunting and gathering ways globally 5-7 thousand years ago. To me, the only explanation I can imagine was that the stability of the climate made agriculture more viable than hunting and gathering–that is, humans could count on bringing in more calories in a sedentary, agricultural society than in a nomadic hunter-gatherer society.
Now imagine the reversal of this trend, but with a human population of around 10-12 billion rather than about 1 million worldwide.
re:172 “Whether legitimate climate scientists would or would not concur is almost beside the point, because from past experience I see no evidence that the scientists currently supporting the “consensus” AGW view have ever attempted to set the public straight on such issues. On the contrary, from everything I’ve read, they have done everything possible to fan the flames of hysteria.”
That is a bald-faced, cowardly lie. And honestly ought to be grounds for expulsion. The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society’s July or August volume supplement contained detailed analyses of specific meteorological events around the world and how much are likely either due to or not due to climate change. And there was considerable media attention to this. You have created a strawman with absolutely zero proof. And the idea that somehow you know something about climate change that every major atmospheric science professional society or thousands of peer-reviewed professionals do not is the height of scientific arrogance and ignorance. Failure to understand the basic science and failure to not being able to read peer-reviewed science to support your anti-science ideas are not grounds to support your position.
BPL: Actually, the US Solar investment program has already made back the initial investment
RC: Richard: So instead of speaking to the subject at hand, you completely change the topic? Why? But since you bring it up, I have no problem with loans, as long as they are either at a reasonably high rate of interest or the taxpayer is given a significant share of the resulting IP.
BPL: You said we shouldn’t be picking winners.
RC: it really shows your integrity and style when you spout insults based on twisting words into those which were never spoken, eh?
BPL: What insults? I can’t find an insult in what I said above. What is wrong with you?
> methane
Leak detection costs money, so does leak prevention and leak closure.
The industry has been managing by finding and stopping leaks that cost them painfully more than the very cheap gas they lost out of the system.
They weren’t counting the externalized cost of their needless contribution to greenhouse gases.
That has to change.
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/11/470040289/u-s-canada-pledge-to-lower-methane-emissions-in-oil-and-gas-sectors
So it’s gonna heat up much faster than previously thought… again. Yet it is taboo to consider the remote possibility that even this estimate may be off by a decade or so?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/10/dangerous-global-warming-will-happen-sooner-than-thought-study
So Hank, let’s see what scientists are predicting 3.75 years from now when the GAT is projected to be 1.5C above pre industrial. We’re bumping 1.5C now… but we know that’s only an “outlier”.
NASA Feb – 135
Chuck, I don’t know who you’re arguing with, but you’ve clearly confused me with someone who disagrees with your point, because you completely fail to understand the point I tried to make.
Something bad could happen: True.
A few unverified data points prove a change in trend: False.
Can you get the distinction I’m trying to make here? I pointed to specific clear examples.
You don’t seem to read them, you just keep saying something bad could happen.
We get that.
Do you get why trend detection is important to understand?
Do you get why statistics is the tool we use to assess whether a trend is detected?
The people you seem to be arguing with are not here.
Nature Geoscience | Perspective
A scientific critique of the two-degree climate change target
Reto Knutti, Joeri Rogelj, Jan Sedláček & Erich M. Fischer
Nature Geoscience 9, 13–18(2016)
doi:10.1038/ngeo2595
Published online 07 December 2015
(para. breaks added for online readability –hr)
——Abstract——-
The world’s governments agreed to limit global mean temperature change to below 2 °C compared with pre-industrial levels in the years following the 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen.
This 2 °C warming target is perceived by the public as a universally accepted goal, identified by scientists as a safe limit that avoids dangerous climate change.
This perception is incorrect: no scientific assessment has clearly justified or defended the 2 °C target as a safe level of warming, and indeed, this is not a problem that science alone can address.
We argue that global temperature is the best climate target quantity, but it is unclear what level can be considered safe.
The 2 °C target is useful for anchoring discussions, but has been ineffective in triggering the required emission reductions; debates on considering a lower target are strongly at odds with the current real-world level of action.
These debates are moot, however, as the decisions that need to be taken now to limit warming to 1.5 or 2 °C are very similar.
We need to agree how to start, not where to end mitigation.
——–end abstract——
Every time we think our armor-plated resident troll might have reached the limits of folly, he boldly goes where no one has gone before. Victor imparts to us his deep concern over hysterical attribution of extreme weather to AGW. Casting a wide net, he blames “most liberals”, as well as “most if not all government officials all over the world, certainly not excluding the US President himself”, for supposing that rising trends in record heatwaves and extreme rainfall events are somehow linked to the rising trend in mean global surface temperatures. Still looking for culprits, he indicts climate scientists for failing to insist that extreme climate cannot be blamed for extreme weather, therefore nothing need be done about AGW now.
There’s no point in rebutting him directly, but this is as good a time as any to raise the topic of attribution. I just downloaded a “pre-publication” of the National Academy Press, Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change, linked by Heidi Cullen in today’s New York Times. I’ve only skimmed it so far, but it’s apparently intended to offer guidelines for scientists. From the preface (my emphasis):
I’d be very interested in knowing what RC contributors make of this document. I hope Tamino blogs about it too!
Here, Chuck. Reality. Scary enough.
Yes, this looks much like the scary charts I’ve complained about from scarebloggers.
What’s the difference?
This is real.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.C.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.E.gif
Interesting that the new attribution report discusses a longer fire season but not how Sandy was out of season. Latitude blindness?
Thanks. The paper is relevant, since I tentatively don’t even believe $1000/ton of atmospheric CO2 sequestered long-term. I’ll assume this is the best you are able to currently find to make your point. I will search out challenges to the paper, if any, and read those as well. Either way this goes, and it will take some time, it will at least hopefully improve my knowledge.
Thanks again,
Jon
It’s reasonable not to get too excited by a single number when considering questions of climate. That said, your comment about looking at May numbers (for Mauna Loa, I assume) also make me now wonder about the measured CO2 at the south pole, where the annual peak to valley variations are relatively small and opposite in sign to those in the northern hemisphere. I’m curious by how much El Nino shows up in those figures. You might also look there to see if that helps you think about things in another way.
Speaking of which, “respiration” has clearly been increasing. This was predicted well before 1990, when I first read about such predictions under a warming globe. George Woodwell, then director of Woods Hole Research Center, was involved as far back as the 1960’s with Richard Houghton and others to study inhalation and exhalation of forests (initially near Brookhaven, NY.) It was noticed as far back as those days that a warming forest respirated with larger annual cycles. The question that hadn’t yet been answered by the time I was reading in 1990, was the sign of the CO2 balance of that respiration. Would it be that increased respiration would yield somewhat more exhalation of CO2 during winter than inhalation of CO2 in the summer? Or? The scary part of it then, for Dr. Woodwell, was that given the magnitude of that respiration (VERY LARGE), even a slight imbalance where winter exhalation exceeded summer inhalation would lead to substantial positive feedbacks in atmospheric CO2.
A factor called “Q10” was created to discuss the increased respiration rates vs average ambient soil temperature. The equation in absolute terms is something like flux = A*Q10^(deltaT/10), where A is some developed constant representing the respiration rate at some calibrated average soil temperature, Q10 is the factor under discussion here, and deltaT is in Kelvin. Reports I saw shortly after 1990, in particular circa 1993 and 1994, were coming up with global temperate forest values for Q10 of approximately 2 to 3. Which suggests increased respiration of about 10% to 12% for a 1C change. This still doesn’t say anything about the net annual sign of CO2.
I haven’t read much since then on the topic and I don’t know if this question has since been refined enough to know the sign. If anyone knows of some good, recent papers on this topic I’d appreciate a clue very much.
Jon
#187 Dan: “The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society’s July or August volume supplement contained detailed analyses of specific meteorological events around the world and how much are likely either due to or not due to climate change.”
As I wrote in my response to Urs Neu, “I was not addressing the many legitimate climate studies of the sort you mention, where the possible influence of AGW is objectively assessed . . .” In fact, I quote reports from the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society many times in my book, as it’s an excellent source of objective information.
What I was referring to was not reports in the legitimate scientific literature, but the sort of thing all too often reported in the mainstream media, where the work of well known climate scientists is routinely referenced to fan the flames of mass hysteria. An excellent example is all the hand wringing over the notorious Thwaites glacier, which is 1. not likely to collapse for over a thousand years and 2. not likely to be deterred by anything we can do, ever.
This blog is yet another example of the same sort of thing, where people who have no idea what they’re talking about make absurd assumptions linking the crisis in Syria with “climate change.” While there may be good reason to associate the crisis with a persistent drought in the region, there is no evidence linking that drought, or any other drought, to AGW. Yet the association is routinely made, as though one automatically implies the other. It does not, and the scientists running this blog certainly know better that to make such an assumption. So why do they encourage it?
BPL: But thanks for the recommendation anyway, Mr. Norquist.
Followed by:What insults? I can’t find an insult in what I said above. What is wrong with you?
Richard: I have a memory?
BPL: You said we shouldn’t be picking winners.
Richard: Half-quotes are a grand way to lie. I spoke about welfare, as in tax dodges for entire industries. You know, like the solar welfare checks that sometimes are so horrid that they allow folks to buy a solar PV system, throw it in the trash, and make a profit. (Months ago we did an analysis of SecularAminist’s system (IIRC), which exactly fit this description.)
However, I do understand your confusion as others have misapplied the phrase “picking winners” to apply to loans, even though my comment expressly said welfare, not loans. Welfare isn’t paid back. Had you not gone all insulting, my response would have been quite different. I would have clarified and apologized for the confusion, but you reap what you sow, memoryless-one who can’t even read his own writing and figure out that he didn’t mean “Norquist” as gushing adoration.
Here’s a good bit on south Florida, where some current construction is expected to be worthless as soon as the mortgage is paid off, especially since Florida is coral, which leaks. Put a dike up and the ocean just seeps underneath. It will be interesting to watch, and it shows how much we’ve warped human nature. People used to want to Build Something. Now, making a profit by screwing the customer is considered “good business”:
“”But yes, that means you’ll have some buildings built in the last five years that likely won’t make it in next 30 to 40 years,” said Morejon.”
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/01032016/ft-lauderdale-climate-change-global-warming-rising-sea-level