#442 Thank you, Moseley, for your very thoughtful and authoritative comments on the nature of science and the integrity of (most) scientists. As an avid reader of scientific literature since childhood, especially in the fields of physics, anthropology, semiotics and genetics, I strongly agree. However, as I’m sure you are aware, very little in the realm of scientific research can be accepted as “settled,” and that’s generally regarded as a good thing, since all the many controversies are what drive science forward.
Of late, my interest in anthropology has been centered on the “Out of Africa” replacement model recently developed by population geneticists. And for some time I accepted that model as “settled science,” basing my own research on it. Recently, however, there have been some developments suggesting that “Out of Africa” could be an over-simplification, based on new evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and “modern” humans. Most researchers were caught by surprise at the new findings, but we are learning to adjust, and refine our hypotheses in the light of the new evidence. That’s how science works and I have no problem with that.
As a physicist I’m sure you are aware of the intractable differences between two of the greatest physicists who ever lived, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, regarding the ultimate meaning of quantum physics. That controversy has never been fully resolved, despite the best efforts of some of the best minds of our time.
So to claim that “the science” supporting the “consensus” view of climate change is settled, and no other viewpoint is acceptable is very clearly NOT consistent with scientific principles, not, at least, as I understand them. There are distinguished scientists on both sides of this debate and both sides deserve to be heard — which should be obvious.
[Response: The only thing that is obvious is the totally transparent rhetorical tricks you use – ‘quantum physics is hard to interpret therefore we know nothing about climate change’. Really?. The reason your posts get bore-holed is because this is weapon-grade boring. Up your game, or go find other people to play with. – gavin]
“I have a hard time understanding a lot of the back and forth on this site.” Amen, brother. Especially lately.
And yes, I’ve contributed my share, too.
Steve Fishsays
Re: Comment by Richard Caldwell — 29 Apr 2016 @ 8:27 AM, ~#444 and previous
Richard, let’s get real. You have admitted that you have no idea what the, no longer extant, processes were that allowed the creation of huge coal deposits during the Carboniferous period. You also have not invented some super efficient engine, or a practical greenhouse that could feed a nation, or a house design that can sequester carbon for a useful amount of time. If you had, you could reference your scholarly articles, patents, or books that provide the detail required to substantiate your claims and that could be vetted by experts. All you have offered are unsupported opinions. From what you have written here, you could be a genius or some self-important troll, and it would be easy for you to provide the evidence to help us decide.
So, for the moment, I will stay with just one of your assertions about the log house. You ask, “How many THOUSAND years will it last?” No junior debate team games, please provide credible, documented evidence that your log house would last as long as a cheap tract house and why anyone would want to build it (hint- wood is not a very practical thermal mass). Steve
Richard Caldwellsays
Vendicar: Andhra Pradesh where temperatures since the start of April have been hovering around 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit).
Richard: Do you know the average daily minimum temps? Humans can tolerate very high peak temperatures if we have a good rest at coolish temperatures. The Scandinavian countries have turned part of this complex system into a World Championship sport. Unfortunately, it’s like free diving: when the sport is literally conditioning your body to actually survive in competition what would have killed you last year, well, sometimes you have a bad day.
@430/434 – I am not sure what you are getting at… The US Wealth and Prosperity is, indeed, built on world trade. I never claimed “fortress America”. I am not a jingoist at all. But several commentators made wild claims about US Agriculture that were hilariously false. So I posted remarks refuting that and commented on the fact that South Asis needs US food to survive at current population levels. It is simply the reality. Caring or not caring has nothing to do with it.
I am very concerned with AGW – since the 1970s. I kind of thought, the facts would be established, and the majority would recognize the gravity of the situation and we would all work diligently on solutions before it was too late. I was horribly wrong, of course, and I’m pretty much convinced that WAIS and eventually the GIS will melt out even when we stabilize the CO2. I am very hopeful we are on the right path now [if very late]. AGW is going to reshape the world – but it won’t be the apocalypse. I know it is easier to lie to children that the apocalypse will happen if they don’t eat their vegetables – but I’m not that kind of parent. I won’t lie to convince people to act. We need to act from reason and compassion.
The reality is going to suck for a lot of people on the planet. In South Asia – reality was going to suck anyway. Individually, none of them are to blame or deserving of the suckage coming their way. Collectively, however, they have conspired against themselves in concert with the Industrial Revolution and they are on the road to ruin. It just plain sucks and the rest of the world will have to deal with the debris… The Syrian Refugee crisis is not making me excited by the prospect.
I also see that you managed to locate the http://www.ers.usda.gov/ site. Good job. If you had bothered to interpret the data – you would have noticed that 40% of US food imports come from Canada (Specialty grains, Oils [Canola], Beer) and Mexico (Beer, Produce, Meat). The other major bulk imports are coffee, sugar and fruit from Central and South America. We could grow them in Florida – but labor is cheaper in Brazil and Central America. Florida’s major agricultural export in dollars is ornamental plants (much higher margin than fruit). Most of the “bulk” imports therefore come from Canada and Mexico via truck and not container ship. Our huge bulk exports go to Asia via container ship. Our imports are mostly “wet” and so relatively heavy. Our exports are dry – the corn export in metric tons exceeds all of the US imports in metric tons. If you looked at North America as a “unit” which it largely is from a food perspective. The export tonnage far, far exceeds the limited imports.
I would outlaw CAFOs. But meat consumption/production is not inherently the problem. Production is definitely not dependent on the CAFOs. We could produce the same amount using traditional methods with very low energy inputs. It is a fact. The US has ridiculous spare capacity in virtually all areas. It is China, India and South Asia that have run out of capacity.
South Asia would suffer regardless without climate change. The birthrate only slowed recently. Just 20 years ago it was 4-5 across the region. It is still ABOVE replacement everywhere except strangely Iran. Look it up. Yes, China, Japan and the US are less than replacement – good for them/us. The US population is still increasing mainly due to legal immigration.
And seriously? Could you drop the Blame Everything on Western Imperialism nonsense? India and China have a long history of appropriating resources from others at knife point and oppressing their fellows – just like the rest of humanity. Yawn…
We have money and resources and it is in our interest to help the struggling nations of the world adapt and use clean energy. Meanwhile, China (already) and India (soon) will exceed US emissions in CO2 annually. Admittedly, corporations moved their operations to China and Asia so they could pollute at will because the US and Europe have environmental regulation regimes and Asia did not (and mostly still doesn’t). But China and India happily welcomed their money and expertise.
Screwing up the world has been a Team Effort from day one. Saving it will require a Team Effort.
Steve Fishsays
Re: Comment by mike — 29 Apr 2016 @ 11:34 AM, ~#450
You seem to object to what I said, so I guess I didn’t make myself clear. You respond- “I have a different view: Anything that drives CO2 and other ghg accumulation in the atmosphere is a real problem and anything that sequesters or removes CO2 and other ghg from the atmosphere is a real solution.”
I agree, but you appear not to understand that biomass removes CO2 from the atmosphere to grow and when the plants die naturally, are eaten, or are used in any other way, the CO2 goes back into the atmosphere. This process is carbon neutral and, therefore, doesn’t add CO2 to the atmosphere. So, regarding biomass, it is the process of using fossil carbon fertilizer, for example, and messing with the ability of forests and other biomes to accumulate and maintain carbon stores that increases atmospheric CO2.
Moseley– “I have a hard time understanding a lot of the back and forth on this site.”
Kevin: Amen, brother. Especially lately. And yes, I’ve contributed my share, too.
Is “hard to understand” good or bad? Have you been introduced to more or fewer possibly useful thoughts?
Richard Caldwellsays
Steve Fish: please explain how burning biomass releases more CO2 than the plants had to remove from the atmosphere in order to grow in the first place.
Richard: By degrading soil, if done improperly. Blanket declarations compress a wildly diverse spectrum into a data point which declares that every process imaginable is 100% efficient. Carnot would be impressed….
Richard Caldwellsays
Thomas: I do not think ‘fortress america’ or ‘we’re ok no matter what’ is a very rational nor ethical way
Richard: True. Imagine starvation stalking entire regions of the globe. Wars, refugees, chaos. We could shoot on sight, but what would the Pope say? What about you local spiritual leader? The voter?
So no, I can’t imagine the well-off world will blithely decide to close the gates and let ’em starve. That would be even worse than genocide, cuz starving humans can take down a whole ecosystem.
Since that’s what I can’t imagine, the odds just increased that we’ll take the path of munching fast food while Drones and Soldiers keep Them at bay. We’ll watch the slowly evolving catastrophe…
Richard Caldwellsays
BPL: You have 78 chromosomes.
Richard: Thank you. I didn’t know you knew about the technique of inserting extras to improve an individual…
Theosays
1% science and 99% gibberish. Not nice to see Gavin’s groupies in a schoolyard brawl. Bah !
445 Vendicar Decarian says: At least 300 people have died of heat-related illness this month, including 110 in the state of Orissa, 137 in Telangana and another 45 in Andhra Pradesh where temperatures since the start of April have been hovering around 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit).
An important fact (see the research eg in France and Russia a few years back) to keep in mind is that when people are affected by “heat stress” the deaths continue for days and weeks after the extreme event period. Few of those deaths are then attributed to ‘heat stress’ but rather the most obvious thing that was the cause of death, eg stroke, heart attack, accident, or a virus and so on.
451 Victor, there are several things that expose your flawed thinking in your comment, but to allude that Mosley had said anything close to ..claim that “the science” supporting the “consensus” view of climate change is settled, and no other viewpoint is acceptable is very clearly NOT consistent with scientific principles… is a pathetic false accusation easily exposed for what it is = BS. Most people call it a strawman but I much prefer the notion of shoving words not said into another person’s mouth. It’s distasteful, it’s a lie, it’s disingenuous and shows that you cannot even read properly let alone think for yourself adequately.
Victor you are an extreme fundamentalist zealot with no interest in truth or reality. What are you a zealot about? Your own idiotic beliefs of your own superiority on a subject where all you will ever receive is a fail. You also get a fail for rhetoric, sophistry and debating skills. That’s my opinion. Yours has zero credibility to me. Have a nice life anyway. Preferably somewhere else.
Phil Lsays
Hank #393: “If we could let forests grow for centuries we would see something close to the normal full result. Possibly for a millenium”
Andison (2015) looked at forest fire records from the northern part of Saskatchewan (Boreal Shield and Taiga Shield Ecozones), where there is no commercial forestry and where fires are only actioned if threatening settlements, and found that the average stand-replacing fire cycle was 75 years. https://friresearch.ca/resource/grid-based-natural-wildfire-patterns-northeastern-saskatchewan
I’m not sure which forest ecosystem you are discussing, but in the boreal forest that I’m familiar with, a forest that avoids a stand-replacing fire for a millenium is unheard of.
“Please, please, please — either use quotation marks, or block your quotes.
You just dump a chunk of text in and someone’s name and it’s very hard for someone trying to make sense of your posts.
These quoting conventions are widely used by all people who read and write.
Join the crowd.”
Comment by Hank Roberts — 29 Apr 2016 @ 9
Hank, you might want to highlight which of my posts you’re referencing as not containing quotation marks or attribution instead of dumping a chunk of vitrol at random. Could it be the one with YOUR NAME AFTER IT? Otherwise I have no idea. I certainly wouldn’t want to take credit for something someone else said. I generally post links to a specific piece if I’m quoting anything from it and, I know what quotation marks are used for and use them daily. It also depends what I’m typing on; if I’m using a regular keyboard or typing with my thumbs on a phone, which is much more difficult. If I am quoting someone on here I tend to include the person’s name, date and time of posting immediately following what that person said. Anything beyond that was purly accidental and unintended.
zebrasays
@Richard Caldwell 444,
You did a nice job on the Fermi argument against “starvation in the USA”, but in the detailed physics of building design, not so much.
First, using wood for thermal mass makes no sense at all. Density, specific heat, and conductivity, all argue against it. The numbers aren’t even close.
Second, you described yourself the nightmare of your vertical orientation– the walls would tear themselves apart without some “perfect” interior vapor barrier. You would have to cover up the visual feature anyway.
Also, on a practical note (not your fault) that is really annoying with respect to this issue– people don’t seem to like thick walls. Apart from the greed of builders, I get the sense that buyer resistance is quite strong; SIP should be everywhere and yet I never see them used.
Anyway, stick to the big picture stuff and you should do fine.
“… The Overview Effect, first described by author Frank White in 1987, is an experience that transforms astronauts’ perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it. Common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.
‘Overview’ is a short film that explores this phenomenon through interviews with five astronauts who have experienced the Overview Effect….”
zebrasays
@Thomas and Mike, who are being rational and polite unlike some of the Zombie Apocalypse fans, let me review the issue since I started some of it.
My original comment was in response to claims that CC would lead to the end of world technological civilization in some near term– this century, perhaps the next.
My simple claim was that whatever drought, flood, pestilence, famine, yadda yadda, short of major nuclear war initiated by CC happened,
1. There would be sufficient food to maintain a technologically adept population that would have at least sanitation, electricity, and antibiotics, and probably much more.
2. That population would be large enough to allow the full phenotypical expression of current genetic diversity. (Still waiting for bio types to take a swing at what that number should be.)
Now, I used an example of something like 30 millions on each coast of the USA, just because I have some sense of the ecological/geographical factors. I get the sense that is not something anyone would challenge.
But then the question seemed to arise as to whether, in that near term, there would be people in the USA dying due to lack of food. And, as I and others like RC have pointed out, the numbers just don’t justify such a projection.
We don’t have any reason to think that because there are people who don’t get as much food as they would like every day, those people are malnourished because of anything but dietary choices. That fast-food chains may import beef (and beef by-products?) from Argentina doesn’t mean anyone would starve if that became unavailable, since we consume twice as many calories per capita than we need already. If you are going to make this argument, you have to describe a concrete, realistic scenario in which nutrition drops below the level needed to sustain life.
Anecdote, which I had forgotten until now: When I was a young student, I was quite “financially challenged”, and also wandering in my reading into Anthropology, as well as being environmentally committed. So that summer, having read that some hunter-gatherers lived on 1200 calories/day, I decided I should be able to do that too. I payed attention to nutritional balance, and I stuck to it for a couple of months. I started as a thin young man, I was doing physical work, and I apparently missed in my reading the fact that H-G tended to be appreciably shorter than my average US height at the time. You can imagine the result.
But I did want to make clear that I am well aware that being that hungry (just, really, hungry,) is not a joke, for people who don’t see the possibility of changing the situation.
Apologies for a long comment, and also if this is a duplicate– something glitched while I was editing.
From time to time for several years on my blog I have pointed out that forecasting the general trends of future climate takes little more than basic common sense.It is trivially obvious that if we know where earth is with regard to the millennial and 60 year cycles that the future can be estimated with an accuracy sufficient for making policy decisions.It is obvious by simple inspection that the solar activity record peaked in 1991 (Fig 8 ) and the corresponding RSS temperature data peaked at about 2003 {Fig 5) .The earth then entered a cooling trend which ,modulated by the 60 year cycle, which coincidentally peaked at the same time ,will continue until about 2650 .
The Enso events do not seem to have much influence on the longer term trends and we have little insight as to their timing and amplitude. The El Ninos occur more frequently during times of general warming and vice versa. I truncated the data in Fig 5 at 2015.1 for illustrative purposes because the Enso events are short term deviations about the general rising and declining trends.
Note the delay seen between the solar activity peak at 1991 Fig 8 and the millennial temperature peak at 2003+/-. Fig 5
I would be happy to hear your opinion of my methods and forecasts.
Best Regards
colincsays
Moseley, I feel compelled to thank you twice over. First for penning one of the most sagacious comments I’ve ever read (see previous page) anywhere. A second time for piquing my interest to such an extent as to attempt to “search” you out. This, of course, resulted in my “finding” one Henry Moseley (1887-1915). I found Isaac Asimov’s perspective, “…his death might well have been the most costly single death of the War to mankind generally,” most poignant. So, again, thank you most sincerely.
Lastly, may I be so bold to inquire if you are “Moseley” at U. of Bath or the Max Planck Institute or “elsewhere?” (Alas, admittedly I am too “lazy” to proceed beyond the 8th page of search results.)
Russellsays
Don De Lillo may have hit on what both sides are up to in the Climate Wars :
‘There were times when no map existed to match the reality we were trying to create…
Human perception is a saga of created reality. But we were devising entities beyond the agreed-upon limits of recognition or interpretation. Lying is necessary. The state has to lie. There is no lie in war or in preparation for war that can’t be defended.
We went beyond this. We tried to create new realities overnight, careful sets of words that resemble advertising slogans in memorability and repeatability. These were words that would yield pictures and then become three-dimensional.
The reality stands, it walks, it squats. Except when it doesn’t.’
If you insist on buying into the alarmist scenario, here’s your problem in a nutshell:
First, it’s necessary to demonstrate that there has in fact been a true long-term warming TREND, which must be distinguished from a simple increase in temperature over a given period. (While current temperatures are now higher than they were 100 years ago (by only about 1 degree celsius) there was in fact no long term trend — from ca. 1940-1979 temperatures were either flat or declining.)
[Response: Actually, these just illustrates my point above. Your arguments are just lame. Are you really inventing a whole new definition of trend that permits no departures from linearity even in the presence of internal variability and non-linearity in the external forcings? This is a hail mary pass. – gavin]
Second, it’s necessary to demonstrate that the rather alarming warming trend so apparent from the last 20 years of the previous century has continued into the 21st. (According to the surprising results recently obtained by Michael Mann and his associates — see the paper by Fyfe et al. — it has not.)
[Response: This has both misrepresentation and an ill-founded attempt at argument from authority. Fail. – gavin]
Third, it’s necessary to link most of the temperature increase to increased emissions of CO2, in a clear cause and effect relationship. (Despite the complete lack of correlation between the two during both the mid 20th century and the current period of roughly 15 to 19 years of only minimal warming despite steep increased in CO2 emissions.)
[Response: Argument from personal ignorance. “It seems complicated to me, therefore it can’t be done.”. Wrong. – gavin]
Fourth, it’s necessary to demonstrate that the increase in temperature over the last 100 years or so has actually done any harm. (According to the most recent research, there was no appreciable increase in extreme weather events during the 20 century as opposed to certain comparable periods in the past — see http://www.reuters.com/…/us-climatechange-extremes… )
[Response: Yet again a misrepresentation of both the argument and the citation. Boring. – gavin]
And Fifth, assuming all the above is in fact the case, it’s necessary to demonstrate that something meaningful can actually be done to avert the extreme events now being predicted. According to some of the most vocal activists it is already too late.
[Response: Ah the classic “vocal activists say” as if you give them any credence at all. Total sophistry. When I said up your game, I meant it. If you want to talk about things that are actually uncertain you should do it. Instead all we get is rhetorical talking points and recycled memes… as if you think the latter gets you credibility as an environmentalist. Ha. We’re done. – gavin]
I’m thinking of the forests I’ve known personally — Olympic rainforest in Washington, and central coast range Ponderosa pine/black oak forests in California, piney woods in North Carolina as late as the 1950s, and remnant old growth around the Great Smoky Mountains.
The fires you’re talking about are stands that burn surrounded by other stands, and that’s an average. What’s the distribution of years, what are the oldest stands?
When there’s a shaded canopy many fires burn through without killing all of the — the “fire ladders” are shaded out and the lower dead limbs have been shaded, fallen, and decayed.
Point is you can lose a stand of trees without killing the associated topsoil nor killing the trees in the other stands nearby. You may well have a fire that burns through hot enough to scorch the trees to where the cambium will die above ground — if only on one side you get a “cat’s mouth” scar — but not even kill the roots and they’ll put up new growth.
Clearcutting kills the trees and after five or six years the roots die as well. Look up: landslide after clearcut
On principle, it’s bad. No presentation should ever be harder to understand than it needs to be in order to properly represent the content presented. (Obviously, this is a statement of the ideal, not the reality!)
When there is a lot of back and forth of the “well, you said x, and I responded y” the content rather gets buried. And often the main point does, too. For instance, I’ve quite lost track of why we are talking about log house construction methods, other than the fact that it’s vaguely relevant to carbon sequestration.
“Have you been introduced to more or fewer possibly useful thoughts?”
Fewer per word, unquestionably. Not sure how the word totals are running, and not sure I want to know.
“…that the future can be estimated with an accuracy sufficient for making policy decisions.”
Because you decide a priori that nothing else matters. However, that assumption is not viable in the reality-based community.
“I would be happy to hear your opinion of my methods and forecasts.”
Really? I think your methods and forecasts are trash–examples of what abler folk than I have dubbed “mathturbation.” I wouldn’t have thought that would be pleasing.
For Chuck Hughes — you asked for examples where you’ve pasted in chunks of text without using either quotation marks or blockquotes. Here are examples:
I do see quotation marks used around the quoted text.
If you see no difference, and did nothing different when typing those, then there’s definitely a puzzle here.
Richard Caldwellsays
Thanks for the link on coral farming, Chuck.
Branching corals seem opportunistic. Their shape increases opportunity and risk. That they are easily farmed makes sense. Weedy versions.
Rock corals seem like survivors. Pick the perfect space, hunker down, and slowly build something massive. Redwoods come to mind.
So to successfully farm rock corals we have to do it under extremely artificial conditions, so different that there has to be a transitioning phase for transplant.
I think we’re going to keep seeing such dynamics, where we’ll try to navigate not a species, but entire classes through a bottleneck by finding individuals who can thrive both on the farm and in a warmer world. Put them out. See what survives at 1C, repeat ad nauseam on the way up, spreading survivors and hoping that genetic diversity and fortuitous mutations don’t run out before things stabilize.
And then what? Do we make nature ride that train in reverse? With the diminished genetic diversity available, perhaps we’ll be stuck with warmly watching the ice sheets melt.
————
zebra: using wood for thermal mass makes no sense at all. Density, specific heat, and conductivity, all argue against it. The numbers aren’t even close.
Richard: No, we’re using wood as carbon storage, and pondering whether such storage is best done in the forest or the house. Inside of a house, the wood provides, in perhaps descending order: high-class interior and exterior surfaces, thermal mass, insulation, and structure, though the structure can substantially be replaced by a sheet of OSB in this application. So, super-structure. And even if something did take it out, say an airliner, the logs are easily recoverable and reusable or chunked into engineered wood feedstock. Salvage of intact standard-length bare logs is nothing like the “throw it all in the dump” mess of shattered lumber and sheetrock.
Plus, in harvesting the logs, we also get all the other bits of wood that need to be removed anyway to replace fire with human management. That stuff can be used to make tons and tons of SIPs and other engineered woods, such as Phil was describing. We leave behind some Mother trees, who will live for hundreds of years as pampered carbon-storing pets. We’ll also leave the proper number of juveniles, standing dead wood, and fall.
Peat-mining is real. Gardening depends on it. Bark can substitute.
zebra: the walls would tear themselves apart without some “perfect” interior vapor barrier.
Richard: No, the walls are built traditionally, like a stud wall. They are spaced so that at maximum expansion they’re almost touching. (or chinking can be used) The top and bottom plates take lateral loads. The foam exterior to the stockade provides sealing and insulating. The stockade moderates temperatures and provides a comfortable, appealing interior surface. The wood is literally “living indoors”. It will last as long as the siding, foam, and roof are maintained properly. And even if ruined, the carbon will still be useful. Logs last long after the house itself is trashed.
On thickness: Thickness is grand except at windows and doors. With vertical orientation, areas where plumbing, access, or views are needed can be built with SIPs or studs. No problem, and it provides an enhanced overhang for vulnerable surfaces. Plus, more exterior eye-candy. Remember, the Rich get logs, the poor get SIPs.
————
Phil: the wood building product of the future is cross laminated timber (CLT),
Richard: Yeah, once she was in a wheelchair, my mother-in-law couldn’t get to the private gardens she had installed at the assisted living facility during the refit of two units into something “livable”, as the patio door/window was 10″ above floor level. So I bought some glue and a lot of clamps and bent 1/4 plywood strips into two bridges: I\___/I I\___/I It’s amazing how little engineered wood it takes to make something super strong, and man, those arched bridges with all the layers and grain; I love the way wood looks.
——–
Steve Fish, you’ve devolved into naysaying. SIPs are immensely strong and substantially impervious to everything. I’m describing a SIP with an interior panel which is upgraded from the normal 1/2″ OSB to an 8×8 stud wall placed on 8.05″ centers. Ever run a car into EIGHT trees? Fasteners are the ONLY mechanical consideration, and weight is a fastener in and of itself. You’ve obviously never seen a classroom that dealt with any sort of engineering. Bunkers take bomb hits, and this is building to that spec.
Thomassays
470 Norman Page: I read your page thanks. I’m mindful of what is noted in Fyfe et al for example:
“Investigations have also identified
non-climatic artefacts in tropospheric
temperatures inferred from radiosondes30
and satellites31, and important errors in
ocean heat uptake estimates25. Newly
identified observational errors do not,
however, negate the existence of a real
reduction in the surface warming rate in
the early twenty-first century relative to the
1970s–1990s. This reduction arises through
the combined effects of internal decadal
variability11–18, volcanic19,23 and solar activity,
and decadal changes in anthropogenic
aerosol forcing32. The warming slowdown
has motivated substantial research into
decadal climate variability and uncertainties
in key external forcings. As a result, the
scientific community is now better able to
explain temperature variations such as those
experienced during the early twenty-first
century33, and perhaps even to make skilful
predictions of such fluctuations in the future.”
and then:
“For example, climate model predictions
initialized with recent observations
indicate a transition to a positive phase
of the IPO with increased rates of global
surface temperature warming (ref. 34, and
G. A. Meehl, A. Hu and H. Teng, manuscript
in preparation).” http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n3/full/nclimate2938.html
Perhaps you could add a link to the paper on your page seeing you are talking about it?
Norman Page’s predictions are: “Remember the 12 year delay between the 1991 solar activity peak and the 2003 temperature trend break. , if there is a similar delay in the response to lower solar activity , earth should see a cold spell from 2019 to 2021 when you will be in Middle School. It should also be noticeably cooler at the coolest part of the 60 year cycle – halfway through the present 60 year cycle at about 2033.”
“The net ocean warming reflects the existence of climate change in the ocean, which acts as a response to the radiative forcing, helps transport heat from the sea surface to the deeper ocean, and results in net ocean warming.” http://www.nature.com/articles/srep14346
I have little doubt “The Imminent Collapse of the CAGW Delusion” myths, as promulgated by agw/cc science deniers critics and pseudo-skeptics, will collapse over time.
Ray Ladburysays
Norman Page,
Thanks for the blogwhoring, but I prefer nonfiction.
z 469: My original comment was in response to claims that CC would lead to the end of world technological civilization in some near term– this century, perhaps the next. . . . the question seemed to arise as to whether, in that near term, there would be people in the USA dying due to lack of food. And, as I and others like RC have pointed out, the numbers just don’t justify such a projection.
BPL: WHAT numbers? Show your work. I have.
Edward Greischsays
460 Richard Caldwell “can’t imagine the well-off world will blithely decide to close the gates and let ’em starve.”
If you let them in, you starve too. You starve anyway, but you starve more slowly if you shoot them at the border. Reference: “The Long Summer” by Brian Fagan and “Collapse” by Jared Diamond. When agriculture collapses, civilization collapses REGARDESS OF HOW MANY PEOPLE THERE ARE. Fagan and Diamond told the stories of something like 2 dozen previous very small civilizations. Most of the collapses were caused by fraction of a degree climate changes. In some cases, all of that group died. On the average, 1 out of 10,000 survived.
Richard Caldwell, and everybody, will have a hard time imagining how brutal the times will be when it happens. That is a problem. Genocide would be a minor crime by comparison.
469 Zebra: I don’t believe you at all. There is no reason to believe that any particular group would survive, unless it is some group that is still living in the stone age.
Book: “Too Smart for our Own Good.” by Craig Dilworth: I disagree with Craig Dilworth. We are not too smart. We are too stupid. Dilworth says we increase technology only after being pressured to do so by a high death rate; and that the most primitive hunter-gatherers are the best off and the happiest. That would mean that we will do something about GW after the population has begun to crash. Dilworth’s prognosis seems accurate. The problem is that we have no such luxury of waiting this time. We must do the jump to the next higher level before the crash or it is all over. I am on page 254. Dilworth starts with evolution and “deduces” economic boom-bust cycles. It is an interesting book, but I was wondering if anybody else has an opinion on it.
Victorsays
#451 [Response: The only thing that is obvious is the totally transparent rhetorical tricks you use – ‘quantum physics is hard to interpret therefore we know nothing about climate change’. Really?. . . Gavin]
The quantum physics example was just that, an example. Every branch of science is riddled with controversy — so why should Climate Science be an exception? THAT was my point. What you read into it had nothing to do with what I wrote. A straw man if I ever saw one.
And speaking of straw men:
#465 Thomas: “to allude that Mosley had said anything close to ..claim that “the science” supporting the “consensus” view of climate change is settled, and no other viewpoint is acceptable is very clearly NOT consistent with scientific principles… is a pathetic false accusation easily exposed for what it is = BS. Most people call it a strawman but I much prefer the notion of shoving words not said into another person’s mouth.”
What I actually wrote was: “However, AS I’M SURE YOU ARE AWARE, very little in the realm of scientific research can be accepted as “settled,””
Nothing in Moseley’s post claimed the science was settled, and nothing in my post accused him of making such a claim. As should be obvious to anyone capable of reading beyond eighth grade level, what I wrote about the notion of climate change being “settled” was directed at the dogma routinely taken for granted on this blog, and not Moseley, whose post was far more reasonable than what I usually find here.
Victor, you don’t seem to know what either a “trend” or a “correlation” are. They are not rhetorical concepts with varying definitions. In science, specifically in statistics, they have mathematical definitions.
I strongly suggest you take an introductory statistics class. If you want brief rebuttals to your points (perhaps you don’t), 1, the temperature trend for the last 165 years is extremely significant, and 2) so is the correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature anomalies (r = 0.91).
As for the physical mechanism, that was demonstrated in 1858 and explained in the 1920s; it is a matter of quantum mechanics. Check a modern text on radiative transfer. Goody and Yung’s “Atmospheric Radiation” (1989) is a comprehensive one. For a simpler one, you might try Houghton’s “The Physics of Atmospheres” (2002) or Petty’s “A First Course in Atmospheric Radiation.”
“…the dogma routinely taken for granted on this blog…”
Was that the ‘dogma’ that ‘We’re All Gonna Die?’ Or that ‘We Sure Won’t?’
The ‘dogma’ that ‘old growth forests store the most carbon?’ Or that managed forests and human structures do?
The ‘dogma’ that ‘methane is an emergency?’ Or that it’s a sideshow?
I could go on, but IMO your comment is more that usually ironic.
Richard Caldwellsays
Victor: What I actually wrote was: “However, AS I’M SURE YOU ARE AWARE, very little in the realm of scientific research can be accepted as “settled,””
Richard: That’s wrong. Most everything in science is mostly settled, when viewed from the standpoint of the layperson. That’s ALL fields of science. Gravity is a good example.
From a layperson’s viewpoint, Newton solved gravity et al. Relativity is mere dust particles. Irrelevant other than space ships and satellites.
From a scientist’s viewpoint, gravity is still not settled. Who gives a flip? That’s 99.99999999999999% irrelevant to anybody outside of science.
So, yes, you can say, “They’ll always be better defining of sub-atomic particles, so we must NEVER movie into the house.”
But isn’t standing in the rain stupid?
Thomassays
486 Victor says “Moseley’s post was far more reasonable than what I usually find here.” Yes it was. It was also far more reasonable and rational and sensible and true than anything which you have posted here Victor. That’s my point. :-)
When you say things like this Victor “..claim that “the science” supporting the “consensus” view of climate change is settled, and no other viewpoint is acceptable is very clearly NOT consistent with scientific principles…” it is a pathetic false accusation (against everyone generally as well as Moseley) easily exposed for what it is = BS.
i.e. you are making it up as you go Victor. You’re playing word games not playing science. Your claims do not reflect the reality. They are myths lifted from the anti-science, pseudo-skeptics, and the unqualified global blogosphere of conspiracy theorists.
“the dogma routinely taken for granted on this blog” is called validated basic science and intelligent thought. In the meantime feel free ‘to believe’ whatever myth you want to. :-)
Thomassays
481 Richard Caldwell: “No, we’re using wood as carbon storage, and pondering whether such storage is best done in the forest or the house.”
As fascinating as the nuances are for living in log cabins may be for you I consider it off-topic and of little interest. Log cabins are not silver bullets to reverse ghg emission growth. I also feel that the planet has already proven which kind of carbon storage is best and that has been backed up by detailed research via climate science. Cutting down old growth forests has not been a good idea in regards to ghg levels.
Log Cabins is not a cc solution even though they could be a wonderful hobby or a survival option decades to centuries ahead (IF it gets that bad one day.) imo.
Then feel free to ask questions here about the bits you do not understand. Win-Win :-)
Thomassays
471 zebra, thanks for the review. I think these matters up to a century ahead are far too difficult and complex to predict how things might unfold. Humans are of course resourceful creatures, then again we can also be as thick as bricks. It depends. I can think of no particular reason why the USA couldn’t go the way of a Syria within a couple of short years given the right circumstances arising into the future, but that’s not a prediction. I believe having the best minds focusing on today’s challenges and the next 20 years is where most of the attention should be now with one eye on long term multi-generational sustainability. And keep our fingers crossed for the great-great grandchildren.
Thomassays
455 Robin Johnson says: “And seriously? Could you drop the Blame Everything on Western Imperialism nonsense? India and China have a long history of appropriating resources from others at knife point and oppressing their fellows – just like the rest of humanity. Yawn…”
Robin you’re extrapolating on what was said and meant into something else entirely. (a strawman and putting words into my mouth). The data is (reasonably) clear about contributions of ghg and agw forcing by nation by sector historically. This data is much easier to define than the whole of CC science. This data are the facts of the matter. People in other nations can read and they do have their own justifiable points of view regarding those facts. When negotiations between nations happen this data and the various points of view matter enormously.
China and India may well be about to overtake the USA in annual emissions, but historically the USA beats them by a factor of X. Do you know what that factor is Robin? What about on a per capita basis from 1850 to today Robin? How about a per capita basis in 2016 alone?
If only 10% of the global population are responsible for 50% of the total warming to date, then who should be responsible for cleaning up and stopping their own excess pollution that is causing AGW/CC globally?
Everyone owns the atmosphere, not only the 10% and not only the USA. This is an ethical and moral question about the data, the historical facts and personal / national responsibility for past and present behavior. A unified global solution requires a unified point of view that is both ethical and moral and takes into consideration all the 7 billion people on earth and not only the more powerful on the planet. Or it will fail badly imo.
Thomassays
454 Richard Caldwell asks: “Do you know the average daily minimum temps?”
The SH? Vast areas of Queensland have experienced the hottest May night since records began, some of which stretch back to the 1800s. From the far northern tropics, through to the southern inland and south-east area, at least 20 cities and towns had their records broken. Some outback stations recorded temperatures 10-13 degrees Celsius above average for the overnight temperature. Brisbane was 8C above average. http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/hottest-may-night-on-record-for-20-queensland-cities-and-towns/498810
Follow the data where it leads? A couple of decades of recorded weather = climate.
Regional changes are obvious. In the 1960s where I grew up, at 8 in the morning people going to work or school in the dead of winter wore coats, scarves and gloves. Water pipes would sometimes ice up. This doesn’t happen anymore, not since the 1990s. Climate science explains why this has happened and the data supports real world observations globally by region. Obvious weather changes all add up to define climate changes.
Conspiracy theories, wooly thinking and wordy debates prove nothing.
Kevin,
You said, “The ‘dogma’ that ‘old growth forests store the most carbon?’ Or that managed forests and human structures do?”
Neither, the most storage is in grassland (mollic) soils. Where trees store most their products of photosynthesis in woody biomass, grasslands instead of producing a woody tree truck, secret excess products of photosynthesis (exudates) to feed the soil food web, especially mycorrhizal fungi. Those fungi (AMF) in turn secrete a newly discovered compound called glomalin deep in the soil profile. Glomalin itself has a 1/2 life of 7–42 years if left undisturbed. The deepest deposits even longer with a 1/2 life of 300 years or more in the right conditions. Then when it does degrade a large % forms humic polymers that tightly bind to the soil mineral substrate and can last thousands of years undisturbed. Together they all form what is called a mollic epipedon. That’s your really good deep fertile soils of the world and they contain far more carbon, even in their highly degraded state currently, than all the terrestrial biomass and atmospheric CO2 put together.
Even though wood is resistant to decay, the biomass of forests is still considered part of the active carbon cycle (labile carbon) Fossil fuels are considered stable carbon, so adding fossil fuel carbon increases atmospheric CO2, while the active carbon cycle, including all that woody biomass, taken on a long term view approaches net zero. That litter layer on the forest floor is relatively shallow, and most that decay ends up back in the atmosphere, unless locked in some kind of peat bog or permafrost. Tightly bound soil carbon in a mollic epipedon is considered differently than the labile carbon pool. It is the stable fraction of soil carbon, and grassland biomes pump 30% or more of their total products of photosynthesis into this liquid carbon pathway.
The importance of this recent discovery of the Liquid Carbon Pathway (photosynthesis-root exudates-mycorrhizal fungi-glomalin-humic polymers-mollic epipedon) to climate science AND agriculture can not be stressed enough.
Hank #477: “I’m thinking of the forests I’ve known personally… “
And I’m thinking of the forests I’ve known personally. The difference is that I have stated that I’m not qualified to speak of forest ecosystems with which I’m not familiar (e.g. coastal rainforests), but I have studied boreal forest ecology, and I’ve worked in the boreal forest for decades. Canada’s forests are predominantly boreal.
“The fires you’re talking about are stands that burn surrounded by other stands, and that’s an average. What’s the distribution of years, what are the oldest stands?”
Please go to the link I provided. The report by David Andison explains his methodology. The average fire cycle is not your defintion of average. Also from the report – fire frequency varied from 41 years to 224 years.
“When there’s a shaded canopy many fires burn through without killing all of the — the “fire ladders” are shaded out and the lower dead limbs have been shaded, fallen, and decayed.”
When a forest fire is crowning in the boreal forest, it doesn’t need ladder fuels to spread. There’s a lot of information on boreal forest fire behaviour on the Canadian Forest Service website.
“Point is you can lose a stand of trees without killing the associated topsoil nor killing the trees in the other stands nearby.”
Fire severity varies depending on a lot of factors. Severe fires can burn away all of the organic material exposing the mineral soil. The exposed mineral soil makes a receptive seedbed for some species (e.g. Jack Pine) which won’t germinate on heavy duff.
“Clearcutting kills the trees and after five or six years the roots die as well. Look up: landslide after clearcut.
A severe forest fire can kill all the trees too. However usually some trees survive, either as single stems or in clumps. That’s why most timber harvest is now variable retention. Whether fire or harvest, the roots will die when conifers are killed. Aspen will regenerate from the roots (whether post–fire or post-harvest).
Saskatchewan isn’t known for landslides, given its flat topography. However companies operating on provincial government land have rules preventing harvest on steep slopes.
Bottom line is that even if heroic efforts were made, trying to preserve boreal forests for many centuries is doomed to failure. Sustainable Forest Management, building with wood, and the use of mill waste for energy, all have important roles to play in mitigating climate change, and I am appreciative of the fact that IPCC Working Group 3 recognizes the science.
Chuck Hughessays
“””””””I do see quotation marks used around the quoted text.
“If you see no difference, and did nothing different when typing those, then there’s definitely a puzzle here.””””””””
Comment by Hank Roberts — 30 Apr 2016 @
Hank, with all due respect, I am well versed in writing and literature. I come from a family of English teachers, and professional writers. http://www.dochughesbooks.com
I completely understand the necessity for attribution. Glancing up thread through the various comments and the plethora of posts I see very few instances where block quotes were used let alone quotation marks. In many instances I see initials indicating attribution. This is a blog, NOT the New York Times. I’m not submitting a scientific paper for review in some scientific journal. I AM HAVING CASUAL CONVERSATION ON AN ‘OPEN’ THREAD. There is a HUGE difference. I’m NOT stealing “intellectual property” for profit. I haven’t republished copyrighted material for personal gain.
If I may say so, I think you’re just a tad cranky. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot or I pissed you off. If I did you have my deepest apologies. I type on the internet daily and I’ve posted on this particular blog for 3 or 4 years. This is the FIRST time anyone has accused me of misquoting or not giving proper attribution for something someone else has said. To be sure I will never quote you again. I give you my word that. I will never repost anything else you write beyond what I am saying now. Quite frankly, there’s no need for it.
If there are specific rules for posting on this particular blog please be so kind as to direct my attention to them so that I might avoid future mistakes. Apparently I overlooked the rules of engagement. Thanks
#442 Thank you, Moseley, for your very thoughtful and authoritative comments on the nature of science and the integrity of (most) scientists. As an avid reader of scientific literature since childhood, especially in the fields of physics, anthropology, semiotics and genetics, I strongly agree. However, as I’m sure you are aware, very little in the realm of scientific research can be accepted as “settled,” and that’s generally regarded as a good thing, since all the many controversies are what drive science forward.
Of late, my interest in anthropology has been centered on the “Out of Africa” replacement model recently developed by population geneticists. And for some time I accepted that model as “settled science,” basing my own research on it. Recently, however, there have been some developments suggesting that “Out of Africa” could be an over-simplification, based on new evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and “modern” humans. Most researchers were caught by surprise at the new findings, but we are learning to adjust, and refine our hypotheses in the light of the new evidence. That’s how science works and I have no problem with that.
As a physicist I’m sure you are aware of the intractable differences between two of the greatest physicists who ever lived, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, regarding the ultimate meaning of quantum physics. That controversy has never been fully resolved, despite the best efforts of some of the best minds of our time.
So to claim that “the science” supporting the “consensus” view of climate change is settled, and no other viewpoint is acceptable is very clearly NOT consistent with scientific principles, not, at least, as I understand them. There are distinguished scientists on both sides of this debate and both sides deserve to be heard — which should be obvious.
[Response: The only thing that is obvious is the totally transparent rhetorical tricks you use – ‘quantum physics is hard to interpret therefore we know nothing about climate change’. Really?. The reason your posts get bore-holed is because this is weapon-grade boring. Up your game, or go find other people to play with. – gavin]
#442, Moseley–
“I have a hard time understanding a lot of the back and forth on this site.” Amen, brother. Especially lately.
And yes, I’ve contributed my share, too.
Re: Comment by Richard Caldwell — 29 Apr 2016 @ 8:27 AM, ~#444 and previous
Richard, let’s get real. You have admitted that you have no idea what the, no longer extant, processes were that allowed the creation of huge coal deposits during the Carboniferous period. You also have not invented some super efficient engine, or a practical greenhouse that could feed a nation, or a house design that can sequester carbon for a useful amount of time. If you had, you could reference your scholarly articles, patents, or books that provide the detail required to substantiate your claims and that could be vetted by experts. All you have offered are unsupported opinions. From what you have written here, you could be a genius or some self-important troll, and it would be easy for you to provide the evidence to help us decide.
So, for the moment, I will stay with just one of your assertions about the log house. You ask, “How many THOUSAND years will it last?” No junior debate team games, please provide credible, documented evidence that your log house would last as long as a cheap tract house and why anyone would want to build it (hint- wood is not a very practical thermal mass). Steve
Vendicar: Andhra Pradesh where temperatures since the start of April have been hovering around 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit).
Richard: Do you know the average daily minimum temps? Humans can tolerate very high peak temperatures if we have a good rest at coolish temperatures. The Scandinavian countries have turned part of this complex system into a World Championship sport. Unfortunately, it’s like free diving: when the sport is literally conditioning your body to actually survive in competition what would have killed you last year, well, sometimes you have a bad day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Sauna_Championships
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/aug/04/free-diver-natalia-molchanova-feared-dead
@430/434 – I am not sure what you are getting at… The US Wealth and Prosperity is, indeed, built on world trade. I never claimed “fortress America”. I am not a jingoist at all. But several commentators made wild claims about US Agriculture that were hilariously false. So I posted remarks refuting that and commented on the fact that South Asis needs US food to survive at current population levels. It is simply the reality. Caring or not caring has nothing to do with it.
I am very concerned with AGW – since the 1970s. I kind of thought, the facts would be established, and the majority would recognize the gravity of the situation and we would all work diligently on solutions before it was too late. I was horribly wrong, of course, and I’m pretty much convinced that WAIS and eventually the GIS will melt out even when we stabilize the CO2. I am very hopeful we are on the right path now [if very late]. AGW is going to reshape the world – but it won’t be the apocalypse. I know it is easier to lie to children that the apocalypse will happen if they don’t eat their vegetables – but I’m not that kind of parent. I won’t lie to convince people to act. We need to act from reason and compassion.
The reality is going to suck for a lot of people on the planet. In South Asia – reality was going to suck anyway. Individually, none of them are to blame or deserving of the suckage coming their way. Collectively, however, they have conspired against themselves in concert with the Industrial Revolution and they are on the road to ruin. It just plain sucks and the rest of the world will have to deal with the debris… The Syrian Refugee crisis is not making me excited by the prospect.
I also see that you managed to locate the http://www.ers.usda.gov/ site. Good job. If you had bothered to interpret the data – you would have noticed that 40% of US food imports come from Canada (Specialty grains, Oils [Canola], Beer) and Mexico (Beer, Produce, Meat). The other major bulk imports are coffee, sugar and fruit from Central and South America. We could grow them in Florida – but labor is cheaper in Brazil and Central America. Florida’s major agricultural export in dollars is ornamental plants (much higher margin than fruit). Most of the “bulk” imports therefore come from Canada and Mexico via truck and not container ship. Our huge bulk exports go to Asia via container ship. Our imports are mostly “wet” and so relatively heavy. Our exports are dry – the corn export in metric tons exceeds all of the US imports in metric tons. If you looked at North America as a “unit” which it largely is from a food perspective. The export tonnage far, far exceeds the limited imports.
I would outlaw CAFOs. But meat consumption/production is not inherently the problem. Production is definitely not dependent on the CAFOs. We could produce the same amount using traditional methods with very low energy inputs. It is a fact. The US has ridiculous spare capacity in virtually all areas. It is China, India and South Asia that have run out of capacity.
South Asia would suffer regardless without climate change. The birthrate only slowed recently. Just 20 years ago it was 4-5 across the region. It is still ABOVE replacement everywhere except strangely Iran. Look it up. Yes, China, Japan and the US are less than replacement – good for them/us. The US population is still increasing mainly due to legal immigration.
And seriously? Could you drop the Blame Everything on Western Imperialism nonsense? India and China have a long history of appropriating resources from others at knife point and oppressing their fellows – just like the rest of humanity. Yawn…
We have money and resources and it is in our interest to help the struggling nations of the world adapt and use clean energy. Meanwhile, China (already) and India (soon) will exceed US emissions in CO2 annually. Admittedly, corporations moved their operations to China and Asia so they could pollute at will because the US and Europe have environmental regulation regimes and Asia did not (and mostly still doesn’t). But China and India happily welcomed their money and expertise.
Screwing up the world has been a Team Effort from day one. Saving it will require a Team Effort.
Re: Comment by mike — 29 Apr 2016 @ 11:34 AM, ~#450
You seem to object to what I said, so I guess I didn’t make myself clear. You respond- “I have a different view: Anything that drives CO2 and other ghg accumulation in the atmosphere is a real problem and anything that sequesters or removes CO2 and other ghg from the atmosphere is a real solution.”
I agree, but you appear not to understand that biomass removes CO2 from the atmosphere to grow and when the plants die naturally, are eaten, or are used in any other way, the CO2 goes back into the atmosphere. This process is carbon neutral and, therefore, doesn’t add CO2 to the atmosphere. So, regarding biomass, it is the process of using fossil carbon fertilizer, for example, and messing with the ability of forests and other biomes to accumulate and maintain carbon stores that increases atmospheric CO2.
Steve
Thank you Gavin.
Moseley– “I have a hard time understanding a lot of the back and forth on this site.”
Kevin: Amen, brother. Especially lately. And yes, I’ve contributed my share, too.
Is “hard to understand” good or bad? Have you been introduced to more or fewer possibly useful thoughts?
Steve Fish: please explain how burning biomass releases more CO2 than the plants had to remove from the atmosphere in order to grow in the first place.
Richard: By degrading soil, if done improperly. Blanket declarations compress a wildly diverse spectrum into a data point which declares that every process imaginable is 100% efficient. Carnot would be impressed….
Thomas: I do not think ‘fortress america’ or ‘we’re ok no matter what’ is a very rational nor ethical way
Richard: True. Imagine starvation stalking entire regions of the globe. Wars, refugees, chaos. We could shoot on sight, but what would the Pope say? What about you local spiritual leader? The voter?
So no, I can’t imagine the well-off world will blithely decide to close the gates and let ’em starve. That would be even worse than genocide, cuz starving humans can take down a whole ecosystem.
Since that’s what I can’t imagine, the odds just increased that we’ll take the path of munching fast food while Drones and Soldiers keep Them at bay. We’ll watch the slowly evolving catastrophe…
BPL: You have 78 chromosomes.
Richard: Thank you. I didn’t know you knew about the technique of inserting extras to improve an individual…
1% science and 99% gibberish. Not nice to see Gavin’s groupies in a schoolyard brawl. Bah !
Another cheerful note at months end, looks like coral gardening is taking off, yielding a nice big carbon sink. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/science/a-lifesaving-transplant-for-coral-reefs.html
445 Vendicar Decarian says:
At least 300 people have died of heat-related illness this month, including 110 in the state of Orissa, 137 in Telangana and another 45 in Andhra Pradesh where temperatures since the start of April have been hovering around 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit).
An important fact (see the research eg in France and Russia a few years back) to keep in mind is that when people are affected by “heat stress” the deaths continue for days and weeks after the extreme event period. Few of those deaths are then attributed to ‘heat stress’ but rather the most obvious thing that was the cause of death, eg stroke, heart attack, accident, or a virus and so on.
442 Moseley – well said.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/04/unforced-variations-apr-2016/comment-page-9/#comment-651367
I’m with you 100% and I’m not an academic nor a scientist. I can understand what you are saying and why it’s more valid than any denialist commentary or conspiracy theory.
451 Victor, there are several things that expose your flawed thinking in your comment, but to allude that Mosley had said anything close to ..claim that “the science” supporting the “consensus” view of climate change is settled, and no other viewpoint is acceptable is very clearly NOT consistent with scientific principles… is a pathetic false accusation easily exposed for what it is = BS. Most people call it a strawman but I much prefer the notion of shoving words not said into another person’s mouth. It’s distasteful, it’s a lie, it’s disingenuous and shows that you cannot even read properly let alone think for yourself adequately.
Victor you are an extreme fundamentalist zealot with no interest in truth or reality. What are you a zealot about? Your own idiotic beliefs of your own superiority on a subject where all you will ever receive is a fail. You also get a fail for rhetoric, sophistry and debating skills. That’s my opinion. Yours has zero credibility to me. Have a nice life anyway. Preferably somewhere else.
Hank #393: “If we could let forests grow for centuries we would see something close to the normal full result. Possibly for a millenium”
Andison (2015) looked at forest fire records from the northern part of Saskatchewan (Boreal Shield and Taiga Shield Ecozones), where there is no commercial forestry and where fires are only actioned if threatening settlements, and found that the average stand-replacing fire cycle was 75 years.
https://friresearch.ca/resource/grid-based-natural-wildfire-patterns-northeastern-saskatchewan
I’m not sure which forest ecosystem you are discussing, but in the boreal forest that I’m familiar with, a forest that avoids a stand-replacing fire for a millenium is unheard of.
Steve and Richard: Both log houses and houses built with 2X6 studs sequester carbon, but the wood building product of the future is cross laminated timber (CLT), which allows multi-level construction.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/science/lofty-ambitions-for-cross-laminated-timber-panels.html
“Please, please, please — either use quotation marks, or block your quotes.
You just dump a chunk of text in and someone’s name and it’s very hard for someone trying to make sense of your posts.
These quoting conventions are widely used by all people who read and write.
Join the crowd.”
Comment by Hank Roberts — 29 Apr 2016 @ 9
Hank, you might want to highlight which of my posts you’re referencing as not containing quotation marks or attribution instead of dumping a chunk of vitrol at random. Could it be the one with YOUR NAME AFTER IT? Otherwise I have no idea. I certainly wouldn’t want to take credit for something someone else said. I generally post links to a specific piece if I’m quoting anything from it and, I know what quotation marks are used for and use them daily. It also depends what I’m typing on; if I’m using a regular keyboard or typing with my thumbs on a phone, which is much more difficult. If I am quoting someone on here I tend to include the person’s name, date and time of posting immediately following what that person said. Anything beyond that was purly accidental and unintended.
@Richard Caldwell 444,
You did a nice job on the Fermi argument against “starvation in the USA”, but in the detailed physics of building design, not so much.
First, using wood for thermal mass makes no sense at all. Density, specific heat, and conductivity, all argue against it. The numbers aren’t even close.
Second, you described yourself the nightmare of your vertical orientation– the walls would tear themselves apart without some “perfect” interior vapor barrier. You would have to cover up the visual feature anyway.
Also, on a practical note (not your fault) that is really annoying with respect to this issue– people don’t seem to like thick walls. Apart from the greed of builders, I get the sense that buyer resistance is quite strong; SIP should be everywhere and yet I never see them used.
Anyway, stick to the big picture stuff and you should do fine.
https://vimeo.com/55073825
“… The Overview Effect, first described by author Frank White in 1987, is an experience that transforms astronauts’ perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it. Common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.
‘Overview’ is a short film that explores this phenomenon through interviews with five astronauts who have experienced the Overview Effect….”
@Thomas and Mike, who are being rational and polite unlike some of the Zombie Apocalypse fans, let me review the issue since I started some of it.
My original comment was in response to claims that CC would lead to the end of world technological civilization in some near term– this century, perhaps the next.
My simple claim was that whatever drought, flood, pestilence, famine, yadda yadda, short of major nuclear war initiated by CC happened,
1. There would be sufficient food to maintain a technologically adept population that would have at least sanitation, electricity, and antibiotics, and probably much more.
2. That population would be large enough to allow the full phenotypical expression of current genetic diversity. (Still waiting for bio types to take a swing at what that number should be.)
Now, I used an example of something like 30 millions on each coast of the USA, just because I have some sense of the ecological/geographical factors. I get the sense that is not something anyone would challenge.
But then the question seemed to arise as to whether, in that near term, there would be people in the USA dying due to lack of food. And, as I and others like RC have pointed out, the numbers just don’t justify such a projection.
We don’t have any reason to think that because there are people who don’t get as much food as they would like every day, those people are malnourished because of anything but dietary choices. That fast-food chains may import beef (and beef by-products?) from Argentina doesn’t mean anyone would starve if that became unavailable, since we consume twice as many calories per capita than we need already. If you are going to make this argument, you have to describe a concrete, realistic scenario in which nutrition drops below the level needed to sustain life.
Anecdote, which I had forgotten until now: When I was a young student, I was quite “financially challenged”, and also wandering in my reading into Anthropology, as well as being environmentally committed. So that summer, having read that some hunter-gatherers lived on 1200 calories/day, I decided I should be able to do that too. I payed attention to nutritional balance, and I stuck to it for a couple of months. I started as a thin young man, I was doing physical work, and I apparently missed in my reading the fact that H-G tended to be appreciably shorter than my average US height at the time. You can imagine the result.
But I did want to make clear that I am well aware that being that hungry (just, really, hungry,) is not a joke, for people who don’t see the possibility of changing the situation.
Apologies for a long comment, and also if this is a duplicate– something glitched while I was editing.
In light of the March Nature Fyfe et al paper you might be interested in my latest blog post
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-imminent-collapse-of-cagw-delusion.html
From time to time for several years on my blog I have pointed out that forecasting the general trends of future climate takes little more than basic common sense.It is trivially obvious that if we know where earth is with regard to the millennial and 60 year cycles that the future can be estimated with an accuracy sufficient for making policy decisions.It is obvious by simple inspection that the solar activity record peaked in 1991 (Fig 8 ) and the corresponding RSS temperature data peaked at about 2003 {Fig 5) .The earth then entered a cooling trend which ,modulated by the 60 year cycle, which coincidentally peaked at the same time ,will continue until about 2650 .
The Enso events do not seem to have much influence on the longer term trends and we have little insight as to their timing and amplitude. The El Ninos occur more frequently during times of general warming and vice versa. I truncated the data in Fig 5 at 2015.1 for illustrative purposes because the Enso events are short term deviations about the general rising and declining trends.
Note the delay seen between the solar activity peak at 1991 Fig 8 and the millennial temperature peak at 2003+/-. Fig 5
For more detail see
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html and for a comment see http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2015/04/climate-and-co2-exchange-with-freeman.html
I would be happy to hear your opinion of my methods and forecasts.
Best Regards
Moseley, I feel compelled to thank you twice over. First for penning one of the most sagacious comments I’ve ever read (see previous page) anywhere. A second time for piquing my interest to such an extent as to attempt to “search” you out. This, of course, resulted in my “finding” one Henry Moseley (1887-1915). I found Isaac Asimov’s perspective, “…his death might well have been the most costly single death of the War to mankind generally,” most poignant. So, again, thank you most sincerely.
Lastly, may I be so bold to inquire if you are “Moseley” at U. of Bath or the Max Planck Institute or “elsewhere?” (Alas, admittedly I am too “lazy” to proceed beyond the 8th page of search results.)
Don De Lillo may have hit on what both sides are up to in the Climate Wars :
‘There were times when no map existed to match the reality we were trying to create…
Human perception is a saga of created reality. But we were devising entities beyond the agreed-upon limits of recognition or interpretation. Lying is necessary. The state has to lie. There is no lie in war or in preparation for war that can’t be defended.
We went beyond this. We tried to create new realities overnight, careful sets of words that resemble advertising slogans in memorability and repeatability. These were words that would yield pictures and then become three-dimensional.
The reality stands, it walks, it squats. Except when it doesn’t.’
form: Point Omega
RC,
I didn’t think you’d get it.
If you insist on buying into the alarmist scenario, here’s your problem in a nutshell:
First, it’s necessary to demonstrate that there has in fact been a true long-term warming TREND, which must be distinguished from a simple increase in temperature over a given period. (While current temperatures are now higher than they were 100 years ago (by only about 1 degree celsius) there was in fact no long term trend — from ca. 1940-1979 temperatures were either flat or declining.)
[Response: Actually, these just illustrates my point above. Your arguments are just lame. Are you really inventing a whole new definition of trend that permits no departures from linearity even in the presence of internal variability and non-linearity in the external forcings? This is a hail mary pass. – gavin]
Second, it’s necessary to demonstrate that the rather alarming warming trend so apparent from the last 20 years of the previous century has continued into the 21st. (According to the surprising results recently obtained by Michael Mann and his associates — see the paper by Fyfe et al. — it has not.)
[Response: This has both misrepresentation and an ill-founded attempt at argument from authority. Fail. – gavin]
Third, it’s necessary to link most of the temperature increase to increased emissions of CO2, in a clear cause and effect relationship. (Despite the complete lack of correlation between the two during both the mid 20th century and the current period of roughly 15 to 19 years of only minimal warming despite steep increased in CO2 emissions.)
[Response: Argument from personal ignorance. “It seems complicated to me, therefore it can’t be done.”. Wrong. – gavin]
Fourth, it’s necessary to demonstrate that the increase in temperature over the last 100 years or so has actually done any harm. (According to the most recent research, there was no appreciable increase in extreme weather events during the 20 century as opposed to certain comparable periods in the past — see http://www.reuters.com/…/us-climatechange-extremes… )
[Response: Yet again a misrepresentation of both the argument and the citation. Boring. – gavin]
And Fifth, assuming all the above is in fact the case, it’s necessary to demonstrate that something meaningful can actually be done to avert the extreme events now being predicted. According to some of the most vocal activists it is already too late.
[Response: Ah the classic “vocal activists say” as if you give them any credence at all. Total sophistry. When I said up your game, I meant it. If you want to talk about things that are actually uncertain you should do it. Instead all we get is rhetorical talking points and recycled memes… as if you think the latter gets you credibility as an environmentalist. Ha. We’re done. – gavin]
> average stand-replacing fire cycle was 75 years
I’m thinking of the forests I’ve known personally — Olympic rainforest in Washington, and central coast range Ponderosa pine/black oak forests in California, piney woods in North Carolina as late as the 1950s, and remnant old growth around the Great Smoky Mountains.
The fires you’re talking about are stands that burn surrounded by other stands, and that’s an average. What’s the distribution of years, what are the oldest stands?
When there’s a shaded canopy many fires burn through without killing all of the — the “fire ladders” are shaded out and the lower dead limbs have been shaded, fallen, and decayed.
Point is you can lose a stand of trees without killing the associated topsoil nor killing the trees in the other stands nearby. You may well have a fire that burns through hot enough to scorch the trees to where the cambium will die above ground — if only on one side you get a “cat’s mouth” scar — but not even kill the roots and they’ll put up new growth.
Clearcutting kills the trees and after five or six years the roots die as well. Look up: landslide after clearcut
Richard, #458–
“Is “hard to understand” good or bad?”
On principle, it’s bad. No presentation should ever be harder to understand than it needs to be in order to properly represent the content presented. (Obviously, this is a statement of the ideal, not the reality!)
When there is a lot of back and forth of the “well, you said x, and I responded y” the content rather gets buried. And often the main point does, too. For instance, I’ve quite lost track of why we are talking about log house construction methods, other than the fact that it’s vaguely relevant to carbon sequestration.
“Have you been introduced to more or fewer possibly useful thoughts?”
Fewer per word, unquestionably. Not sure how the word totals are running, and not sure I want to know.
Norman Page, #470–
“It is trivially obvious that if we know where earth is with regard to the millennial and 60 year cycles…”
It is trivially obvious that we don’t know that either of those purported ‘cycles’ is actually, as they say, a ‘thing’:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/loehle-scafetta-60-year-cycle.htm
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=evidence+for+millennial+climate+cycle&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiCg7jfoLfMAhWKPiYKHXBCALYQgQMIGzAA
“…that the future can be estimated with an accuracy sufficient for making policy decisions.”
Because you decide a priori that nothing else matters. However, that assumption is not viable in the reality-based community.
“I would be happy to hear your opinion of my methods and forecasts.”
Really? I think your methods and forecasts are trash–examples of what abler folk than I have dubbed “mathturbation.” I wouldn’t have thought that would be pleasing.
For Chuck Hughes — you asked for examples where you’ve pasted in chunks of text without using either quotation marks or blockquotes. Here are examples:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/04/unforced-variations-apr-2016/comment-page-8/#comment-651295
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/04/unforced-variations-apr-2016/comment-page-9/#comment-651320
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/04/unforced-variations-apr-2016/comment-page-9/#comment-651337
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/04/unforced-variations-apr-2016/comment-page-9/#comment-651361
I don’t see quotation marks in those.
If you did type and do see them, perhaps there’s a display problem here.
In your most recent comment, however, this one:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/04/unforced-variations-apr-2016/comment-page-10/#comment-651403
I do see quotation marks used around the quoted text.
If you see no difference, and did nothing different when typing those, then there’s definitely a puzzle here.
Thanks for the link on coral farming, Chuck.
Branching corals seem opportunistic. Their shape increases opportunity and risk. That they are easily farmed makes sense. Weedy versions.
Rock corals seem like survivors. Pick the perfect space, hunker down, and slowly build something massive. Redwoods come to mind.
So to successfully farm rock corals we have to do it under extremely artificial conditions, so different that there has to be a transitioning phase for transplant.
I think we’re going to keep seeing such dynamics, where we’ll try to navigate not a species, but entire classes through a bottleneck by finding individuals who can thrive both on the farm and in a warmer world. Put them out. See what survives at 1C, repeat ad nauseam on the way up, spreading survivors and hoping that genetic diversity and fortuitous mutations don’t run out before things stabilize.
And then what? Do we make nature ride that train in reverse? With the diminished genetic diversity available, perhaps we’ll be stuck with warmly watching the ice sheets melt.
————
zebra: using wood for thermal mass makes no sense at all. Density, specific heat, and conductivity, all argue against it. The numbers aren’t even close.
Richard: No, we’re using wood as carbon storage, and pondering whether such storage is best done in the forest or the house. Inside of a house, the wood provides, in perhaps descending order: high-class interior and exterior surfaces, thermal mass, insulation, and structure, though the structure can substantially be replaced by a sheet of OSB in this application. So, super-structure. And even if something did take it out, say an airliner, the logs are easily recoverable and reusable or chunked into engineered wood feedstock. Salvage of intact standard-length bare logs is nothing like the “throw it all in the dump” mess of shattered lumber and sheetrock.
Plus, in harvesting the logs, we also get all the other bits of wood that need to be removed anyway to replace fire with human management. That stuff can be used to make tons and tons of SIPs and other engineered woods, such as Phil was describing. We leave behind some Mother trees, who will live for hundreds of years as pampered carbon-storing pets. We’ll also leave the proper number of juveniles, standing dead wood, and fall.
Peat-mining is real. Gardening depends on it. Bark can substitute.
zebra: the walls would tear themselves apart without some “perfect” interior vapor barrier.
Richard: No, the walls are built traditionally, like a stud wall. They are spaced so that at maximum expansion they’re almost touching. (or chinking can be used) The top and bottom plates take lateral loads. The foam exterior to the stockade provides sealing and insulating. The stockade moderates temperatures and provides a comfortable, appealing interior surface. The wood is literally “living indoors”. It will last as long as the siding, foam, and roof are maintained properly. And even if ruined, the carbon will still be useful. Logs last long after the house itself is trashed.
On thickness: Thickness is grand except at windows and doors. With vertical orientation, areas where plumbing, access, or views are needed can be built with SIPs or studs. No problem, and it provides an enhanced overhang for vulnerable surfaces. Plus, more exterior eye-candy. Remember, the Rich get logs, the poor get SIPs.
————
Phil: the wood building product of the future is cross laminated timber (CLT),
Richard: Yeah, once she was in a wheelchair, my mother-in-law couldn’t get to the private gardens she had installed at the assisted living facility during the refit of two units into something “livable”, as the patio door/window was 10″ above floor level. So I bought some glue and a lot of clamps and bent 1/4 plywood strips into two bridges: I\___/I I\___/I It’s amazing how little engineered wood it takes to make something super strong, and man, those arched bridges with all the layers and grain; I love the way wood looks.
——–
Steve Fish, you’ve devolved into naysaying. SIPs are immensely strong and substantially impervious to everything. I’m describing a SIP with an interior panel which is upgraded from the normal 1/2″ OSB to an 8×8 stud wall placed on 8.05″ centers. Ever run a car into EIGHT trees? Fasteners are the ONLY mechanical consideration, and weight is a fastener in and of itself. You’ve obviously never seen a classroom that dealt with any sort of engineering. Bunkers take bomb hits, and this is building to that spec.
470 Norman Page: I read your page thanks. I’m mindful of what is noted in Fyfe et al for example:
“Investigations have also identified
non-climatic artefacts in tropospheric
temperatures inferred from radiosondes30
and satellites31, and important errors in
ocean heat uptake estimates25. Newly
identified observational errors do not,
however, negate the existence of a real
reduction in the surface warming rate in
the early twenty-first century relative to the
1970s–1990s. This reduction arises through
the combined effects of internal decadal
variability11–18, volcanic19,23 and solar activity,
and decadal changes in anthropogenic
aerosol forcing32. The warming slowdown
has motivated substantial research into
decadal climate variability and uncertainties
in key external forcings. As a result, the
scientific community is now better able to
explain temperature variations such as those
experienced during the early twenty-first
century33, and perhaps even to make skilful
predictions of such fluctuations in the future.”
and then:
“For example, climate model predictions
initialized with recent observations
indicate a transition to a positive phase
of the IPO with increased rates of global
surface temperature warming (ref. 34, and
G. A. Meehl, A. Hu and H. Teng, manuscript
in preparation).”
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n3/full/nclimate2938.html
Perhaps you could add a link to the paper on your page seeing you are talking about it?
Norman Page’s predictions are:
“Remember the 12 year delay between the 1991 solar activity peak and the 2003 temperature trend break. , if there is a similar delay in the response to lower solar activity , earth should see a cold spell from 2019 to 2021 when you will be in Middle School. It should also be noticeably cooler at the coolest part of the 60 year cycle – halfway through the present 60 year cycle at about 2033.”
Have noted 2019 & 2033 and marked them on the calendar. other refs
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n3/full/nclimate2111.html
“The net ocean warming reflects the existence of climate change in the ocean, which acts as a response to the radiative forcing, helps transport heat from the sea surface to the deeper ocean, and results in net ocean warming.”
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep14346
I have little doubt “The Imminent Collapse of the CAGW Delusion” myths, as promulgated by agw/cc science deniers critics and pseudo-skeptics, will collapse over time.
Norman Page,
Thanks for the blogwhoring, but I prefer nonfiction.
z 469: My original comment was in response to claims that CC would lead to the end of world technological civilization in some near term– this century, perhaps the next. . . . the question seemed to arise as to whether, in that near term, there would be people in the USA dying due to lack of food. And, as I and others like RC have pointed out, the numbers just don’t justify such a projection.
BPL: WHAT numbers? Show your work. I have.
460 Richard Caldwell “can’t imagine the well-off world will blithely decide to close the gates and let ’em starve.”
If you let them in, you starve too. You starve anyway, but you starve more slowly if you shoot them at the border. Reference: “The Long Summer” by Brian Fagan and “Collapse” by Jared Diamond. When agriculture collapses, civilization collapses REGARDESS OF HOW MANY PEOPLE THERE ARE. Fagan and Diamond told the stories of something like 2 dozen previous very small civilizations. Most of the collapses were caused by fraction of a degree climate changes. In some cases, all of that group died. On the average, 1 out of 10,000 survived.
Richard Caldwell, and everybody, will have a hard time imagining how brutal the times will be when it happens. That is a problem. Genocide would be a minor crime by comparison.
469 Zebra: I don’t believe you at all. There is no reason to believe that any particular group would survive, unless it is some group that is still living in the stone age.
470 Norman Page’s blog: “The Imminent Collapse of the CAGW Delusion.” http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
Book: “Too Smart for our Own Good.” by Craig Dilworth: I disagree with Craig Dilworth. We are not too smart. We are too stupid. Dilworth says we increase technology only after being pressured to do so by a high death rate; and that the most primitive hunter-gatherers are the best off and the happiest. That would mean that we will do something about GW after the population has begun to crash. Dilworth’s prognosis seems accurate. The problem is that we have no such luxury of waiting this time. We must do the jump to the next higher level before the crash or it is all over. I am on page 254. Dilworth starts with evolution and “deduces” economic boom-bust cycles. It is an interesting book, but I was wondering if anybody else has an opinion on it.
#451 [Response: The only thing that is obvious is the totally transparent rhetorical tricks you use – ‘quantum physics is hard to interpret therefore we know nothing about climate change’. Really?. . . Gavin]
The quantum physics example was just that, an example. Every branch of science is riddled with controversy — so why should Climate Science be an exception? THAT was my point. What you read into it had nothing to do with what I wrote. A straw man if I ever saw one.
And speaking of straw men:
#465 Thomas: “to allude that Mosley had said anything close to ..claim that “the science” supporting the “consensus” view of climate change is settled, and no other viewpoint is acceptable is very clearly NOT consistent with scientific principles… is a pathetic false accusation easily exposed for what it is = BS. Most people call it a strawman but I much prefer the notion of shoving words not said into another person’s mouth.”
What I actually wrote was: “However, AS I’M SURE YOU ARE AWARE, very little in the realm of scientific research can be accepted as “settled,””
Nothing in Moseley’s post claimed the science was settled, and nothing in my post accused him of making such a claim. As should be obvious to anyone capable of reading beyond eighth grade level, what I wrote about the notion of climate change being “settled” was directed at the dogma routinely taken for granted on this blog, and not Moseley, whose post was far more reasonable than what I usually find here.
Goodbye, Victor.
Victor, you don’t seem to know what either a “trend” or a “correlation” are. They are not rhetorical concepts with varying definitions. In science, specifically in statistics, they have mathematical definitions.
I strongly suggest you take an introductory statistics class. If you want brief rebuttals to your points (perhaps you don’t), 1, the temperature trend for the last 165 years is extremely significant, and 2) so is the correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature anomalies (r = 0.91).
As for the physical mechanism, that was demonstrated in 1858 and explained in the 1920s; it is a matter of quantum mechanics. Check a modern text on radiative transfer. Goody and Yung’s “Atmospheric Radiation” (1989) is a comprehensive one. For a simpler one, you might try Houghton’s “The Physics of Atmospheres” (2002) or Petty’s “A First Course in Atmospheric Radiation.”
Victor, #486–
“…the dogma routinely taken for granted on this blog…”
Was that the ‘dogma’ that ‘We’re All Gonna Die?’ Or that ‘We Sure Won’t?’
The ‘dogma’ that ‘old growth forests store the most carbon?’ Or that managed forests and human structures do?
The ‘dogma’ that ‘methane is an emergency?’ Or that it’s a sideshow?
I could go on, but IMO your comment is more that usually ironic.
Victor: What I actually wrote was: “However, AS I’M SURE YOU ARE AWARE, very little in the realm of scientific research can be accepted as “settled,””
Richard: That’s wrong. Most everything in science is mostly settled, when viewed from the standpoint of the layperson. That’s ALL fields of science. Gravity is a good example.
From a layperson’s viewpoint, Newton solved gravity et al. Relativity is mere dust particles. Irrelevant other than space ships and satellites.
From a scientist’s viewpoint, gravity is still not settled. Who gives a flip? That’s 99.99999999999999% irrelevant to anybody outside of science.
So, yes, you can say, “They’ll always be better defining of sub-atomic particles, so we must NEVER movie into the house.”
But isn’t standing in the rain stupid?
486 Victor says “Moseley’s post was far more reasonable than what I usually find here.” Yes it was. It was also far more reasonable and rational and sensible and true than anything which you have posted here Victor. That’s my point. :-)
When you say things like this Victor “..claim that “the science” supporting the “consensus” view of climate change is settled, and no other viewpoint is acceptable is very clearly NOT consistent with scientific principles…” it is a pathetic false accusation (against everyone generally as well as Moseley) easily exposed for what it is = BS.
i.e. you are making it up as you go Victor. You’re playing word games not playing science. Your claims do not reflect the reality. They are myths lifted from the anti-science, pseudo-skeptics, and the unqualified global blogosphere of conspiracy theorists.
“the dogma routinely taken for granted on this blog” is called validated basic science and intelligent thought. In the meantime feel free ‘to believe’ whatever myth you want to. :-)
481 Richard Caldwell: “No, we’re using wood as carbon storage, and pondering whether such storage is best done in the forest or the house.”
As fascinating as the nuances are for living in log cabins may be for you I consider it off-topic and of little interest. Log cabins are not silver bullets to reverse ghg emission growth. I also feel that the planet has already proven which kind of carbon storage is best and that has been backed up by detailed research via climate science. Cutting down old growth forests has not been a good idea in regards to ghg levels.
Log Cabins is not a cc solution even though they could be a wonderful hobby or a survival option decades to centuries ahead (IF it gets that bad one day.) imo.
476 Victor: Sorry Victor imo it is you who is the alarmist. Do read and parse the ref link provided by Gavin https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/10/the-ipcc-ar5-attribution-statement/
Then feel free to ask questions here about the bits you do not understand. Win-Win :-)
471 zebra, thanks for the review. I think these matters up to a century ahead are far too difficult and complex to predict how things might unfold. Humans are of course resourceful creatures, then again we can also be as thick as bricks. It depends. I can think of no particular reason why the USA couldn’t go the way of a Syria within a couple of short years given the right circumstances arising into the future, but that’s not a prediction. I believe having the best minds focusing on today’s challenges and the next 20 years is where most of the attention should be now with one eye on long term multi-generational sustainability. And keep our fingers crossed for the great-great grandchildren.
455 Robin Johnson says: “And seriously? Could you drop the Blame Everything on Western Imperialism nonsense? India and China have a long history of appropriating resources from others at knife point and oppressing their fellows – just like the rest of humanity. Yawn…”
Robin you’re extrapolating on what was said and meant into something else entirely. (a strawman and putting words into my mouth). The data is (reasonably) clear about contributions of ghg and agw forcing by nation by sector historically. This data is much easier to define than the whole of CC science. This data are the facts of the matter. People in other nations can read and they do have their own justifiable points of view regarding those facts. When negotiations between nations happen this data and the various points of view matter enormously.
China and India may well be about to overtake the USA in annual emissions, but historically the USA beats them by a factor of X. Do you know what that factor is Robin? What about on a per capita basis from 1850 to today Robin? How about a per capita basis in 2016 alone?
If only 10% of the global population are responsible for 50% of the total warming to date, then who should be responsible for cleaning up and stopping their own excess pollution that is causing AGW/CC globally?
Everyone owns the atmosphere, not only the 10% and not only the USA. This is an ethical and moral question about the data, the historical facts and personal / national responsibility for past and present behavior. A unified global solution requires a unified point of view that is both ethical and moral and takes into consideration all the 7 billion people on earth and not only the more powerful on the planet. Or it will fail badly imo.
454 Richard Caldwell asks: “Do you know the average daily minimum temps?”
Look it up – The tables give the normals for maximum and minimum monthly temperatures based on historical weather data collected from 1961 to 1990. https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/India/temperature-april.php or http://www.hyderabad.climatemps.com/april.php Constant 44C is well above average.
Hyderabad Min Max C this week forecasts
Sunny 29 39
cloudy 28 40
sunny 26 40
sunny 27 38
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/world/middle-east/india/hyderabad
The SH? Vast areas of Queensland have experienced the hottest May night since records began, some of which stretch back to the 1800s. From the far northern tropics, through to the southern inland and south-east area, at least 20 cities and towns had their records broken. Some outback stations recorded temperatures 10-13 degrees Celsius above average for the overnight temperature. Brisbane was 8C above average.
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/hottest-may-night-on-record-for-20-queensland-cities-and-towns/498810
For the majority of Australia April was warmer and drier than average. Here’s a quick summary of the capital cities.
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/capital-city-april-wrap-up/498755
Follow the data where it leads? A couple of decades of recorded weather = climate.
Regional changes are obvious. In the 1960s where I grew up, at 8 in the morning people going to work or school in the dead of winter wore coats, scarves and gloves. Water pipes would sometimes ice up. This doesn’t happen anymore, not since the 1990s. Climate science explains why this has happened and the data supports real world observations globally by region. Obvious weather changes all add up to define climate changes.
Conspiracy theories, wooly thinking and wordy debates prove nothing.
Any thoughts on this article?
http://principia-scientific.org/north-atlantic-heat-content-plunges-serious-implications-for-us-climate/
Kevin,
You said, “The ‘dogma’ that ‘old growth forests store the most carbon?’ Or that managed forests and human structures do?”
Neither, the most storage is in grassland (mollic) soils. Where trees store most their products of photosynthesis in woody biomass, grasslands instead of producing a woody tree truck, secret excess products of photosynthesis (exudates) to feed the soil food web, especially mycorrhizal fungi. Those fungi (AMF) in turn secrete a newly discovered compound called glomalin deep in the soil profile. Glomalin itself has a 1/2 life of 7–42 years if left undisturbed. The deepest deposits even longer with a 1/2 life of 300 years or more in the right conditions. Then when it does degrade a large % forms humic polymers that tightly bind to the soil mineral substrate and can last thousands of years undisturbed. Together they all form what is called a mollic epipedon. That’s your really good deep fertile soils of the world and they contain far more carbon, even in their highly degraded state currently, than all the terrestrial biomass and atmospheric CO2 put together.
Even though wood is resistant to decay, the biomass of forests is still considered part of the active carbon cycle (labile carbon) Fossil fuels are considered stable carbon, so adding fossil fuel carbon increases atmospheric CO2, while the active carbon cycle, including all that woody biomass, taken on a long term view approaches net zero. That litter layer on the forest floor is relatively shallow, and most that decay ends up back in the atmosphere, unless locked in some kind of peat bog or permafrost. Tightly bound soil carbon in a mollic epipedon is considered differently than the labile carbon pool. It is the stable fraction of soil carbon, and grassland biomes pump 30% or more of their total products of photosynthesis into this liquid carbon pathway.
The importance of this recent discovery of the Liquid Carbon Pathway (photosynthesis-root exudates-mycorrhizal fungi-glomalin-humic polymers-mollic epipedon) to climate science AND agriculture can not be stressed enough.
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-06668-4_5#page-1
https://web.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/preprint%20archive/Files/45_4_WASHINGTON%20DC_08-00_0721.pdf
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080629075404.htm
Hank #477: “I’m thinking of the forests I’ve known personally… “
And I’m thinking of the forests I’ve known personally. The difference is that I have stated that I’m not qualified to speak of forest ecosystems with which I’m not familiar (e.g. coastal rainforests), but I have studied boreal forest ecology, and I’ve worked in the boreal forest for decades. Canada’s forests are predominantly boreal.
“The fires you’re talking about are stands that burn surrounded by other stands, and that’s an average. What’s the distribution of years, what are the oldest stands?”
Please go to the link I provided. The report by David Andison explains his methodology. The average fire cycle is not your defintion of average. Also from the report – fire frequency varied from 41 years to 224 years.
“When there’s a shaded canopy many fires burn through without killing all of the — the “fire ladders” are shaded out and the lower dead limbs have been shaded, fallen, and decayed.”
When a forest fire is crowning in the boreal forest, it doesn’t need ladder fuels to spread. There’s a lot of information on boreal forest fire behaviour on the Canadian Forest Service website.
“Point is you can lose a stand of trees without killing the associated topsoil nor killing the trees in the other stands nearby.”
Fire severity varies depending on a lot of factors. Severe fires can burn away all of the organic material exposing the mineral soil. The exposed mineral soil makes a receptive seedbed for some species (e.g. Jack Pine) which won’t germinate on heavy duff.
“Clearcutting kills the trees and after five or six years the roots die as well. Look up: landslide after clearcut.
A severe forest fire can kill all the trees too. However usually some trees survive, either as single stems or in clumps. That’s why most timber harvest is now variable retention. Whether fire or harvest, the roots will die when conifers are killed. Aspen will regenerate from the roots (whether post–fire or post-harvest).
Saskatchewan isn’t known for landslides, given its flat topography. However companies operating on provincial government land have rules preventing harvest on steep slopes.
Bottom line is that even if heroic efforts were made, trying to preserve boreal forests for many centuries is doomed to failure. Sustainable Forest Management, building with wood, and the use of mill waste for energy, all have important roles to play in mitigating climate change, and I am appreciative of the fact that IPCC Working Group 3 recognizes the science.
“””””””I do see quotation marks used around the quoted text.
“If you see no difference, and did nothing different when typing those, then there’s definitely a puzzle here.””””””””
Comment by Hank Roberts — 30 Apr 2016 @
Hank, with all due respect, I am well versed in writing and literature. I come from a family of English teachers, and professional writers. http://www.dochughesbooks.com
I completely understand the necessity for attribution. Glancing up thread through the various comments and the plethora of posts I see very few instances where block quotes were used let alone quotation marks. In many instances I see initials indicating attribution. This is a blog, NOT the New York Times. I’m not submitting a scientific paper for review in some scientific journal. I AM HAVING CASUAL CONVERSATION ON AN ‘OPEN’ THREAD. There is a HUGE difference. I’m NOT stealing “intellectual property” for profit. I haven’t republished copyrighted material for personal gain.
If I may say so, I think you’re just a tad cranky. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot or I pissed you off. If I did you have my deepest apologies. I type on the internet daily and I’ve posted on this particular blog for 3 or 4 years. This is the FIRST time anyone has accused me of misquoting or not giving proper attribution for something someone else has said. To be sure I will never quote you again. I give you my word that. I will never repost anything else you write beyond what I am saying now. Quite frankly, there’s no need for it.
If there are specific rules for posting on this particular blog please be so kind as to direct my attention to them so that I might avoid future mistakes. Apparently I overlooked the rules of engagement. Thanks