343 Responses to "Unforced Variations: March 2017"
Killansays
The number of outright fools on this site has expanded exponentially, and all of them from the Peanut Gallery, with the exception of McKinney, who seems to be an adjunct member at this point. Maybe a hangover effect from being part of CCL.
BPL said Waaah!, as usual. Literally nothing germane.
Charles Hughes said “I am utterly incompetent when it comes to analyzing politics.”
And he is correct. To engage in accurate socio-politico-economic analysis you have to know a lot more than your undies are in a bunch. You actually have to understand Climate Change, which you do not, Chucky. More importantly, you have to understand solutions, and you do not, Chucky. On the other hand, I said for years small farms and soil sequestration, reforestation, aforestation, etc, were keys to solving climate. Now these things are acknowledged. I have been correct on ASI levels every year since 2010.
I said in 2015 ASI would be at or near new lows in 2016 and/or 2017. And here we are. For now, I let my 2015 prediction stand. I generally assess the first week in July. We’ll see if revision is needed then, but right now we are on track for those new lows. Still, the Arctic is wildly variable year-to-year.
The list is long. You don’t even have a list. Quiet, Chucky, and the rest of the gallery. I tire of the trivial nature of your “intellects.”
Seriously, all you suck at even the science, but at least you sound sane when discussing that. You can play with numbers day after day for years on end, yet learn nothing, know nothing, predict nothing. No insight. Heck, I get myself in trouble with math when I nudge past division, yet best every single commenter on these pages when it comes to analyzing the Arctic and Climate Change in general. You don’t know what to pay attention to and are too caught up in your constant small-minded attacks on other posters. Get your egos out of the game or just be quiet.
Chucky, we know you Clintonistas are really, really, sad that your faux progressive turned out to be Trump Lite. They “elevated” Trump **themselves**, broke their own rules over and over to shut out the best candidate. And so much more. They CHEATED, get it?
You are the ones shamed, not those of us that voted for people that could move us forward. I voted for Sanders, then Stein. You voted for illegality, self-admitted two-facedness and treason. Congratulations. You got what you wanted. Enough of us knew better than to do so that we didn’t get your fatally flawed choice. Yet, even now, you ideologue Dems are bent on putting her back in play. Fools, the lot of you.
BTW, until Bernie started running, I had been a long-time fan of the Clintons, defending them through all the Rep stupidity of the last two decades. But she showed her true self in this campaign and turned me from supporter who was merely voting the best Climate candidate to someone who is genuinely disgusted by her record and person.
I could not possibly care less what you think on this issue. You were and are blind. I expect no change.
Anyone who votes anything but the absolute best climate candidate from this day forward is committing a Crime Against Humanity… and treason. And already have done both in the last election.
You put us here by voting for Clinton when you had Sanders.
Mr Know Naff All @239.
(With apologies for using an archaic but more correct version of your assumed sobrequet.)
The “paper” you refer to (via a commenter on the unworldly asteroid of Climateetc) is actually a tabloid newspaper of some vintage (The Sun – 2013) which says absolutely naff all about “Arctic sea ice variation” being in any way “normal.”
KIA 241: Sadly, in the USA, we can be thankful that many do not vote. In fact, probably a large percentage of those who do vote shouldn’t because they just aren’t informed.
BPL: Hey, KIA! How about a LITERACY TEST! I bet that would keep out the coloreds–I mean, the ignorant folk who don’t understand about America and stuff.
KIA 251: BPL said Waaah!, as usual. Literally nothing germane.
BPL: Good summary, KIA. As usual, you cut to the heart of the debate incisively. I wish I had your skills at logic. I could go on Fox News.
Thomassays
251 Killan; I began with thinking I would copy and paste a cpl of the best most truest quotes from your missive and then quickly realised I’d have to copy and paste the whole thing.
LMFAO. What a keeper post! I’m blue tacking it up on my wall immediately. :-)
252 Hank Roberts, sorry mate, you don’t have a clue about me nor about what I present. Besides I don’t have an ego like everyone who sets up a blog site or the peanut gallery of dill pickles here who never shut up long enough to think straight let alone learn something of real lasting value. ;-)
Chris O'Neillsays
#237:
When it comes to the rank incompetence of America as a Nation State and it’s Governments and it’s dysfunctional politics and electoral system* I am a very committed non-partisan and unbiased Critic of the bleeding obvious.
*Of course, those things don’t include bleeding obvious spelling mistakes.
241 Mr. Know It All; yes I agree with that astute point you make. But shsssh, don’t mention it here as the children are sleeping. :-)
245 SecularAnimist & 240 Richard Hawes; working on a research paper about the barriers to communication and self-awareness in Cyberspace. RC is one of my control groups.
248 mike; neat! RE: How can we get back to 405 and stop the increase?
If you had supreme power to change the situation proactively what would you do Mike?
Ray Ladburysays
SA: “If the climate scientists who maintain this site would post even half as often as “Thomas”, RealClimate might actually be a useful and even important website.”
True. But the scientists have day jobs, whereas Thomas clearly does not.
Thomassays
Poisoning the well (also called the smear tactic) is a rhetorical technique and logical fallacy that uses the association of negative emotions to distract a subject from actual evidence in an argument.
Poisoning the well is an appeal to hate.
This is a very often deployed logical fallacy. Most people would be aware of it these days. It was a way to describe the denier attacks on the UK MetOffice in the email hacking saga. eg the misrepresentation of the word “trick”. It’s a way to describe the reasons behind Dr. Michael Mann’s defamation/slander law suit. It’s pretty common in political rhetoric. Such as Trump’s questioning of Obama’s birth certificate issue and his legitimacy for election as President. That’s ‘poisoning the well’ writ large.
It’s typically applied as a distraction away from any and all actual evidence and facts, and the ability of another person or organization to cut through clear air in order to present such evidence topics etc. Poisoning the well is generally personal.
It’s been happening over on the Predictable and unpredictable behaviour thread. Was addressed on the Serving up a NOAA-thing burger thread. Jim has added in about the UK Daily Mail falsehoods and in many ways there is a very strong pattern of the Daily Mail’s anti-climate science rhetoric and poisoning the well regarding many well respected climate scientists and environmentalists.
It’s extremely common in the climate science denial strategies. But it happens everywhere and a is very well known and common psychological human trait. I think is fair to say the goal is often to switch the attention away from hard evidence/facts/data, research papers and reports, historical research, dissemination of experts ideas conclusions and lectures and/or the content being presented by whoever the target, personal or org/group, has shared or presented or said.
The usual method is to point out the unpleasant nature of the person making the opposing argument, in which case it is a special case of a personal attack or ad hominem. In general, “to poison the well” means to pre-provide any information that could produce a biased opinion of the reasoning, positive or negative.
It can be done subtly or quite blatantly. A subtle way of poisoning the well would be to use particular adjectives in introducing something that would influence people who are about to hear an argument. In a more blatant display, someone can make an outright personal attack in an introduction. For example, asking people to remember that a person has been in prison before listening to their statements; the well is now “poisoned” because people are likely to distrust a person making an argument knowing that they’re a convict, regardless of the reasoning that they put forward.
It’s just another reason of many why climate science denial is so effective and so easy to do.
Moving to another field that’s been thoroughly researched and publicly dispersed over decades. Scientology is an expert Org at poisoning the well.
Poisoning the well happens a lot in the real world and it is really helpful to recognize it when it’s happening, imho, lest one is led astray in the process. Gullible people swallow it whole without thinking or knowing what the information / event / facts / data even was in the first place.
Well, I should have known better than to point to examples reinforcing the folly of thinking that Trump can be anything but disastrous for climate, and inciting another round of delusional BS from the resident cyanobacteria. Mea culpa.
Moral: don’t give in to bitterness. I’ll make a note to self.
In the meantime, didn’t someone post a way to do ‘killfiles’ on the site? Like others, I’m getting tired of recreational scrolling.
2016, May interest and debt coverage service ratio at 1.52 (worse now) and 1.1
they are not long for this world in their current form. Find their debt and short it. Kill em quick and make some money which could be donated to a climate fund of your choice.
In fact, I am surprised that the green organizations havent jumped on this alreasy, would have cleaned up on Patriot and Arch.
sidd
Thomassays
260 Ray Ladbury says: 20 Mar 2017 at 10:09 AM
SecularAnimist: “If the climate scientists who maintain this site would post even half as often as “Thomas”, RealClimate might actually be a useful and even important website.”
At the risk of introducing a negative association, I totally agree!
Of course their time is limited. But there are work-arounds. For example, they could invite other experts to contribute their own RC specialty articles to inform the readership better on the subject of the reality of AGW/CC, the current state of affairs in their specialty areas, and the barriers to solving the problem globally based on high end accumulated scientific knowledge.
Experts could include:
Dr James Hansen
Dr Michael Mann
Prof.Philip Mirowski
Prof. George Lakoff
Prof. Noam Chomsky
Dr Paul Piff (Nerkley)
Dr John Cook (UQ, Uni QLD)
Dr. Dr John (Charlie) Veron (Coral Reefs)
Sir David Attenborough
Dr. Norman C. Duke JCU
Dr. Terry P. Hughes
Prof. Kevin Anderson (Tyndall)
Dr. James Painter (Oxford)
Safa Motesharrei (UMD)
Graham Readfearn (Journalist)
George Monbiot (Journalist)
Niels Hansen(DMI)
Thomas Piketty(Paris School of Economics)
Lucas Chancel (Paris School of Economics)
Prof David Archer (Uni Chicago)
Prof Marco Tedesco (Columbia)
Aaron M. McCright (MSU)
T. W. Crowther (NIE/Yale)
potholer54
Dan Ariely
Prof Peter Ward (UW)
…………..
In fact, I know I could think of hundreds of people who may be willing to contribute to Real Climate and put their shoulder to the wheel in regards the public communication of the reality of AGW/CC today.
However, given RC is privately funded by the contributing scientists, maybe they cannot afford to pay for the web hosting and bandwidth that a really successful website (going from 70K to 7 million visits per month) would cost. Or they lacked the time to manage such a successful climate science website.
There is a very simple solutions to these kinds of problems too – It’s called Crowd Sourcing or a Donations PayPal link – the money would poor in by “readers” to also pay for a full time IT/Science/Journalist/Psychology/Cognitive Science Graduate to do the work for them.
But maybe it is too difficult to comprehend the possibilities or it’s just too hard and so far easier to hold Real Climates potential back from being successful by remaining just another Blog in Cyberspace with flippant time wasting comments by a very small contingent of long term users?
It is not my problem that’s for sure. It is what it is. (shrug)
The WMO’s assessment of the climate in 2016, published on Tuesday, reports unprecedented heat across the globe, exceptionally low ice at both poles and surging sea-level rise.
Global warming is largely being driven by emissions from human activities, but a strong El Niño – a natural climate cycle – added to the heat in 2016.
The El Niño is now waning (attn: MA Rodger), but the extremes continue to be seen, with temperature records tumbling in the US in February and polar heatwaves pushing ice cover to new lows.
“Even without a strong El Niño in 2017 (attn: MA Rodger & Mr KIA), we are seeing other remarkable changes across the planet that are challenging the limits of our understanding of the climate system. We are now in truly uncharted territory,” said David Carlson, director of the WMO’s world climate research programme.
The Comments section is open on this article …. have you got anything worth saying to the readers there?
Killiansays
#248 Mike said 405ppm.
I assume Mann draws this from various modelling efforts but over the last 3 million years we never go near 405. In fact, virtually as soon as we passed 300, accounting inertia at @ 30 year lag, the poles started melting.
One of my key points in analyzing rates of change is other than asteroid/meteor impacts, things don’t typically fall apart all at the same time. They are this time because we’re pushing it all so hard so fast. There are virtually no hystereses.
Anything above 300 is courting suicide. Or so sayeth Gaia.
Cheers
Dansays
266, And with this statement, the cat is out of the bag: “Besides I don’t have an ego like everyone who sets up a blog site or the peanut gallery of dill pickles here who never shut up long enough to think straight let alone learn something of real lasting value.”
So you come to a blog run by peer-reviewed climate scientists while you have no clue about the subject or even what the scientific method is all about, but you are so insecure and defensive that a. you are unable to admit to being wrong about basic science, b. you make no effort to learn the science, and b. because of that, you feel it necessary to personally insult those who host the site and who know the science, and c. because of that insecurity you are believe it is correct to flaunt your scientific ignorance. Got it. The idea that somehow you know something that every professional climate science organization in the world (yes, the world) does not is the height of arrogance and intellectual laziness. The sad thing is that when it comes to the scientific method it is something you were taught in middle school but apparently still have not learned. Wow.
It’s too bad you still need people skills to deploy these effectively. I’m unable to keep the anger and hostility out of my voice at the merest hint of AGW-denial 8^(.
248 mike; neat! RE: How can we get back to 405 and stop the increase?
If you had supreme power to change the situation proactively what would you do Mike?
start with carbon tax. Use the revenue for wind/solar/battery subsidies and/or tax credits. Ramp up the carbon tax rate each year for five years then re-evaluate.
There is a lot that can be done, but the discussion and progress essentially go nowhere if we won’t take the first step and the first step is a carbon tax.
thanks for asking
Daily CO2
March 20, 2017: 406.30 ppm
March 20, 2016: 405.22 ppm
Mike
Brian Blagdensays
I just happened across the following article which highlights the plight of a few good people who have clearly been affected by alarmism regarding the alleged impacts of Climate Change to the point where they may no longer be thinking rationally and/or may be suffering some form of mental instability or mental stress. This got me thinking (a dangerous thing at the best of times) about whether a case can be brought against those that are selling alarmism and/or failing to correct alarmism.
If it can be shown that; injury has indeed occurred; and the cause of that injury is as a result of an accumulation of exposure from one or more sources of alarmism in the public domain (e.g. media outlets, Government websites, blogs etc.) is there a case to be answered and compensation owed?
May be a money spinner. I would welcome comments/ advice from any lawyers out there?
The Republican position during the Bush administrations was that climate change had not been proven, so we need more research before action is taken. A delaying tactic.
The Trump and Republican position now is that they do not care what research shows, and research should be eliminated.
Killian at 266: I agree with you that we need to reduce the CO2 dramatically. I don’t think 405 is safe and I don’t think Dr. Mann thinks 405 is safe. The 350 people like the 350 number, you think we ought to be under 300. I have not given much thought to what our target number should be because we appear to be capable of moving the needle in only one direction: up. I don’t give much thought to what our number ought to be. If we could stop the rise, we would have demonstrated the ability to change our civilization in fundamental ways that would probably allow us to start thinking about how to reduce the atmospheric ppm and what our target number should be. The discussion is moot if we can’t stop the rise in atmospheric CO2.
I think it’s a good idea to read what Dr. M had to say in 2014.
I think there is big trouble coming. I am glad to be old. I worry about my kids and grandkids, but I see no sign that our species can make the changes needed to stop the CO2 buildup and then start moving the needle in the other direction.
It makes me sad.
Mike
siddsays
I notice a nice open access paper with our own Pierrehumbert as an author about the arctic ice sheet before the Eemian (last interglacial) 140 Kyr ago.
Grounding of the shelf on the Lomonosov Ridge adds spice. Read all about it.
doi:10.5194/tc-2017-37
sidd
Thomassays
267 Dan, that’s total baloney! Close to something Trump would say on Twitter – totally disconnected from the real world. A fantasy. But have at it, whatever.
t marvellsays
270 – the answer about legal action is no. For one thing, there is the 1st Amendment.
From my review of the literature and data, the climate researchers (and Paris Conference) are understating the coming dangers, and are not scaring people enough. One obvious point is that atmospheric CO2 continues to increase at an exponential rate with no sign of a change. Temperature increases are baked in for a long time after CO2 increases. Sea level rise even more. I happened to talk to one of the top climate researchers recently, and he affirmed that they understate the problems, out of fear of seeming too alarmist and, thus, losing credibility.
Chuck Hughessays
Killian – You are the ones shamed, not those of us that voted for people that could move us forward. I voted for Sanders, then Stein. You voted for illegality, self-admitted two-facedness and treason.
Chuck – (You voted for Sanders IN THE PRIMARY, Killian. Sanders was NOT A CANDIDATE in the general election. Had Sanders been a Democratic candidate I would have voted for him. There is absolutely NO basis for your accusation of treason against Hillary Clinton. NONE. Which tells me you have no idea of the definition of “Treason”. So much for your expertise on politics.)
Killian – “BTW, until Bernie started running, I had been a long-time fan of the Clintons, defending them through all the Rep stupidity of the last two decades. But she showed her true self in this campaign and turned me from supporter who was merely voting the best Climate candidate to someone who is genuinely disgusted by her record and person.”
Chuck – (Based on emotions apparently. “Record and person” tells me absolutely nothing.)
Killian – I could not possibly care less what you think on this issue. You were and are blind. I expect no change.
Chuck – (Which is why you’re spending so much time getting your panties in a bunch)
Killian – Anyone who votes anything but the absolute best climate candidate from this day forward is committing a Crime Against Humanity… and treason. And already have done both in the last election.
Chuck – (Good for you. So did I. And I certainly DIDN’T WASTE MY VOTE ON JILL STEIN who got less than 1% of the popular vote.)
Killian – “You put us here by voting for Clinton when you had Sanders.”
Chuck – (Haha! Sanders WAS NOT a choice in the general election. Sanders wasn’t a candidate. Sanders TOLD YOU TO VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON and you voted for Jill Stein. What a laugh!)
Killian, you continue to bloviate about being an expert on ASI. Maybe you could provide me with a link to some of your research. I’d love to see it. Maybe you’re better at that than you are politics but I need some proof. I’m sure you understand. Thanks
Chuck Hughessays
Richard Hawes says:
19 Mar 2017 at 3:59 AM
I strongly suspect that Thomas and Mr Know It All are both unemployed.
And unemployable.
Patients at Bellevue are slowly integrated back into society as long as they’re not a danger to themselves or others. Employment tends to center around work that doesn’t involve sharp objects or power tools.
Thomas @261 – Regarding that “very strong pattern of the Daily Mail’s anti-climate science rhetoric and poisoning the well”, the Fail on Sunday have been silently deleting some of their recent falsehoods. However for some strange reason they have neglected to apologise or to mention the fact in their excuse for a “correction”:
Not only that, but an entire paragraph concerning the alleged “pause” has evaporated into thin air.
Not only that, but the alleged “correction” included below the offending article is different to the “official” version published in print at the weekend.
Brian Blagden @270,
I fail to see why you invoke the Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy by linking this thread to their “Forum.” Be aware that their “Forum” is where these rampant denialists flush out the lies that would otherwise upset the Charities Commission, the GWPF being allegedly an educational charity (don’t laugh) which does not include their “Forum” although the ‘Gentlemen’ inform the world that the content of their lie-filled “Forum” apparently “is for educational use only.”
That particular piece of filth you pedal @270 was written by a character called Oren Cass, authorship the ‘Gentlemen’ couldn’t even be arsed to make known. The complete version of this Cass nonsense (complete with graphics & links) is available here but the full breadth of the dellusions of its author can be sampled in this list of his rambling. For those with less time to lose on a fool’s errand examining the arguments of the deranged, a sample abstract is presented herre:-
The Problem with Climate Catastrophizing
21/3/17
The logic of catastrophism seems to run backward: from the conclusion that significant human influence on the climate must portend unprecedented danger to the search for facts to support that narrative. But forecasts on these scales of time and magnitude exceed common experience and thus defy intuition, which facilitates misinterpretation and frustrates self-correction. Placing the problem in proper perspective requires appreciating the long-term costs in the context of the distant future when they will arise, distinguishing costs spread over long time periods from those borne all at once and, finally, applying separate analyses to expected outcomes and worst case scenarios. Catastrophists get these things wrong.
Ray Ladburysays
t marvell,
Actually, the position during Bush II was unsettled. Bush, himself eventually came around to the position that we were warming the planet but that we couldn’t do anything about it–same as his brother, Rubio, McCain…
Cheney, however, was much closer to Trump, and he worked to actively suppress any tools that would reveal how badly we are f***ing up the planet–even to the point of cutting back on weather satellites. He was the reason Goresat/Triana/DSCOVR didn’t launch til it did (he actually tried to have the satellite dismantled after Obama defeated McCain).
What we are seeing now is just the Cheney/fossil-fuel/burn-baby-burn wing of teh party on steroids, acid, coke and PCP.
What’s this got to do with climate science? The attack on climate science is not only formally analogous to an all-platforms dezinformatsiya campaign, but recent events raise the odds that it is has been part of one–and from foreign soil. Foreign interests (against climate science) align themselves by convenience with parties of common interest here. What is happening and has happened in the attack on climate science goes beyond the domestically known “Merchants of Doubt” lineage, I say.
The “Media Lies Again” meme turned out by foreign bot mills (among others) supports conspiricist trolling of the notion that any 97% consensus has to be a fraud, for instance. For starters.
BTW Cook et al 2016 (in addition to Cook et al 2013) is important, on the consensus. This chart is the key:
The key is that it’s about “practicing climate scientists” (or peer-reviewed climate scientists) as Cook says.
This chart is re: Muller [also: Lindzen]–which MA Rodger took up @81. BTW Muller did not answer the “Quora” question. The first thing he did was change it into a customized straw-man. In other words, he hijacked it.
Particularly lame, especially in light of what the “Quora” explainer on the question says about “cause and effect.” The cause of the consensus would be (degree of) expertise in climate science–an expertise, in turn, that requires understanding cause and effect in the drivers of climate change.
This got me thinking (a dangerous thing at the best of times) about whether a case can be brought against those that are selling alarmism and/or failing to correct alarmism.
Or, whether former deniers can sue scientists for not being alarming enough.
Thomassays
[edit – please just stop. Any further non substantive comments will just be deleted.]
Will MA Rodger now apologise for insulting people merely pointing out the obvious on March 3rd and 4th?
Why are comments erased and held back that correct falsehoods, lies and distortions such as those contained in #267 by Dan?
Because that kind of ‘biased control’ is what happens on denier websites such as WUWT, the Daily Mail UK, all the Murdoch press, Roy Spencer’s and on FoxNews?
Especially given I totally support RC and the scientists who run it. The evidence for which is overwhelming.
[Response: The issue is not about what you think about RC (which is appreciated), but in how we can moderate informative and readable comment threads. Excessive argumentation, picking fights, insults, diversions into non climate issues etc. all detract from what readers can get out of this. There are plenty of outlets where you can do all of these things, but very few where you can have on-topic discussions on climate science issues with knowledgeable amateurs and professionals alike. If I might offer you some advice, it would be to step back, think about what the most important (climate) issues are for you and stick to substantive comments on that without getting drawn into name-calling or taking offense if people disagree. (And just so you know, we have deleted non-substantive derogatory comments from others in this thread too). Your participation here is welcomed, but remember that this is not just a forum for you. Thanks for understanding. – gavin]
Killiansays
#270 Brian Blagden said …affected by alarmism regarding the alleged impacts of Climate Change… …whether a case can be brought against those that are selling alarmism and/or failing to correct alarmism…
This ranks with the least intelligent posts. Borehole-worthy. Brian, learn statistics and non-trivial long-tail risks.
Then stuff your denialism in your mouth to stop the nonsense getting out again.
Climate is a potential existential risk, i.e. potential ELE I *do* advocate trying denialists for Crimes Against Humanity, though.
March 12 – 18, 2017 407.06 ppm
March 12 – 18, 2016 404.69 ppm
and sea ice at record lows at each pole. Oceans are warming. Warmer oceans expand water volume with loss to shoreline through SLR. Albedo of the Arctic is going to increase warming at that pole. There are methane clathrates stored in ocean bed and permafrost in proximity to the warming Arctic Ocean.
And we are rolling back climate policy constraints in the US of A.
Crazy old world!
Mike
t marvellsays
273 – you refer to Mann’s Scientific American paper. He concludes that the ECS is 2.5 (that is the number of degrees of warming for a doubling of CO2).
That might be a gross underestimate. It all depends on how long one posits the lag between CO2 increases and temperature increases. 2.5 is reasonable if one assumes an instant relationship or a short lag, less than 10 years. The ECS is much higher if one assumes a longer lag. For example, it is above 5 if one assumes a lag stretching over 20-30 years or more.
As far as I can tell, climate researchers are not much interested in determining what the lag is. There must be estimates somewhere in the literature, but I have not been able to find them. I suspect that the climate models do not work with long lags, because the margin of error becomes too large.
Worth noting (and applauding). The headline is misleading–it’s not the absolute number of coal plants that is plummeting, it’s the the growth. (The absolute number grew by 3%, actually, which would still be concerning were it not for the fact that the plummeting in the pipeline portends that we can reasonably expect to see actual coal plant numbers ‘plummet’ for real in coming years.)
You’ve said in the past not to worry about methane; that CO2 is the main issue. That the hydrates are a red herring. So I’m curious if this new study has any info that might change that perspective? Could you write a blog post on this?
I am by no means a “methane freakout person” (or whatever you call it!) but I would like to know what these developments mean for climate change, if any.
Also, according to some measures, we have 18 years left on our CO2 budget (based on total CO2ppm). However, when one considers that CO2e is already at 490ppm, and that this correlates to a 2.6C rise (in the median) in the IPCC report, I wonder if the 2C budget is already far blown? Could you address this question? I have been unable to resolve this question based on my own investigations.
from Dec 2016 about methane release as heat capper and big dog of Permian extinction event. I think most of us who know about AGW are already aware of this risk. The warming at the top of the world could lead to methane burst anytime now. Might already be happening, might not start for a century or more. Blink of the eye in geo-time. It’s imminent if we let the warming continue.
Not sure what to do about this cuz I have been talking about it for years. It’s a low probability, high impact event. I usually figure we will cook ourselves with CO2 and won’t need to be concerned about methane, but it’s really not that simple. The methane release is like ocean acidification, it follows somewhat naturally from the amazing pulse of CO2 we have injected into the atmosphere. Best idea I have for this problem right now is to take a few days off and head to Oregon coast and watch for the gray whales returning from the south with their little ones.
Thanks for the edit at 284.
Cheerio,
Mike
nigeljsays
This bears repeating : “Poisoning the well (also called the smear tactic) is a rhetorical technique and logical fallacy that uses the association of negative emotions to distract a subject from actual evidence in an argument.”
Like “crooked Hilary, little Mario, lying Ted Cruz, and low energy Jeb Bush”. Crude, but sadly effective, emotive, and twisted rhetoric. Poison is such an apt description.
I refuse to get drawn into using this sort of rhetoric. It destroys reason.
It’s the sort of thing you find in conspiracy magazines, where you get statements like “the absurd claim made by the discredited, lying person a, on the shallow posturing of person b” about the invented event c”. It smothers us with negativity and unproven assertions, and creates gleeful joy from the conspiracy theorists, and anger with those of us who can see whats being done.
It’s hard to counter poison the well people without either stooping to their level, or going through a complex rebuttal point by point.
However the debating tactics of climate deniers are usually more subtle : A parade of fake experts, cherry picking information, deceptive arguments, strawman arguments, lies by omission, red herrings. These are the tactics of climate change denialists, lobby groups and sometimes lawyers. It’s a form of sophistry.
The paper Brand et al (2016) ‘Methane Hydrate: Killer cause of Earth’s greatest mass extinction’ whose abstract is linked both @289 & @290 is available in full here which should allow an appreciation of the paper’s “observations on the global warming process, such as the release of massive amounts of carbon dioxide and subsequently followed by methane from hydrates, and their impacts on life during the end Permian” which “may have important lessons for humanity and the problems associated with climate change in the 21st century.” Note that the abstract is rather more definite about the existence of important lessons in that it does not use the word “…may…”
About a decade ago, some paper warned that a hydrate collapse would cause a tsunami here in coastal Virginia, but that has simmered down.
t marvellsays
288. Don’t believe Chinese PR. The central government orders that coal plants be closed, that construction stop on new plants started, and that plans for new plants be abandoned. Mostly hot air. The political system in China is decentralized, and the local cities and states plan and build the coal plants. In the past they have paid little heed to such orders from the central government (even in spite of overcapacity). If they want to attract companies to build factories, they must have guaranteed abundant electric power, so there is competition throughout China to overbuild power plants.
Another thing about China’s attempt to limit CO2 – it has built massive solar arrays, and brags about it, but they largely sit there unused.
Chris O'Neillsays
#287:
He concludes that the ECS is 2.5 (that is the number of degrees of warming for a doubling of CO2).
That might be a gross underestimate. It all depends on how long one posits the lag between CO2 increases and temperature increases.
Indeed. Maybe one way to approximately avoid the lag is to just use global land areas warming e.g. CRUTEM4. The fact is land areas are warming substantially faster than ocean areas and I guess that will continue. IIRC, Northern Hemisphere land areas are nearly at 1.5 degrees C of warming or at least 30% more than the entire globe. If we ever manage to hold CO2 steady, we could still be in for more than a further 30% increase in global warming eventually.
The only winner in Thomas V. All Those Idiots Who Don’t Have Lifetime Guardian subscriptions and Mention The Nation In their Wills is none other Eric Hoffer:
mar at 293: can you elaborate on your read on the toggle of word “may” between the full article and the abstract? I would like to be certain that I understand what you think about that change because your take on things and posts have been generally high quality imho.
HR at 294: the situation is sufficiently scary, right? we don’t have to make up stuff. beautiful little round lakes! What’s wrong with that development?
CON at 297: I think you are correct to suggest that 30% lag in heat production. I like your phrase, “if we ever manage to hold CO2 steady” because that is exactly right. The process and changes required to hold CO2 steady, then we have to keep employing and expanding those processes and changes to start moving the needle in the other direction. Killian says we need to get down under 300 ppm. I don’t think that is going to happen in my lifetime, but I would sure be relieved to see the needle stop going up cuz it would give weight to the discussion about what the target number should be. Right now, that discussion is pretty theoretical.
Daily CO2
March 23, 2017: 406.66 ppm
March 23, 2016: 405.32 ppm
This is the ballgame, folks. Read’m and weep. or wear your hat backwards or whatever you think is a game-changer.
what a treat to see post upon post about climate science on the site!
Warm regards
Mike
w kensitsays
Enough for me. Too many posters like Thomas dominating the site and too little actual science news/info. It’s been informative 6 years but no more.
The number of outright fools on this site has expanded exponentially, and all of them from the Peanut Gallery, with the exception of McKinney, who seems to be an adjunct member at this point. Maybe a hangover effect from being part of CCL.
BPL said Waaah!, as usual. Literally nothing germane.
Charles Hughes said “I am utterly incompetent when it comes to analyzing politics.”
And he is correct. To engage in accurate socio-politico-economic analysis you have to know a lot more than your undies are in a bunch. You actually have to understand Climate Change, which you do not, Chucky. More importantly, you have to understand solutions, and you do not, Chucky. On the other hand, I said for years small farms and soil sequestration, reforestation, aforestation, etc, were keys to solving climate. Now these things are acknowledged. I have been correct on ASI levels every year since 2010.
I said in 2015 ASI would be at or near new lows in 2016 and/or 2017. And here we are. For now, I let my 2015 prediction stand. I generally assess the first week in July. We’ll see if revision is needed then, but right now we are on track for those new lows. Still, the Arctic is wildly variable year-to-year.
The list is long. You don’t even have a list. Quiet, Chucky, and the rest of the gallery. I tire of the trivial nature of your “intellects.”
Seriously, all you suck at even the science, but at least you sound sane when discussing that. You can play with numbers day after day for years on end, yet learn nothing, know nothing, predict nothing. No insight. Heck, I get myself in trouble with math when I nudge past division, yet best every single commenter on these pages when it comes to analyzing the Arctic and Climate Change in general. You don’t know what to pay attention to and are too caught up in your constant small-minded attacks on other posters. Get your egos out of the game or just be quiet.
Chucky, we know you Clintonistas are really, really, sad that your faux progressive turned out to be Trump Lite. They “elevated” Trump **themselves**, broke their own rules over and over to shut out the best candidate. And so much more. They CHEATED, get it?
You are the ones shamed, not those of us that voted for people that could move us forward. I voted for Sanders, then Stein. You voted for illegality, self-admitted two-facedness and treason. Congratulations. You got what you wanted. Enough of us knew better than to do so that we didn’t get your fatally flawed choice. Yet, even now, you ideologue Dems are bent on putting her back in play. Fools, the lot of you.
BTW, until Bernie started running, I had been a long-time fan of the Clintons, defending them through all the Rep stupidity of the last two decades. But she showed her true self in this campaign and turned me from supporter who was merely voting the best Climate candidate to someone who is genuinely disgusted by her record and person.
I could not possibly care less what you think on this issue. You were and are blind. I expect no change.
Anyone who votes anything but the absolute best climate candidate from this day forward is committing a Crime Against Humanity… and treason. And already have done both in the last election.
You put us here by voting for Clinton when you had Sanders.
> 21st century Science
Oh, please, you don’t mean Larouche, I hope.
you need a blog of your own.
Mr Know Naff All @239.
(With apologies for using an archaic but more correct version of your assumed sobrequet.)
The “paper” you refer to (via a commenter on the unworldly asteroid of Climateetc) is actually a tabloid newspaper of some vintage (The Sun – 2013) which says absolutely naff all about “Arctic sea ice variation” being in any way “normal.”
KIA 241: Sadly, in the USA, we can be thankful that many do not vote. In fact, probably a large percentage of those who do vote shouldn’t because they just aren’t informed.
BPL: Hey, KIA! How about a LITERACY TEST! I bet that would keep out the coloreds–I mean, the ignorant folk who don’t understand about America and stuff.
KIA 251: BPL said Waaah!, as usual. Literally nothing germane.
BPL: Good summary, KIA. As usual, you cut to the heart of the debate incisively. I wish I had your skills at logic. I could go on Fox News.
251 Killan; I began with thinking I would copy and paste a cpl of the best most truest quotes from your missive and then quickly realised I’d have to copy and paste the whole thing.
LMFAO. What a keeper post! I’m blue tacking it up on my wall immediately. :-)
252 Hank Roberts, sorry mate, you don’t have a clue about me nor about what I present. Besides I don’t have an ego like everyone who sets up a blog site or the peanut gallery of dill pickles here who never shut up long enough to think straight let alone learn something of real lasting value. ;-)
#237:
*Of course, those things don’t include bleeding obvious spelling mistakes.
When someone goes ballistic in commenting and the froth and slaver start to be slung about, please, remember to help them out:
A place for comments that would otherwise disrupt sensible conversations.
241 Mr. Know It All; yes I agree with that astute point you make. But shsssh, don’t mention it here as the children are sleeping. :-)
245 SecularAnimist & 240 Richard Hawes; working on a research paper about the barriers to communication and self-awareness in Cyberspace. RC is one of my control groups.
247 Jim Hunt; yes, it’s a very mad weird world atm. Reminds me of this movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_a_Mad,_Mad,_Mad,_Mad_World but for all the wrong reasons.
248 mike; neat! RE: How can we get back to 405 and stop the increase?
If you had supreme power to change the situation proactively what would you do Mike?
SA: “If the climate scientists who maintain this site would post even half as often as “Thomas”, RealClimate might actually be a useful and even important website.”
True. But the scientists have day jobs, whereas Thomas clearly does not.
Poisoning the well (also called the smear tactic) is a rhetorical technique and logical fallacy that uses the association of negative emotions to distract a subject from actual evidence in an argument.
Poisoning the well is an appeal to hate.
This is a very often deployed logical fallacy. Most people would be aware of it these days. It was a way to describe the denier attacks on the UK MetOffice in the email hacking saga. eg the misrepresentation of the word “trick”. It’s a way to describe the reasons behind Dr. Michael Mann’s defamation/slander law suit. It’s pretty common in political rhetoric. Such as Trump’s questioning of Obama’s birth certificate issue and his legitimacy for election as President. That’s ‘poisoning the well’ writ large.
It’s typically applied as a distraction away from any and all actual evidence and facts, and the ability of another person or organization to cut through clear air in order to present such evidence topics etc. Poisoning the well is generally personal.
It’s been happening over on the Predictable and unpredictable behaviour thread. Was addressed on the Serving up a NOAA-thing burger thread. Jim has added in about the UK Daily Mail falsehoods and in many ways there is a very strong pattern of the Daily Mail’s anti-climate science rhetoric and poisoning the well regarding many well respected climate scientists and environmentalists.
It’s extremely common in the climate science denial strategies. But it happens everywhere and a is very well known and common psychological human trait. I think is fair to say the goal is often to switch the attention away from hard evidence/facts/data, research papers and reports, historical research, dissemination of experts ideas conclusions and lectures and/or the content being presented by whoever the target, personal or org/group, has shared or presented or said.
The usual method is to point out the unpleasant nature of the person making the opposing argument, in which case it is a special case of a personal attack or ad hominem. In general, “to poison the well” means to pre-provide any information that could produce a biased opinion of the reasoning, positive or negative.
It can be done subtly or quite blatantly. A subtle way of poisoning the well would be to use particular adjectives in introducing something that would influence people who are about to hear an argument. In a more blatant display, someone can make an outright personal attack in an introduction. For example, asking people to remember that a person has been in prison before listening to their statements; the well is now “poisoned” because people are likely to distrust a person making an argument knowing that they’re a convict, regardless of the reasoning that they put forward.
It’s just another reason of many why climate science denial is so effective and so easy to do.
Moving to another field that’s been thoroughly researched and publicly dispersed over decades. Scientology is an expert Org at poisoning the well.
Poisoning the well happens a lot in the real world and it is really helpful to recognize it when it’s happening, imho, lest one is led astray in the process. Gullible people swallow it whole without thinking or knowing what the information / event / facts / data even was in the first place.
Well, I should have known better than to point to examples reinforcing the folly of thinking that Trump can be anything but disastrous for climate, and inciting another round of delusional BS from the resident cyanobacteria. Mea culpa.
Moral: don’t give in to bitterness. I’ll make a note to self.
In the meantime, didn’t someone post a way to do ‘killfiles’ on the site? Like others, I’m getting tired of recreational scrolling.
Re: Adani Group
http://corporates.bseindia.com/xml-data/corpfiling/AttachLive/2F18301F_D087_41FE_9DBC_5207FFE9C663_170753.pdf
2016, May interest and debt coverage service ratio at 1.52 (worse now) and 1.1
they are not long for this world in their current form. Find their debt and short it. Kill em quick and make some money which could be donated to a climate fund of your choice.
In fact, I am surprised that the green organizations havent jumped on this alreasy, would have cleaned up on Patriot and Arch.
sidd
260 Ray Ladbury says: 20 Mar 2017 at 10:09 AM
SecularAnimist: “If the climate scientists who maintain this site would post even half as often as “Thomas”, RealClimate might actually be a useful and even important website.”
At the risk of introducing a negative association, I totally agree!
Of course their time is limited. But there are work-arounds. For example, they could invite other experts to contribute their own RC specialty articles to inform the readership better on the subject of the reality of AGW/CC, the current state of affairs in their specialty areas, and the barriers to solving the problem globally based on high end accumulated scientific knowledge.
Experts could include:
Dr James Hansen
Dr Michael Mann
Prof.Philip Mirowski
Prof. George Lakoff
Prof. Noam Chomsky
Dr Paul Piff (Nerkley)
Dr John Cook (UQ, Uni QLD)
Dr. Dr John (Charlie) Veron (Coral Reefs)
Sir David Attenborough
Dr. Norman C. Duke JCU
Dr. Terry P. Hughes
Prof. Kevin Anderson (Tyndall)
Dr. James Painter (Oxford)
Safa Motesharrei (UMD)
Graham Readfearn (Journalist)
George Monbiot (Journalist)
Niels Hansen(DMI)
Thomas Piketty(Paris School of Economics)
Lucas Chancel (Paris School of Economics)
Prof David Archer (Uni Chicago)
Prof Marco Tedesco (Columbia)
Aaron M. McCright (MSU)
T. W. Crowther (NIE/Yale)
potholer54
Dan Ariely
Prof Peter Ward (UW)
…………..
In fact, I know I could think of hundreds of people who may be willing to contribute to Real Climate and put their shoulder to the wheel in regards the public communication of the reality of AGW/CC today.
However, given RC is privately funded by the contributing scientists, maybe they cannot afford to pay for the web hosting and bandwidth that a really successful website (going from 70K to 7 million visits per month) would cost. Or they lacked the time to manage such a successful climate science website.
There is a very simple solutions to these kinds of problems too – It’s called Crowd Sourcing or a Donations PayPal link – the money would poor in by “readers” to also pay for a full time IT/Science/Journalist/Psychology/Cognitive Science Graduate to do the work for them.
But maybe it is too difficult to comprehend the possibilities or it’s just too hard and so far easier to hold Real Climates potential back from being successful by remaining just another Blog in Cyberspace with flippant time wasting comments by a very small contingent of long term users?
It is not my problem that’s for sure. It is what it is. (shrug)
Hey Mike …. Killian …. Lawrence …. Scientists (?)
Star Date 2017.03.21
World Meteorological Organisation
https://www.wmo.int/pages/index_en.html
The WMO’s assessment of the climate in 2016, published on Tuesday, reports unprecedented heat across the globe, exceptionally low ice at both poles and surging sea-level rise.
Global warming is largely being driven by emissions from human activities, but a strong El Niño – a natural climate cycle – added to the heat in 2016.
The El Niño is now waning (attn: MA Rodger), but the extremes continue to be seen, with temperature records tumbling in the US in February and polar heatwaves pushing ice cover to new lows.
“Even without a strong El Niño in 2017 (attn: MA Rodger & Mr KIA), we are seeing other remarkable changes across the planet that are challenging the limits of our understanding of the climate system. We are now in truly uncharted territory,” said David Carlson, director of the WMO’s world climate research programme.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/21/record-breaking-climate-change-world-uncharted-territory
The Comments section is open on this article …. have you got anything worth saying to the readers there?
#248 Mike said 405ppm.
I assume Mann draws this from various modelling efforts but over the last 3 million years we never go near 405. In fact, virtually as soon as we passed 300, accounting inertia at @ 30 year lag, the poles started melting.
One of my key points in analyzing rates of change is other than asteroid/meteor impacts, things don’t typically fall apart all at the same time. They are this time because we’re pushing it all so hard so fast. There are virtually no hystereses.
Anything above 300 is courting suicide. Or so sayeth Gaia.
Cheers
266, And with this statement, the cat is out of the bag: “Besides I don’t have an ego like everyone who sets up a blog site or the peanut gallery of dill pickles here who never shut up long enough to think straight let alone learn something of real lasting value.”
So you come to a blog run by peer-reviewed climate scientists while you have no clue about the subject or even what the scientific method is all about, but you are so insecure and defensive that a. you are unable to admit to being wrong about basic science, b. you make no effort to learn the science, and b. because of that, you feel it necessary to personally insult those who host the site and who know the science, and c. because of that insecurity you are believe it is correct to flaunt your scientific ignorance. Got it. The idea that somehow you know something that every professional climate science organization in the world (yes, the world) does not is the height of arrogance and intellectual laziness. The sad thing is that when it comes to the scientific method it is something you were taught in middle school but apparently still have not learned. Wow.
Hank Roberts:
It’s too bad you still need people skills to deploy these effectively. I’m unable to keep the anger and hostility out of my voice at the merest hint of AGW-denial 8^(.
248 mike; neat! RE: How can we get back to 405 and stop the increase?
If you had supreme power to change the situation proactively what would you do Mike?
start with carbon tax. Use the revenue for wind/solar/battery subsidies and/or tax credits. Ramp up the carbon tax rate each year for five years then re-evaluate.
There is a lot that can be done, but the discussion and progress essentially go nowhere if we won’t take the first step and the first step is a carbon tax.
thanks for asking
Daily CO2
March 20, 2017: 406.30 ppm
March 20, 2016: 405.22 ppm
Mike
I just happened across the following article which highlights the plight of a few good people who have clearly been affected by alarmism regarding the alleged impacts of Climate Change to the point where they may no longer be thinking rationally and/or may be suffering some form of mental instability or mental stress. This got me thinking (a dangerous thing at the best of times) about whether a case can be brought against those that are selling alarmism and/or failing to correct alarmism.
If it can be shown that; injury has indeed occurred; and the cause of that injury is as a result of an accumulation of exposure from one or more sources of alarmism in the public domain (e.g. media outlets, Government websites, blogs etc.) is there a case to be answered and compensation owed?
May be a money spinner. I would welcome comments/ advice from any lawyers out there?
http://www.thegwpf.com/the-problem-with-climate-catastrophising/
The Age of Consequences – Monday 20 March 2017
“We are not your traditional environmentalists.”
Gen. Gordon Sullivan (Retd), Fmr. Chief of Staff, U.S. Army
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2017/03/20/4637278.htm
The Republican position during the Bush administrations was that climate change had not been proven, so we need more research before action is taken. A delaying tactic.
The Trump and Republican position now is that they do not care what research shows, and research should be eliminated.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/climate/trump-climate-change.html?emc=edit_na_20170321&nl=breaking-news&nlid=31820208&ref=cta
In reality, I suggest, some of the research will be turned over to the military and intelligence services.
Killian at 266: I agree with you that we need to reduce the CO2 dramatically. I don’t think 405 is safe and I don’t think Dr. Mann thinks 405 is safe. The 350 people like the 350 number, you think we ought to be under 300. I have not given much thought to what our target number should be because we appear to be capable of moving the needle in only one direction: up. I don’t give much thought to what our number ought to be. If we could stop the rise, we would have demonstrated the ability to change our civilization in fundamental ways that would probably allow us to start thinking about how to reduce the atmospheric ppm and what our target number should be. The discussion is moot if we can’t stop the rise in atmospheric CO2.
Here is a link to the Dr. Mann article from 2014:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-will-cross-the-climate-danger-threshold-by-2036/
I think it’s a good idea to read what Dr. M had to say in 2014.
I think there is big trouble coming. I am glad to be old. I worry about my kids and grandkids, but I see no sign that our species can make the changes needed to stop the CO2 buildup and then start moving the needle in the other direction.
It makes me sad.
Mike
I notice a nice open access paper with our own Pierrehumbert as an author about the arctic ice sheet before the Eemian (last interglacial) 140 Kyr ago.
Grounding of the shelf on the Lomonosov Ridge adds spice. Read all about it.
doi:10.5194/tc-2017-37
sidd
267 Dan, that’s total baloney! Close to something Trump would say on Twitter – totally disconnected from the real world. A fantasy. But have at it, whatever.
270 – the answer about legal action is no. For one thing, there is the 1st Amendment.
From my review of the literature and data, the climate researchers (and Paris Conference) are understating the coming dangers, and are not scaring people enough. One obvious point is that atmospheric CO2 continues to increase at an exponential rate with no sign of a change. Temperature increases are baked in for a long time after CO2 increases. Sea level rise even more. I happened to talk to one of the top climate researchers recently, and he affirmed that they understate the problems, out of fear of seeming too alarmist and, thus, losing credibility.
Killian – You are the ones shamed, not those of us that voted for people that could move us forward. I voted for Sanders, then Stein. You voted for illegality, self-admitted two-facedness and treason.
Chuck – (You voted for Sanders IN THE PRIMARY, Killian. Sanders was NOT A CANDIDATE in the general election. Had Sanders been a Democratic candidate I would have voted for him. There is absolutely NO basis for your accusation of treason against Hillary Clinton. NONE. Which tells me you have no idea of the definition of “Treason”. So much for your expertise on politics.)
Killian – “BTW, until Bernie started running, I had been a long-time fan of the Clintons, defending them through all the Rep stupidity of the last two decades. But she showed her true self in this campaign and turned me from supporter who was merely voting the best Climate candidate to someone who is genuinely disgusted by her record and person.”
Chuck – (Based on emotions apparently. “Record and person” tells me absolutely nothing.)
Killian – I could not possibly care less what you think on this issue. You were and are blind. I expect no change.
Chuck – (Which is why you’re spending so much time getting your panties in a bunch)
Killian – Anyone who votes anything but the absolute best climate candidate from this day forward is committing a Crime Against Humanity… and treason. And already have done both in the last election.
Chuck – (Good for you. So did I. And I certainly DIDN’T WASTE MY VOTE ON JILL STEIN who got less than 1% of the popular vote.)
Killian – “You put us here by voting for Clinton when you had Sanders.”
Chuck – (Haha! Sanders WAS NOT a choice in the general election. Sanders wasn’t a candidate. Sanders TOLD YOU TO VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON and you voted for Jill Stein. What a laugh!)
Killian, you continue to bloviate about being an expert on ASI. Maybe you could provide me with a link to some of your research. I’d love to see it. Maybe you’re better at that than you are politics but I need some proof. I’m sure you understand. Thanks
Richard Hawes says:
19 Mar 2017 at 3:59 AM
I strongly suspect that Thomas and Mr Know It All are both unemployed.
And unemployable.
Patients at Bellevue are slowly integrated back into society as long as they’re not a danger to themselves or others. Employment tends to center around work that doesn’t involve sharp objects or power tools.
Thomas @261 – Regarding that “very strong pattern of the Daily Mail’s anti-climate science rhetoric and poisoning the well”, the Fail on Sunday have been silently deleting some of their recent falsehoods. However for some strange reason they have neglected to apologise or to mention the fact in their excuse for a “correction”:
Shock News! Mail on Sunday Silently “Corrects” Another David Rose “Porky Pie”
Not only that, but an entire paragraph concerning the alleged “pause” has evaporated into thin air.
Not only that, but the alleged “correction” included below the offending article is different to the “official” version published in print at the weekend.
Brian Blagden @270,
I fail to see why you invoke the Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy by linking this thread to their “Forum.” Be aware that their “Forum” is where these rampant denialists flush out the lies that would otherwise upset the Charities Commission, the GWPF being allegedly an educational charity (don’t laugh) which does not include their “Forum” although the ‘Gentlemen’ inform the world that the content of their lie-filled “Forum” apparently “is for educational use only.”
That particular piece of filth you pedal @270 was written by a character called Oren Cass, authorship the ‘Gentlemen’ couldn’t even be arsed to make known. The complete version of this Cass nonsense (complete with graphics & links) is available here but the full breadth of the dellusions of its author can be sampled in this list of his rambling. For those with less time to lose on a fool’s errand examining the arguments of the deranged, a sample abstract is presented herre:-
t marvell,
Actually, the position during Bush II was unsettled. Bush, himself eventually came around to the position that we were warming the planet but that we couldn’t do anything about it–same as his brother, Rubio, McCain…
Cheney, however, was much closer to Trump, and he worked to actively suppress any tools that would reveal how badly we are f***ing up the planet–even to the point of cutting back on weather satellites. He was the reason Goresat/Triana/DSCOVR didn’t launch til it did (he actually tried to have the satellite dismantled after Obama defeated McCain).
What we are seeing now is just the Cheney/fossil-fuel/burn-baby-burn wing of teh party on steroids, acid, coke and PCP.
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/844357344385548290
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/844360065876447232
Thanks John Mashey for retweets.
What’s this got to do with climate science? The attack on climate science is not only formally analogous to an all-platforms dezinformatsiya campaign, but recent events raise the odds that it is has been part of one–and from foreign soil. Foreign interests (against climate science) align themselves by convenience with parties of common interest here. What is happening and has happened in the attack on climate science goes beyond the domestically known “Merchants of Doubt” lineage, I say.
The “Media Lies Again” meme turned out by foreign bot mills (among others) supports conspiricist trolling of the notion that any 97% consensus has to be a fraud, for instance. For starters.
BTW Cook et al 2016 (in addition to Cook et al 2013) is important, on the consensus. This chart is the key:
https://skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=244
The key is that it’s about “practicing climate scientists” (or peer-reviewed climate scientists) as Cook says.
This chart is re: Muller [also: Lindzen]–which MA Rodger took up @81. BTW Muller did not answer the “Quora” question. The first thing he did was change it into a customized straw-man. In other words, he hijacked it.
Particularly lame, especially in light of what the “Quora” explainer on the question says about “cause and effect.” The cause of the consensus would be (degree of) expertise in climate science–an expertise, in turn, that requires understanding cause and effect in the drivers of climate change.
Brian Blagden:
Or, whether former deniers can sue scientists for not being alarming enough.
[edit – please just stop. Any further non substantive comments will just be deleted.]
“Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its annual maximum extent on March 7. This is the lowest maximum in the 38-year satellite record.
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2017/03/arctic-sea-ice-maximum-at-record-low/
Will MA Rodger now apologise for insulting people merely pointing out the obvious on March 3rd and 4th?
Why are comments erased and held back that correct falsehoods, lies and distortions such as those contained in #267 by Dan?
Because that kind of ‘biased control’ is what happens on denier websites such as WUWT, the Daily Mail UK, all the Murdoch press, Roy Spencer’s and on FoxNews?
Especially given I totally support RC and the scientists who run it. The evidence for which is overwhelming.
[Response: The issue is not about what you think about RC (which is appreciated), but in how we can moderate informative and readable comment threads. Excessive argumentation, picking fights, insults, diversions into non climate issues etc. all detract from what readers can get out of this. There are plenty of outlets where you can do all of these things, but very few where you can have on-topic discussions on climate science issues with knowledgeable amateurs and professionals alike. If I might offer you some advice, it would be to step back, think about what the most important (climate) issues are for you and stick to substantive comments on that without getting drawn into name-calling or taking offense if people disagree. (And just so you know, we have deleted non-substantive derogatory comments from others in this thread too). Your participation here is welcomed, but remember that this is not just a forum for you. Thanks for understanding. – gavin]
#270 Brian Blagden said …affected by alarmism regarding the alleged impacts of Climate Change… …whether a case can be brought against those that are selling alarmism and/or failing to correct alarmism…
This ranks with the least intelligent posts. Borehole-worthy. Brian, learn statistics and non-trivial long-tail risks.
Then stuff your denialism in your mouth to stop the nonsense getting out again.
Climate is a potential existential risk, i.e. potential ELE I *do* advocate trying denialists for Crimes Against Humanity, though.
Last Week
March 12 – 18, 2017 407.06 ppm
March 12 – 18, 2016 404.69 ppm
and sea ice at record lows at each pole. Oceans are warming. Warmer oceans expand water volume with loss to shoreline through SLR. Albedo of the Arctic is going to increase warming at that pole. There are methane clathrates stored in ocean bed and permafrost in proximity to the warming Arctic Ocean.
And we are rolling back climate policy constraints in the US of A.
Crazy old world!
Mike
273 – you refer to Mann’s Scientific American paper. He concludes that the ECS is 2.5 (that is the number of degrees of warming for a doubling of CO2).
That might be a gross underestimate. It all depends on how long one posits the lag between CO2 increases and temperature increases. 2.5 is reasonable if one assumes an instant relationship or a short lag, less than 10 years. The ECS is much higher if one assumes a longer lag. For example, it is above 5 if one assumes a lag stretching over 20-30 years or more.
As far as I can tell, climate researchers are not much interested in determining what the lag is. There must be estimates somewhere in the literature, but I have not been able to find them. I suspect that the climate models do not work with long lags, because the margin of error becomes too large.
Worth noting (and applauding). The headline is misleading–it’s not the absolute number of coal plants that is plummeting, it’s the the growth. (The absolute number grew by 3%, actually, which would still be concerning were it not for the fact that the plummeting in the pipeline portends that we can reasonably expect to see actual coal plant numbers ‘plummet’ for real in coming years.)
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/03/23/global-number-coal-plants-plummeting/
Hi,
I’m curious about Real Climate’s response to this new paper:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871174X16300488
You’ve said in the past not to worry about methane; that CO2 is the main issue. That the hydrates are a red herring. So I’m curious if this new study has any info that might change that perspective? Could you write a blog post on this?
Also I noted recently in the news:
Study: Natural Gas Power Plants Emit up to 120 Times More Methane Than Previously Estimated
https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/03/20/natural-gas-power-plants-fracking-methane
and
7,000 underground gas bubbles poised to ‘explode’ in Arctic
http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0905-7000-underground-gas-bubbles-poised-to-explode-in-arctic/
I am by no means a “methane freakout person” (or whatever you call it!) but I would like to know what these developments mean for climate change, if any.
Also, according to some measures, we have 18 years left on our CO2 budget (based on total CO2ppm). However, when one considers that CO2e is already at 490ppm, and that this correlates to a 2.6C rise (in the median) in the IPCC report, I wonder if the 2C budget is already far blown? Could you address this question? I have been unable to resolve this question based on my own investigations.
Thank you!
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871174X16300488
from Dec 2016 about methane release as heat capper and big dog of Permian extinction event. I think most of us who know about AGW are already aware of this risk. The warming at the top of the world could lead to methane burst anytime now. Might already be happening, might not start for a century or more. Blink of the eye in geo-time. It’s imminent if we let the warming continue.
Not sure what to do about this cuz I have been talking about it for years. It’s a low probability, high impact event. I usually figure we will cook ourselves with CO2 and won’t need to be concerned about methane, but it’s really not that simple. The methane release is like ocean acidification, it follows somewhat naturally from the amazing pulse of CO2 we have injected into the atmosphere. Best idea I have for this problem right now is to take a few days off and head to Oregon coast and watch for the gray whales returning from the south with their little ones.
Thanks for the edit at 284.
Cheerio,
Mike
This bears repeating : “Poisoning the well (also called the smear tactic) is a rhetorical technique and logical fallacy that uses the association of negative emotions to distract a subject from actual evidence in an argument.”
Like “crooked Hilary, little Mario, lying Ted Cruz, and low energy Jeb Bush”. Crude, but sadly effective, emotive, and twisted rhetoric. Poison is such an apt description.
I refuse to get drawn into using this sort of rhetoric. It destroys reason.
It’s the sort of thing you find in conspiracy magazines, where you get statements like “the absurd claim made by the discredited, lying person a, on the shallow posturing of person b” about the invented event c”. It smothers us with negativity and unproven assertions, and creates gleeful joy from the conspiracy theorists, and anger with those of us who can see whats being done.
It’s hard to counter poison the well people without either stooping to their level, or going through a complex rebuttal point by point.
However the debating tactics of climate deniers are usually more subtle : A parade of fake experts, cherry picking information, deceptive arguments, strawman arguments, lies by omission, red herrings. These are the tactics of climate change denialists, lobby groups and sometimes lawyers. It’s a form of sophistry.
The paper Brand et al (2016) ‘Methane Hydrate: Killer cause of Earth’s greatest mass extinction’ whose abstract is linked both @289 & @290 is available in full here which should allow an appreciation of the paper’s “observations on the global warming process, such as the release of massive amounts of carbon dioxide and subsequently followed by methane from hydrates, and their impacts on life during the end Permian” which “may have important lessons for humanity and the problems associated with climate change in the 21st century.” Note that the abstract is rather more definite about the existence of important lessons in that it does not use the word “…may…”
http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0905-7000-underground-gas-bubbles-poised-to-explode-in-arctic/
And if you look at Google Earth or another satellite view, there are a heck of a lot of little round lakes visible throughout that area.
http://6336-presscdn-26-82.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Screen-Shot-2014-07-16-at-2.31.39-PM.png
hat tip to: http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/07/the-giant-siberian-hole-yep-media-does-a-crap-job-reporting/
289 – See wikipedia on this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
About a decade ago, some paper warned that a hydrate collapse would cause a tsunami here in coastal Virginia, but that has simmered down.
288. Don’t believe Chinese PR. The central government orders that coal plants be closed, that construction stop on new plants started, and that plans for new plants be abandoned. Mostly hot air. The political system in China is decentralized, and the local cities and states plan and build the coal plants. In the past they have paid little heed to such orders from the central government (even in spite of overcapacity). If they want to attract companies to build factories, they must have guaranteed abundant electric power, so there is competition throughout China to overbuild power plants.
Another thing about China’s attempt to limit CO2 – it has built massive solar arrays, and brags about it, but they largely sit there unused.
#287:
Indeed. Maybe one way to approximately avoid the lag is to just use global land areas warming e.g. CRUTEM4. The fact is land areas are warming substantially faster than ocean areas and I guess that will continue. IIRC, Northern Hemisphere land areas are nearly at 1.5 degrees C of warming or at least 30% more than the entire globe. If we ever manage to hold CO2 steady, we could still be in for more than a further 30% increase in global warming eventually.
285
The only winner in Thomas V. All Those Idiots Who Don’t Have Lifetime Guardian subscriptions and Mention The Nation In their Wills is none other Eric Hoffer:
ISBN 978-0-060-50591-2.
Who unfortunately is dead.
mar at 293: can you elaborate on your read on the toggle of word “may” between the full article and the abstract? I would like to be certain that I understand what you think about that change because your take on things and posts have been generally high quality imho.
HR at 294: the situation is sufficiently scary, right? we don’t have to make up stuff. beautiful little round lakes! What’s wrong with that development?
CON at 297: I think you are correct to suggest that 30% lag in heat production. I like your phrase, “if we ever manage to hold CO2 steady” because that is exactly right. The process and changes required to hold CO2 steady, then we have to keep employing and expanding those processes and changes to start moving the needle in the other direction. Killian says we need to get down under 300 ppm. I don’t think that is going to happen in my lifetime, but I would sure be relieved to see the needle stop going up cuz it would give weight to the discussion about what the target number should be. Right now, that discussion is pretty theoretical.
Daily CO2
March 23, 2017: 406.66 ppm
March 23, 2016: 405.32 ppm
This is the ballgame, folks. Read’m and weep. or wear your hat backwards or whatever you think is a game-changer.
what a treat to see post upon post about climate science on the site!
Warm regards
Mike
Enough for me. Too many posters like Thomas dominating the site and too little actual science news/info. It’s been informative 6 years but no more.