This month’s open thread…. and let’s stay on climate topics this month. It’s not like there isn’t anything climate-y to talk about (sea ice minimums, extreme events, climate model tunings, past ‘hyperthermals’… etc.). Anything too far off-topic will get binned. Thanks!
Thomas @101,
You tell us there are “refs I keep providing” for PD Ward of UW’s position on volcanism and the causes of the PETM. This talk is utter nonsense. Your descriptor “keep providing” is entirely inappropriate given that to find any PD Ward “ref” whatever that was provided by you we have to go way back to the start of the year.
Back then you cited Ward by saying “Prof. Peter Ward UW put the ‘yardstick’ as being if/when the Earth hits 1000ppm of CO2 it’s almost guaranteed there will be no ice at the poles and the hydrogen sulphide world returns for millions of years yet again.” Ward’s thesis is a reasonably well-known so perhaps the absence of a refenced source is not entirely incorrect. There is however no mention of PETM or volcanism, no “refs I keep providing.”
Also back then Thomas, you showed strong approval for PD Ward’s call for the outreach of science teaching, referencing Ward’s University of Washington’s 34th Annual Faculty Lecture. Within that videoed lecture and unconnected to the speifics of your referencing (so this is unreasonable as referenicng of volcanism & PETM) there are a couple of graphics that feature the PETM event. These graphics (@c23mins & @c32mins) would suggest that Ward was saying the PETM was driven by volcanism although the message from Ward was more that the five paleo-extinction events were driven by volcanism and not about the PETM. And while you may be encouraged that this may be indicative of “what Peter said himself back when,” he had actually said zip about the PETM and further, he entirely contradict such a PETM-driven-by-volcanism idea in interview elsewhere.
You thus provide non-referenced nonsense, Thomas, a deliverable that is entirely unscientific. Well done you!!
Steven T. Corneliussen @112.
The main point of my comment @85 was to set out the scientific content of the two WSJ articles. As you fail to identify anything substantive that I may have missed @85, I conclude I have achieved that purpose.
You do however @112 restate the comment made by the WSJ editorial concerning NOAA & UN IPCC findings, highlighting my assessment that the NOAA quote presented by WSJ is cherry-picked. This is evidently the case. The line quoted by WSJ “”It is premature to conclude that human activities … have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity.” ignores the follow-on line which begins “That said, human activities may have already caused changes that are not yet detectable” and the reasons for this non-detection are then set out. How can the WSJ not be cherry-picking if they ignore a follow-on statement like this?
As for the other messaging in the articles, the WSJ editorial evidently misrepresents Mr Pielke Jr as being “no climate-change denier” when, as shown @85, Mr Pielke Jr evidently is a “climate-change denier.”
The WSJ editorial & Mr Pielke Jr’s messages are trying hard to say that the change in tropical cyclone activity is so small that it is not detectable, indeed that it doesn’t exist, something many WSJ readers would be reasured to hear and this would also lead such readers to start to question climatalogical findings that are not so reassuring. The two articles are thus in this respect dishonest.
Mr Pielke also attempts to grab moral high ground by faking an agreement with proper scientific findings. The position Pielke sets out is that relative to the last decade cyclones will be more powerful in coming years but only as powerful as those seen in previous decades. This is dishonest as he atttempts to brand this as agreeing with the science although the science has shown that major tropical cyclones have got stronger as temperatures rise, this just as predicted by models. What science cannot yet do is attribute the full temperature rise to AGW and a confirmed attribution could take decades using the current scientific approach.
Has this analysis of the two WSJ articles overlooked anything?
Those “spaghetti plots”?
Explained:
https://m.xkcd.com/1885/
Average sea ice extent for August 2017 ended up third lowest in the satellite record. Ice loss rates through August were variable, but slower overall than in recent years. Extensive areas of low concentration ice cover (40 to 70 percent) are still present across much of the Eurasian side of the Arctic Ocean. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Looks like the 2017 minimum will be larger in area/extent than the 2012 record minimum yet much less in “piomass & thickness” in combination with the lower ice concentration or slush puppy mush across wide regions of the Arctic. MYI iow is probably at an all time low as well with data yet to be provided for the upcoming minimum in Sept. The writing is very much on wall, iow.
Ref UV August
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/08/unforced-variations-august-2017/comment-page-11/#comment-682396
Clair Brown says:- Growing up white in the South, I witnessed nice white people who were also innately racist, although they did not think they were racist and would have been insulted if called racist.
Similarly, in my early career, I experienced nice male economists who were innately sexist, although they did not think they were sexist and were insulted when called sexist.
Social norms (aka Cultural Narratives by Lakoff) are so embedded in daily life that they are hard for people to observe; they are taken for granted as normal, acceptable behavior.
Much of my life, both personal and professional, has involved confronting and seeking to change social norms that result in pain for those disadvantaged by them as well as unspoken and erroneous policy prescriptions that stem from them.
(Originally printed in Eminent Economists II – Their Life and Work Philosophies (Cambridge University Press, 2013)).
Some poignant ‘food for thought’ there I suspect (or at least I hope there is.) For as Prof. George Lakoff has shown via Scientific research – Human Reason is 98% mentally embedded, internalized, Subconscious Metaphor in Frames & Cultural Narratives (aka Socialized Norms)
There are many ways to ‘skin a cat’ – however it’s a critical imperative to first be aware there is in fact a cat that needs to be skinned if you wish to be successful in achieving your greater goals.
#105 Weaktor:
Because without Harvey (and, hopefully, Irma) you have nothing.”
Yes we do – we have this!
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datatools/records
Now please explain to me why, over a couple decades, stations are increasingly recording daily, monthly and even annual record high temperatures at a rate that now averages three times the rate that record low temperatures are set.
In defense of ‘victors’ need to include historical records in the equation.
(context these comments are from back in 2011 – so they may no longer be appropriate or inline with the current science on tropical storms)
Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi, which hit North Queensland last week, was one of the more intense cyclones in Australia’s recent history. A massive category 5 storm over 600 kilometres wide, it clocked wind speeds of 295 kilometres per hour (182mph) at its greatest intensity.
But it was no super-cyclone, nor was it the biggest cyclone Australia has ever seen, says Dr Jeff Kepert, head of the High Impact Weather Research Team in the Bureau of Meteorology. […] Professor Jonathan Nott from the Australasian Palaeohazards Research Unit with James Cook University agrees.
Nott says there’s no formal definition for the term super cyclone and only uses it very loosely to describe an extremely powerful event with intensities below 910 hectopascals, a measure of atmospheric pressure.
“We don’t get those often. The strongest in Queensland was 914 hectopascals Tropical Cyclone Mahina in 1899 which hit north of Cooktown.”
Its 350 kilometre per hour (218MPH) winds killed over 400 people, the largest death toll in any natural disaster in Australian history. “But for Queensland, Yasi is the most intense since Innisfail in 1918.”
and
Nor can we link Cyclone Yasi to climate change, says Kepert. “As for global warming, things are complicated. [Climate change] certainly increases sea surface temperatures, but other changes such as atmospheric circulation might possibly offset this. The theoretical evidence indicates a gradual increase of about 10 per cent in cyclone intensity. But it could mean a slow drop in the number of cyclones, especially the weaker ones.”
Queensland goes through periods of intense cyclones following relatively quiet times lasting one or two centuries, says Nott. “We have two types of records on past cyclone activity. Sand deposits going back five thousand years (the period sea levels have been at current heights) tell us how big and where a cyclone hit, based on the amount of sand left above the highest tides.
“The other uses limestone stalagmites in caves to tell us about different chemical signatures in tropical cyclone rain compared to normal and monsoon rain”. Using these techniques, Nott and colleagues have found that cyclones with winds of up to 300kmh cross the Queensland coast every 200 or 300 years.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/02/07/3132144.htm
So there potentially two ways to determine historical intensity of hurricanes across the USA going back about 5,000 years – and it’s no surprise that this is precisely the kind of work being done by climate scientists et al. Of course none of this makes any difference to the scientific proven reality of AGW/CC overall, and the obvious oft stated implications for stronger storms than otherwise would be the case. The point is that Victor is grasping at convenient straws and is not fully informed about the scientific data to date nor how it is derived and measured. That’s surely why ‘god’ created climate scientists and the scientific method itself in the first place .. yes? So the proletariat could recognize the difference between an expert in a field versus a dill or a political shill? :)
155 – Paul
How’s Phil?
Anyway, to answer your question: it’s because the earth is in another of many warming periods. We don’t really know what causes them. In the USA, may of our record high temps still stand from the warm period of the 1930s.
Also, is there a list of where the temperature recording instruments are located for the lower 48? It would be hard to find locations not affected by either heat islands from concrete and asphalt OR from heat put out by industrial plants. You could not locate temperature instruments any where near a major city today and expect unbiased readings, but I’ll bet the list of locations includes many such sites.
I don’t waste a second on weaktor and alike :-) Makes me feel real good :-) I am done with deniers for quite a while :-)
[ok – we’re done with the sniping and non-climate dogmatic arguments. please stay on climate topics.]
Nope, no sustainable people anywhere on the planet. No, sir. (And I’ve never mentioned any!)
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/maps-reveal-how-amazon-development-closing-isolated-tribes
This place doesn’t exist, either. (Not likely sustainable, but has many of the appropriate patterns in place.)
https://www.auroville.org/categories/23
The Farm is a mirage, too.
http://www.thefarm.org
Some people … fwiw here’s a note from http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/
“Hello dear visitor. It looks like the forum was attacked last night (Sept 8, 2017). We’re working to fix and assess damage. Hope we can fixe it soon.
DungeonMaster”
I was getting a unauthorized access notice for a while, then the above message showed up. Some people, yes, some people. (sigh)
Victor, 148:
“As I said, Harvey is your best bet.”
For helping you see sense? Apparently not.
Paul Donahue: “Now please explain to me why, over a couple decades, stations are increasingly recording daily, monthly and even annual record high temperatures at a rate that now averages three times the rate that record low temperatures are set.”
Oh-Oh. Time for Weaktor to make a frantic Gish Gallop.
for MAR at 140: You list the following data
…….. Ave Jan-Aug … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +0.82ºC … … … +0.74ºC … … …1st
1998 .. +0.67ºC … … … +0.58ºC … … …2nd
2010 .. +0.63ºC … … … +0.56ºC … … …3rd
2017 .. +0.60ºC
2015 .. +0.47ºC … … … +0.54ºC … … …4th
2005 .. +0.43ºC … … … +0.42ºC … … …5th
2002 .. +0.42ºC … … … +0.38ºC … … …8th
2007 .. +0.41ºC … … … +0.36ºC … … …9th
2014 .. +0.41ºC … … … +0.41ºC … … …6th
2013 .. +0.36ºC … … … +0.36ºC … … …10th
2003 .. +0.35ºC … … … +0.39ºC … … …7th
I just did a quick search of EN and ENSO years and I am thinking that 2017 might be the only year in this set that is not an EN or ENSO year. Is that correct?
It would be interesting to see temp anomalies for non-EN/ENSO years if such a thing is possible and not too time-consuming.
Thanks
Mike
As Senator Inhofe, Administrator Pruitt, Congressman Bridenstine and long time Palm Beach resident Rush Limbaugh have no worries about sea level rise, and the mortgage on Mar Del Lago is not underwater, the President should ask them all over to his splendid waterfront property for a hurricane party Saturday night
Th 157: Human Reason is 98% mentally embedded, internalized, Subconscious Metaphor in Frames & Cultural Narratives (aka Socialized Norms)
BPL: Does that apply to you as well, or only to other people?
KIA 159: it’s because the earth is in another of many warming periods. We don’t really know what causes them.
BPL: YOU don’t know what causes them. Climate scientists do.
Killian @62
Well thanks for some sources. But your first example of sustainable communities is an amazon tribe! I mean I really think that’s not a great plan for the entire world.
Your Auroville example is more interesting. I actually like what they are doing in terms of farming, reducing climate impacts, reducing fossil fuel use.
But their community is hardly sustainable or entirely new in the way you promote for example:
“One of the most urgent needs that Auroville’s farms are facing is funding. Finances are required for infrastructure (fences, bore wells, irrigation systems, etc) to improve the efficiency of the farms, some of which are short of basic facilities and equipment.”
So the point is they are not subsistence farmers, they are quite reliant on serious technology and finance etc from society as a whole. So they are not fully self sustaining, and their impacts on the environment are still very significant. They also import most of their food. And they have not rejected or separated themselves from capitalism and its hard to see them working without society as a whole around them. But thats ok, its still a nice model of development.
Your example of The Farm is much the same as Auroville and has all the same issues. But thanks.
KIA 159:
“it’s because the earth is in another of many warming periods. We don’t really know what causes them.’
Actually we do know what can cause warming periods. CARBON DIOXIDE, volcanic activity (certain types of), changes in earths orbit, sunspot cycles, pdo ocean cycle, cosmic rays and a couple of other short term ocean cycles mostly.
We know which of these cycles is operating over last 50 years and how they are trending, and potentially affecting things. The only cycle over the last 50 years that can explain a warming trend of anything remotely like current magnitudes is carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. Anything else is little green men stuff in desperate imaginations.
For the four or five people who’ve just been sniping at each other for a while now, please just stop. Comments that are filled with insults instead of substance will just be deleted, without further warning or apology. You may be enamoured of your exchanges, but I can assure you no-one else is.
Gavin, if ever you’re concerned about targeted doss attacks/hacks, this guy may help you out https://www.schneier.com , (and sorry but some days it gets way too ridiculous and disconnected from reality) cheers
#157 Paul donahue says:
“Now please explain to me why, over a couple decades, stations are increasingly recording daily, monthly and even annual record high temperatures at a rate that now averages three times the rate that record low temperatures are set.”
Since my earlier, rather detailed, response to Paul has been buried in the Bore Hole, I’ll try to keep it simple this time. Stations are recording record temperatures because the Earth is most definitely warming. No one other than a few crackpots would deny that. The question is: why?
172 – gavin
They remind me of what happens in school when the teacher leaves the classroom for a few minutes.
:)
The alligators are coming! The alligators are coming! Everyone to get from streets!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-08/what-miami-could-look-sunday-morning
No, gavin. I’m glad in some ways that moderation is light here. It is better than heavy-handed, all in all. However, it has been allowed for a decade now for regular posters here to constantly attack, in ignorance largely, one person: Me.
It gets old. You all might want to step in on the very one-sided B.S. a little more often. I lose patience with it, admittedly, but it takes little more than a quick comment to reign in those people.
Sadly, there are a LOT of rude comments here flying from many directions. Maybe you all **should** delete every single one of them for a month or two. Most of your regulars would have nearly every post deleted, however.
#170 nigelj,
Your certitude in the face of a very deep ignorance of the issues you attempt to discuss make this painfully dull and repetitive. This will be my last response to you, I hope.
Killian @62
Well thanks for some sources. But your first example of sustainable communities is an amazon tribe! I mean I really think that’s not a great plan for the entire world.
Jesus… How many times have I discussed this? How is it possible you still take the “Loincloths!!!!” approach in responding? When you have been told over and over and over what sustainable is, and over and over and over that the ***patterns*** and ***structures*** and ***principles*** of extant sustainable societies are to be copied, *****NOT***** the actual lifestyle, how is one to conclude anything other than you simply cannot understand what you read and/or are intentionally obstructive?
Good god…
Your Auroville example is more interesting.
Auroville is not sustainable. I have not said it is. But these are examples you **might** be able to understand as moving in the desired direction. Most communities are not actually **trying for** deep sustainability, but are leveraging current infrastructure intentionally. It’s a concept called “appropriate technology.” It is no secret that living in a wholly different paradigm when surrounded by an old paradigm is quite difficult. Nobody gets to sustainable in a day. Or even a couple years. It takes time to extract oneself from the need for money, jobs, paying taxes, getting around regulations, etc. Most of it will only be achieved after an intentional movement to BE a new paradigm is explicitly declared. With Auroville, an unwelcomed intrusion came from the Indian gov’t, so…
But why must this be explained to you? If you were sincere, you would have made these observations yourself, or asked if that was the intent. If you cannot make a sincere effort, you are no longer worthy of responses.
So the point is they are not subsistence farmers, they are quite reliant on serious technology and finance etc from society as a whole.
No, the point here is you claim people will not live this way and that egalitarian governance is not an option. These people are proving you wrong, as are many others. They decide together, none of them owns anything of Auroville. Businesses are not privately owned.
So they are not fully self sustaining
And no community ever can be. At the very least, they need new gene inputs over time. The issue is not them, it’s you. The goal of regenerative systems is not to be self-sustaining. I leave you to puzzle over that.
And they have not rejected or separated themselves from capitalism
Who owns Auroville? You, again, have no idea what you are talking about.
its hard to see them working without society as a whole around them.
Even harder when you have governance units placed in control from the government because the government is scared of your model. Still, see comments further up on this issue.
Your example of The Farm is much the same as Auroville and has all the same issues.
Oh, really? I know one of the earliest members of the Farm, who still lives there. I wouldn’t get too far afield with my comments were I you.
Where we need to go is where our aboriginal cousins still are, with modification. That modification will be extensive for many, less so for others, depending on resources, population, location, etc. But the blueprint is inviolable, imo.
We have far to go, but you are not qualified to critique that, nor able to, so please stop trying until you are better educated. You still think there can be such a thing as sustainable capitalism, after all.
mike @166,
Lasy year over at SkS, Dana presented an exercise comparing El Nino years, La Nina Years & neutral years for the BEST global surface temperatures athough the ENSO classifications used are not definitive but relative. (You will note in a previous version of this exercise, Dana classified 2007 as neutral but now it is classified El Nino.)
I would also question the classifying of 2015 as an El Nino year. Its final months were boosted by El Nino but most say not greatly. Yet saying that, even with consideration of the lag between MEI & temperature wobbles, 2015’s MEI was certainly more indicative of El Nino contitions than it was for the undoubted El-Nino-years 2003, 2005 & 2007.
Under Dana’s classification, the years in the table @166 are mainly El Nino years with the exceptions being the neutral years 2002, 2013 & 2014 and (because there is a lag between ENSO & temperature we can say) 2017 is also conclusively ENSO-neutral.
And it is unquestionable that MEI shows ENSO strongly depressing global TLT temperatures from 2008 through to 2012, something that may have encouraged the denialists to go with that global TLT bet back in 2011 (described here at KIwiThinker). My version of the bet-status is here (usually 2 clicks to ‘download your attachment’). The (part-)decadal difference is running at 0.08ºC which is below the 0.129ºC the full-record average linear trends would suggest for these data-sets with 100 months between averages. Then, we still have 40 months for the gap to continue to widen. (And as the last commenter on the KiwiThinker blog page points out, it would take a record La Nina, a record volcano and more (an asteroid strike is suggested) to turn the bet back to favour of the denialists.)
Mr. KIA @159
So which is it? Is the earth in another warming period or is the temperature record suspect?
The biases in the temperature records have been accounted for and this has been discussed multiple times on this site. As has the dust bowl temperature anomalies. Not only that, there is significant indisputable physical evidence of warming. These include sea level rise, loss of glaciers, loss of arctic sea ice, more humidity, migration of species, and lengthening of growing seasons. It IS warming. Why do you continue to ignore the facts?
As for the cause of warming trends. We actually do understand what causes them. Just because you refuse to study the science does not mean the knowledge does not exist. Your continued and repeated ignorance is tiresome. And Ignorance is curable BTW. Why don’t you take the time to learn what the science actually shows? It is not all that difficult, there are excellent references pointed to on this site.
Of course. There’s station metadata for every station in the entire USCRN:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/
And no, it’s not hard to find “unaffected” stations (you must be purely a city boy, KIA.) Folks have even been known to compare different subsets of stations, based on the relevant metadata:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2013&q=comparison+of+rural+and+urban+meteorological+stations&hl=en&as_sdt=0,41
(Upwards of 16,000 hits, and that’s just from the last 5 years.)
Or how about this search:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2013&q=siting+of+meteorological+stations&hl=en&as_sdt=0,41
(A similar number.)
Station metadata is also tracked for the GHCN, which is global in scope:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ghcnm/v3.php
Why all this emphasis on station metadata? Because its importance has been recognized from the very beginning of the modern era in the study of anthropogenic climate change, which I would date to Callendar 1938.
That’s from Fleming’s interpretive essay about the paper, here:
http://nsdl.library.cornell.edu/websites/wiki/index.php/PALE_ClassicArticles/GlobalWarming/Article6.html
Unfortunately, the original article, which used to be freely available, has been paywalled by the Royal Meteorological Society. But I wrote about it here:
https://hubpages.com/education/Global-Warming-Science-And-The-Wars
All of which is interesting, but perhaps not quite to the central question posed, which is “How does station siting affect observed temperature trends?” (Nor have I mentioned the USHCN, which is the ‘old’ network and has more siting problems than the newer USCRN.) The short answer, through numerous iterations of research, has always been “not much.” Here’s the latest:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL067640/full
Bottom line: siting issues are a legitimate issue in constructing a viable climatological record, but while commenters sometimes seem to think that they are newly discovering it, the reality is that it has always received serious consideration and continues to do so–and, further, that we can have confidence in the record.
#172 gavin: “For the four or five people who’ve just been sniping at each other for a while now, please just stop.”
Cool. I’ll stop. I would rather discuss the anti-renewables lies and misinformation of Smil, known Big Nuke shills like Schellenberger, and others. Started here:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/09/unforced-variations-sep-2017/comment-page-3/#comment-682992
I would appreciate further comments along the same lines (or dissent, if any).
The 2017 Atlantic huricane season has now passed the 100 mark for Accumulative Cyclone Energy (ACE) which puts it ahead of the 2008 and 2012 seasons and leaving only the record-breaking 2005 season with a higher ACE for the time of year (in recent years). The present storms Irma & Jose will presumably see it pass 130 in the next couple of days and if more major storms form before the end of the month (or perhaps Jose will decide on a second bite of the cherry rather than heading North!), the 2005 ACE up to the end of September (170) could be exceeded.
And the projected path of Irma from this coming Wednesday is for it to grind to a halt over Tennessee. If that happens, let’s hope that its rain will have mostly dropped before it arrives.
It seems much longer than just eight days ago up-thread when I suggested this year’s hurricanes had become “a quite terriflying one.” Today I don’t think I’d have used the word “quite”.
Aug. 27 – Sep. 2, 2017 404.19 ppm
Aug. 27 – Sep. 2, 2016 400.95 ppm
Aug. 27 – Sep. 2, 2005 381.53 ppm
Ugly, noisy number. Waiting for August average to post up. August 2016 was 402.25. I am expecting August to come in around 404.75, no number crunching, just my sense from watching daily and weekly numbers.
We are moving to a time when we will have to talk about how to scrub CO2 out of the atmosphere. Carbon taxes and falling emissions won’t get it done if the underlying planetary carbon cycle has changed in significant ways… which I think it has.
If you are on a traditional hurricane path, move now. you are a climate refugee whether you realize it yet or not.
Cheers
Mike
Kevin McKinney:
Well, since Kevin didn’t mention BEST, I will. In 2010, UC-Berkeley physicist Robert Muller, turning his attention to the messier Earth sciences with stereotypical arrogance and failing to distinguish genuine climate experts from DK-afflicted AGW deniers with larger-than-average vocabularies, thought there might actually be something to denier squawks about teh urban heat islandz. He launched the BEST project to nail down the surface temperature record. When it was completed one and a half years later, the Wall Street Journal published Muller’s Op-Ed (paywalled): The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism, subtitled There were good reasons for doubt, until now.
Those conversant with the lopsided consensus of working climate scientists, of course, had found no good reason to doubt it since the previous century. OTOH, Muller’s previous public skepticism of his climate-specialist colleagues’ rigor reassured many shallow pseudo-skeptics and presumably some genuine skeptics as well, and made his frank announcement that he’d found the surface temperature record to be sufficiently accurate all the more creditable.
As a bonus, Muller’s verification of the data supporting the consensus warming trend was highly embarrassing to arch-denier Anthony Watts, a UHI accuser who’d confidently backed the BEST project at its outset. When Watts’s army of committed AGW-deniers immediately dismissed Muller as a co-conspirator in on the vast AGW hoax, they irrevocably revealed themselves to be no skeptics at all, but fanatical culture warriors resolutely defending their ‘freedom’ to socialize their marginal climate-change costs out their private tailpipes.
It’s been suggested Muller was flying a false ‘skeptic’ flag. On reliable testimony, however, he actually is both a stereotypically arrogant physicist and a genuine skeptic who is too honest to fool himself once he’s examined the evidence. I, for one, thank him for his support regardless 8^D!
175 Mr. Know It All, well kind of true. Much can get sorted out in the school yard though. Remember? Besides a sign of intelligence is argument KIA. You’re still bottom of the Class here. :)
177 Killian, yep.
182 alan2102, there’s lots of disinformation and ‘lies’ about every agw related topic swirling around this world. And no comment on any board, incl RC should be taken as requirung the same level of care, … they aren’t peer-reviewed quadruple checked for accuracy or typos or for clarity – they’re ‘comments’ on the fly most of the time.
Complaining about people’s ways of expressing themselves is plain silly imo. It’s a ‘discussion’ forum, a place to ‘chat’, present each person ‘core issue/problem/solutions’ which includes the disinfo from all quarters and how people make judgements about that (be they good or not so good) plus for some offering up snippets of news (isn’t it?) But when Killian says: “Anyone claiming “100% renewable!” is a dunce.” he is spot on imo.
Take away the emotive term overly sensitive unreasonably attached people to xyz beliefs get all offended over, and well that statement by Killian is – as this point in time and for the foreseeable future 100% accurate.
Why anyone would argue against that is a mystery to me. Why anyone (of the likes who would attend this ‘forum’) would require some evidence for this truth another mystery. It’s an occam’s razor truth like saying the sky is blue.
182 alan2102, oops, my point of the above was to simply point out saying that does not equate to being “anti-renewable” or belonging to the fossil fuel cabal. It’s a non-sequitur to claim it does. :-)
168 BPL, re #156, asking me things like that shows me you’re totally missing the point and not grasping how to make positive use of what cognitive science and psychology has shown is ‘true’. It’s also embedded by way of example in Clair’s quote and the whole screed from which it was taken, and ref’d.
To put it another way, when one desires to communicate with a nation or particular ‘groups’ within a nation then it is really useful to be mindful of choosing framings that fit nicely within the pre-existing cultural narratives (aka collective ‘stories’, priory beliefs, values, myths, opinions, points of view etc) – because by relating your communciations to those issues while showing how your information (science facts etc) and your recommended/desired course of action in fact FITS within that paradigm they hold dear then people will listen to you sincerely and you are much more likely to have them or many of them take what you a trying to convey on board.
(with “you” being whoever, but particularly climate scientists and agw/cc activists attempting to influence public opinion in a positive direction about the findings of their collective work and knowledge.)
Then there is a much greater chance of that “information” flowing within that ‘in group’ like a virus being transmitted from one person to another like a chain reaction.
Oddly, it has nothing to do with me at all. Nothing. It is what it is. I repeat it often based on good scientific know-how. Others may find such sound science based ideas useful in time.
re 168 BPL, I think many readers here already understand what’s being said above, and why/how it fits in with agw/cc. John Cook kind of does, but he’s coming at things from a different angle imo, and it is noted that he and his associates have taken a different tack from their original approach at SkS. If anyone has similar problems grasping the import of such matters, I recommend you go read the Literature on the subject incl that by Lakoff and Chomsky.
150/151 MA Rodger, have another look. But this time try not to add words and notions into what I actually said. Not my problem sorry, I cannot help you.
Killian @178
I’m responding to this basically because sustainable community ideas have an obvious part to play in reducing climate change.
I’m fully aware ancient tribes can teach us something about sustainable principles. Its self evident and widely documented. I dont need a lecture from you on the issue.
You made a simple claim that workable modern sustainable communities existed. I simply said show me some examples. The examples you showed me are not workable, modern sustainable communities. End – of – story. At best they are half way houses and still dependent on larger society.
Now your Auriavale community may become more sustainable, and principles are important, that is obvious. It didnt need me saying because its obvious. We just cant predict the future.
Now I would make one comment that isnt obvious at least to you and it should be. Auriavale will work nicely as a few families sharing ownership of a farm etc, very communal, but we know from history such shared ownership breaks down when applied to larger scale and only larger scale can really provide a reasonable level of technology, even a low level unless we go back to hand making everything. This is why I think we are stuck with some form of private ownership and capitalism, although somewhat modified. The term hybrid comes to mind.
And you can talk all you like about going back to fist principles and expecting something completely new to develop. This has a large element of naivety and wishful thinking in it. You are stuck with the same human nature, which puts boundaries on this and its hard changing human nature, you can only give it little pushes along and encourage more sharing etc.
And there’s another very pressing issue. Its very unlikely that enough of the world will go the Auriavale way in enough time to prevent dangerous climate change. This is is why I promote “capitalism plus better law” as the main priority right now, and that is at least possible as a goal and will push towards sustainability. As I have said 100 times, this will in itself encourage communities like Auriavale. Sigh.
I’m not the antichrist, and have a pretty good academic record as it happens.
Re: Gavin, 8 Sep 2017 at 8:08 PM, ~172
I applaud your edict and encourage you to erase the violators on their first post, or soon after one of the stupid exchanges starts, and please indentify the bad boys. And, while you are fixing things, please remove the irritating Facebook/Twitter bar that doesn’t allow me to see the bottom few lines on a page. Steve
Incoming: This task, apparently insurmountable for the west, is made possible by China’s 2,500-year tradition of centralised government.
“They said, we have a long-term vision, we want to be here in another 2,000 years and that will only happen if we clean up the environment. So we have determined that we’re going to deal with our environmental problems and we’re going to do so in a very thoroughgoing way.”
Thornton said it helps that most of the politburo are engineers, rather than political scientists, lawyers or economists as in the west. “So when they actually decide that there is a problem – and it takes actual evidence to get them there – they define the problem and then their next question is: what’s the solution? How can we afford it, how quickly can we do it, and how can we marshal all forces in society to get there?”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/10/my-job-is-to-clean-up-the-environment-china-really-wants-to-do-that
Boom-Chaka-Boom
Ahem, Thornton is also a Zen Buddhist priest! Kaboom Tada :0
174 – Victor
Quote: “…..the Earth is most definitely warming. No one other than a few crackpots would deny that. The question is: why?”
Do you think that the reason why may be the same reason that caused the 1930s warming back when CO2 was about 100 ppm lower than it is today?
KIA 195: Do you think that the reason why may be the same reason that caused the 1930s warming back when CO2 was about 100 ppm lower than it is today?
BPL: Do you know algebra? Here’s the equation for radiative forcing due to increased carbon dioxide (Myhre eet al. 1998):
RF = 5.25 ln (C/C0)
where C is present concentration and C0 a reference value, usually taken as the preindustrial 280 ppmv.
This implies that doubling CO2 increases RF by 3.7 watts per square meter. Notice, you can double it from 2 to 4, or 50 to 100, or 280 to 560 ppmv. Do you see why “CO2 was about 100 ppm lower than it is today” is not as terrible an indictment as you think it is?
BTW, that equation is held to be accurate between 1 and 1,440 ppmv.
Know it all @195
“Quote: “…..the Earth is most definitely warming. No one other than a few crackpots would deny that. The question is: why?” “Do you think that the reason why may be the same reason that caused the 1930s warming back when CO2 was about 100 ppm lower than it is today?”
Do YOU think you could actually learn something about climate change, even a tiny little bit, before commenting? This is a climate science website. At least I have made the effort to read some books.
I suggest start by at least researching trends in solar cycles, and how the solar energy output of the sun affects things. These changes have limited effect compared to CO2. Changes in solar irradiance caused some of the warming early last century, about 50%, as solar irradiance trended up.
Solar irradiance has not increased as a trend over the sum total of the last 50 years, as in the links below. Therefore its just impossible to see how the sun could be causing recent warming.
https://skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
https://protonsforbreakfast.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/composite-total-solar-irradiance.gif
These graphs should be front and centre of any media article on climate change. Its really more important from a public perception of the issues than a lot of other stuff even the old ice core records. Obviously the first thing on peoples minds is could it be the sun, and they need to consider this graphical material. Any educators who read this website please give it consideration.
Mr KIA: in part, yes. You do know that in 1930s the CO2 concentration was about 10% higher than it was pre-industrially, right?
And I guess you also know that solar activity hasn’t increased since at least the 1950s (and maybe even declined).
Right?
If not, you maybe want to stop showing your ignorance.
Mr. KIA @195
The warming in the thirties was due to both an increase in CO2 forcing and an increase in solar irradiance. Since the 1970s solar has been declining so the current warming is highly likely all due to CO2 forcing. I believe you’ve been told this countless times. Appreciable warming requires a change in the energy balance. Any unforced natural variation is limited since it is simply due to a redistribution of heat within the system. Likely no more than plus or minus 0.15 degrees Celsius. Also, we know natural unforced variation is not causing the current warming trend because the total system is warming. The current energy imbalance caused by CO2 driving current warming is real and is measured TOA by satellites.
When are you going to make an attempt to learn what the science says instead of just grasping at straws?
#152 MA Rodger said You do however @112 restate the comment made by the WSJ editorial concerning NOAA & UN IPCC findings, highlighting my assessment that the NOAA quote presented by WSJ is cherry-picked. This is evidently the case. The line quoted by WSJ “”It is premature to conclude that human activities … have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity.” ignores the follow-on line which begins “That said, human activities may have already caused changes that are not yet detectable” and the reasons for this non-detection are then set out. How can the WSJ not be cherry-picking if they ignore a follow-on statement like this?… the WSJ editorial evidently misrepresents Mr Pielke Jr as being “no climate-change denier” when, as shown @85, Mr Pielke Jr evidently is a “climate-change denier.”
The WSJ editorial & Mr Pielke Jr’s messages are trying hard to say that the change in tropical cyclone activity is so small that it is not detectable, indeed that it doesn’t exist, something many WSJ readers would be reasured to hear
Ah, Pielke. I have called him on his soft denial for years. He’s played no small part in minimizing Climate Change in the minds of the monied.