This month’s open thread for climate science topics. Note that discussions about mitigation and/or adaptation should be on the Forced Responses thread.
Let’s try and avoid a Groundhog Day scenario in the comments!
Climate science from climate scientists...
I have thought the various ASI volume measurements have been badly overestimating volume for a while now. It seemed to get particularly wacky in Summer 2016.
This article revives this concern.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/13/shipping-first-as-commercial-tanker-crosses-arctic-sea-route-in-winter
JohnM @94,
I usually avoid video messages but I do reckon to talks on AGW (which I do myself occasionally). So I did take the time to watch your chosen video. In as much that we have to peak GHG emissions within the next decade and see them rapidly dropping over following decades, the video presents is a well founded message. But the video does set out a rather doomy alternative that isn’t ‘entirely’ supported by the science.
I took the trouble to take notes. While the video does over-egg the doom, I can’t offer an alternative (being a video-avoider) but perhaps knowing where it exagerates is all you need to be armed with. I think my notes covers all your missing references mentioned @94.
4:00 – Holocene – last 10k yr have been ‘very very’ unusually stable.
4:40 – The 0.8ºC rise since pre-industrial is a little out-of-date. Today it is 1.0ºC. (Using NASA GISS the global average over the last 5 years is 1.05ºC above the global average for the start of the record 1880-99. This mirrors HadCRUT4 1850-99 when corrected for full global coverage. BEST 1850-99 puts it as 1.14ºC)
5:30 – Today’s level of warming is not the product of 50-year-old/100-year-old emissions. A forcing will result in warming that will appear perhaps 40% in a decade, the bulk of the rest over the next century with a portion of warming still at work in the following centuries (this the portion which makes Climate Sensitivity very difficult to nail down).
5:40 – The idea that the warming in the latter half of this century will result from “the decisions we make today” sort-of corrects the 5:40 comment. The emissions for mid-century will be determined by policy decisions of today.
6:50 – The 2ºC value does have a scientific basis although not a rigorous one. (When first articulated, there was also a limit for the rate of warming +0.1ºC/decade – this to allow the biosphere to react). That limit was being broken even as it was set.) Considerations like not exceeding the Eeocene (the last interglacial) temperatures. Or considerations of where the climate starts doing dramatic things within models.
(Note that a 5ºC cooling accompanies an ice age that we would find rather dramatic. A +6ºC warming would see the tropics become a death zone where humanity (and other large fauna) would rely on air con to survive. By +12ºC this death zone would spread to summer-time extra-tropical continental climates even at high latitudes, even in Siberia. And well before than the extra heat would render many activities in those regions tropics & extra-tropics impossible.)
7:20 – It isn’t that the climate is more sensitive to GHGs than was thought. It is the climate is more sensitive to the ‘warming’ resulting from the GHGs. Thus the concern with 1.5ºC.
8:10 – Today’s GHG forcing would potentially challenge a 3ºC limit but the GHG are not all fixed for millenia. So “stopping today” would not result in such a warming.
8:30 – “2ºC is probably off the table” could be an interpretation of the situation. See IPCC AR5 Synth Report Table 2.2 (p64) and subtract 40Gt(CO2)/yr to bring up-to-date. Note the Table2.2 temperatures are not the ‘equilibrium’ value for the forcing but the value at the time that peak CO2 is reached.
9:00 – The work on +4ºC is probably this Royal Society publication.
10:20 – The sixth extinction event is happening already. The impact of AGW on top of that can be argued but not likely resolved to anyone’s satisfaction.
11:00 – The IEA reference – there was a bit of a brouhaha about this back in 2012 which hinged on a quote from an IEA official.
But if that is considered controversial, consider Fig SMP.6a on p11 of the IPCC AR5 Synth Rep (linked above). The BAU (RCP8.5) temperature projected for 2100 is plotted as +4.1ºC with a range +2.8ºC to +5.5ºC. Relative to pre-industrial these values need some +0.7ºC added to them. So the central value as a rise on pre-industrial should be +4.8deg C for 2100 and it would hit 6ºC(+/-1.4ºC) by about 2125 which is what I understand the IEA official actually said.
12:00 – The majority of the GHG release from permafrost is expected to be CO2. The argument that methane is a major climate threat from that same source is controversial.
13:00 – “A real chance of” run-away AGW at 2ºC is nonsense. “Almost certainly” at 6ºC sounds controversial. The point is that we will have stuffed civilisation well before 6ºC so while the lights will remain on, there will be nobody responsible at home to make any humane policy decisions.
14:15 – The numbers quoted on unlivable temperatures are far too high. Once you get past a wet-bulb temperature of human-body temperature, we would go like a bathroom mirror and become a heat-sink for the surroundings and so quickly hyperthermic. In simple terms, if the 100% humid tropics has (had) 30ºC daytime temperatures, add 6ºC and you create the death zone.
If ESRL posts a MLO CO2 value today I’ll SWAG 408.00 ppmv.
94 JohnM using that video source may not be the best option. he’s not a climate scientist, and it’s an old lecture and not up to date with data. Others here will have good suggestions I am sure.
I’d suggest these with refs included by Hansen et al
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7z61UZoppM&feature=youtu.be
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/1/011006/meta
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2018/20180118_Temperature2017.pdf
and from 2013
Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate
data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2◦C global warming could be dangerous https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/3761/2016/acp-16-3761-2016.pdf (well laid out easy to find info/refs)
time lapse video of a year of co2/co in atmosphere by Nasa (2006)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1SgmFa0r04
Good luck
90 Kevin McKinney excellent comments, ty. Well put. My ‘depressing’ unhopeful and lack of urgency comments are also directed / focused on outside this space in the ‘real world’ vs in here at real climate participants. I think I am being realistic and basing recent conclusions on hard evidence and the science coming out these days (16K papers in a year on agw/cc issues i think it was?)
RE: “But wind and solar have grown a *lot*.”
Yes, and as you say more would be better and is possible. I was stunned by Musk’s delivering that 100mw battery in under 6 months last year. He was lucky to be working with a state govt up to the task … the rest here are useless, especially regarding the adani coal mine in queensland.
Meanwhile qld is land clearing 400,000 hectares a year up from 100,000 -yr recently. It’s totally out of control. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/05/alarming-rise-in-queensland-tree-clearing-as-400000-hectares-stripped — might pass some news laws in 6 mths from now, but this kind of insanity has been going on for decades already. https://www.wilderness.org.au/articles/10-facts-about-land-clearing-australia The desal in perth and elsewhere are all operated on coal fired power.
There are thousands of examples of these kinds of things going down all over the world at the same time renewable uptake increases.
Hope is a great commodity to have, for sure. There was tons of that alongside genuine justified fear in the UK in 1940. But at least the population knew for certain that they were actually in a war for their very survival, as did the Russians in 1941 outside Leningrad. They were not deluding themselves what the facts of the matter actually was as they stared down the barrel of reality.
I’m all for hope Kevin. But in the real world out there, ‘the people’ & ‘politicians’ et al as a whole, do not fully grasp that there’s a war raging already. For ‘them’ it’s still the roaring 1920s pre-depression era and pre-WW2. That’s what it looks like to me. What happens or is said here does not make any difference to that. Whether I am hopeful or not, say so or not, is moot. ‘It is what is’ …. out there in the real world where the rubber meets the road.
Mike re: intersectionality.
You don’t understand intersectionality, nor regenerative systems, if you think the issue is me not being “open” to intersectionality. How does one do non-“intersectional” regenerative design and community?
Since you did not understand my original comments, let me be more explicit: The word is redundant, it is jargon, it is unnecessary. The word, not the idea or concept.
I have uttered not a single syllable against the concept one might label, pretentiously, intersectionality.
My educational and work background are in psych and education. I am married to a non-White non-American. My son is bi-skin color, bi-cultural and a dual citizen. I intentionally took my family to live in Detroit, Michigan to do permaculture training for free to the people of Detroit who could not otherwise access this knowledge. We lived in a neighborhood with only one other non-Black resident and volunteered at the GSCC and am friends with the founder and his family. I participated in discussions at The Boggs Center. Grace Lee Boggs was a joy and inspiration to meet. Amazing intelligence wrapped in such calm. I was part of Occupy Detroit. I worked on the Environmental Council during the city’s huge future planning process to try like heck to get the city of Detroit to make their city planning reflect climate issues and – ta-da! – what you label intersectionality. I attended a series of open fora on racism, doing what I could to bridge the gap and promote self-reliant communities and egalitarianism as mitigation of racism, and learning more deeply what racism means to the oppressed. I know the people, have volunteered at and attended workshops and builds at the DBCFSN. Pedagogy of the Oppressed is one of the most important books ever written.
Principle: Use edge (where systems meet and merge); use and value diversity.
Etc.
Clear enough?
Ironically, of the two of us, I’m fairly certain you’re the one more in need of reading that link.
:-)
103 Francis E Sargen … you won. February 13: 408.00 ppm
Congratulations. :-)
The annual Ash Wednesday CO2 spike has been attended by some very odd culinary news.
[warning: may trigger vegans]
94 JohnM, actually I think this paper is better than the above examples, and is very up-to-date.
(2017) Young people’s burden: requirement of negative CO2 emissions
We first describe the status of global temperature change
and then summarize the principal climate forcings that drive
long-term climate change. We show that observed global
warming is consistent with knowledge of changing climate
forcings, Earth’s measured energy imbalance, and the canon-
ical estimate of climate sensitivity, i.e., about 3◦C global
warming for doubled atmospheric CO2.
The standard climate sensitivity and climate model do
not in-clude effects of “slow” climate feedbacks such as change in
ice sheet size. There is increasing evidence that some slow
feedbacks can be triggered within decades, so they must be
given major consideration in establishing the dangerous level
of human-made climate interference. We thus incorporate
consideration of slow feedbacks in our analysis and discus-
sion, even though precise specification of their magnitude
and timescales is not possible. We present updates of GHG
observations and find a notable acceleration during the past
decade of the growth rate of GHG climate forcing.
https://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/8/577/2017/esd-8-577-2017.pdf
Loaded with refs
90 Kevin McKinney, material like this is what informs my personal views above all other ‘information’ at present (when added to my own logical rational senses and my own observations of the physical and human nature.)
11 Discussion (pg 18 of 40)
https://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/8/577/2017/esd-8-577-2017.pdf
This summary, based on real-world data for temperature,
planetary energy balance, and GHG changes, differs from a
common optimistic perception of progress toward stabilizing
climate. That optimism may be based on the lowered warm-
ing target in the Paris Agreement (2015), slowdown in the
growth of global fossil fuel emissions in the past few years
(Fig. A1), and falling prices of renewable energies, but the
hard reality of the climate physics emerges in Figs. 2, 5, 8
and 14. Although the scenarios employed in climate simu-
lations for the most recent IPCC study (AR5) include cases
with rapidly declining GHG growth, the scenarios do noth-
ing to alter reality, which reveals that GHG growth rates not
only remain high, they are accelerating.
The need for prompt (urgent) action implied by these realities
may not be a surprise to the relevant scientific community,
because paleoclimate data revealed high climate sensitivity
and the dominance of amplifying feedbacks. However, effec-
tive communication with the public of the urgency to stem
human-caused climate change is hampered by the inertia of
the climate system, especially the ocean and the ice sheets,
which respond rather slowly to climate forcings, thus allow-
ing future consequences to build up before broad public con-
cern awakens. Some effects of human-caused global warm-
ing are now unavoidable, but is it inevitable that sea level rise
of many meters is locked in, and, if so, on what timescale?
Precise unequivocal answers (ie “perfection”) to such
questions are not possible. However, useful statements can be made.
Kevin, I am not arguing with you here, for I truly do understand where you are coming from and the value of those ideas …. I am merely sharing what I know (the best I am able) realising this paper is only one of hundreds of others that I have relied upon. Such scientific and reality based sources extend far beyond climate science domain into other scientific domains such as cognitive science and psychology and human history and my own person life experience tackling “hard problems” to generate positive change within groups of people and rallying the troops to try to adjust their own pre-conditioning and beliefs of what is possible.
#90 Kevin McKinney said Thomas, #58–
Renewable energy does not ‘remain the same’… renewable energy capacity has doubled since 2007, reaching 8.8% of total generation capacity.
I propose we rebrand this less-unsustainable; it’s more accurate.
With costs continuing to drop markedly, non-linear growth in deployment is apt to continue. Renewables–primarily wind and solar–are increasingly out-competing fossil fuels on the economics. Add to that the widespread acknowledgment that *every* nation has a lot to lose under BAU, and we’re going to be seeing drastic changes in the energy economy.
But should we? It is impossible to maintain this infrastructure into the future and there are non-destructive ways to achieve the same goals. Why are you so comfortable with lesser destruction rather than regenerative? In the discussion you two are having, this is *actually* the key question.
Yes, you are merely addressing Thomas’ pessimism, but why? Why not address *the problem*, instead? Isn’t that a better way to address his pessimism? Cut out the middle man, so to speak? Renewables are not renewable, so why keep making more than we need for a regenerative society? Bigger moai! How is it not?
You will say that it is the more realistic way to reduce carbon. I will say, when are you going to start making your policy proscriptions based on risk rather than political ease?
It’s a irony, IMO, that some commentators here bewail the inability of others to understand non-linear change with respect to climate feedbacks or population growth, say, but then assume incremental, linear change in energy technology and economy.
I truly do not know who you refer to. Truly curious.
All of which is not to say that I think all is well. Far from it: we need to be working much, much harder for change.
What do you advocate that demonstrates this? Oh, you mean… For instance, I estimate that we still need to be adding about an order of magnitude more renewable energy each year than we are currently doing in order to put ourselves somewhere close to ‘on track’ to avoid the 2 C buffer.
Studies suggest 3M SLR this century is a real possibility. Hansen, et al., have shown SLR rates can get to 10-yr or even 5-yr doublings, which indicates faster than expected temp rise, are not only possible, but have already happened in some cases, though not, iirc, globally. Yet. The “yet” is the problem here. Everything you suggest and post ignores this risk level. If we are seeing accelerating SLR (new study) at +1.16C or so, what in heck makes you think 2C is something to be shooting for? You don’t hit the moon by shooting for the clouds.
(And yes, I’ve heard all the critiques of 2 C as a goal, and agree that 1.5 would have been much better
Have you? Really? Do you really get the argument? You seem to actually dismiss it at every turn. It’s one of those things that, if dismissed, means one does not, in fact, get it. This is binary stuff, 1-0-1-0. Dodge the bullet or don’t. Long-tail risks, not 1 SD risks.
if we can deploy massive drawdown methodology, which may or may not be a possibility.)
This is too ignorant for any supposed climate activist to say. It’s offensive to the rest of us. So, let me be generous and assume you mean, “if we are willing to deploy…” Yes?
But, bottom line: I think that that order of magnitude increase is very achievable.
Yes. We can try suicide. We already are. See? Success! How about we aim higher, eh?
I think in general that there is much more realistic possibility of change for the better than many here want to acknowledge. And I think that the *probability* of change for the better goes up in proportion to our motivation to achieve it.
But are you? Is shooting for suicide by a thousand cuts instead of a bullet to the brain an achievement?
One parameter affecting that is our sense of urgency, which may be fed by a realistic appreciation of the dangers facing us.
Yet, you know your policy proscriptions risk extinction. Color me confused.
Another is our ability to be energized by that urgency, rather than paralyzed by nihilistic despair
How does aiming low energize? What happens when people find out your policy proscriptions are very likely to lead to extinction, and that you knew we needed to aim higher, but thought them too damned stupid or lazy to do so, so settled for 2C?
despair is not adaptive.
But avoiding it requires true risk assessment and true solutions. You are not yet advocating either.
My intention here is not to leave you feeling insulted, though I recognize you will very likely think you have been, but are to challenge your perceptions and the inconsistencies in your activist rhetorical quiver. You’re firing practice arrows at a target needing razor-sharp titanium.
#102 MA Rodger said JohnM @94,
…the video does set out a rather doomy alternative that isn’t ‘entirely’ supported by the science.
Your rebuttals/clarifications/explanations do not support this conclusion. However, the real problem here is the video is 6 years old. Your tenor of responses is too judgy in that context. WE know a heck of a lot more now than we did 6 years ago, so to be fair it is better to say out of date, as you do at one point.
While the video does over-egg the doom
You cannot know that. You over-depend on science. I got 3M SLR before it was scientifically shown to be likely. A long time before. Because I used all the skills an analyst must use: The data, the risk, the trends, knowledge of non-linear and chaotic systems, recognizing, intuitively/subconsciously what new bits of data were more germane, etc.
4:40 – The 0.8ºC rise since pre-industrial is a little out-of-date.
Yes. It is an old video. Roberts is also no longer with Grist, but is now at Vox.
5:30 – Today’s level of warming is not the product of 50-year-old/100-year-old emissions. A forcing will result in warming that will appear perhaps 40% in a decade, the bulk of the rest over the next century with a portion of warming still at work in the following centuries (this the portion which makes Climate Sensitivity very difficult to nail down).
You contradict yourself here. It seems you meant, “…Today’s level of warming is not solely the product of 50-year-old/100-year-old emissions…” or some variant? Otherwise you describe almost exactly what Roberts said. The more important point here is Roberts’ entire focus was an audience that *doesn’t know this stuff,* so he is simplifying. In general, yes, temps today reflect forcings over the previous century. It is trivial for that crowd to be overly specific here.
7:20 – It isn’t that the climate is more sensitive to GHGs than was thought. It is the climate is more sensitive to the ‘warming’ resulting from the GHGs. Thus the concern with 1.5ºC.
This is pedantic. The colloquial meaning is exactly as stated. You are making corrections important to scientists, not laypersons who know little of the science.
8:10 – Today’s GHG forcing would potentially challenge a 3ºC limit but the GHG are not all fixed for millenia. So “stopping today” would not result in such a warming.
Huh? He said this century. What have millennia got to do with it? And, you cannot know this. You need a number of caveats to support this, but offer none. It is entirely accurate to say that even with magically stopping today, 3C is a viable possibility by 2100. While you minimize the permafrost and clathrate threat, it is still there. I still have the e-mail from the scientist who tried to convince me the clathrates would be stable for at least another 100 years.
12:00 – The majority of the GHG release from permafrost is expected to be CO2. The argument that methane is a major climate threat from that same source is controversial.
No, it isn’t. It absolutely is a major threat. If you want to change that to/meant “major probability,” you could argue that effectively. Your current phrasing is flatly incorrect. Or, perhaps you were being colloquial here?
13:00 – “A real chance of” run-away AGW at 2ºC is nonsense.
This is false. You have no way of proving this, so calling it nonsense is its own form of nonsense. You should more properly suggest a probability here.
“Almost certainly” at 6ºC sounds controversial.
Sounds? LOL… come on… But the real problem here is the use of “runaway.” beyond our control and runaway are not the same, but runaway was being said a lot back then, so…
Cheers
“Astonishing images from NASA: New Guinea’s tropical ice disappears as huge mine grows…”
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=91716&src=eorss-iotd
RE: “My ‘depressing’ unhopeful and lack of urgency comments are also directed / focused ….” so easy to miscontrue one’s meaning when words like ‘also’ are misplaced/mislocated ….. (sigh)
OK what I really meant was ….. “Also (in case it isn;t already clear) Kevin my ‘depressing’ unhopeful and lack of urgency comments are actually directed / focused on outside this space in the ‘real world’ vs in here at real climate participants.
[as opposed to ‘also’ sometimes meaning ‘both’ [ I baked a cake and also ate it] … misplacing my ‘also’ easily changes the entire “intended context” depending on how one reads it … oh, the vagaries of communicating in text – different people reading the same thing can so easily read what is written in a different way than the next person, which changes the take away meaning. I am not the only one who writes confusingly or reads things not quite as intended.
The “vs” is the qualifier of the meaning I intended but that too is so easily missed. and then are cultural linguistic differences we all have, and then there is ‘jargon’ — . c’est la vie. ]
eg ‘jargon’ & common use terms like
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/trend versus http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/trend.html versus http://www.icoachmath.com/math_dictionary/trend.html
Linguistics, semantics and etymology are all fascinating subjects that can teach so much to anyone.
More Data does not necessarily lead to more Information, and Information does not necessarily lead to more knowledge, and knowledge does not always lead to wisdom.
Beware the current explosion in AI tech, Apps and Algorithms – I see it as ‘dangerous’ for humanity/societies as agw/cc is. Why? There is no ‘dialogue’ involved between two nodes. AI expects and demands only it’s version of ‘perfection’.
See Idiocracy the movie as an example, especially the machine tattooing scene. or catch an Uber.
99 – “Satellite observations show sea levels rising, and climate change is accelerating it”.
Republicans will need to shut those satellites down and defund any possible replacement.
From the “It can’t happen here” ‘ecomodernist’ contingent.
They’re well aware that most of the voters they want to reach don’t bother to read text, they’d rather watch videos.
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Froadmap-to-nowhere%2F
Do nay of the ‘Old Hands,’ know where to locate historic Info upon the initial researches of Venus by Drs. Sagan & Hansen?
Bernard et al. recently published doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-01225-9 which calls into question O-18 dating for paleo T estimates. In particular
” … late Cretaceous and Paleogene deep-ocean and high-latitude surface-ocean temperatures were significantly lower than is generally accepted, thereby explaining the paradox of the low equator-to-pole surface-ocean thermal gradient inferred for these periods. ”
Do any of our hosts or resident paleo experts care to comment ?
sidd
Killian @112.
You object to my critique of the David Roberts AGW video presumably because you have that same unscientific doomy attitude to AGW as some of the messaging in that talk.
I would not bother replying to you but you butt-in on advice to another.
Rather than running through all your comment, I will take a single exemplar from my critique of the video and your contrary assertions. From the video:-
(The “recent paper” referred to is presumably Sherwood & Huber (2010) which sets out that we could potentially emit enough CO2 to see 1,900ppm by 2300AD which would lead to a +12ºC world if ECS=4.5. Note the lack of spiralling-away AGW.)
I say of this video comment that the “real chance” at 2ºC is nonsense to which you reply ‘This is false. … You should more properly suggest a probability here.’ Okay. It has a probability of zero.
I say the “Almost certainly” at 6ºC sounds controversial. I’m not sure what to make of your reply except you are correct that there is a difference between ‘run-away’ and ‘lose any ability to control it’ although in the context of the video that isn’t aserious issue.
The consideration is of the posibility of ECS becoming significantly larger with rising temperature. (The video perhaps suggests a future of a +12ºC world if some threashold is passed.) The possibility of such an ECS rise with +2ºC world is not something I have ever heard of from any serious source, which is why I brand it nonsense. By +6ºC there is work suggesting an increased ECS with increased temperature (eg Hansen & Sato 2012) but to suggest that ECS changes enough to countenance that +12ºC world remains wholly controversial.
nigelj @56,
I did identify the de-trending mechanism used for ONI but I was mindful that their use of the last 30-years NINO3,4 data as the reference period might make the inder-decadal comparisons dependent on past fluctuations. After a bit of head scratching, I hit on the idea to use SOI to see what was happening. This has the benefit of it using simpler more robust data which can be sensibly used pre-1950 with more confidence. I graphed out the result HERE (usually 2 clicks to ‘download your attachment’) which plots out ten-year rolling averages of SOI (UP-SIDE-DOWN so El Nino is up, La Nina down). Relative to the post-1866 record, a strong El Nino period extends 1970-99 and it suggests the La Ninas domination in the last couple of decades is not unusual pre-1970.
An idle thought on the impact on CO2-rise – SOI wobbles by 20 points between El Nino & La Nina. dCO2 wobbles by perhaps 3ppm/yr. So pro rata the decadal wobbles would suggest an extra 0.05ppm/yr added to the 1998-2008 from the extra El Nino activity relative to 2008-18. And relative to 2008-18, the extra 0.1ppm/yr in the previous decades would be more than cloaked by volcanic influences of the 1980s & 90s.
Killian @106 and other posts.
For gods sake man, calm down. Mike just looked at your post where you didn’t like the term ‘intersecetionality’ and suggested a link on the content of the idea. He couldn’t really know what you know or don’t know on the issue. He was trying to be helpful. He wasn’t implying you are an ignoramus.
You also seem singularly incapable of understanding what people post, even when its clear. Read – more – slowly.
Fwiw I also find the term intersectionalilty annoying, like business speak and I deliberately try to avoid jargon like this, if it can be said in other ways. The interrelationship of things should be self evident. On the other hand, maybe it isn’t to some people.
And I like some of the organisations you are part of especially anti racist groups etc and groups that bring together a number of issues.
MA Rodger says 7:20 – It isn’t that the climate is more sensitive to GHGs than was thought. It is the climate is more sensitive to the ‘warming’ resulting from the GHGs. Thus the concern with 1.5ºC.
Killian responds. This is pedantic. The colloquial meaning is exactly as stated. You are making corrections important to scientists, not laypersons who know little of the science.
Its not pedantic. We can get lulled into a false sense of security with talk that climate sensitivity might be low or medium (and right now we still don’t know for sure where it is, other than to say the majority of evidence points to medium). What is entirely possible is the weather itself and rates of ice collapse could be much more sensitive to even small changes in temperature, so low or medium climate sensitivity, than we thought. Looking at data and the preponderance of very bad weather the last couple of years makes me think this may be the case although I admit some of it is anecdotal.
But I understand sea level rise right now is actually towards the upper end of estimates so this suggests either climate sensitivity is towards the high end, or ice sheets are very sensitive to low or medium climate sensitivity. Is there research on this sort of way the weather is responding to temperature? Is it more or less than expected?
And this is fundamentally a science website! It talks about what is of interest to scientists and global warming nerds etc. It tries to simplify issues for the public, but this is only part of its purpose.
JohnM @94
Regarding the effects of different amounts of warming, I’m reminded of a quotation by Prof Kevin Anderson. I can’t remember the exact wording, but it’s along the lines of “four degrees of warming is inconsistent with organized human society”. The essential message is very simple: with four degrees you can kiss goodbye to our global civilization.
As for six degrees, I find it a pity that nobody has thought to produce a revised, corrected and updated version of “Six degrees” by Mark Lynas. The essential message there is that six degrees gives you a different planet with, if you’re lucky, a few thousand humans scrabbling for existence in the subpolar regions.
MA Rodger @120, thank’s on el nino etc, appreciated.
nigelj @122,
Had I put a greater effort into talking my ‘notes’ @102 and into referencing those ‘notes’, I would have been more precise in my 7:20 comment on the David Roberts video. The ‘problem’ at this point of the video actually is just restricted to the emboldened bit of quote below. Beyond that, the message is entirely the correct one.
The meaning of the message is less-than clear because the use of the word “sensitive” can/will have technical connotations which are not intended, especially when combined with “added GHGs” rather than ‘elevated temperature’. That is what leapt out at me when I watched.
Beyond that, I’m not sure about the invoking of the “last fifteen years of science,” but a good reference to support the 1.5ºC threashold would be Schleussner et al (2015) “Differential climate impacts for policy-relevant limits to global warming: the case of 1.5ºC and 2ºC”
#121 nigelj said Killian @106
Not your business in any way. Why speak? What you *think* I say is never accurate. Literally never fully accurate. But, I rarely use emoticons on this site, yet I did on that post. See if you can figure out why.
He was trying to be helpful. He wasn’t implying you are an ignoramus.
No, but he was being assumptive and patronizing. I agree Mike is generally genuine, so I did not take offense. The same comments from you and/or others and I could be sure they were ill-intended. But, even so, I had clearly made my point my problem was with the jargon, not the meaning. That was crystal clear. Without looking specifically, I remember referencing elements of intersectionality and saying the WORD was unnecessary, so the problem we have right here, right now, are due to you and he not understanding what others write. That is virtually always the case with you, nigel, just as it is yet again.
Please, you are not skilled enough to be trying to police others.
#122 nigelj said
MA Rodger says 7:20 – It isn’t that the climate is more sensitive to GHGs than was thought. It is the climate is more sensitive to the ‘warming’ resulting from the GHGs. Thus the concern with 1.5ºC.
Killian responds. This is pedantic. The colloquial meaning is exactly as stated. You are making corrections important to scientists, not laypersons who know little of the science.
Its not pedantic.
As I said in that quote and other places in that response to MA, it was pedantic because of the context. Understanding the different types of sensitivity and how they interact is difficult for people who know the science pretty well. Attempting to explain that to a newbie audience, speaking as a teacher, would likely be a waste of time and lead to great confusion. To be fair about that, MA might have been more careful in noting the context. Frankly, I’m not sure he took time to realize exactly who the talk was aimed at. Regardless, whether he did or didn’t, some of his statements were unfair to the original content, I thought. Not in any major way, but worth a response.
#119 MA Rodger said Killian @112.
You object to my critique of the David Roberts AGW video presumably because you have that same unscientific doomy attitude to AGW as some of the messaging in that talk.
You, and most here, are absolutely clueless about my intent. I responded because you were wrong in places, a little too cute in places and unfair in places.
I would not bother replying to you but you butt-in on advice to another.
Let me see:
1. Open request for feedback.
2. Response.
3. Critique of response.
This describes butting in to you? Thanks for again clarifying tour ego-based reasons for being here. LOL… Good god. Basic discussion is not “butting in.”
I will take a single exemplar from my critique of the video and your contrary assertions.
Wise choice.
12:40 – These positive feedback systems will take on a momentum of their own that becomes unstoppable. Human beings will lose any ability to control it at all even if we stop all our climate emissions on a dime. Will that happen at two degrees? Probably not though there’s a real chance of it and there’s a lot of debate about that. Four degrees? It looks a lot more likely at four degrees. Will it happen at six degrees? Almost certainly.
So if we continue on our present course, climate change will probably take on a life of its own, spiral out of control and according to a recent paper, by 2300 we could see a temperature rise of 12 degrees centigrade.
I say of this video comment that the “real chance” at 2ºC is nonsense to which you reply ‘This is false. … You should more properly suggest a probability here.’ Okay. It has a probability of zero.
Probably not is nonsense? To a an uneducated audience, the difference between that and “nonsense” is really indistinguishable. But he’s more correct than you are. Your nonsense would be generally translated as impossible, yet, I doubt many scientists would agree with you. Perhaps I am wrong, but since they rarely discuss future change outside the context of ranges of risk, I’m fairly confident few would agree with you.
I don’t. Perhaps the most important element to my being able to do things like predict ENSO-induced melt in 2016, when the literature said there was no relationship between the two, is that I understand the science is attempting to describe a planet that has never existed before, a level of forcings that has never happened before and a lack of hysteresis that has never happened before. I recognized this as key long ago. Most of you seem to have yet accepted it.
Your “nonsense” is non-scientific and, imo, naive. It’s poor risk assessment to assume there is no long tail or Black Swan on the event horizon. Roberts’ statement was more accurate than your own.
nigel at 121 says: “Fwiw I also find the term intersectionalilty annoying, like business speak and I deliberately try to avoid jargon like this, if it can be said in other ways. The interrelationship of things should be self evident. On the other hand, maybe it isn’t to some people.”
I find the term to be useful and more linguistically sound that other ideas like “woke” etc. and I think because this is a climate website, it may be useful to remind folks who are interested in solutions to the climate predicament, that it is important to craft solutions that benefit a wide swath of the global population (aka the 99%, another jargon term, but based in some reality).
So, K does intersectionality, but does not like the word. Excellent. I think the discussion about wide solutions (to avoid the I word) are useful in combating the identity politics that are so effective at pulling certain populations (gun rights folks, anti-abortion/anti-gay marriage folks) into alignment with one particular political party or another. The coalition/identity politics success of the R party in the US has been solid since Nixon wound up the southern strategy and flipped the dixiecrat south into the republican party. The wedge/identity politics success is probably largely to blame for the inability of the US to move forward consistently (or at all) on important public policy – global leadership on climate change or national gun control policy come to mind, right off the top. So, I think the discussion about how public policy on things like climate change should be crafted to also address broader or additional social ills, like income/wealth inequality, or institutionalized oppression of almost any sort…. but all that is generally on the margins for a website like real climate that is about climate science, so I just plunk the broader perspective in occasionally in a throw-away line.
The UV threads have been too much like most internet discussions, full of polarizing and demeaning language, peppered with baiting and personal attacks between folks who will almost assuredly never meet and whose differences on big issues are relatively slight. It’s so easy to bite down hard on the “somebody is wrong on the internet” bait. But it’s not that hard not to bite on the bait either. Folks make themselves inconsequential if they never fail to see and seek provocation in every exchange, but that’s not the end of the line. Folks who have made themselves inconsequential by over-personalizing the discussion can always just take a breath, cool off and remind themselves to pick their battles. A little civility can go a long ways.
But, hey what do I know?
Cheers
Mike
RE: 18
Thomas 4 Feb 2018 at 4:56 PM
“I suspect it will become a repeat moment of the 60 million Tatanka/Bison being wiped out on the Great Plains. Human nature being what it is”
Also the 100 people murdered by communism, which is still in practice. Looks like we are in for a repeat by the post modernists, human nature being what it is. At least the poor bison were not killed by forced labor camps.
Dear Dr. Mann,
If you are up for another legal battle, here’s very clear libel from The Federalist via Yahoo!
Sue them both. Please.
Oops… here’s the link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/7deb4950-009b-31b1-aba1-9a1233840a66/largest-science-org-gives.html
I think this. from Feb. 5th, might help constrain temp uncertainty? Only seen the abstract.
https://www.clim-past.net/14/139/2018/
Killian @127
“Understanding the different types of sensitivity and how they interact is difficult for people who know the science pretty well. Attempting to explain that to a newbie audience, speaking as a teacher, would likely be a waste of time and lead to great confusion.
This website is not primarily for a “newbie audience” Its primarily for scientists to speak to each other and people with some background in the science. Do you think you run this website or something?
People simplify when they can, and when appropriate.
My comments on the sensitivity question stand. And thanks MA Rodger for supplying some facts.
Regarding the intersectionality issue. Nobody is being patronising. I will say what I like, and not be censored by you.You spend pages writing petty rubbish, and trying to justify the unjustifiable.
Dan DaSilva @130
“Also the 100 people murdered by communism, which is still in practice. Looks like we are in for a repeat by the post modernists, human nature being what it is. At least the poor bison were not killed by forced labor camps.”
What is this crap doing on unforced variations?
#133 K. looks good that paper, I too had pondered when those involved in “paris” would be so definitive and AGREE on it. Of course, it’s unknown if they will take the advice provided in this (or any other) Papers.
Full pdf paper here https://www.clim-past.net/14/139/2018/cp-14-139-2018.pdf
a cpl take aways fwiw:
From these choices it follows that trend progression 2016 accounts for 1.00 ±0.13◦C
and Our proposal shows a GMST progression delta 2016 of 1.00◦C.
First, we propose to base GMST warming estimates on data products rather than GCM simulations.
Second, since warming estimates vary as a function of the GMST data products chosen (Table 2), we propose to estimate trends on the annual averages of all five data products.
Hawkins et al. (2017) define the period 1720–1800 as a reasonable baseline for pre-industrial …. We choose to follow the baseline proposed by
Hawkins et al. Since GMST observational data are uncertain in the pre-1880 period (sparse SST data)
Finally, we propose to interpret global warming in the context of “Paris” as the sum of natural and anthropogenic warming, consistent with the IPCC definition of climate change
Hiatus.
As a side result of our trend analyses we note that no signs of an “hiatus”, “slowdown” or “pause” can be discerned in GMST trend progression. This inference is consistent with recent findings (Marotzke and Forster, 2015, Hedemann et al., 2017, Medhaug et al., 2017, Rahmstorf et al., 2017)
Maybe the UNFCCC Govts might sign off on something like this before 2040, but I am not at all hopeful on that score either. :-)
#130 … whatever. (shrug)
Mike @129
I agree totally about your paragraph on the meaning behind intersectionality, wide solutions, and the Republican Party issue. Inequality and how all the things you mention relate together are important and real, but a bit off topic for this thread. Except to say the strongly conservative / Republican groups are implicated in climate denialism.
Its a politics / world view thing, and political leanings go deep. Conservatism and liberalism even have a genetic basis as below, so changing world views can be challenging. I want to emphasise I’m not suggesting any particular “ism” is better or worse, but its a fact that conservatives figure much higher in climate denialism, seen in various polls.
https://phys.org/news/2015-08-genes-liberal.html
I’m pretty polite most of the time I think. I only get angry when I’m seriously provoked. I prefer polite discussion on serious climate websites. There are other unmoderated website where people can play games and have shouting matches, if thats their thing.
I do have a bad habit of not walking away. Sometimes as you say that’s a good strategy. You know plenty.
Killian @128,
You object to my description of your comment @112 as “butting in” suggesting your blather @112 was a legitimate “critique” of my comment @102. I see no evidence of legitmacy. Even @128 you go too far with your unsubstantiated opinion (abet tinged with a level of uncertainty).
You tell me “I doubt many scientists would agree with you. Perhaps I am wrong, but since they rarely discuss future change outside the context of ranges of risk, I’m fairly confident few would agree with you.” At this point you should have then set out a big pile of literature to support your assertion that there is, as described @7:20 in the David Roberts video:-
But you didn’t.
So if “you doubt many scientists would agree” with me, why would there be approaching 80 promenant scientists named as supporting this graphic IPCC AR5 Fig 12-05 which shows projected global average temperatures to AD2300 (‘relative to 1986-2005’ so add 0.65ºC for ‘relative to pre-industrial’)? Note that the graph gives no indications of any ‘lost control’, not one indication of a decoupling of the link between anthropogenic forcings and resulting temperature rise, even though RCP4.5 sees a central projection well beyond that “two degrees” with its “real chance,” RCP4.5 hitting 3.1ºC above pre-industrial by AD2300.
And Dan DaSilva@130 goes full-on Alex Jones on us. Dan, in the unlikely chance that there are any charred, shattered remnants of your credibility and self respect, you can pick them up at the exit.
GISTEMP has posted for January, kicking off the new year with a global anomaly of +0.78ºC, the 5th warmest January on record after 2016 (+1.16ºC), 2017 (+0.97ºC), 2007 (+0.95ºC) and 2015 (+0.81ºC). Jan 2018 was =43rd warmest month on the all-month record.
The high anomalies up in the Arctic continue for a third month in GISTEMP and the question of the maximum Arctic Sea Ice Extent is surely now only by how much this freeze season will be below the record low set in 2017. (The NSIDC ChArctic graph showing daily values has the maximum achieved so far in 2018 as 0.525 million sq km under the record lowest maximum set last year.) The DMI 80N webpage isn’t the easiest for comparing different years but the analysis is to-date giving temperatures as-warm-as/warmer-than any previous year.
Re 135 nigelj 18 Feb 2018 at 3:16 AM
Thanks for the reply, the worst thing is to be ignored. If we had a communist world government run by alarmists, climate change could be solved by force. The future of mankind would be secure, what do you think?
nigelj:
Well, it was an unforced variation 8^D.
#134 nigelj said Killian @127
This website is not primarily for a “newbie audience
You really do not understand much. Please, stop picking fights based on your inability to understand basic English. The conversation had little to do with this site. MA failed to acknow… oh, nevermind. You’re too damned stupid to deal with.
My comments on the sensitivity question stand.
Who cares? I don’t recall saying anything about your thoughts on the subject. And if I did, it sure as hell wasn’t because of your expertise.
Seriously. You are not an intellect.
Shush.
128 Killian, the context for what written about 12:40 onward is contained just before that where he says “the great danger of” …. so when he says “will” that is qualified and not definitve nor quantitative.
Of course, the issue about agw/cc and informing the polity better is not bound by a misinterpretation of what one guy in one video said by relying upon the logical fallacy (ie gross error) in cherrypicking a transcript from 12:40 versus grasping the holistic messaging that begins at 0.00 and in particular from 11m38s beginning with the HUGE GRAPHIC emphasizing 6C @ https://youtu.be/A7ktYbVwr90?t=11m39s ongoing about FEEDBACKS and their UNKNOWN QUALITY which leads into “the great danger of” comment which without drawing BREATH leads in the sentence “These positive feedback systems will take on a momentum of their own that becomes unstoppable. Human beings will lose any ability to control it at all even if we stop all our climate emissions on a dime….
Of course when the guy says “stopping emissions on a dime” he was NOT talking about 2012 when he gave the talk nor in 2018 today … but at anytime into the future once it hits 2C already – the issue is Feedbacks and NOT the IPCC graph as referenced as a defense attorney like attempt to manipulate the Jury through spin and ignoring the WHOLE OF THE EVIDENCE and it;s context in the Real World (ie the whole talk in and of itself).
The subject matter @ 12:40 is therefore actually the Danger of (non-quantifiable in time and space) Positive Feedbacks, for even stopping once 2C has been reached and the world stops on a dime …. blah blah blah.
But let’s instead ONLY focus on the word WILL and the words REAL CHANCE and then take that completely out of context and remove it from “future time” in an effort to prove how “terribly unscientific” and Wrong you are Killian and another is oh so Right.
(Sigh)
Unfortunately this is precisely how forum comment threads get HIJACKED by mini-masters and the obsessive pedants – in that the subject matter gets bent so out of shape it loses all contact with reality even on Real Climate.
Killian RE “Probably not though there’s a real chance of it and there’s a lot of debate about that.”
Of course IF there was no Real Chance of (uncontrollable climate feedbacks that are may well be extremely dangerous – in time and place) then 3 years later in 2015 the UNFCCC Paris Treaty would NOT have moved to enshrine holding temps at UNDER 1.5C.
Now the amount of evidence that’s out there already about 1.5C vs 2C scenarios is patently OBVIOUS to an clear thinking person with an ounce of knowledge about AGW/CC be it avg Joe or PhD graduate…. but there ya go anyway. Some folks just love to be seen to be right all the time and then argue about it forever while unwittingly defending the indefensible. Deniers and the GOP are not the only ones who do that Killian, as you well know. Pass the Popcorn and the packet of Peanuts please. This stupid argument could go on for months. (shrug)
#139 MA Rodger said Killian @128, You object to my description of your comment @112 as “butting in”
Wrong. I made the point your description was incorrect. What would the point be of objecting? You wouldn’t care in the least. Your reasons to respond to me are almost solely to be a twit.
suggesting your blather
See? You’re a rude little fellow.
You tell me “I doubt many scientists would agree with you. Perhaps I am wrong, but since they rarely discuss future change outside the context of ranges of risk, I’m fairly confident few would agree with you.” At this point you should have then set out a big pile of literature to support your assertion
No, little one, that assertion is not debatable; It’s how science works.
But you didn’t.
Nope. No need. And you ain’t my daddy. You are a science pedant who cannot deal with anything not already in the literature, which makes you not very useful in any conversation beyond interpreting papers’ meanings.
So if “you doubt many scientists would agree” with me, why would there be approaching 80 promenant scientists named as supporting this graphic IPCC AR5 Fig 12-05 which shows projected global average temperatures to AD2300 (‘relative to 1986-2005’ so add 0.65ºC for ‘relative to pre-industrial’)?
Red Herring. Does not speak to Roberts’ assertion.
Note that the graph gives no indications of any ‘lost control’
Lack of evidence is not evidence of non-existence. You’re in nigel territory here, peanut.
not one indication of a decoupling of the link between anthropogenic forcings and resulting temperature rise, even though RCP4.5 sees a central projection well beyond that “two degrees” with its “real chance,” RCP4.5 hitting 3.1ºC above pre-industrial by AD2300.
So? These are not predictions. You do not seem to know the difference.
I still hold that my advice was sound and USEFUL and probably the better way to go then the 2012 video presentation for reasons already given.
@104 https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/02/unforced-variations-feb-2018/comment-page-3/#comment-691263
@109
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/02/unforced-variations-feb-2018/comment-page-3/#comment-691401
Where ‘obviously’ Hansen et al and climate science per se clearly supports David Roberts’ summary of the implications of feedbacks where Hansen writes 5 YEARS LATER : “There is increasing evidence that some slow feedbacks can be triggered within decades, so they must be given major consideration in establishing the dangerous level of human-made climate interference.”
Within DECADES???
I could be wrong but I am pretty sure that covers this CENTURY out to 2300 which was precisely the original query by 94 JohnM https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/02/unforced-variations-feb-2018/comment-page-2/#comment-691004
The RCP4.6 ref is simply BS when real world we are tracking RCP8.5, no mitigations has occurred to make any other RCP relevant in any scientific argument or frank discussion be it in 2012 or now today. Living in a “fantasy world of make believe” is sometimes referred to living in “denial” as per many prior psychology refs from the SCIENCE BASED EXPERTS provided by myself over the years.
I refuse to be distracted by BS and Big Egos (the exceptions of occasional slap downs proving that rule).
AGW/CC is simply too critically important for my adult children and my children’s children’s children. It’s already causing great harm and is dangerous right now today. IT’s already ‘killing people’, drowning them or starving them or destroying their homes and villages and waterfront mansions and creating increasing multiple negative effects across the world. Like NOW.
imho people like JohnM need all the help they can get. I doubt he’ll come back here again seeking it.
mike @129
We all know about on-line banking and on-line shopping and other on-line activities, but perhaps we need to invent a new one to cover the kind of internet discussion you disparage in the final part of your post:
ON-LINE SHITTING
Mike @129, another thing on intersectionality. I did an unusually wide range of subjects at university, a little bit of a lot of things including humanities, some science, and various design disciplines, so I have some understanding of how things’connect’.This doesn’t make my views right or wrong of course, or make me anything special.
In hindsight I’m glad I did a variety of thing for a couple of years. I think its possible to be too narrow in focus at university. Having said that, one also needs to research the job market.